OUR REVIEW

Caves And Dragons …

DIE LEGENDEN VON ANDOR

And Dwarves – O My!

Andor is a lovely, fertile country, ruled by a king in his beautiful castle. The peasants till the land, trading posts are busy creating wealth, and even the witch in her foggy marshes by the great river is kind and helpful, selling her magic potions – for a price, that is. In the woodlands elves are singing their merry songs, in the mountains deep industrious dwarves do … whatever these small people do. This bucolic idyll is only occasionally disturbed by bloodthirsty monsters attacking the castle, a deranged necromancer plotting to take over the world, a kidnapping of the heir to the throne or comparable calamities. How convenient, that some adventurers (you can actually choose between male and female characters) will take on the attempt to restore peace. They will carry on with the legend.

In the game’s booklet, Michael Menzel, author of "Legends of Andor", says “thank you” to quite a lot of people and especially his family, for their support, understanding and not least for their patience. After all, the development of this project took more than two years’ time. He previously worked as a graphic designer and illustrator in the games industry before “Legends of Andor” had been published with Kosmos. Even now he is still answering questions promptly and patiently, for which we want to express our gratitude here.

In "The Legends of Andor" up to four characters (Archer f/m, Dwarf f/m, Mage f/m and Warrior f/m) rush across the game board to fulfill multiple missions, which all have to be mastered to meet the chosen legend’s goal. Time is always running short, there are never more than fifteen rounds to get there, already counting the double round triggered as a rare special event. The basic rules remain the same, though, as explained within the first adventure "The Arrival of the Heroes". Since these rules are not stated anywhere else, you may not pass on that quest when you set out to play for the first time. Heroes (Heroines likewise) start with a number of Strength-points and Will-points, which should be marked on their character sheet. Strength may increase constantly (although very slowly; and there are some nasty surprises to the contrary as well), but the characters’ Will (equals Body- or Health-points) is more likely to decrease more often than not – and faster than one would like! Healing is rather expensive and often time-consuming. Movement from space to neighboring space costs one hour on the Time (Day) Track (advance the colored chip), just as much as a round of combat or some other actions (for example, to move allies like the prince or the dwarf troops). Up to ten hours per day are available, though the last three hours of each day – if used for actions – have to be paid for by spending Will-points. At certain locations on the game board or sometimes when markers come into play (either on the game board as well or next to the Narrator’s Track / Rounds Track) characters may buy useful items (e. g. weapons, potions, even a hawk). When monsters are in play – and they are almost always; and almost always too many of them, moreover, rather strong monsters –, they move as soon as the last character in the round declares his daily activities at an end and puts his marker onto the starting field of the Time Track. The monsters move along small arrows on the game board towards the castle of Andor. (The only legend set in the caves of Andor as yet – on the reverse side of the game board – works exactly by the same rule, except you cannot really see the castle.) At each break of dawn an event card is revealed, its instructions are to be followed. Besides fulfilling their tasks (for example, finding herbs or rune stones, save peasants by leading them into the castle), Heroines and Heroes also have the possibility to fight and destroy monsters. Combat is done by means of dice rolling. Since there is no Game’s Master, the monsters’ dice may be rolled by anyone, preferably by someone whose character is not involved in that fight. Killed monsters are placed in the designated space on the game board and for each the Narrator pawn progresses on the Rounds Track (labeled from "A" to "N"). This in turn frequently leads to reading out aloud a new Legend Card: conditions may change, crises may ripen, a new enemy or ally might emerge – whatever the chosen legend requires. If the "N" has been reached the final card is turned up, the legend ends.

The game seems nicely devised, the rules are easy to understand and short enough so that one can just get along without an index. The markers, cards and figures are designed from (solid) cardboard and graphically quite attractive, as you would expect from an experienced illustrator. Counters and dice are made of wood. The Legend Cards are a little inconvenient, one larger card presenting the starting conditions would have been better or even a quest booklet (instead of cards numbered from "A₁" to "A₆"). Irritating, and not just at the beginning, is the numbering on the game board – hardly any two neighboring spaces are connected by numbers ascending or descending in a normal numerical sequence; surely a lot of thoughts went into the actual numbering, but we could not guess the deeper meaning behind it. These are only trifles, though.

More serious however is the effect of the monster movement mechanism and the often far too rapid progress of the Narrator pawn along the Rounds Track. There is an absolute requirement of protecting the castle in almost each of the five legends. Depending on the number of characters (or players) and an additional allowance for each peasant that has been rescued to the safety of the castle’s walls, only a certain number of monsters may enter the stronghold. If only one additional monster gets inside, the Heroes and Heroines lose that adventure. Players automatically will start reckoning: Is it more favorable to fight (and possibly kill) a monster or rather let it get into the castle? Is it better to let the strong ones enter (Trolls or even Wardraks: ferocious, dog-like beasts) and fight the weaker ones (Gors and Skrals, the copyright safe counterparts to Goblins and Orcs)? This somehow contradicts the lore of Andor, but seems reasonable enough considering the only tentatively growing strength of the Heroines and Heroes. Heroic action yields absolutely nothing here. Each slain monster earns you some (little) gold (or, alternatively, Will-points), but it also advances the Narrator pawn and shortens the remaining time. That may be especially critical when you have to get the life-saving herb to your dying monarch as soon as possible. More often than not you have to search for persons or objects before you can even get to start your mission. The witch, for example, hides in the foggy forest, but there are also monsters there or even more unpleasant events (and only very little gold). There are two sets of rune stones, each consisting of three different stones, but only five stone markers come into play. You can figure out yourself the chances of collecting a complete set over a short period of time in order to reap the benefits (a special die for combat). Too much randomness for our taste, and almost always to the detriment of the characters! With all four of them you will maybe just cope with the time issue, but on the other hand the power of the main enemies increases proportionally. The dragon (in legend 5 "The Wrath of the Dragon") may thus gain up to 68 Strength-points, special powers not even included. In comparison, each character starts with only 4 points of strength. There is nothing wrong, of course, to turn a game into a strong challenge. To have almost no chance at all, though, is never a good idea. Players will hardly muster enough curiosity to try the whole thing anew, this time with better tactics and changed strategy. Nine blank cards come with the game to create your own legend for Andor, but we did not feel inclined to take up this final challenge.

Martina & Martin Lhotzky, Marcus Steinwender

Players: 2-4

Age: 10+

Time: 120+

Designer: Michael Menzel

Art: Michael Menzel, Michaela Kienle

Price: ca. 40 Euro

Publisher: Kosmos 2012

Web: www.kosmos.de

Genre: cooperative adventure game

Users: With friends

Version: de

Rules: cz de en es fr hu it ru

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Beautiful design

Rules explained in steps during the individual legends

Intense cooperation and lots of calculations necessary to win

Compares to:

Rückkehr der Helden, Quest Zeit der Helden

Other editions:

Czech, French, English, Italian, Hungarian, Russian and Spanish

My rating: 3

Martina, Martin und Markus:

The attractively equipped and designed game promises legendary adventures. But unfortunately it doesn’t turn out that way, because if you want to win you have to painstakingly calculate while totally ignoring the setting in this world of Legends.

Chance (pink): 3

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 3

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0