24th May 2022 It's a Tuesday and we're with the Woking Gaming Club in The Sovereigns. Fly as free as a err flying pirate? Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest is set in a world of fantastical aerial ships, anthropomorphic heroes and adventurous voyages to find loot and lost treasure. What's in a game?
Component quality is solid throughout, cards, tokens and tiles are well constructed but the chunky loot tokens really stand out, even if I have to resist the urge to try and unwrap and eat them. Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest makes use of excellent use of bright, eye-catching, cartoony art presenting a larger than life setting and characters. About a dozen icons are used throughout the game, they are all fairly clear and easily understood. How's it play? Setup
That's pretty much setup done. On to play Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest is played over 3 'voyages' which have a length of 4, 5 and 6 days. For each day, a player will put a character card into play and this is done secretly. Thus over all 3 voyages each player will use 15 character.
Endgame Play progress until the night actions for the 3rd and final voyage are resolved. Players compare their scoring dials. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest feels like a complex game but in practice is quite straightforward. In essence, a character card is played and the resolved up to 3 times. Where the game's complexity comes from is how a character card played interacts with character cards played by other players. Everyone starts with the same hand of cards and will acquire a further identical 12 cards during the course of the game. It means that all players will be using the same 18 cards played over in total 15 actions. But since it's unlikely that all players will make use of the same cards at the same, it means the game encourages players to watch their opponents. Knowing when someone has or hasn't played a certain card can prove very useful. This contextual information can allow players to adapt their tactics and can change the flow of the game. Additionally; Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest injects a dose of 'take that' into the game, the 40 cards have a varied set of abilities that can be brought to play, including being able to eliminate other characters, pulling cards out of the graveyard, etc. It's also worth noting that while the 'calm' side of the game board has the potential for some friction between players the 'stormy' side increases this. The game also provides short and long term goals which require short, mid and long term strategies. Day abilities on cards give players immediate benefits, but dusk and night abilities can also provide desirable benefits. A player may choose to put a high value character card on to the initiative track so they go earlier in the dusk phase to secure a certain type of loot. Which brings me to long term strategy, loot is vital here. Loot typically provides benefits during the end of voyage phase and the loot for all days is openly shown on the board which players must take this into consideration during the whole journey. All of this means that Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest hits a sweet spot of accessible but tactical game play. Players are always given meaningful decisions to make using a degree of imperfect information. I found it an engaging game. Definitely one to try.
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