Subject: Stratego Legends : A Review (Long) From: news@spamfree-phantaci.com Okay all, this is my first review so please bear that in mind... Stratego Legends : Avalon Hill/Hasbro MSRP 24.95 (ymmv) Summary (out of ten) =================== Complexity : 3/7 (Rule base/Army Design) Strategy : 6 Luck Factor : 3 (Random Setup) # of Players : 2/8 (Two sides : up to teams of four) Game Length : 30 minutes - hour Repeatability: 8 (Random play and customization) Components : 7 Rules : 8 Cost Value : 8 Overall : 8 (I round up) First of all I should tell you a bit about myself to understand my perceptions. I have been a long time player of games and have concentrated on strategy based board and miniature gaming. While I do own some CCGs I do tend to avoid that market and have only invested in two near defunct games (INWO and Mythos). I do like Avalon Hill as a company and I have been awaiting the new games from Hasbro/Avalon Hill for some time. I picked up one copy of "Stratego Legends" earlier today and have played a few games. This review is based on that exposure and the comments from Avalon Hill based on the format of packaging. "Stratego Legends" is to "Stratego" what "The Lovebug" is to your brothers old Volkswagon Bug. It looks and feels like a VW Beetle but it can do so many cool things and somehow your brothers bug will never be the same. That doesnt mean you wont revel in the simple strategy that the original offered, but you will always be thinking back to the LoveBug. The first thing that I noticed about the game was cover art. The game feels like its focus is the mass market. This definately is an Avalon Hill that is a division of Hasbro. However, I have read that the game will only be distributed through independant retailers and that mass market chains will not carry the new Avalon Hill line. To me, this leads to one conclusion. The likelyhood that more of the mainstream audience will come into a local game store to purchase this game. (oh and my cynic side said -- Dont forget all the game stores in a mall near you that are now wholey owned by Hasbro). Clearly marked on the front is the collectability of the game which could lead the uninformed shopper to think that the game is not complete on its own. Many parents have recently discovered the "What do you mean you need more cards to play it" syndrome and might be a bit gun shy. However, let me assure you that the game is indeed complete and you do not need to buy more sets. One set is enough to play the game over and over, provided you have the will power to resist the urge. However, if you wish to play with more than two then you need to acquire a set for every 2 players. Opening the box, I can say that I was quite pleased with what I saw. While they are not wooden pieces, they are quite striking and the art for the pieces is great. The plastic castle pieces are all the same. The game has a sheet of stickers that are applied to the castle pieces. The stickers are of nice quality and seem resilent to ripping (since I am usually very good at that). The four random boards that are included are comprised of 16 spaces in a 4x4 pattern so that when all four boards are placed together they form a gameboard that is 8x8. Surrounding the game board is border made of interlocking cardboard to keep the main game board from shifting. This works moderately. The graphics for the gameboard are nice and clear, but you will be looking at the pictures of the pieces. The rulebook is twelve pages long, but only six of those contain the actual rules. The rest is flavor text. The rules are clear and concise and are a quick read. However, I will attempt to sum up the rules for basic understanding in a few short paragraphs. Most of the basic strategys of Stratego remain in Legends. However, in addition to a strength level between one and ten, each creature has some power that affect varies elements of the game. Those powers are broken up into a few categories ("Innate Powers", "Actions", "Abilities" and "Death Curses"). Innate Powers must be used when aplicable. Actions are powers that can only be used on your turn instead of normal movement. Abilities are powers that you may opt to use at any time. Finally Death Curses are powers that go into effect some time after the piece dies. While all the different powers are to numerous to mention here they do mostly fall into basic categories... a. Allow piece to move any number of spaces diagonally, horizontally, or vertically. b. Jump over pieces. c. Attack pieces from afar. d. Raise or lower strength of piece. e. Expose different pieces on the board. Unless a piece has special movement then it a piece can move one square at a time horizontally or vertically. If that piece enters the square with the piece of an enemy then combat is resolved. Like stratego the higher powered piece wins, although the pieces of power 1 are mostly like the Spy from Stratego. The game continues until one of the players flag is captured. The game starts by the pieces being randomly setup on the board with evil on one side and good on the other. While this does introduce the luck element into the game. It does allow for quicker setup and a different setup each time. After the pieces are setup each player has two swaps they can perform. Someone has pointed out that this gives your opponent an idea where your "flag" is located (The supposition is that you moved your flag to more defensible area) This is only a minor flaw that can easily be fixed by house rules (we make the swaps secretly.) As the game is made up with individual pieces with their own powers, both sides are not exactly the same. Each army has its own flavor and with customization the power levels of each army can be skewed. However, in the few games that I have played (with one set) it seems like there was alot of effort put into making the sides equally matched. Each army is comprised of different creature types (For instance the Ancients army is made up of Elves, Dwarves and Rangers and others) usually with similar actions that follow a subtheme to the overall army theme. This increases the different customizing strategies and adds alot to the playability of this game. It may take awhile before you play Legends with a customized army if you ever will customize an army at all. However, you will soon get a good idea on what pieces you want in your army as you will quickly get familiar with most of them. The main reason for this is that while the pieces you do have are very well drawn and distinctly unique, their powers are not printed directly on the piece itself. Instead the game includes 6 carboard "rosters" that detail the powers of each piece. In the beginning you will find yourself constantly looking up which piece has what power. However, with the few games that I have already played, that will quickly pass. I can already tell you what a good 75% of my pieces do without refering to the rosters. While I understand that this could be frustrating, there really is no way to make it possible to know all the powers of the piece based on the sticker alone. Even with signs representing common powers (which dont even make up half the powers) you will still have to look up what each sign meant. I think the poster that raised this issue didnt really mention that this is a necessary evil and one that is easily overcome with a few games under the belt. In summation a game that I have looked forward to for the last couple of months did not dissappoint me. The visual attraction, solid rules and gaming fun have made me want to buy more than one set. The collectability while originally a detractor to me on the concept of the new game, works well in this environment and Hasbro doesnt seem to be milking it for all it is worth. The components are nice and work the 25 dollars. My only complaints that I can make at this point are that the six different boxes should be marked and that owning the full set would take up alot of space in my game closet. Hint : Make a more compact carrying/storage case. Great work Avalon Hill, keep the games coming. Its good to know that great products are still coming out of a great company. Here is to the future... Jim Shumaker -- Jim Shumaker | jaran@phantaci.com | Mountain View, CA |