Legendary Encounters - An ALIEN Deck-Building Game

[PRJ_since1990]

Ordered from cheapest price on eBay. Just shy of $50. Can't wait to play!

[Mr. Clemens]

Was gonna go get a copy tonight (in Canada), but I've just gotten off a plane and I'm beat. Will have one in the morning!

[Corporal Hicks]

The wait is killing me. 

Keep seeing complaints about missing cards in the boxes but UDE seem pretty good at sending replacements.

[Mr. Domino]

Mine didn't have any missing cards - although I thought it might, qs there were 50 proxy cards included in the box with card backs on both sides.

I've only gotten the chance to play once, and lost, but overall, I think I'd put the difficulty more in line with a game like Pandemic than the Lord of the Rings LCG. Which is to say, it's consistently beatable if you've got a group that knows what they're doing and you don't get screwed over on hive draws. A lot of fun, though, and oozing with theme.

[Mr. Clemens]

I've now got mine, and have had a solo play-through. First up, I'm missing two cards: one Grunt, and one of the Hive cards from ALIEN's Objective #2 (I don't know which one, naturally). Inexcusable.

BUT, the game is fun. I really like how the excitement ramps up as you complete Objectives. I played the ALIEN scenario, and actually had a fairly easy time of it until Objective #3, when the self-destruct was set and the Perfect Organism was in my face; I'd have Parker use the shock tube to zap him back down the complex, but those Event cards would bring him right back into my face again. I didn't get the chance to be blown up in the explosion, but at least I know I took that sucker down with me.

A note about solo play: I see that if you encounter Ash, you can't kill him unless another player Coordinates with you. So unless I'm missing something, if you draw him in a solo game, you're doomed.

Some of the art is pretty embarrassing, but you get over that pretty quickly. I think my favourite art is MU-TH-UR's Advice (I might have that name wrong).

I'm annoyed that the Jones card is called 'Jonesy'. THE. CAT'S. NAME. IS. JONES. That's a pet-peeve of mine. I'd start a thread about it here somewhere, but I'd probably be attacked. 

All in all a very fun game, and I look forward to playing it with others.

[Mr. Domino]

Overall, I like the art.

Definitely get in touch with Upper Deck about those missing cards. From what I hear, they've been doing a good job so far fixing the missing cards problem for people.

Also, it was confirmed by one of the developers on the BGG forums that Ash is unkillable in solo play.

[Mr. Clemens]

Played another solo game, and it was even more fun than the first. It was pretty smooth sailing (I survived the self-destruct... twice!), 'til I was 1 Attack shy of blowing the Perfect Organism out the Airlock. He then waltzed into the Combat Zone, where he and Ash (who was already there) proceeded to tear me apart. 

This game does a great job of feeling like a story, which is the mark of a great game, in my opinion. I'm getting hooked, and I haven't even tried playing the other three films yet!

Now I just gotta get on Upper Deck about those missing cards...

[Mr. Domino]

Played Alien 3 a few minutes ago with 3 players. Worked really well. The runners at the beginning evoke the feel of the old Alien3 SNES game to me for some reason, as does the mechanic of searching for the missing convicts. Michael Weyland showing up at the end and trying to infect everyone is...problematic, especially when "the beast" is so dang tough to kill (these are both good things).

[Machiko Naguchi]

Got my copy over the weekend and it had no missing cards thankfully. It was also fairly easy to sort despite what some people have said. There are only a few that you have to pay attention to the keywords at the bottom to make sure they go in the right spot.

I played through the first and second films with a group of three and four respectively. Like the others have said it does a good job of building up the excitement like a story and going through the objectives and having the characters makes it feel like the movies. The only times it doesn't is the use of the "generic" soldiers and fighting the "generic" aliens but they have some cool abilities so it is no big deal.

We were progressing pretty well both games until getting to the end of objective 3 when we got overrun by large enemies. The game does a good job of increasing the enemy power towards the end. Hopefully the next time we can come out on top!

[Corporal Hicks]

Some more videos - haven't watched them yet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLuDlzZFWa0#ws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SURnnoU8JjI#ws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG-Eq1TqWo0#ws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfh_qWCe4QI#ws

[Corporal Hicks]

So I've watched the first 2 videos and I really love the looks of it. Surprised you can just throw away cards (is that right, Domino?) but I'm getting the idea behind the deck building nature of the game. Really wish my FLGS would get this in ASAP. I like to support them but I really really want to buy this so tempted to get online.

[Mr. Domino]

Yeah, "trashing" cards is a common mechanic to all deckbuilders. The basic idea is you start off with a deck of borderline useless cards whose main function is to allow you to buy better cards into your discard pile. As the game progresses, you're wanting to make sure you have the best five or six card hand (depending on the game you're playing - Legendary is six) possible, which means getting rid of those basic cards through various means. Different games have different ways of doing this (the Star Trek deckbuilder has you "upgrading" cards, trashing red shirts to gain more experiences officers, whereas this one just has your basic marines get "killed" like the cheap fodder they are), and sometimes you may even want to get rid of some of the cards you've bought, depending on the strategy you're going for. For instance, I'm notorious in my game group for always trying to get down to a "perfect" five or six card deck, where I'm always drawing the same cards every turn (sometimes at the expense of actually winning the game lol).

[Corporal Hicks]

Don't you find that sameness dull?

[Mr. Domino]

It can be. Certain deckbuilders (the DC and Lord of the Rings offerings from Cryptozoic spring immediately to mind, as they're the same game with a different theme pasted on) take a fairly lazy approach to the genre, just copying and pasting what others have done before. Others (Core Worlds, Pathfinder, Legendary Encounters) take the core mechanics and make something new with them.

In essence, having a trash mechanic in multiple deckbuilders doesn't cause sameness any more than (almost) always having to play down cards as resources in TCGs. Some games take a lazy approach to it, and are basically just Magic clones, while others do something innovative with it.

[Corporal Hicks]

I was thinking more of your strategy. Doesn't that get boring?