Joined in 2023 
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If you enjoyed the original Libertalia or like games with lots of interaction give Libertalia Winds of Galecrest a try. It plays differently every time you play and if you don’t mind a bit of chaos is fun every time too. After a crew claims a booty and resolves their dusk action (red sun symbol) - if any - they are immediately placed in their player's den before the next booty is claimed (which is important if someone is claiming a sabre later.) Final Score: 4.5 Stars – With top-notch production values and straightforward mechanics, Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest is an outstanding game with loads of replayability. If a player chooses a Spanish officer or a saber tile, the player must immediately resolve their effect (see inset). Otherwise, the player places the chosen booty token face-down in their den. The player's character is then placed in the player's den, face-up. First, day abilities are resolved in rank of lowest to highest. Secondly dusk abilities are resolved from right to left. Alongside any dusk abilities, players will choose a loot token from the matching day on the board too, activating any associated actions with these. Finally night actions are activated, these may be found on recruited characters on each player’s ship in front of them. This process is repeated for each day of the voyage. After the final day of a journey, each player resolves any anchor abilities. They also stash treasure away for safety in their treasure chest scorer and discards characters, coins and loot tokens from their ship.
Bring El Grande. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like El Grande. Also, when you say “hasn’t been played yet,” I assume that you mean that you haven’t played the copy on your shelf yet,... Libertalia allows the internal politics of a pirate crew to play out over three rounds of careful card play. With 30 different crew members, each interacting in different ways, Libertalia looks to find who is best at managing the varying desires and personalities of their cards (errr… crew). Players all resolve this phase simultaneously. All characters present in their dens use their "night" special actions. There is one aspect of the game that may not sit well with some (especially family gamers), and has to do with some game effects targeting female characters. There are a wide variety of crew cards (40 total) but each player starts with the same crew members, and your hands will slowly diverge over the course of the game. There’s plenty to pay attention to, but not so much going on that you’ll suffer choice paralysis. Libertalia is simple enough to work as a kidsboard game, but strategic enough to be fun and provide plenty of replayability.To setup for the next campaign each player gets 10 new doubloons and add an identical random set of 6 crew cards to the three crew left over. Each set of 3 treasure maps = 12 doubloons. Incomplete sets of 1 or 2 treasure maps are worth nothing. Merchant (21): Discard 2 identical booty tiles to gain 3 doubloons or 3 identical booty tiles to gain 5 doubloons (day).
booty tiles [4 chests, 6 jewelry, 10 goods, 6 Spanish Officers, 6 sabers, 8 treasure maps, 10 cursed relics]
The characters in the graveyard or in the players' dens are removed from the game (they will not be used for the rest of the game). Note: All crew must resolve as much of their actions as possible, even if disadvantageous to themselves or their controller! Granny Wata (27): Gain 2 doubloons if there is only 1 Granny Wata, otherwise discard all Granny Watas (night). Shellhead, thank you for mentioning EEAaO. Watched it last night and it was an enjoyable and unexpected experience. Girlfriend and I talked about it quite a bit afterwards.
Two more voyages will follow, with six more characters drawn into the hand, new loot placed out and doubloons gained. At the end of the third voyage, count up your money and the highest total wins. Final Thoughts My oldest daughter played clarinet and I got her a middle grade one so we didn't have to rent it. Of course, just after we got it she quits.
Set Up
This happens for six turns ( days) per round, then any end of week (one time scoring) actions occur and points are awarded. After three rounds, the person with the most points wins. I agree with Ramenhotep that there are more components than are necessary to play the game, but it does lead to a very attractive game that catches the eye of people walking by. They also add a feeling of “weight” to a game that is, at its heart, a card game. I would have preferred the scoreboard be integrated around the central shipboard; the existing scoreboard is a bit hard to read as it spirals inward, but gets the job done. Admittedly the instruction manual for the Automa is a bit confusing (maybe just me). An instant solution would be to have more images in the booklet but once you figure out how it’s supposed to work, it’s very intuitive, just like the regular game. If all characters survive the day phase (and no other shenanigans happen) then the loot is collected from right to left. In the below example, I’d get the chest, the Pilferer would throw the amulet away and the Automa would get the relic. Libertalia is very easy to learn and the instructions are well written. Players can easily learn by playing, sacrificing very little strategy while doing so.
I’m a big fan of Wingspan and Viticulture and as a result am a bit of a fanboy of Stonemaier Games. I admire their production values and what they do as a smaller publisher in the board game industry. This can set expectations higher than they should be for each release. This is a game that has very simple rules, and can be learned in just a few minutes. At the same time, there’s a lot of complexity and strategy in the card interaction, so players experienced with the game have a distinct advantage over new players. Libertalia is a great lightish pirate game that is easy to learn and easy to play, yet has a decent amount of strategy. There is some social deduction in Libertalia Winds of Galecrest. Especially early in the game when everyone has the same cards. Guessing what others will play can help you gain an advantage.
Gameplay
Merchants & Marauders (2010) – a 3+hour massive game where players choose to make a fortune through trade, treasure hunting or stealing others treasures. Great for avid, strategy or power gamers. More characters means more variety from game to game. This equates to more replay value. It also means sometimes you might get a hand of crew members that don’t work together well. This can be annoying, but if you can still try to figure out a better synergy than your opponents. OK, I'll stop. Diarrhea jokes at a game blog? Gross. Just juvenile. Instead, I'll remind you to come to GenCon so I can sign your boobs.)
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