Legends of Andor

[Student of Trinity]

The Kennerspiel des Jahres for 2013 is a strange thing called Legends of Andor. 'Kennerspiel' means a more complicated board game, a game for experts. It's a new category added a year or two ago to the venerable German game of the year prize. We bought the thing in German, but then found it in Canada in English, for about three times the price. It's an interesting game, and in no plausible sense a competitor to Spiderweb, so I thought I'd describe it, because some people here might like it.

 

It's a co-operative game for two to four players, kind of an FRPG but turned into a board game. Not a kiddy-style board game, but a massive and complicated German board game, with an enormous board. Despite being a Kennerspiel it's not actually all that complicated to play, because it consists of five successive games that might each last an hour or so, and that each involve some different mechanics. So the total number of rules is large, but you don't use them all at once.

 

It's co-operative, with adversaries controlled either randomly or by scripted cards. Players move in turns, but you can fight together if your figures are co-located, and fighting together makes a huge difference. A single player can usually take the game's weakest monster alone, but not the second-weakest, while two players together can take either weaker monster in a single round. It's not necessarily easy to win, though. Some monsters are much tougher, and there are other tasks to accomplish, while fending off a steadily advancing monster horde, within a time limit. There seem to be a lot of choices to make as to which resources to gather.

[Lilith]

Sounds a little like a game along the lines of Arkham Horror -- am I on the right track in what I'm envisioning here?

[Student of Trinity]

Yes, I think it is similar. Lighter in theme; somewhere between Tolkien and fairy tale. So far I've really only seen about half the game.

[Callie]

The people I play Arkham Horror with don't seem to understand the cooperative aspect of the game: we always lose. I suppose that's a limitation of any similar game.

 

I have an earlier Kennerspiel des Jahres winner called 7 Wonders; it's akin to a deck card game version of the Civilization franchise. It's one of my favorite board games, along with Settlers of Catan and Puerto Rico.