Heroes gather alongside the legions of two opposing forces. The Necrocampe march against King Estran, as both forces attempt to take control of key strategic locations in a mythical battle.
No, this is the synopsis of a film, comic or novel, but instead the next instalment in Bruno Cathala’s Abyss universe. Legions is a two player only game based in the same world as both Abyss and Conspiracy, but instead of focusing on politics, focuses more on a battle, where you want to manage the moral of troops, gather majorities at key locations or raise five banners for that decisive victory.
In the depths of the box
The box is a small compact little box, but inside you will find two decks of cards (packaged in a card box together), 5 tokens, 6 stratagem tokens and your board.
You also get a reference card and ruleset in both English and French.
The board, which feels great quality in production, opens up to reveal the 5 colours you know and love from previous games in the series, all representing a different location to control, gorgeously illustrated. Because of the thoughtful design of the board, they have managed to make sure it lays flat.
The tokens are coloured plastic, with a symbol printed on them. The colour and symbol represent the 5 different locations you are aiming to control in the game and are placed centrally during the set up. Much like the board, these tokens feel really nice quality to hold.
The stratagem tokens are insanely thick card, but provide a really nice quality feel to hold, and a sense they will survive this game making its way to the table for a long time to come.
Finally, the cards… Split between 15 heroes and 31 legion cards, these feel like the one area that a little less thought has gone in to them. They feel thin and very basic quality, which considering all the other components seems a bit odd, especially when considering these the components you are most likely to handle the most. That said… This is an Abyss game and much like the board, the illustrations shine.
Wait… let’s just take a moment to enjoy the artwork…
The 15 heroes are split into 5 sets of 3, each set representing one of the 5 main faction colours. But the artists haven’t just created unique art for each card… oh no. Instead, each set can be positioned next to each other to form a larger illustration. Simply magic for the art fans out there and is such a great feature. The legion cards also have some variety with each colour set, and also include the white colour set which act as a joker colour, again all with outstanding illustrations.
Gameplay
Set up is really quick. Lay the board out in the centre between each player, place the tokens on their corresponding coloured location, centred between each player. Shuffle all the card in their respective decks and create a row of 3 legion cards, 2 face up and 1 face down, place the remaining deck to one side of this row, then create another row of 5 hero cards face up, placing the remaining desk to one side.
Players draw 3 legion cards each, which forms their hand.
Each player then picks a side, the king or the Necrocampe, once chosen, take one stratagem token at random and keep hidden from the opponent for now.
The game plays over a series of rounds. Each round, both players select one legion card from their hand and place it face down. Once both players are ready, they are revealed simultaneously.
Each legion card has a number, that number helps determine who goes first each round. The player with the lowest number goes first. They place their legion card next to the same coloured location (or one of their choice if it is a white card). If they now have 3 or more legion cards on that location they get to recruit a hero (more on this shortly), or, if they have 1 legion card on each coloured location, they also get to recruit a hero. Once done, they draw a new card from 1 of the 3 available legion cards (either 1 of the 2 face up, or you can choose the face down card if you wish).
Play then moves to the player going second.
They start by doing the same as the first player. However, they get a bonus step at the end after selecting their new legion card. They get to attack. When attacking, the remaining legion card determines the location you attack, and then all legion cards in that location on the opponents’ side of the board are routed. Routed cards are flipped face down in their location.
Routed cards can be rallied in later turns, by placing a new legion card onto that location.
At the end of the round, majorities are decided by looking at who has the most cards on a location – these locations come with bonus powers and points at the end of the game and the legion cards and hero cards a replenished as per set up.
Gameplay continues until either one player gets 5 flags, or once the legion cards cannot be replenished.
When recruiting a hero, much like lords in Abyss, each come with powers that help affect your points or gameplay. These powers are activated once the hero is recruited. They may include basic points, flags, card manipulation, points manipulation, or even cards that bring bonus points if you get two that operate as a joined set. You then also slide 2 legion cards, selected from those used to recruit the hero, underneath which will then add to end game scoring, but also reduces the chance an opponent can mess with those cards.
Legendary battle or exaggerated story?
This is a really interesting addition to the series based in this unique world. With the focus on 2 players, you’d be forgiven for thinking this is just Abyss Duel, however this game really does stand up on its own merit.
It plays quickly, and rules are easy to learn. There is enough room within the strategy for players to consider the best times to play stratagems (if at all), when to play lower pointed legions or the higher ones to gain the option to attack, when to work towards recruiting or gaining majorities, or whether to focus on those instant win flags.
The overall quality of the components is satisfying, with a bit of a fall down on the card quality, but this is easily solved with card sleeves, and the artwork is of the highest standard (again more reason for sleeving to protect them).
We can definitely recommend this game, whether you are a fan of the Abyss universe or not, as it is good solid 2 player head to head, with lots of replayability.
About the Author:
We are Peaches and Meeples, busy professionals who love to chill out to fun table top games. We love board games, card games, miniatures games, competitive or co-operative. Put some dice in our hands and we are in our happy place.
We are also proud guinea pig parents to two lovely fluffballs of joy.
