Legends of Hellas - First Play!

16th April 2023

It's a Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for more gaming fun.

Take on the role of Perseus, Jason or Hercules. Battle The Hydra, vanquish The Gorgon and defeat Cerberus in Legends of Hellas, a cooperative card game of Greek heroes and Greek mythology.

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Caveat: We've only ever played this game digitally.

What's in a game?

• Cards: Legends of Hellas features 2 types of cards.
• Action cards: In the top left of each action card is an icon. Each one relates to 1 of 5 different virtues or qualities that a hero might posses. They are 'arms' (As in weapons.), 'courage', 'guile', 'speed' and 'strength.
  Furthermore, cards are also colour coded to each quality.
  Action cards illustrate the kind of events that Greek heroes get involved with using those virtues.
  Divine intervention cards: A final type of card depicts that good old mythological staple; divine intervention. These cards have special uses as explained below and are considered different to 'normal' actions cards.

Cards for yellow/guile, blue/speed, green/courage & divine intervention.

• Monster Cards: There are 10 of these oversized cards. Each one displays picture for a monster straight out classic Greek mythology.
  Each monster card also contains 1 icon on each side that match 2 of the icons displayed on the action cards. These are the qualities that must be employed to defeat that particular monster.
  ​E.g., Strength and guile are required to defeat The Griffin.

The minotaur, griffin and hydra monsters.

• Hero discs: There are 5 hero discs in 5 player colours that represent different classic Greek heroes.
  Each of the 5 hero has a colour that matches the 5 colours associated with the 5 qualities of action cards.
  E.g., The Achilles hero disc is purple and purple is the colour associated with the 'arms' quality.
  ​This is important as explained below.
  They are double sided with a 'normal' side and a 'broken' side.

Yellow/guile for Atalanta, blue/speed for Perseus & red/strength for Hercules.

With a chunky, cartoony style, Legends of Hellas is a bright and colourful looking game. It's crisp, clear artwork and the monsters on the monster cards are all instantly recognisable. I think it looks great.

There's half a dozen icons in the game and they're only used in reference between action and monster cards. Players should have no problems here.

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How's it play?
Setup
Legends of Hellas presents players with 12 different missions to undertake which may have some varying setup and game rules. However, broadly speaking, they share a common theme - which defeating monsters until the boss monster 'the chimera' appears then defeating it.​

• Monster cards: Shuffle the monster cards into a face-down deck. Then according to the mission deal a number of them face-up into a central playing area.
• Action cards: First ensure all the divine intervention are separated from the other action cards.
  Then as per the player count (And also difficulty.) add a number of divine intervention cards to the action cards and shuffle them all into a face-down deck.
  Now deal 4 cards to each player.
• Hero discs: Give each player a hero disc in their chosen player colour. Each player should put their disc into their personal playing area with the 'normal' side face-up.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
Players in Legends of Hellas are cooperatively attempting to defeat a number of monsters inspired by Greek mythology.
This is done by playing cards but players will also need to perform other actions to facilitate this.
Legends of Hellas uses a traditional turn order with active player completing their action before play progresses to the next player.

• Game start: All players should place their hero disc on any monster card, more than one hero disc may be on a monster card.
• Action: During their turn, the active player may perform 1 of the following actions.
  • Draw card: The active player may draw 1 or more cards from the action deck and may temporarily have a hand of up to 5 cards. However, after drawing cards, the active player must discard a card.
  • Fight monster: This is probably the most common action players will perform and and is required to defeat monsters. The following rules apply to fighting monsters.
    • Location: The active player may only fight the monster at their hero disc's current location.
    • Action: To fight a monster, the active player must play an action card that matches the icons on that monster card. I.e., if a monster card displays the speed and courage icons, then the active player must play a card with either the speed or courage icon.
    • Victory: A monster is only defeated when both of the following 2 conditions have been met:
      Both action types: At least 1 card of each type has been played.
      5 cards: If a total of 5 cards have been across both types has been played.
      When both conditions have been met, the monster is defeated.
    • Divine intervention: These are incredibly useful for defeating monsters and can be used in 1 of 2 ways.
      Wildcard: A divine intervention card be played as a action card of any of the 5 types.
      Instant defeat: Provided the 'both action types' condition has been met, a divine intervention card can be played to instantly defeat a monster regardless of how many cards have already been played against it.
  • Give card: The active player may give any number of their cards to any other player. That player must then discard at least 1 card and must also discard down to 4 cards if they have more.
  • Move: The active player may move their hero disc from one monster card to another by discarding a card. This is regardless of whether the monster the hero disc is currently on has been defeated or not.
  • View cards: The active player may draw 6 cards from the action deck and view them.
    Then they must discard 1 cards and return the other 5 back on top of the action deck in any order they see fit.
• Next player: Once the active player has taken their action, play progresses to the player on their left.
• Other rules:
  • Special action: Each player has a special action available to them that can be activated once per game and is dependant on the colour of their hero disc.
    It means a player can flip their hero disc to the 'broken' side to play any card against a monster, consequently that card is considered to have the same colour (And thus quality.) as the flipped hero disc.
    E.g., if a player has Hercules' red hero disc, they may flip it to play any card against a monster and that card is considered to be a red 'strength' action card.
  • Chimera: Once the allotted number of monsters as per the chosen mission have been defeated, the final boss monster appears - this is the Chimera!
    To form the Chimera draw 2 monster cards and places them so that one is above the other - and the one at the bottom is upside down.
    This means the Chimera will potentially need cards from 4 qualities to defeat! If the Chimera has duplicates of the one quality, then at least 1 action card for each instance of that type must be played.

Endgame
If the players manage to defeat the Chimera once it has appeared, then they collectively win the game!
If however, at any time a player needs to draw cards and there are none left in the action deck, then the players collectively lose the game.

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Overall
Between it's bold colourful presentation of Greek mythology and card mechanics which will have heroes travelling about to battle monsters using their guile, strength and so on; Legends of Hellas is pretty strong thematically.
I personally like how The Chimera will be a random amalgam of 2 other monsters.

Mechanically, on the surface it's a pretty straightforward game - play cards with symbols matching symbols on monster cards to defeat them but in practice, Legends of Hellas is quite unforgiving.

This is because players aren't really battling the monsters, they're battling the action deck - or more precisely, fighting to stop the deck running out and luck can play a very big part here.
Every choice and action a player takes ​- not just attacking monsters - will cost a card.
Draw cards - one of them must be discarded.
Give cards to an alley - one must be discarded.
Move or view the deck - you get the idea.
Even deciding which cards to discard is also an important decision. I.e., if none of the current monsters require a certain type of card, is that type safe to discard? A monster requiring it might turn up later

Consequently it can be very easy to run out of cards, players will need to try and play as efficiently as possible with minimal squandering and no frivolous moves. Judicious use of divine interventions can be critical here, playing one at the right time can defeat a monster with only 3 cards instead of 5. It might not seem like a saving of many cards but it can be.
While players can not explicitly discuss the cards in their hand, they will need to coordinate actions, especially actions such as passing cards to each other and viewing the deck.
Being a cooperative game, there's also a degree of luck in Legends of Hellas, perhaps a little too much like for my liking. Sometimes players will draw a hand of cards they just can't use and will have to find a way to adapt.
Conversely, sometimes luck will deliver the exact cards you will need which will make it easier and maybe a little unsatisfying.
It also means that sometimes it felt like my decisions had been taken out my hands by chance and sometimes it felt like any strategy I had was was reduced to simply 'play what you have' and adapt to 'what you get'.

Despite this I found Legends of Hellas to be a fairly enjoyable experience mixed with dollop of frustration from the luck which strangely, could go 2 ways; too much bad luck or too much good luck! 

With it's cartoonish art style and somewhat lightweight rules, Legends of Hellas would appear to be aimed at a family audience but we found it actually quite a tricky game, I'm not sure younger players will have a easy time. however a bit of adult/parent contribution would make a difference, I guess that's what makes it a family game.

If you want a ancient Greece themed cooperative game or in fact any kind of low maintenance cooperative game, Legends of Hellas might fill the bill.