Stonemaier Games | Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest | Board Game | Ages 14+ | 1-6 Players | 45-60 Minutes Playing Time

Product Information

Players send crew members to an island of riches every round, and that simple choice is at the heart of the game. Where the game comes alive, the gunpowder behind its cannonball if you like, is the interactions between the players, and the slowly diverging strategies.

Understandably, a lot of people prefer the gritty graphics of the original but I think the new aesthetic is cohesive and captures the imagination well. This is a key element of the game since breaking ties in your favor can be the difference between a chest of gold and a cursed relic. I generally prefer games to maintain the same feel throughout, however, Libertalia plays very well at every count I played. Before starting a new voyage, players get six new cards for their hand -- and this is where things really start to heat up. The key to the game is predicting what card your opponents will play while choosing the card that will give you the best short-term or longtime benefit.I say joint first, I won on the tiebreak but you have to give some false hope to new players, right? Me, I’m just excited to play a game I had only ever heard good things about, but because it was out of print, I couldn’t get hold of! At the end of the game, whoever has accumulated the most money is the best pirate in all of the seven seas. In a game filled to the brim with colourful illustrations and graphical flourishes (even the cardboard money tokens are nice), having plain hexagonal wooden blocks just sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the components.

I am going to be completely honest; I was expecting this solo experience to be one similar to Pendulum. I personally prefer the original’s photorealistic character art by Ben Carre and Stephane Gantiez, but Lamaro Smith’s fantasy artwork here is also exceptional. Norway isn’t a member of the EU while Denmark is, so maybe the setup that Spiral Galaxy created for the EU after Brexit doesn’t cover Norway. If you already bought sleeves for the smaller size, please let me know and I’ll personally send you a reimbursement. Now his tastes lean more toward midweight and above euros, but he often mixes in family-weight games to cleanse his palate.Anchor abilities occur at the very end of each round so long as the character is on the table in front of you, which is a less-fancy way of saying “on your ship. Libertalia takes a step back from this trend and packs a game which you can easily fit on your kitchen table. Some of the human loot tiles don’t make sense for Automa and some would be imbalanced, so you’d need to use the Automa loot tiles some of which would require house ruling for the same reason that some of the cards do IIRC. e., a number between 1 and 40) and some type of special ability, which are broken into four types: Daytime, Dusk, Night, and Anchor.

That is, of course, so long as the higher-ranked characters haven’t been kicked off the ship by a devious crewmember during the daytime. Wingspan does use the 57x87mm sleeve in case you also sleeve that game, but its sleeves will not fit the 63x88mm cards found in Libertalia. BTW – the art looks amazing – I know some people are saying they prefer the original art style, but I do love what you did you brighten it up and make it more inviting. You place the Automa tiles at the bottom (the hook and saber have been replaced here, it’s a bit different for the stormy side of the board, where there’s a specific Automa tile for Barrel and Amulet).

Prior to learning the solo mode, I played numerous games at 2- and 3-player counts, and to my delight the automa was eerily/amazingly similar to a 3-player game. The simplicity in the design of Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest belies the depth of strategy inherent in the game. I suppose this might be frustrating to some looking for a way to select their path and stick to it, but in a game where jockeying for position on a single ranked track every turn is the only way to score, you have to expect some shenanigans. Libertalia is a game about making as much booty (yes, I mean treasure) as you can in classic ‘Golden age of Piracy’ fashion. Chris was born in New York, raised in New Jersey, and now lives in Arizona with his gaming partner (who is incidentally his wife) and their two tiny gamers-in-training.

Throughout the game, certain characters can influence this track both positively and negatively to improve their standing.The back of each solo card features a “flowchart” for a lack of a better euphemism which indicates the target priority for the Automa in terms of the available loot tokens on the current day. But that doesn’t stop it from being an entertaining light game that strikes a good balance between strategy and second-guessing. Things get busy, sure, but in a game that thrives on the interactions it generates between the players, it’s a welcome thing, not a problem. Next, gain the doubloons owed to you on the reputation track and draw a number of tiles equal to the number of players and place them on the day spaces for the voyage you are on.