Tag Archives: Card Game

Board Game Reviews, Boardgame Review, Collectable Card Game

Review: Kingdom Legacy: Exploration Expansion

Leave a comment

When I reviewed Kingdom Legacy back in March, it walked away with a respectable 3 out of 5 stars. That’s probably worth explaining because, unlike much of the internet, I don’t believe anything short of perfection deserves to be launched into the sun. A three-star score is a very solid game in my book and absolutely worth playing. Anything above two stars is worth consideration.

That said, Kingdom Legacy wasn’t flawless from the standpoint of objective review. It had a few rough edges, and typically, I would say this is exactly why expansions exist. They’re often a second chance, the patch note in physical form, the opportunity to take a good game and turn it into a great one.

Kingdom Legacy, however, is a unique beast; the exploration expansion, like the many expansions that proceeded are not intended to fix balance or adapt playstyle, they are in a sense, a way to continue your legacy experience as you build up your own personal little world. It’s a bit more like a sequel or director’s cut with extra scenes for something you already love. This expansion isn’t trying to fix anything, for better or worse.

Unlike many of the other expansions for Kingdom Legacy, Exploration is not a modest little add-on either. There are almost as many cards here as in the original box, which means there is an awful lot of new content to explore. Yes, the pun is entirely intended, and no, I refuse to apologise for it.

So the question here isn’t whether Kingdom Legacy: Exploration fixes the game; the question is more about how it expands on the already awesome gameplay you know and love.

Overview

Final Score: christmas_star christmas_starchristmas_star( 3.15 out 5) Good Game!

One thing worth pointing out about my rating system is that it’s not necessarily a reflection of how much I like a game. Instead, it is an attempt to score games against a consistent structure that’s intended to be as objective as possible and fair as possible across all game reviews.

If you don’t believe me, consider that Blood Rage is still the only game in GamersDungeon.net history to receive a perfect 5 out of 5 stars, yet it does not even make my personal top twenty games of all time list. Meanwhile, Great Western Trail has sat comfortably on that list for nearly a decade despite earning only 3 out of 5 stars in my review. What I play and what rating a game gets using my rating system are not always going to align. Preference is not the same as judgment.

I consider Blood Rage to be a master class in game design and publishing. It is a perfect game, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it flies to the top of my playlist. I enjoy it, but perfection and preference are not always bedfellows.

Kingdom Legacy falls into exactly that difference and, ultimately, so does Kingdom Legacy: Exploration.

If you asked me over a cup of coffee what I think of Kingdom Legacy, I would tell you it’s one of the most addictive solo card games I have played in years. It has occupied an embarrassing amount of my table time, and this expansion simply gives me even more reasons to keep shuffling cards instead of doing something sensible with my time.

As my wife says when she catches me on the deck shuffling cards, “Are you gonna do that all day?”, The answer is, yes, now fetch me a beer, wench!, I have a kingdom to run! (Note: this joke was approved by the wife; no husbands were injured or killed during the writing of this joke.)

Kingdom Legacy is an exceptionally simple game to learn and an addictive game to play that is just perfect as a solo experience. It has a ton of nuanced decisions that will have you asking the question, what if I… quite a bit.

In fact, this happens often enough that I am seriously considering adding a personal score to future reviews just to separate objective analysis and my personal preferences.

Kingdom Legacy: Exploration does quite a bit to change the overall rating of the original game, not so much because the latest edition of the game (2nd edition) changes anything, but my entire reflection on what this game is and how it is played was vastly altered by adding an expansion to it. Not that it changed how you play, but more like it opened a new avenue of understanding just what this game is about and what about it makes it so brilliant while also simultaneously exposing some of its flaws as a product.

In Exploration, you will find lots of cards that play off each other, but you won’t get them all in play, so there are some tough choices to make that you will have to ponder, but as was the case in the base game, it’s not always 100% clear how these will impact you in later stages of the game. That is the fun part with this system: you do stuff to see what happens.

If you already enjoy Kingdom Legacy and your first thought after finishing a campaign was “I wish there was more of this,” then congratulations, your wish has been granted ten times over. This expansion adds more cards, more scoring opportunities, and more crucial decisions to the expansion of your kingdom than the core game did to this point.

On the other hand, if the base game never clicked for you, Exploration is unlikely to perform some sort of cardboard miracle. It is unapologetically an expansion for existing fans, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. While many expansions try to patch weaknesses or inject additional or new systems to attract new players, Exploration instead looks at Kingdom Legacy, nods approvingly, and says, “Here, have more.”

All of the new content focuses on the later stages of the game, where your kingdom is already sprawling, but like the core game, every decision has layers of consequences attached to it. Just like the base game, you will only see a fraction of the available cards in any single campaign, meaning it will take many plays before everything reveals itself. In a way, that is a flaw with Kingdom Legacy as a product, as it is a legacy game designed to be played once.

Thankfully, the designers anticipated that. Unlike the core box, Kingdom Legacy: Exploration is designed to be played twice, meaning two base game campaigns (two kingdoms) can make full use of a single expansion.

And, as has become almost standard practice with this legacy game, sleeving the cards allows you to preserve and reset the experience if you prefer your kingdoms recyclable rather than disposable.

So what new treasures does Exploration offer? Well, if you’re a fan of this game, you’re in for a treat!

Components

Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star
Tilt: christmas_starchristmas_star

Pros: Good card quality cards with great documentation and online support for the game.

Cons: No major flaws, but there is nothing awe-inspiring; it’s just good.

Component quality in Kingdom Legacy: Exploration is identical to that of the core game, which is to say, quite good.

There is admittedly not a great deal to discuss here because, at the end of the day, it’s still a box full of cards. Thankfully, they are good quality cards with a nice finish and perfectly in line with what you would expect from a modern collectible card game. They shuffle well, hold up to repeated play, and serve that aesthetic and addictive process of card handling we all love perfectly.

The instructions for integrating the expansion into the base game are clear and straightforward, avoiding the all too common expansion tradition of making you search three rulebooks and a forum post from 2022 just to figure out where one deck is supposed to go.

It also benefits from the same excellent online support as the core game, making setup and rule questions easy to resolve.

Most importantly, the expansion feels completely consistent with the original release. Nothing about the presentation feels rushed or tacked on. It looks, feels, and plays like it was always intended to be part of the Kingdom Legacy experience, and for that reason, it earns exactly the same score as the core game, which is to say there is nothing particularly awe-inspiring; it’s just good.

Theme

Score: christmas_starchristmas_star
Tilt: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star

Pros: Mechanics and theme connect to create an addictive engine-building game with personality.

Cons:  The use of AI images absolutetly kills this game’s spirit, it makes it feel generic and uninspired with many poorly curated images.  It’s all rather soulless.

The central theme of Kingdom Legacy: Exploration is exactly what the title promises. Exploration opens up vast new lands to discover, unique buildings to construct, interesting people to recruit, and specialised equipment to uncover. All of this greatly expands the number of scoring opportunities available while also giving the impression that your kingdom has matured and is entering a much more robust level of growth. It’s all thematically well-connected.

In terms of expansions, there is no official order in which expansions for Kingdom Legacy are to be played, but to me, it felt quite right to have exploration be the first; it just feels like a natural fit.

Mechanically, I would not say the expansion dramatically changes the experience. It’s very much just more of the Kingdom Legacy you already like, which is exactly what fans are looking for. There are a handful of new events and scoring opportunities that are genuinely clever and produce the same little moments of surprise and satisfaction that made the base game so addictive. Nothing here fundamentally changes my opinion of the theme, but there are plenty of memorable moments that will leave you smiling just the same, and that is all I can say about that without spoilers.

Unfortunately, there is one grim topic that still hangs over Kingdom Legacy like an unwanted random event card, and it is more relevant now than when this game was first released.

Neither the second edition nor the Exploration expansion addresses the game’s reliance on AI-generated artwork; in fact, it leans fully into it as if this is not a major controversy in the board gaming world, a major miscalculation on the part of the publisher. The visual style remains inconsistent, with AI images that often look poorly curated and disconnected from one another.

This is a very common opinion about the use of AI images in board games. I would recommend that anyone publishing a board game in the future avoid AI art like the plague; whatever the benefit is, it’s not worth the backlash. AI art used to be disliked; at this point, using it makes you a pariah.

My position on the use of AI in board games hasn’t changed, which is to say, I don’t really care that much about it for hobby projects and small struggling publishers trying to get their game out, but I recognise that it’s an obvious shortcut, and it typically quite dramatically reduces the quality of a game. This is very true for Kingdom Legacy; it’s a considerably lesser game because of the use of AI images.

When I reviewed the original Kingdom Legacy release, I was willing to overlook AI in the rating because Kingdom Legacy was clearly a passion project from a small team experimenting with a new idea, and I was happy to give it the benefit of the doubt that this shortcut was taken out of necessity.

That argument and the leeway given are no longer appropriate. Kingdom Legacy has found an audience. It received a second edition. It has successfully launched many expansions. It is no longer an unknown experiment but an established product from a successful and prominent publisher with a proven record of success.

Simply put, any excuse given by an established publisher about why they use AI Images rather than hiring a real artist simply does not fly and should be vigorously opposed.

I think board game fans are justified in not supporting AI-generated games, as it damages the hobby as a whole. The more people that do this, the more it will normalise, and the less distinct and unique games will become. As hobbyists, we should fight against, speak out against, and reject AI art in our games, especially from established publishers who should know better and have the means to do better.

Gameplay

Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star
Tilt: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star

Pros: It has that addictive, just one more turn presence, lots of cool surprises for existing fans.

Cons: The legacy component of this game is out of place; it’s more a nuisance than a feature.

Writing a gameplay review for a legacy game is a strange challenge because the entire point is that I am not supposed to tell you what happens. It’s a bit like reviewing a detective novel by saying, “The ending is great, trust me,” and hoping everyone simply accepts that.

So I am going to dance around the spoilers as gracefully as I can.

Kingdom Legacy: Exploration focuses, like all of the Kingdom Legacy expansions, on the late stages of your campaign. The core game is all about building your tiny kingdom from a few acres of land. The expansions are where you get to take that creation out for a victory lap and see what else it can become.

I think that is one of Kingdom Legacy’s greatest strengths. That feeling of civilisation building.

By the time you reach Exploration, you’ve already made dozens of unique decisions that shaped your kingdom. You have watched opportunities come and go, suffered through disasters, stumbled into unexpected successes and built something that somehow feels distinctly yours. It’s just a deck of cards, yet it develops a surprising amount of personality.

That is also why Kingdom Legacy is so addictive.

The attachment is not really to the mechanics but to the story that emerges from your choices and micro experiences that feel great in solitude. You want to see what happens next, even if what happens next is another tax collector demanding resources you no longer have.

Exploration gives you exactly that. It hands you another toy box filled with new lands, new scoring opportunities and new cards to weave into your existing kingdom. It’s undeniably fun, and there is plenty to discover.

At the same time, I never felt that the expansion fundamentally refreshed the experience in some meaningful way. Unlike most expansions to games, there wasn’t this “oh wow, ok that changes everything” moment. It was basically the same game with new cards.

By the time your kingdom is fully developed, when you complete the base set, those additional rounds in the expansion feel more like extending a great evening than starting a brand new adventure. I enjoyed every minute of it, but there is an unavoidable sense that you are still playing with the same systems and the same ideas.

The best comparison I can think of is playing Magic: The Gathering with your favourite deck after adding a handful of exciting new cards. The deck is better, you have a few new tricks, and you are happy to keep playing it, but part of you is also looking forward to the next expansion that introduces an entirely new set and shakes everything up so that you can build new decks.

There were also a few moments that genuinely caught me off guard.

Without spoiling anything, Exploration hides several clever little surprises that feel almost like easter eggs for dedicated players. Those moments produced exactly the kind of grin that made me keep turning over cards long after I probably should have gone to bed.

The expansion also introduces some additional resources and gameplay elements. Whether these originated here or appeared in other expansions first, I can’t say, but they were new to me. They add some welcome variety and interesting decisions without dramatically changing the flow of the game.

I realise this entire section has been frustratingly vague, but that is the price of reviewing a legacy game without ruining the experience.

So let me keep the gameplay conclusion simple.

If you enjoyed Kingdom Legacie’s mechanics and addictive just one more turn nature, then Exploration is an easy recommendation. There is a huge amount of content packed into the box, plenty of new ways to develop your kingdom, lots of satisfying scoring combinations and a handful of genuinely delightful surprises waiting to be discovered. It never reinvented the game for me, but it absolutely reminded me why I enjoyed it so much in the first place.

Replayability and Longevity

Score: christmas_starchristmas_star
Tilt: christmas_starchristmas_star

 

Pros: The experience of building up your kingdom is dramatically enhanced by a large library of new cards to explore and add to your kingdom

Cons:  It’s too confined and short; you’ll finish this expansion in a single sitting, and then it’s over forever.

Replayability in a legacy game is always a slightly awkward subject because, technically speaking, there is none.

The game is designed to be played once, experienced once and then retired. It is an engine built with a finite amount of fuel; eventually, the tank runs dry.

Kingdom Legacy: Exploration is essentially an extra fuel tank bolted onto the side of the original game. It extends the journey, gives you more places to visit and more things to discover, but eventually you arrive at the same destination.

There is something genuinely satisfying about the finality of that experience. Picking up a kingdom that you thought was finished, dusting it off and giving it one last adventure feels surprisingly nostalgic. Your little collection of cards has history. You remember why that building is there, why that character survived and why you still refuse to forgive that one event card that nearly ruined everything.

The problem is that while the game’s end is satisfying, it’s not a game end where you’re done with the game forever.

One of the most common comments you will see about Kingdom Legacy is that everyone is trying to figure out how to avoid the legacy component. It’s just a bad fit for this game.

That is perhaps the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of Kingdom Legacy.

When you finish, your immediate reaction is not relief or closure. It is the overwhelming urge to shuffle everything up and play again, because that is what we do with games we love. Replayability is, after all, one of the defining reasons this hobby exists.

Thankfully, Kingdom Legacy offers a very easy way to bend the rules. Sleeve the cards, use removable markers and suddenly the entire legacy experience becomes reusable. It is not difficult to do, and it is absolutely the approach I would recommend to anyone buying the game.

However, I have to judge replayability based on the experience the designers intended, not the one clever players can engineer for themselves.

Viewed through that lens, Kingdom Legacy: Exploration is still a one-time journey. It is an excellent journey, a memorable one and a longer one than before, but once you reach the end of the road, there are no official turns left to take.

You can always get another expansion, though, so there is that.

Conclusion

As a system, as a gameplay mechanic and as an overall experience, I think Kingdom Legacy and Kingdom Legacy: Exploration are fantastic. I have absolutely no hesitation recommending them to anyone who enjoys card games and is looking for a satisfying solo experience.

In particular, if you enjoy engine-building games that capture the feeling of growing a tiny settlement into a thriving civilisation, Kingdom Legacy delivers that experience in abundance. Every new card feels like another chapter in the story of your kingdom, and that sense of progression remains one of the most addictive gameplay loops I have encountered in recent years.

That said, I would be remiss if I did not climb onto my soapbox for a couple of minutes.

The first issue is the legacy component itself.

I have never quite shaken the feeling that Kingdom Legacy does not actually want to be a legacy game. It is almost as if someone designed an excellent solo engine builder and then, somewhere late in development, another person walked into the room and declared, “What if we made players throw it away when they finish?”

Nothing about the underlying design really benefits from being disposable, and unlike most legacy games, Kingdom Legacy is too short to give you that sense of finality and closure when you’re done playing.

In fact, I would argue the opposite. Once you understand the systems and discover the different paths available, the natural instinct is to immediately start another campaign and try something completely different. The game is packed with meaningful choices and interesting combinations that beg to be explored.

That is the mark of a highly replayable game. Yet, by design, replayability is intentionally limited.

Yes, you can sleeve the cards and preserve everything, and I strongly recommend doing exactly that, but I still find the official approach to be an unnecessary restriction on an otherwise brilliant design.

The second issue is the continued use of AI-generated artwork.

I genuinely do not understand why publishers continue to ignore what has become one of the loudest conversations in modern board gaming. Whether you personally love AI art, hate it or fall somewhere in the middle, it is impossible to deny that a majority of the hobby simply does not want it in professionally published games.

Art is one of the cornerstones of board games; it is a thriving place of creativity and imagination, to trade that in for AI slop, which is all you will find in Kingdom Legacy, is a tragedy. This game deserves so much better!

It’s so unfortunate because beneath those visual shortcomings lies one of the most charming solo card games I have played in years. Kingdom Legacy: Exploration expands everything that already works, adds meaningful content and provides several genuinely memorable surprises without losing the addictive engine-building that makes the original so compelling.

FryxGames understands and is perfectly capable of producing great art for their games, as was illustrated in the amazing work done on Fate: Defenders of Grimheim. The use of AI in Kingdom Legacy was a conscious business decision, and FryxGames has been quite open about it, offering its own take and justification for its use. The debate regarding AI in board games is far from settled, though the most likely conclusion is that we will continue to see its use with increasing consistency.

For existing fans the recommendation is incredibly easy.

There is more kingdom here, more discoveries, more clever interactions and more reasons to spend another evening telling yourself, “Just one more turn.”

If, however, you’re protesting this game because it uses AI art, know that I get it; The publisher does as well. In fairness, the official position of the publisher is that it’s too expensive to have that much art in a small, cheap solo card game, and that very well may be the case and logic behind its use. That may even be sufficient justification, a reasonable excuse, but there are plenty of other ways to work around the cost associated with art; people have been printing games without AI art for a very long time. There are other solutions; this is not a new problem.

Board Game Reviews, Collectable Card Game, Hidden Gems

Review: Kingdom Legacy – Feudal Kingdom

When my review copy of Fate: Defenders of Grimheim arrived in the mailbox, the folks over at FryxGames slipped in a little bonus: a low-footprint solo legacy card game from 2024 called Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdom.

Naturally, that caught my attention immediately. Not only is it another Jonathan Fryxelius design (love!), but it’s actually part of a whole series of games. I love a good game series with lots of expansions. There is nothing quite like finding a game you enjoy and then having lots of avenues to explore!

Now, before we go any further, I should disclose something: I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to legacy games.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the legacy games conceptually. But I also have a long-standing beef with one of their core components, which puts me in something of a philosophical quandary.

I adore the sense of discovery: opening secret packs, unlocking new rules, and watching the game evolve over time. That part is fantastic. What I don’t love is the idea of marking up boards and cards, tearing components apart, and ultimately playing through a game once before tossing the whole thing in the trash.

Ever since my experience with My City, which, incidentally, is one of my favorite legacy games to date, I’ve made it something of a personal mission to find ways to “cheat the system” and turn legacy games into replayable ones. In other words, I try to enjoy the legacy experience while quietly circumventing its main gimmick.

So when I opened Kingdom Legacy, the very first thing I did was exactly that: figure out how to bypass the whole “play it once” concept.

The most obvious and easiest way to circumvent the whole one-and-done legacy thing is to sleeve the cards and use a whiteboard pen instead of stickers. That effectively turns this legacy game into a replayable…for the lack of a better word, normal game.

My issue with disposable legacy games is really twofold.

First, if I discover a game I genuinely like, for which Kingdoms definitely qualifies, I’m probably going to want to play it more than once. As I learned with My City, simply buying another copy isn’t always an option. Games go out of print, sell out, or become difficult to find. Discovering a game you love, playing it once, and then being unable to replace it can be a frustrating experience.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, it just feels wrong to throw games away. It’s not really about the money; that part is mostly irrelevant to me. But there’s something inherently wasteful and eco-unfriendly about creating a product that is intentionally designed to become garbage. It’s the equivalent of putting bananas in plastic shrinkwrap. Why people? Why? Is there some kind of race to see how fast we can blow up our planet or something that I don’t know about?

Board games already require a fair amount of material to produce; the entire process is very ecosystem-unfriendly. There’s cardboard, paper, ink, plastic, shipping, the whole production chain has a pretty shitty footprint, especially since most things are made in China. Designing a game specifically to be destroyed after one playthrough feels… a little out of step with the spirit of the 21st century. There is enough crap going into the dump without us creating games with that sole purpose.

Alright, rant over.

The good news is that most legacy games aren’t particularly difficult to adapt if you want to make them replayable. Personally, I suspect the “destroy it as you play” concept is more of a marketing trend than a design necessity, and one that will fade over time.

With that said, let’s talk about Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdoms.

I say that with a slightly raised eyebrow, because reviewing a legacy game is always tricky. A big part of the experience is exploration and discovery, uncovering new rules, cards, and surprises as you progress. Spoiling those elements in a review would unravel that fun, and I don’t want to do that.

So instead of giving away details, I’m going to focus on impressions and sensations. Think of this less as a traditional breakdown and more as a guided glimpse into what the experience feels like, without ruining the surprises.

With that in mind…

Let’s get into it.

Overview

Final Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star (3.15 out 5) Good Game!

I always love it when I come across a game that’s difficult to compare to anything else. That usually means we’re dealing with a genuinely original idea, and Kingdom Legacy fits that description remarkably well.

At its core, it’s a solo card game, which on paper might not sound particularly groundbreaking. But the elegance of the design and the flow of the gameplay elevate it into something truly special.

The premise is simple: you are building a feudal kingdom from what feels like its absolute earliest beginnings, essentially planting a flag in the wilderness, and gradually developing it into a thriving micro-empire.

The game begins with a humble deck of just ten cards. Each round, you draw and play four cards face up, deciding how to use the resources on them and whether to upgrade one before they are all discarded. Then you draw four more and continue until your deck runs out.

These are your starting 10 cards as you open the box, which includes 139 cards. It’s a humble begining but before too long, these empty fields and forests are going to be a thriving feudal empire filled with people, structures, and much more.

Once the deck is empty, you reshuffle and begin a new cycle. But this time things are different. Some of your cards may have been upgraded, and two new cards have been added to your deck from a hidden stack, let’s call it the legacy stack.

And just like that, your kingdom grows.

Throughout the game you’ll also discover additional cards from the main hidden box, steadily expanding your deck and unlocking new possibilities. Each cycle through the deck represents another stage in the growth of your kingdom as you develop buildings, resources, people, and capabilities. The goal of the game is to score points, but there is no victory condition; you are effectively competing against everyone else playing the same game in a sort of ladder, which you can review online.

On the surface, the system is incredibly simple.

But once you start playing, you quickly realize that every decision, every card played, every upgrade chosen, every new discovery, nudges the game in a different direction. And thanks to the many surprises hidden within the legacy box, the experience becomes wonderfully varied and highly decision-driven, and quite personalized. Your experience can and will be quite different each run through.

In fact, the idea that this is a “play it once” legacy game, considering how dynamic things are, struck me as almost absurd after my first session.

I don’t just find playing Kingdom Legacy one time an absurd concept; I find that to be true with all the legacy games I have played. My City is one of my all-time favorites. I have played it through the campaign at least a dozen times. I don’t really understand the appeal of making games that you are supposed to play once and then toss. I love these games!

On the very first day I had the game, I had already completed a second run. By the end of the week, I had played through it four times, and I still wasn’t even close to feeling finished with it. A great sign for the game’s addictive nature, not particularly good as a legacy concept. With legacy games, I want to play them once, be satisfied, and be done with it. For it to feel unfinished, which is almost certainly going to be the case here, as if I’m missing out on something, that is a feel-bad moment.

This is a game that I simply could not put down. It was addictive, surprising, and consistently engaging. Even after multiple playthroughs, I was still discovering new cards and exploring different strategic approaches. I can’t imagine anyone being satisfied playing this game through just once.

Simply put, this game is quite brilliant.

I loved it from the word go, and I’m extremely glad I found a clever way to sidestep the “play it once” limitation (sorry, FryxGames!). If I hadn’t, I might have needed to buy this game ten times just to satisfy my curiosity, and even that might not have been enough.

There are quite a few mini and larger expansions for the game, so plenty to explore is already available for this one.

In fact, I actually think it would have negatively affected this review had I only played it once. The first go felt very unsatisfying. I realized a bunch of things about the game, and I was eager to correct my mistakes. Had I finished with the game at that moment, I think that addictive aspect would have waned into something I did once and moved on, which is what I usually do with games I don’t like.

This is a legacy game that begs to be played again and again. It’s clever, engaging, and endlessly fun. Even now as I write the review, I think I rather be playing it.

Without question, it’s one of the most enjoyable solo gaming experiences I’ve had in quite a while. Really great discovery.

Components

Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star
Tilt: christmas_starchristmas_star

Pros: Good quality cards, far better quality than you would expect for a game you are intended to play through once.  These cards will last.

Cons: It would have taken very little effort to un-legacy this game; it’s an unnecessary gimmick.

Since Kingdom Legacy is essentially a card game, there isn’t a huge amount to say about the components themselves, but what’s here is perfectly solid.

The card quality is more than adequate for the job, in fact, arguably, these cards are as good as any collectable card game you could buy. The artwork maintains a reasonably consistent aesthetic across the deck, and the rulebook is clear and easy to follow.

One particularly nice touch is the inclusion of a QR code that links to a tutorial video. The video is exceptionally well done and walks you through the basics quickly and clearly. After watching it, you’ll be more than ready to start playing.

Fryxgames does bang up job of supporting their games, the tutorial is one of the best I have seen for a game in a really long time. After watching it, you won’t need a rulebook.

There’s also an additional website that provides a card-by-card explanation of the entire deck. It’s almost overkill in terms of support, but it’s certainly appreciated, especially if you run into a card interaction that makes you pause for a moment.

All things considered, it’s a very competent production.

Theme

Score: christmas_starchristmas_star
Tilt: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star

Pros: The flow of time and empire building engine support the feeling of progression.  The card effects and thematic elements of the cards are on point.

Cons:  The use of A.I. art is going to annoy people; this is effectively an A.I. art-generated game; there is nothing original here.

The theme in Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdoms is surprisingly strong for such a small card game. As you progress through the deck, you genuinely get the feeling that time is passing and your tiny outpost is slowly evolving into a functioning kingdom. That steady sense of growth taps directly into the addictive appeal of civilization-building games.

Each new round feels like another step in the development of your realm. You shuffle up, draw your cards, and start experimenting, trying to find clever ways to make your engine run just a little more efficiently. When everything lines up, and your kingdom starts humming along, it’s incredibly satisfying.

The game offers a surprising number of directions you can take your civilization. There are many ways to generate victory points and multiple development paths to pursue. In my experience, the most effective kingdoms tend to become broadly capable across several areas while leaning into one or two specialties.

Over repeated plays, I suspect most players will naturally gravitate toward their own preferred style of kingdom-building.

Even after several playthroughs, it’s difficult to say exactly how far you can push the scoring ceiling, but the important part is that the scoring system feels tightly connected to the theme. You are often faced with the classic “do I advance my engine or do I score points?” dilemma. In most cases, efficient expansion is the path to scoring more points, but eventually, you need to finish projects, which are the main way to get points. Growth and victory are closely intertwined, which reinforces the sense that you’re building a thriving realm rather than simply chasing numbers.

The artwork does a perfectly adequate job of representing the theme, though it’s obvious that all of it was generated using A.I. tools. The styles vary quite a bit, and the level of detail can fluctuate from card to card. The obvious is obvious here.

I’ve been fairly vocal about my position on A.I. art in games, and in short, it doesn’t bother me much. From a practical standpoint, it doesn’t impact gameplay. In a card-heavy game like this, hiring a team of illustrators would dramatically increase production costs, I get it. As it stands, Kingdom Legacy sells for around ten dollars. With fully commissioned artwork, that price could easily triple.

People are quite vocal about A.I. art, to the degree that if a game is discovered to be using it, people will not buy it on principle. While I personally don’t care, it doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of a game; I would not recommend it for professionally published games. A.I. Art is for freeware and print-to-play stuff; it’s for amateurs, not professionals.

Some people feel very strongly about the issue, and that’s fair. Personally, coming from an IT background, I tend to view A.I. as another step in technological evolution, something that will either find its place or fade away over time. Either way, it’s not a battle I feel particularly compelled to fight.

That said, from a purely artistic standpoint, A.I. art does tend to cap the ceiling a bit. At its best, it’s mediocre, but rarely exceptional. And because of that, it does have an impact on the overall presentation of the game.

I think the answer to A.I. art is, if you’re a publisher of professional games, don’t use A.I, period. Find another way.

Gameplay

Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star
Tilt: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star

Pros: Excellent card-building engine, very addictive, hard to put down, big design space to expand into.

Cons: You’re not going to be satisfied playing this as a legacy game once, like most legacy games.

At the heart of Kingdom Legacy is a deceptively simple idea: draw four cards and try to do something clever with them. But as the game unfolds, that simple premise gradually blossoms into a web of interesting decisions and opportunities.

Each round begins with those four cards, which represent the resources, actions, and opportunities available to you at that moment. Your goal is to combine them in ways that allow you to upgrade cards, expand your kingdom, or unlock new elements from the hidden deck.

One of the key decisions each round revolves around the Advance action. The catch is that whenever you upgrade a card, everything else in your hand is immediately discarded. That means a lot of the resources you generate in a turn will often go unused.

However, the Advance action lets you draw two additional cards into your pool. You can repeat this action multiple times if you wish, expanding your options, but the trade-off is that the more cards you draw this way, the fewer you’ll ultimately be able to use efficiently.

This simple decision point ends up driving much of the strategy. Ideally, you want to accomplish upgrades using only the original four cards. The more often you can do that, the more efficient your kingdom-building engine becomes.

When you play your opening hand at the start of the game, it’s not hard to imagine where the game is going. The coins on the top left are resources you have to spend, and the middle right shows you the cost to upgrade the card, which allows you to flip it for the improved version of it. This is kind of the core procedure in the game. The catch is that, regardless of how many resources you have, you can only upgrade 1 card, and then everything is discarded.

Another fascinating aspect of the design is how the card pool is structured. Roughly half of the cards in the game are not part of the standard legacy draw deck. While you might encounter around seventy cards during the normal flow of the game, the rest can only be accessed through specific upgrades or special effects.

In a typical playthrough, you might only acquire a third of those cards. That means if you play the game once and move on, as the traditional legacy format suggests, you’ll never even see a huge portion of the content.

Which is exactly why the “play it once” idea feels a bit absurd here.

There are 139 cards in the deck, but in an average game, you might see around 100 of them. If you played this game only once, you would be effectively throwing out close to 40 cards you never even saw or used. That is so strange to me, I can’t get my head around it.

Even after my sixth playthrough, I was still discovering cards I had never seen before.

On top of that, each card has four possible upgrade levels, and they’re not always linear. Some upgrades branch left or right, forcing you to choose between different development paths. Because of this branching structure, it’s practically impossible to see every upgrade chain in a single game.

This is why I described the game earlier as a kind of card-based crack. Once you start discovering new cards and exploring different upgrade paths, it becomes very hard to stop. I ended up playing 3-4 hours at a time.

Another important element of the game is the appearance of enemy cards in your deck. Without spoiling anything, these cards represent threats to your kingdom and can seriously hinder your development if left unresolved. Having a plan on how to deal with them is crucial to success.

The good news is that there are often multiple ways to deal with them. The game rarely forces you into a single solution. Instead, you’re constantly weighing different approaches and considering which path will serve your long-term strategy best.

And that’s really the beauty of the design. Very rarely are you staring at only one or two possible actions. Most turns involve several viable choices, each with its own risks and rewards.

For me, this is exactly what I want from a solo game: something thoughtful, puzzle-like, challenging, and highly replayable. Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdoms absolutely nails that formula.

There is one minor issue worth mentioning, though it’s more of a physical component quirk than a gameplay problem.

The orientation of cards in your deck actually matters. As a result, when shuffling, you have to be careful to keep every card facing the same direction. Inevitably, at some point during play, you’ll drop a few cards, or perhaps the entire deck, and when that happens, it can be difficult to remember which way everything was facing.

Late in the game, especially, that can be a bit of a headache.

It’s not a major problem, but it does mean you’ll want to shuffle carefully and treat your deck with a little respect.

That small quirk aside, from a gameplay standpoint, Feudal Kingdoms is superbly designed.

Replayability and Longevity

Score: christmas_starchristmas_star
Tilt: christmas_star

Pros: If you circumvent the legacy gimmick, this game is highly replayable with lots of expansions you can get into.

Cons: Like all legacy games, replayability is technically not a thing at all.

Feudal Kingdoms is an addictive game for all the classic reasons that empire-building games tend to be addictive. There’s that familiar “one more turn” feeling, the excitement of resetting and trying a different approach, and the satisfying sense of time passing as your tiny settlement slowly grows into something resembling a proper kingdom. All of that works together to make the game very easy to play repeatedly.

That said, this is a legacy game. If you strictly follow the intended “play it once and retire the game” philosophy, then the replayability score is effectively zero.

So this puts me in a bit of an awkward position when it comes to scoring replayability in the review.

If you approach the game the way I do, finding a way to keep everything reusable so you can play it multiple times, then the replayability is outstanding. Under that approach, I would easily rate it 5 out of 5 stars.

If, however, you follow the traditional legacy model and treat the game as a one-and-done experience, then what you really have is a 5–6 hour campaign. After that, the game has essentially completed its life cycle. Under that interpretation, the replayability score drops dramatically, probably to a 0 or 1 at best.

Even then, it’s worth noting that the value proposition is still pretty good. It’s honestly hard to think of many ways to entertain yourself for five or six hours for around ten bucks. So it would feel a little unfair to judge it too harshly purely on that basis.

In the end, I decided to split the difference. I scored it a 2, but applied a tilt of 1 so that the overall review isn’t overly penalized by a design choice that is, in many ways, inherent to the legacy format itself.

Conclusion

Whether you buy into the legacy model or not, for 10 bucks, this game is an absolute steal. I have already gotten more enjoyment out of it than most of the 40-50 dollar games on my shelf; it’s a fantastic value and an awesome night’s entertainment.

I do, however, think that circumventing the legacy thing is something you will want to do so that you can enjoy this game over and over again, and I do think most people will want to. It’s a great game, and it deserves repeated plays.

High recommendation from me, especially if you like empire-building games and don’t have any sort of affliction about playing a solo game. For me personally, it triggered an almost immediate response to buy up all of the other expansions for this game series, of which there are several.

Great game, great time

Collectable Card Game

Star Wars Destiny vs. Star Wars Unlimited – The Battle of Star Wars CCG’s

I get a lot of questions from readers. Some are wild, some are insightful, and some are just thinly veiled excuses to argue about dice rolls. But none show up in my inbox more often than this one:

“Which is better, Star Wars: Destiny or Star Wars: Unlimited?”

Honestly, it’s such a common question that I feel like Obi-Wan being asked for the millionth time if the Force can help you win at sabacc. So fine. Today, we settle this. Lightsabers down, cards up, let’s talk Destiny vs. Unlimited.

Now, if we’re going strictly by canon, this fight is already over. Destiny was discontinued back in January 2020 with its swan song set, Covert Missions. Unlimited, on the other hand, is still very much alive, kicking, and racking up wins like a young Luke Skywalker.

I was sad to see Destiny get discontinued, but I was not terribly surprised by it. The game had a lot of business issues related to supply, and it was way too expensive.

But here’s the thing: every CCG veteran knows that just because something is “out of print” doesn’t mean it’s “out of the fight.” If history has taught us anything (besides never betting against Han in a tight spot), it’s that the old guard sometimes outshines the flashy new kid on the block.

Case in point: Legend of the Five Rings. The AEG original ran for a glorious twenty years, shaping stories, tournaments, and countless arguments about clan honor. The Fantasy Flight reboot barely limped to four years before being retired. By any metric, the classic run was the true Shogun of Rokugan.

Legend of the Five Rings was a complex and deep CCG with a dedicated following, an awesome community, and a very long history. I loved this game; one of my biggest regrets in life was selling off my collection many moons ago. What a fool I am!

But I digress. We’re not here to talk samurai, we’re here for blasters and dice. So let’s buckle in and jump to lightspeed: it’s Destiny vs. Unlimited, once and for all.

What Makes A CCG “good”

Before we can really pit these two games against each other, let’s get our bearings and talk about what actually makes a good CCG. I mean, sure, flashy art and cool tokens are nice, but if that’s all it took, every holochess set on the Millennium Falcon would be tournament-ready. In my book, there are three pillars that matter most.

First: the mechanics have to be balanced. No single meta should be the Death Star of the game, capable of blowing up entire tournaments just by existing. Winning and losing needs to happen on the battlefield (or playmat), not in the deckbuilding phase where whoever owns the shiniest, rarest card automatically wins.

Second: theme matters, a lot. Especially when we’re talking about a galaxy far, far away. If Jar Jar Binks somehow outmuscles Darth Vader in combat, then we’ve veered straight into “special edition” nonsense. A good CCG should feel like the universe it’s set in, so that both fans and players are immersed in the same story.

Third, and maybe most important: publisher support. Sets need to release on a steady cadence, playtesting has to be tighter than a stormtrooper’s helmet, and the collectible element has to actually feel… collectible. Publishers can’t be afraid to step in with bans, errata, or even mid-course corrections when something breaks the game. And when they do mess up (because they will mess up), they’ve got to fix it faster than the Millennium Falcon making the Kessel Run.

Now, sure, there are other things that make a great CCG, but without these three, the whole enterprise collapses. Get these wrong, and no amount of flashy marketing or movie tie-ins will save you.

Alright, let’s talk Destiny for a minute.

Back in April 2018, I wrote a review for Star Wars Destiny where I boldly proclaimed:

“The robust nature of CCGs combined with FFG’s commitment to the product means this game likely has a long and bright future ahead of it.”

Yeah… about that. Let’s just say that prediction aged about as well as Anakin’s relationship with sand.

The truth is, Destiny never really hit hyperspace on any of the three pillars that make a CCG thrive.

Balance – The game looked balanced at first, but cracks started showing up after the first set. These balance issues piled up, whole metas dominated by a handful of characters or combos by the 3rd set. By the end, they would have had to ban entire card types to straighten out the game. It was quite broken in the end.

Theme – They nailed the Star Wars feel, no argument there. Rolling those chunky dice and throwing Darth Vader into the fray felt amazing. But mechanically, a lot of cards just did variations of the same thing, and after the initial hype, the design space started to feel cramped. It was like being promised a galaxy of possibilities and then realizing most of the planets were just Tatooine with a different filter. By the 3rd set, you had dozens of cards that all did things so similar they were practically the same card, and the costs of cards could vary drastically, and rarely did any of it make thematic sense.

Publisher support – FFG wanted to back Destiny; you could sense that they thought they had a big winner on their hands, but the Force wasn’t with them on logistics. Supply shortages, constant delays, and radio silence for excessively long periods meant the community spent more hours speculating on forums than actually playing. By the time new sets arrived, the hype had often fizzled.

Here’s the thing: when Awakenings dropped, Destiny felt incredible. It had that fresh, lightsaber-sharp energy, and it was easy to see why so many of us believed it had a long future. But by the second and third sets, the cracks had become death-star-sized.

The final set of Destiny illustrates one of the key problems of the game: an inflexible design space. They ran out of ideas way too soon, and the games different sets became quite indistinguishable from each other. For the most part, they started to feel very repetitive.

And just to twist the vibroblade a little deeper, Destiny was stupidly expensive. Even by CCG standards, it was pretty ridiculous with a tough entry point for new players. If you wanted to be competitive, your wallet felt it. Big time.

Don’t get me wrong: I still love Destiny despite it all. I’ll happily crack it out for a casual game, and it’ll always have a special spot in my collection. It really is a one of a kind, a true diamond with rough edges.

As a long-term product, I don’t think there was much hope. This game pulled a Boba Fett, awesome in its debut, but swallowed by the Sarlacc pit way too soon.

Star Wars Unlimited

Star Wars: Unlimited landed in March 2024 with all the pomp and circumstance of a new Imperial Star Destroyer sliding out of drydock. The hype was real, the launch was smooth, and yes, it came from the same publisher that once gave us Destiny. Déjà vu, anyone?

But here’s the difference: Unlimited actually nailed the three pillars of CCG success. No gimmicky dice, no fiddly side mechanics, just a straight-up, classic collectible card game. FFG followed a tried-and-true model like they had a copy of The Jedi Path propped open on the table.

The result is a well-balanced, well-supported game that wears the Star Wars theme like a perfectly tailored robe. Every detail feels polished, every release has hit its mark, and the game hums along with the confidence of a Jedi Master. By all practical measures, Unlimited is CCG perfection.

Star Wars Unlimited knows its audience. If you are going to launch a starter set for a Star Wars Game, your opening play is a duel between the two most famous characters in the setting. This was a fantastic starter set, even if you don’t plan to collect Unlimited, its worth getting. It’s that good!

And yet… here’s where the holocron cracks. For all its precision, Unlimited doesn’t really have that wild spark of uniqueness that sets it apart in any way. There are no dice rolling across the table, no risky design choices, no “wow” factor that makes you stop and say, THIS is what makes this game special. Instead, it feels like Magic: The Gathering, just dressed in Star Wars robes.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastic design. I enjoy it, I collect it, and I’ll happily sit down for a game when the opportunity arises. But I don’t wake up at night plotting new deck builds like I did with Destiny or find myself agonizing over deck-building problems like in Lord of the Rings LCG. Unlimited is a reliable, polished, and thoroughly fun game, but it doesn’t break the mold in any way; in fact, it’s using the most traditional CCG mold there is.

Destinity vs. Unlimited

Alright, the cards are on the table, the dice have been rolled, and the time has come to declare a winner.

And the winner is… Star Wars: Destiny!

Now, hear me out. The logic is simple: if I’m reaching for a game right now, between these two, Destiny is the one I grab.

It’s flawed, no one’s denying that. But it’s also unique, risky, and downright fun. Destiny brought something to the table that no other CCG did: dice. Rolling those chunky, shiny dice, seeing what the Force decides… it’s unpredictable, it’s exciting, and it’s exactly the kind of chaos a Star Wars game should embrace.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Unlimited. It’s polished, dependable, and a joy to play. This isn’t a duel to the death between two CCGs, I’ve got at least a dozen on my shelf, and there’s room in this galaxy for all of them.

When I reach for a CCG, I want something special. Something that separates it from the cookie-cutter card games that populate the universe. Destiny has that spark, Unlimited I don’t thing does. There have been plenty of games like Unlimited, but there’s never been anything like Star Wars Destiny before, and there hasn’t been anything like it since. One of a kind. Risky. A little chaotic. That’s why, in my book, Destiny still rules the galaxy.

Best of List

Top 10 Collectable Card Games Of All Time

In the early 80’s there were three games that really defined what would become the tabletop gaming hobby. Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer 40k, and Magic The Gathering. Magic The Gathering of course is the grandaddy of collectible card games but fast forward over 40 years later and CCG’s have become a sub-hobby all on their own.

I don’t talk about CCG’s very often but in the last decade, CCG’s have gone through something of a renaissance and with each new CCG that has come out, the genre is making leaps and bounds for the better.

In today’s list, I will pick my top 10 collectible card games from the awesome past to the wonderful present. Enjoy the list!

10. Legend Of The Five Rings (1st edition)

Legend of the Five Rings 1st edition by Alderace Entertainment falls into what I like to call the “Hardcore CCGs” category from the 90’s . This was a fairly robust game from a robust gaming era that was very heavy on the theme and backstory and for fans out there, it wasn’t just a card game but much like other early CCG’s like Magic The Gathering, Legend of the Five Rings was a lifestyle game.

I think what separated LotFR from other LCG’s was that it was part of a multifaceted franchise that covered gaming as part of a spectrum. You had Legend of the Five Rings RPG which in the 90’s was competing against heavy hitters like D&D and Vampire The Masquerade. You also had a miniature game line called Clan War which competed against the Gameswork shop heavy hitters like Warhammer Fantasy. Finally, you had a huge library of novels dedicated to the story of this amazing game world, books which when released coincided with card set releases so that when you read a book about a certain part of the history of the game, you then got to play it out in the card game.

Unfortunately despite very modest economic success, Legend of the Five Rings in all its forms was never terribly popular and never reached anything beyond its extremely niche audience.

Fantasy Flight Games picked up the rights to the Legend of the Five Rings and revised the game in a second edition, but this too saw only minimal success and ultimately faded out of existence rather quickly.

This game was made for fans and it catered very heavily to this niche audience. In my humble opinion, this is one of the all-time classics that rightfully deserves to be on this list even if it’s at the tail end. It is an amazingly rich and complex game with tons of great lore to support it and without question, some of the best art ever put on a gaming card. Awesome, albeit retired CCG.

9. Magic The Gathering

I was hesitant to put this one on the list at all because I could file a 500-page novel worth of complaints about it, its design, the company that runs it, and the endless stream of bullshit that makes this a game I have no desire to play at all.

Still, there was a time when I lived and breathed magic and it wasn’t a short time, most of the 90’s by my estimation. Like other games from the 90’s Magic The Gathering was a lifestyle game and equally as all games in the 90’s, it was mostly broken as fuck!

Yet, Magic The Gathering endures and by all accounts it’s still one of the most popular CCG’s on the market today and this has been so since its inception. No CCG ever has nor likely will come even within a light year of the success Magic The Gathering has seen. Magic The Gathering sells more cards in a year than all other CCG’s combined sell in a decade. In a word, there is no such thing as “competition” when it comes to market share, Magic The Gathering rules undisputed.

How? Why? It’s a good question. Mechanically Magic The Gathering has a lot of design flaws that would never be put into a game today. It’s a game where you can build a legal tournament deck in which you can win a match before your opponent ever gets a turn to play. You can build decks that spawn an infinite number of monsters, or do an infinite amount of damage. The amount of stupid shit in this game is endless but I think the reason people like it and perhaps rightfully so is not despite these things but because of them.

There is something uniquely clever to a game that has so much depth and interaction, that if you study it long and hard, you can completely unravel it.

I crap on it, but it is the granddaddy of CCG’s and this list would be incomplete if I did not put it on the list so here it is, but frankly, I can think of a 100 CCG’s I rather play than Magic The Gathering. It does however have its charm, I can’t deny that of all the games on this list, I have played Magic The Gathering the most and so its place in CCG history and this list is secured.

8. Vampire Eternal Struggle

Vampire Eternal Struggle is to me, everything you think you want to have in a great CCG, which results in an overcooked game to a point where the game is nearly unplayable. Its a effectively a game that appears to be designed by Vampire The Masquerade fans that kind of don’t know what they are doing, but fully understand what a Vampire The Masquerade CCG should feel like, if that makes any sense. This was not all that unusual for a card game in the 90’s, making stupidly complex card games was kind of a thing back then, but even so far as complex CCG’s go, Vampire Eternal Struggle stretched the definition.

This was a game that could take upwards of 3-4+ hours to finish a single match, there was a ridiculous amount of rules weight and card interaction and in a lot of ways it mimicked the obscene level of detail that was customary in The Vampire The Masquerade RPG.

As overcooked as it was, however, there was true magic in the way the game executed because it did what White-Wolf RPGs were famous for which was to tell an amazing story. This was a game that even though I haven’t played it for 20 years, I still remember specific matches I had. All-nighters where me and a couple of friends effectively created our own little micro-universe for an evening in the world of darkness.

It was a unique game in a couple of ways. First and foremost it was best played in multiplayer, rather than head-to-head which separated it from most of the CCG’s out there that had modes for multiplayer but weren’t designed for it. The second thing was that you had this amazing world of darkness behind it, a setting so fleshed out and so recognizable to fans that each card had impact and meaning that went well beyond anything you would expect to be able to put into a card. Above all else, however, it was a brutish and harsh – take that – kind of a game, with ruthless mechanics that brought a lot of emotion and player interaction that went well beyond the mechanics of the game, much like the RPG on which it’s based.

This was a fantastic CCG and recently the game was revised and reprinted so it is still very much available today for people to explore. I would caution however that this is a game made for Vampire The Masquerade fans, by Vampire The Masquerade fans. If you don’t know what that is and why it’s awesome, this game is definitly not for you, if you do, you probobly already know about this game and don’t need me to tell you how awesome it is.

7. Arkham Horror LCG

Arkham Horror the card game was released by Fantasy Flight Games in 2016 during a period when FFG was producing CCG’s under the Living Card Game strategy where rather than having random booster packs, you would have pre-constructed expansions. It was also not a competitive card game but rather a cooperative card game in which players would effectively go around a dynamically constructed game board based on a location and solve mysterious while fighting monsters using decks they built.

I own and love this game, I actually think it’s pretty fantastic but generally speaking I also think it has one major flaw which is that it’s a cooperative game where once you complete a “quest”, it’s a bit like a legacy game where a lot of the hype and excitement disappears and the game starts feeling like your watching a scrooby-doo re-runs.

The format just lacks sustainability and while I still love picking this game up every long once in a while and playing a few rounds, it lacks freshness unless you are constantly buying the latest expansions. I did that for a while until I realized that I would effectively play each expansion once and then never go back to it because I knew the story, I knew the mystery, I had figured it all out.

It’s a very fun game mechanically but it almost feels like it would have done a lot better if the “quest” creation was turned over to the community and the game was a digital card game rather than a physical one. If you had an endless stream of new challenges that you could play on a daily or weekly basis, I think the game would have a lot more longevity.

Needless to say, even with this one flaw, I think this is a brilliant game and deserves to be on this list.

6. Warhammer 40k Conquest

I have to admit I only played this game a few times and never actually bought into it and there is good reason for it, but still the few times I played it, it made a big impact on me and I always think of it whenever the subject of CCG’s comes up. Like Arkham Horror this was one of many Fantasy Flights LCG’s (Living Card Games), but it was a 2 player competitive game. I think this is one of the most underrated competitive card games out there today.

The theme and franchise appreciation here is important as the card game and the cards themselves capture the Warhammer 40k universe perfectly but what I think really made this game stand out is that the interaction and speed of play was balanced perfectly. It’s a tight game where players are making impactful decisions with each card play and games are almost always definined by decision rather than deck or card draw, it really is a game of pure strategy and I think that is actually kind of rare in card games. Most CCG’s are defined by deck building as much as strategy but this one is one of those games where what deck you played mattered considerably less than what you do with it at the table.

Above and beyond that however I think the asymetrical factions really shine here, each faction had its own thing going on and FFG made sure every faction of the 40k universe was covered before the game went end of life so its a self contained and very complete feeling card game set. The fact that it went out of print and is no longer supported doesn’t matter and thankfully they printed so much of this game its actually quite easy and cheap to get a hold of a complete collection.

Really fun game, I think this is still well worth getting today even if its out of print. Just a very good, self contained, head to head experience built around an awesome franchise and a great theme. A game made for 40k fans.

The only reason I have personally never bought into is that in my gaming group, at the time, we had a lot of stuff going on gaming wise and it was a rare situation where economically I had to make some tough calls. I regret that, I wished I owned the entire set and plan to some day soon purchase it for my collection.

5. Star Wars Destiny

Heading into the top 5 on my list, it would be criminal to exclude Star Wars Destiny, without question one of the best Star Wars franchise CCG’s ever produced. It suffered from a rather poor business model and went extinct rather quickly, which was a real bummer, but it remains in my collection and I’m to this day always ready to pull it out and play.

This CCG is quite unique in that it uses dice as part of the card play mechanic and it also makes use of a very tight deck which makes deck building a really light element of the game which is great for beginners. That said, I actually think the nuance of this game is difficult to grasp and many veteran card players felt the luck element of this built in dice mechanic made it a less competitive experience. That might or might not have been true, but to me, competitive is not a reason to or not to play a game, I think as long as the game is fun, that is all the juice it needs. Destinty was certainly that.

I think Fantasy Flight Games should have stuck to their LCG model for this game because one of the things that really killed this game is the fact that you often needed 2-3 cards (with coinciding dice) in order to make a certain card playable, this was especially true about heroe’s so what you ended up with is a lot of cards and dice that you really couldn’t put in a deck and remain reasonably balanced for the general power level of the game. This mixed in with the fact that most of the hero/villain cards where uncommon and rares, made collecting the right cards a pain in the ass and more a frustrating than fun experience.

In the end FFG also had a lot of trouble balancing this game and their were quite a few broken and OP cards as well as a lot of junk cards you would never use for any reason. I’m not sure if the issue was with a lack of testing or what but at the end of the day the game did have a few issues.

Nonetheless, I consider this one of the all-time great CCG’s, just a super fun, tight little game that was very approachable albeit probably one of the most expensive to collect, in particular if you were going for competitive play. These days you can still find it in bargain bins and I say it’s still well worth getting a collection going.

4. Android Netrunner

Netrunner is a unique entry on this list for two reasons. First, it’s the only game on the list that is truly asymmetrical, yet managed to be a well-balanced competitive one on one CCG. I can’t think of any card game in the history of card games that does this, it’s a white elephant in this regard. Secondly, this is the only game in the history of card games that I can think of that died at what I would consider to be the height of its success. Quite literally this game got better and better with each expansion and when it was cancelled they had released what I would consider to be the best expansion ever released for the game. How and why it was discontinued is just a complete mystery to me.

The wonderful thing about Android Netrunner was that it was one of those rare cases in which deck building, while important, was not the defining factor for victory. How you used your cards, how you approached each match and your knowledge of the game had far more impact than the strength of your deck. More importantly, it was about the fairest playing field in a CCG ever put out mainly because, like most Fantasy Flight Games of this era, it was a living card game so everyone was building decks from the same set.

I played this game exclusively with the same opponent for several years online using tabletop simulator so I never actually purchased a single card, but I consider those games to be among the card gaming experiences I ever had.

This is an auto-buy in my book, one of the best card games ever made with some of the best card art ever printed.

3. Game of Thrones The Card Game (2nd Edition)

We are now reaching what I consider to be the creme de la creme of card games. Game of Thrones the card game is without a doubt the king of multiplayer games, one that captures its theme with perfection both mechanically and visually.

I love this game, but like many CCG’s I’m a dabbler rather than a committer, but this is more a result of economic self-preservation than anything else. There are many collectible games out there, I buy into and pay obscene prices for many of them, and at the end of the day you have to make some hard choices, one can’t expect to be able to buy into everything.

That said I have friends who went ape shit and we have more than enough cards in the gaming group for us to have an occasional crack at this one and I consider any such opportunity an absolute pleasure.

This is a fantastic CCG that captures the momentum of the Song of Ice and Fire story, ensuring that characters are at the heart of the game, with thematic powers that result in play resolutions that truly tells a Game of Thrones story.

Of all the games I recommend on this list, this one comes without caveats, even if you are not a Game of Thrones fan, this is such a great card game that even without the appreciation of the theme, this is a great design. Good games like this come along only once in a while and they are not to be missed, this is an auto-buy in my opinion for card lovers.

2. Star Wars Unlimited

Star Wars Unlimited dropped like Thor’s hammer into the CCG scene, stealing the show and proving that there is plenty of fresh ideas and new life left to bring to the genre. This is without question my new love. I never thought anything quite as good as Star Wars Destiny would ever come around again and bring Star Wars to the CCG table top, but I was wrong, Star Wars Unlimited is perfection personified.

As of this writing, only the initial core set for the game has been launched with the first expansion only 24 hours away as of this writing, so it’s hard to predict the game’s future. That said, the first release was absolutely perfect blend of deck building, competitive play and precision design. This game is so good and I know I’m not the only one who thinks so because it is absolutely impossible to purchase unless you pre-order and anything that is in stock in seconds after it drops. It’s that good.

I will never proclaim a Magic The Gathering killer, because I don’t think any such thing will ever come along, but Star Wars Unlimited is objectively a superior game to Magic The Gathering in every measurable way, yet has the same addictive deck-building quality and card interaction that made MTG such a landmark game.

I don’t care who you are if you are not playing Star Wars Unlimited, you are missing out on the single best competitive CCG ever made by a massive margin, there is absolutely nothing in the same league with this game. It’s a modern masterpiece.

1. Lord of the Rings The Living Card Game

I will be the first to admit that Lord of the Rings The Living Card Game is a personal taste thing more than a perfectly designed game. This is my number-one choice, not THE number-one game. That honor goes to Star Wars Unlimited. Still, with that said, I love this game above all others for a single, indisputable reason and that is that it captures Middle Earth with such perfection, such epic scale and so much thematic joy through its gameplay and art that I honestly could not bare to ever put any CCG above this one. It’s not just the perfect CCG, its a perfect game.

Like most Fantasy Flight Games, this is a game from the Living Card Era which I think is perfect for a cooperative deck-building game. For me the reason I love this game so much is that it’s every bit as good playing solo as it is playing in a group. Its perfect with experience CCG players and complete newbies who have never played a card game before. Its scalable with quests that take 15 minutes to epic sagas that take weeks to complete. It has deep, strategic deck-building elements or can be used with default theme decks. In a word, every conceivable gaming situation you have, it has you covered.

Love this game, there is nothing in the world of tabletop gaming I can recommend more than Lord of the Rings the Living Card Game. It’s perfect.

    Board Game Reviews, Gaming Articles

    Lord of the Rings: LCG revisited

    Lord of the Rings the Living Card game turned 10 years old not too long ago and as part of that celebration we not only got a new revised edition of the game, but a sort of guarantee that the game will continue to remain in print.

    Now so far as Living Card Games go, that makes Lord of the Ring LCG, quite unique, currently one of the oldest of its kind at the moment still in print.

    As a super fan of this game with a nearly complete collection barring all the nightmare stuff in which I never found much appeal, this is kind of a big deal. I thought I would throw a few words down for those of you out there considering getting into this one, let’s call it a do’s and don’t list with some pitfalls and suggestions that I can offer.

    1st Edition vs. Revised Edition

    Just a quick note here because this question comes up all the time. Is there a difference between these two editions? The answer is no, they are exactly, word for word, card for card, the same game. It is just a second printing of the same game and while the core sets have different quantities of card, the Revised Core Set has been revised to have sufficient cards for 4 players, they are for all intense and purposes the same game.

    As a rule, you don’t need more than 3 copies of any card as this is all that is legal to put into a deck, but of course, many players support more than their own decks, as such, it’s nice to have more copies of certain key cards. If you already have an original core set, you might still consider getting the new Revised Core Set anyway just for this reason.

    Buyers Guide For Newbies

    Core Set

    If you are fresh and own nothing, the obvious first thing to do is to purchase a core set. Now it’s still possible to get the old core set, but I would advise against it and recommend getting the new revised core set.

    The primary reason for this is that the original core set left a lot to be desired when it came to the card list. Many “staple” cards, meaning, cards you will often put into decks don’t come in sets of three in the original core set and this means when you are trying to optimize your deck you often can’t get exactly what you want.

    The new revised core set sticks to the minimum 3 cards per card type and it gives you a lot of extras of the more commonly used cards like Gandalf (x8) and Dark Knowledge for example.

    The revised core set also comes with the Campaign Mode cards which is the only new thing in the revised edition of the game which really enhances play. It effectively lets you run campaign mode as you do with the Saga sets, but for the core set adventures. It also has sufficient components for 4 players which might not matter to you but with the original core set you barely have enough for two players while the revised set gives you more than enough for 4 players.

    In a word, it’s just a better core set. Back in the day most people resolved card shortages in the core set by buying two of them, but with this new revised core set you don’t have to do that.

    Initial Expansions

    I think most players want to get a good start with their collections and there is a notion that you should start at the begining with the 1st cycle but the reality is that the first 3 full cycles of this game were only so-so and in some cases actually quite bad.

    This is evidenced by the fact that when FFG started with re-releases (repackaging) of the original game cycles they started with Angmar Awakened and Dream Chaser cycles. This is because the first three cycles (Shadows of Mirkwood, Dwarrowdelf & Against The Shadows) left a lot to be desired.

    Older sets like Heirs of Numenor were extremely difficult to the point of not being fun, but as you become really good at the game, some of these old challenges can actually be fun to go back on. I wouldn’t discourage their collecting, but its good to know what your getting into.

    So far as adventures (quests) go, Shadows of Mirkwood is without a doubt the weakest cycle in the game, rather boring to be honest and I would argue can be skipped entirely. Dwarrowdelf is just ok at best and Against The Shadows is horrifically unbalanced, hard to the point of not being fun. Now all these cycles have great player cards and that is reason enough to collect them at some point but the really good (fun) adventure sets start with the Ring Maker cycle and just get better and better with each release afterward and the player cards in the cycles that followed are also a lot more interesting, allowing for far more diverse player deck building possibilities.

    I would also avoid buying under the old format (packaging). It has been rather frustrating to try to collect (and complete) each cycle buying the individual packs, in fact even today I have a couple of cycles where I’m missing a pack and can’t it track down. When I say frustrating, I mean it, it annoys me to no end.

    The new format allows you to buy the player cards and adventures separately and when you do buy the adventure pack, you get the entire cycle in one go. It’s more expensive than any single pack, but altogether the price is about the same. Player & adventure expansion together is about $115, and buying the separate cycles is about $120, so same stuff, slightly cheaper and with considerably less hassle trying to collect everything.

    The fact that they started the repacked cycles with Angmar Awakened and now Dream-chaser is just icing on the cake as these are the first two I would advise you to pick up either way. These adventures (quests) are both fantastic throughout, and the player cards and heroes they come with are far more diverse and interesting than anything you get prior.

    Sets like Dream Chaser introduce entirely new sub-mechanics to the game that offer new challenges and call for completely unique ways to build decks. This expansion really shows off the diversity of this game and are really great investments.

    I would honestly not try to go back and collect the first three cycles at all unless you can find complete sets in one go and in either case, I would not bother with the first cycle (Shadows of Mirkwood) at all. You can just skip that one, it really was not very good at all and is regarded in the community as the most skippable cycle in the collection.

    The Saga Sets

    After picking up the two repackaged sets that are available now, you might have your eye on the Saga set. Originally this was broken down into 6 boxes for the Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers and Return of the King story and two sets for the Hobbit.

    In the repackage they are being released in 3 sets covering each book. The price and content is the same, but as of this writing Return of the King is not yet available or even announced, though you can count on it being released sometime in the future while the original releases are still quite readily available.

    The Saga expansions are I think, an intrical part of the Lord of the Rings LCG experience, but I would not rush to it. It’s sort of like the end game content, which, if attempted too early, can be quite frustrating, but if done when your ready is pure magic.

    The saga’s are really great, they use the campaign format which used to be unique to the Saga sets, but is now available with all of the repacked sets including the revised core sets. It allows for a sort of leveling up of characters and deck improvements as you go through and given the difficulty of the Saga sets, this is actually quite crucial to success.

    While these are all fantastic sets, the difficulty of the Saga sets is quite high, in particular when trying to complete the entire Saga in campaign mode. I would only caution getting the Saga sets last simply to avoid having it and being frustrated because you don’t have the card pool needed to successfully complete them.

    When I say hard, I mean, super hard. You WILL need a pretty wide collection to complete the Saga set with constant deck adjustments and frankly, without some homebrew rules adaptations I don’t think it’s very solo-able, this is definitely at least a two-player (or double-fisting – 1 player playing two hands). I would argue however this is best with 3-4 players for that epic feel.

    I would consider these must have’s for your collection, they are quite fantastic and in a sense really are what the game is about. You want to do the lord of the rings core story and while all of the adventure sets have fun narratives, the nostalgic visit to the original story in card form can’t be beat.

    Do’s & Don’ts

    Over the years of collecting and playing this game, there are quite a few things I have learned that will do wonders for your experience and your wallet.

    Do’s

    Always and I mean always with the exception of the core sets, look into the 3rd party market when tracking down cycles/sets. You can find used stuff dirt cheap and often buy a complete collection of a cycle in one fell swoop which even if you have to shell out a few nickles is going to be better than fussing about trying to find a single missing pack.

    More importantly, you can often find stuff not available through retail for the game as many adventure packs have been released under the “limited release” tag as part of convention events which you are definitely going to want.

    Your collection will grow over time and there is quite a bit to collect, but buying this game at full retail is not only expensive but rarely an option as any given cycle is rarely ever available at the same time. In the 3rd party market its quite easy to find complete sets and in my mind this is the best way to collect.
    Do’s

    Do pimp out your game. There are lots of really amazing accessories for LotR LCG and they are well worth it. Most notably a good playmat and a good storage solution are quite important. I would also recommend sleeving your decks but not doing so for the rest of your collection as there is a lot of shuffling and handling of cards in this (duh) card game.

    Don’ts

    Don’t ever pay full retail for anything, even recently released sets. You can always find discounted stuff if your patient and it can make a huge difference. For example, the Revised core set retails at 70 bucks, but if you sniff around a bit, you can pick it up for 10-20% discount on that price. In fact, I don’t recall ever paying full price for anything for this game, you can always find discounts.

    Don’ts

    Don’t buy the limited edition collectors edition or the online version of this game. It’s the worst deal in Lord of the Rings and people have been trying to make it sound special and expensive, when the reality is that all you get is a shitty mat, a poorly produced MP3 soundtrack that is freely available, a crappy plastic ring, some poorly produced art prints and a two-player limited edition of the game that has less stuff in it than the core set.

    This was a raw deal and mostly a money grabbed designed to promote the digital version of the game which quite literarly had absolutetly nothing to do with the paper version. These are two entirely different games, in fact the LCG has more in common with Arkham Horror LCG and Marvel Champions than it does with the digital version. Avoid it like the plague.

    More to the point though is that the digital version of LotR LCG is a completely different game, than the paper version. These two games have only the name of the game in common and the entire production of the digital game is just a massive cash grab for what really is one of the shittiest CCG’s anyone ever scraped together. It’s a hard pass.

    Don’t

    Don’t bother with the nightmare decks. Generally speaking, they don’t really add much to the game and even if you find that you have become so good at the game that you need more challenge there are many free game variants for increased difficulty available that are far more interesting than the nightmare decks.

    I’m not saying these are bad, just saying they are not worth it.

    You don’t get any new content with the nightmare decks, all it is-is the same cards you already have with slightly higher stats on monsters for the most part. They are not worth the 5-7 bucks you will pay for each one.

    Don’t

    Don’t bother with the Starter Decks. You are eventually going to collect all of the cards anyway and for 22 bucks for 1 starter deck which is half of the cost of a repackaged expansion player box, it’s about the most expensive way to get these cards you can find. What’s worse, there are repeated cards in these and you don’t always get 3 sets of each card so you end up with an incomplete collection even if you get them all. Worst still is that you are going to collect all the sets most likely anyway so you end up with duplicates of stuff you don’t need. There are no unique cards in these sets, all cards are released in other sets.

    If you are just dabbling into the LCG, this can be a great way to get some great cards right out of the gate, but if you plan to collect, this is the most expensive and inefficient way to get these cards available.

    As a side note, most of these decks are actually not that great, so far as “good deck building goes” they are also pretty mediocre.

    Tips & Tricks

    Lord of the Rings LCG can be a pretty frustrating game, you are going to lose… a lot and this can’t really be helped, but there are a few things I always recommend to players to keep themselves engaged.

    1. Fail It Forward
      One thing I really recommend is that you try to complete each quest in a cycle 2, max 3 times and if you can’t beat it, move on to the next one. You can always go back to take a crack at it again, but playing the same adventure over and over again endlessly until you beat it will take a lot of steam out of you and you may end up giving up before continuing. There is no shame in realizing there is a quest here and there you can’t beat, these are future challenges and eventually, you will build better decks as your game improves. Don’t let yourself get stuck.

    2. Easy Mode Recommended
      I would strongly advise new players to make extensive use of easy mode when first starting out. I know that it stings but it takes a fairly long time to get good at the game and when you initially get the game (core set) you won’t have the necessary card pool to beat even the core set quests. In fact, the 3rd quest in the core set is universally considered among the hardest to beat even for veteran players with full collections.

      Easy mode turns the impossible into the possible, as you get better, again, you can always go back on any of these and take a crack at them again.

    3. Find a partner or two
      While LotR LCG is infinitely solo-able and it’s a lot of fun, it’s not balanced for solo play and generally speaking, solo play is kind of for experts as you must build very specialized decks to find any measure of success. Some get around this by playing the game two-handed (called double-fisting) but, naturally, the preference would be to have a partner.

      This game is best played with 2, 3 or 4 players. I would not recommend more than that. 4 player games can be a bit slow, I think 2-3 is the sweet spot.

      More than that though, LotR LCG has a tendency to be a very fun experience as there are so many ghastly failures and triumphant successes, it’s something to be shared in my experience.

    Final Words

    Lord of the Rings LCG is a great cooperative game, but it’s quite expensive to collect and the producers of the game know the pinch players feel when invested in a game and new content comes out. In the end, the instinct is to collect everything but I can assure you this is neither necessary or worth it.

    One thing to keep in mind is that a typical quest (one quest) for 2-3 players is basically an entire evening of entertainment. As such if you collect say a single cycle which has 9 quests, that is enough content to fill 7-9 sessions of gaming. Point here is that you don’t need a lot to keep you going for a long time. I have collected everything released and I estimate it will take me the better part of a decade to get through it all.

    You can safely skip some of the old stuff and focus on collecting the new stuff. Sure your collection won’t be complete, but the reality is that 1 good quest is worth 10 bad ones and a lot of the older stuff before the Ring Maker cycle can be safely skipped.

    Of all the cycles I have played through there are three that I think stand out. The Dream Chaser, Haradrim and Angmar Awakened cycles. Since these are being re-released in the new re-packaged format there honestly is little reason to look back as it seems everything will be re-released in this new format after the Angmar Awakened cycle.

    I would argue the Ring Maker cycle and perhaps some of the special release stuff like Murder At The Prancing Pony are exceptions, but I think as new players coming into the game, it’s best to simply look forward not backward.

    Now whether you want to track down some of the older releases, pre-re-release is up to you, but if you are going to do it, I highly recommend pretty much everything after and including The Ring Maker cycle but cautioning that you should be ready to wait to finish collections. Very often you can get one or two things from one or another cycle, but rarely is everything available at the same time and as time passes some of this stuff is going to be harder and harder to find. You may end up not being able to finish any given of the older cycles.

    There is some debate among the community whether or not Voice of Isengard is a good expansion or not, FFG seems to think its skippable given they started their re-release schedule with the Angmar cycle but personally I think this is a really good one, worth picking up.

    Looking at the production schedule of FFG, there is absolutely nothing coming from the old sets, so what is out there today may be all that will ever be available. They seem to be very focused on the new stuff, which makes sense of course. They might still surprise us but I would always approach collecting with the information you have at hand.