INTRODUCTION
Howdy, pardners. New to town ain’t ya? Well settle in, kick the dust off them boots and I’ll give you the lowdown on The Good, the Bad and the Handsome Expansion for Kolossal Games‘ gun-slingin’ board game, Western Legends. This card box sized expansion comes with three new characters, four new goals for each character, 16 story cards and 12 legendary items.
WESTERN LEGENDS BASICS
Western Legends by Kolossal Games is a sandbox game set in the wild, wild west. Players take on the role of historical characters of that period such as Billy the Kid or Annie Oakley and try to earn enough Legendary Points to ride off into the sunset with the win. As a sandbox game there are numerous ways to win…will you take the straight and narrow path and play as a lawman? Or maybe wrangling cattle on the dusty trails is more to your liking? Outlaws are represented too, as are gamblers and prospectors. Each character has a special ability to unlock, and one of the most interesting aspects of Western Legends is just because you start the game the game on one side of the law, nothing says you can’t switch sides during the game if that seems like a faster path to victory. Along the way you’ll earn money, buy items and travel the board, which is beset by bandits as well as your opponents.
NEW CHARACTERS
The Good, the Bad and the Handsome Expansion adds three new characters to Western Legends:
INTRODUCTION
Howdy, pardners. New to town ain’t ya? Well settle in, kick the dust off them boots and I’ll give you the lowdown on The Good, the Bad and the Handsome Expansion for Kolossal Games‘ gun-slingin’ board game, Western Legends. This card box sized expansion comes with three new characters, four new goals for each character, 16 story cards and 12 legendary items.
WESTERN LEGENDS BASICS
Western Legends by Kolossal Games is a sandbox game set in the wild, wild west. Players take on the role of historical characters of that period such as Billy the Kid or Annie Oakley and try to earn enough Legendary Points to ride off into the sunset with the win. As a sandbox game there are numerous ways to win…will you take the straight and narrow path and play as a lawman? Or maybe wrangling cattle on the dusty trails is more to your liking? Outlaws are represented too, as are gamblers and prospectors. Each character has a special ability to unlock, and one of the most interesting aspects of Western Legends is just because you start the game the game on one side of the law, nothing says you can’t switch sides during the game if that seems like a faster path to victory. Along the way you’ll earn money, buy items and travel the board, which is beset by bandits as well as your opponents.
NEW CHARACTERS
The Good, the Bad and the Handsome Expansion adds three new characters to Western Legends:
• Judge Roy Bean, who has the edge against some NPCs, by getting to see their fight card before he chooses his, and winning ties;
• Butch Cassidy, who works both sides, with the ability to steal items if he robs another players, and steal some of their money or gold if he arrests them;
• Joaquin Murrieta, who earns Legendary Points (which are how you win), by battling the Sheriff if Joaquin is wanted, or Wanted players if he has Marshal points.
The new characters definitely have an emphasis on player interaction in the form of fighting, which existed in the base game but these fellers take it up a notch. Each new character comes with four personal goal cards specific to them (for a total of 12), side quests that you do to earn bonus points revealed at the end of the game.
STORY CARDS
The expansion also comes with 16 new Story Cards, even more things players can do to earn themselves rewards. As players do the tasks listed on Story Cards during the course of their turn, they put one of their story disks to mark that the action was completed by them, and once a card has been filled (twice for a 2-4 player game, three times in a 5-6 player game), the card is revealed at the end of the turn and players who contributed disks to the card receive the listed rewards. Whereas the base game has Story Cards that were completed in ways like ending your turn outside of town or spending money at the general store or earning Marshal/Wanted points, all 16 Story Cards in The Good, the Bad and the Handsome Expansion are completed by initiating a fight with another player! Again, the emphasis in this box seems to be forcing conflict between players.
LEGENDARY ITEMS
The box also comes with a dozen unique Legendary Items players may earn by completing story cards (so again if you’re hoping to tame Lightning, the horse that giddy-ups straight to Bandit hideouts, you’re probably going to be fighting other players based on the amount of Story Cards added to the deck that require that). Other Legendary Items include dynamite which lets you damage every player adjacent to you (handy for when all them goody two-shoes Marshal players come a-knockin’ on the Wanted players’ doors), Legendary weapons, and a lasso perfect for rustling and wrangling. And some are worth Legendary Points to help you win!
OVERALL IMPRESSION
The Good, the Bad and the Handsome Expansion is an great addition to the Western Legends base game. You can easily incorporate it into games of Western Legends with essentially no new rules to learn, as the cards are mostly just additions to existing decks already in use. Even the Legendary Items are worked into the existing Story Card mechanic, and each card is pretty clear about the benefits it offers the owning player. It puts a new twist on the game without mind-bending new rules versus old rules conflicts, etc. That said, the player versus player combat focus of this expansion might not be for everyone…players who prefer a more relaxed “live and let live” approach to their Western Legends games might be turned off by the bulk of the expansion catering to that, but it’s modular enough to use just the Legendary Items and leave out the new characters and Story Cards. It’s also a good price point to spice up your Western Legends games, much cheaper than a boxed expansion.
