Matthew BaileyToday we’re going to be looking at something a little bit more complex for game 6 in our “Reviews Leading Up to the February Half Term and Valentine’s Day” series is “Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest,” a second edition, if you like, of the pirate-themed board game “Libertalia,” released in 2012. If you have played “Libertalia,” essentially the game has not changed radically. The main differences are that there are 40 character cards, a reputation track in order to better handle ties, different board states, and a distinctive new cartoon art style based around animal characters, which I really like but is visually divisive compared to the very traditional Pirates of the Caribbean-themed original.
Played by Jack(.8.) and myself
For the rest of that review, I’m going to refer to the game as “Libertalia” just to make my life easier.
“Libertalia” is a fairly mixed-genre game highlighting elements of set collection, auction bidding, and simultaneous action selection. The premise of the game is that you are a crew of sky pirates setting sail in search of adventures and treasure. The game is split over three voyages, each taking four, five, and six days respectively in-game to complete.
Each player starts the game with a deck of 40 cards that represent the potential crew they are going to be taking on the voyages.
You start the game by dishing out treasure tokens of the same amount of players on each of the days. The reputation markers are then randomly placed on the reputation track, which helps decide ties.
One player then shuffles their deck (it’s recommended all the other players leave theirs in number order) and then randomly selects six cards to form their crew. The other players then make note of these numbered cards and take the exact same six cards, meaning on the first turn at least, all players start with the same six crewmen.
These crewmen have a number of abilities on them that can be activated at one of four times, whether that be day, dusk, night, or in port, and it’s these activation times that form the basis of how the game plays.
On the first day of the first voyage, you each select in secret one of your crewmen who is going to go onto the island for that day in order to collect the loot. Once you turn them over, you place them on the board in order from smallest number to largest number.
You then, starting on the left-hand side, go along and resolve any daytime actions that may be on any of the players’ cards. Once you have resolved all of the daytime abilities, you then start at the opposite end of the board and work your way backwards, choosing one of the loot tokens that is on the island, but also resolving any dusk abilities that might be on your character’s card. This ensures that lower-number characters get to activate their daytime abilities first, but equally, high-number characters will get to select their token first and activate any of their dusk abilities. Once this has all been resolved, you then move on to the night phase where all characters activate any of their night abilities that they may have on their card.
Once this has been resolved, all of the characters are then placed back into your ship and will stay there for the rest of the voyage. While they cannot be reused (unless you get a card that says you can), anyone with night abilities will activate again at the end of each day and any of the import abilities will activate at the end of that voyage.
This continues over the course of the days until you get to the end of the voyage, at which point you add up the amount of money that you have won and resolve any final abilities.
You will then have a score to put in your treasure chest at the end of the voyage, and this will then be repeated twice more before you declare a final winner.
Before I talk about my thoughts, for a game of this type, it actually moves fairly quickly, and even a four-player game can normally be finished in about 45 minutes once everyone knows what they’re doing.
What really shines here is that even though many of the abilities on the cards are fairly passive and once you have chosen, they simply resolve, the interaction between the cards and between the players is such an important part of gameplay and is a compelling reason to continue to play this game multiple times. This arrived in my house about two weeks ago, and in that time, I have played it twice with Jack and have also played it twice at work with a group of 13-year-old students.
You get to keep any crewmen still in your hand at the end of a voyage and then proceed to take six more, meaning that over the course of the game, your hands will differ slightly, but you always have the opportunity to card count and know what cards the other person has in their hand, and it becomes a big bluffing game of who is going to play the massive card you all just picked up and you all know you all have.
I absolutely adore “Libertalia” and think that this is definitely one of my favourite middleweight games that is a step up from many of the games that we play with our children. I will say, though, that this game is very playable with children as the rules are fairly simple, with the complexities only being really on the interactions of the individual cards. Equally, because you all choose the same cards, it is very conceivable that you could help a slightly younger kid understand what each card does at the beginning of the turn. I haven’t played it with Toby (5) yet, but I am intending to soon, and I think he will enjoy it.
Production values are extremely high, as is usually the case from Stonewall Games. All of the board and cards are really well made, all of the card stock is excellent, the tokens come in a really nice tray that can be taken out, and the loot tokens are made of a premium base plastic that always gives an element of quality too. Even down to the manual, which is very pleasant and has a very nice linen finish to it.
It has been a while since a medium-weight game has gripped me in quite the same way as “Libertalia” has. I think this is an absolutely excellent choice for parents potentially looking to move forward with a slightly higher level of complexity than many of the games we would feature here have. Having said that, the mechanics are on the cards themselves, and the rules are very easy to follow.
Equally at around the £40 mark, the game is not crazy expensive for this kind of game.
The original Libertalia can be played on BGA and is very similar. – https://en.boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=libertalia
An exceedingly strong recommendation from me if you are looking for something that is potentially the next step up from some of the more child-oriented games we regularly play here at “Little Board Gamers”.
Disclaimer: A copy of “Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest” was kindly provided by “Stonemaier Gamer” for the purpose of review. All of our thoughts and opinions are our own.
