Legends of Andor | Rahdo's Final Thoughts

Part I Intro Walkthrough:

Part II Extended Walkthrough:

Part III Final Thoughts:

[near]

Fantastic gameplay video series. Think I'll go out and buy it now, loads of detail and looks like you can still play it very well solo.

[oscargarciaosuna]

Hi Richard. Thank you very much for your quick tutorials. I just bought my copy. Now I have an idea of how the game flows, as well as the mechanics involved. If you liked this one, you should really try Defenders of the Realm (with Larry Elmore´s art), and its Dragon expansion, as well as the bunch of house rules and scenario leagues that you can find at boardgamegeek. I hope you could make a video of DOTR too. :)

[rahdo]

Damnitrevenge, sorry, I'm not sure why your post keeps appearing and disappearing, but here's my response:  

We find the cleanness and simplicity of the rules to be one of the game's biggest strengths actually. Just because the rules are simple doesn't mean the game is for newbie players only.  Complex rules for the sake of complexity is something we don't like at all (Arkham Horror is the perfect example of this... an awful experience we think).  We LOVE a really tough puzzle of a game to solve, which Andor provides... considering we can only have a few fights, picking the right fight is crucial, and planning our movements to maximize the small amout of time we've got is very entertaining.  And in Andor, the challenge comes not from deciphering the rules, but from solving the problem on the board.  The rules are so clean and elegant, they basically get out of the way so we can focus on the game scenario instead :)

[BoardGameSanctuary]

Thanks rahdo once again you've successfully convinced me to get another cool board game. Thumbs up Man!

[shatnershairpiece]

Any word on a big box expansion set coming in English? I am considering buying the 'star shield' expansion in German right now.

[Ederfb]

Just discovered your channel, and I really loved your videos. Your excitement for the games you and your wife love is contagious. :)

I decided to give a look a this one as I really do love Andor, and think it is one of the best coop game in my collection. It's a really challenging game, and what I like about that game is, the first time you tried a scenario, you'll probably get crushed easily. But the more you play, the more you refined your strategy and after 3-4 times, you're able to solved the big puzzle and get succeed. It is a really rewarding game in that sense. The fact that the game and the components are fabulous is just a plus on this perfect game.

But, for reasons I'm not able to explain, that game didn't reach the place it should have among gamers - don't know if it is a Marketing problem from FF or if gamers just don't like beautiful and challenging games... And the results of this is that the expansions are not getting translated and brought here to America :(

All this to say that I'm really happy to see that my love for this game is share by few others like you and gives me hope that maybe FF will release the new big box expansion that was annouced a few weeks ago... :)

[DarthEd]

I think I'll be picking this game up sooner or later. While the character tokens are cool, I think it'd be better if they were sculpted miniatures, a la Descent. I'd love to see another video with the underground side of the border, but maybe that would be too spoilery. I'm wondering how replayability is. Expansions should help there. I'm really liking Fantasy Flight these days.

[pixxelwizzard]

I picked this up recently, although I wasn't quite sure about it. I have yet to play it but your video made me a lot more excited. Thank you! :)

[NaturalMystik]

my Bday's coming pretty soon, i think this will be the game to buy to play with the family. thanks for the entertaining review!

[PMMagro]

Nice one, I have orderd this game now :-)
We have an old rolepalying grouop of 4 players (still in town) so this should be right up our alley.

[AChakraborty]

"Beagles, do not eat any of these things..."

[ceceita]

Would you still suggest this game in 2021? Or anything better?

[kosterix]

how can you play on other difficulty levels?

[andrewbellavie]

hey Rahdo! thanks for the great game overview and review. have you played this recently? how is it holding up in terms of interest and replay value?

[philippedesbois]

Hi Richard. Awesome review. I was a little on the fence about this, but this seems a very streamlined and overall good gaming experience. My doubts were about the replayability, which seems ok, and how would you rate this one year after your review. Do you still play it ? Thanks and keep up the amazing work. Cheers

[dammitrevenge]

Okay so I just borrowed this game, because I heard a lot of good stuff about it. I read some reviews and heard of friends it would be hard but nice to play. I did not watch your videos about it until now, and now I'm quite glad I just borrowed the game and didn't buy it. Usually I pretty much share an opinion with you on games and I like your reviews very much. But after a few games of LoA, I really disagree.
Which is no big deal, we're all grown ups and have our own opinion, which is good and keeps the world an interesting place.
But, being used to sometimes really frustrating games, I just don't get the point how this game can ever become exciting. We were two players only and I'm willing to give it another try with maybe three or four players. Probably we are not the real target group - it seems to me that it aims more on "beginners" or people that don't want too complex rules (which is also okay of course).

Maybe we have a completely unuseful strategy in our minds, since lately we were playing a lot of Arkham Horror and a bit of Robinson Crusoe; which I like very much. Even although AH is one hell of rules that sometimes do not seem to make much sense except to annoy the players.
Which seems even worse in LoA.

To pick one rule: whenever you kill a monster, the narrator moves one step forward.
The reward of defending the castle by defeating a monster is 2 gold / will. This seems so unbalanced to me, given the regular length of 14 rounds in one game.
Especially since the monsters don't just start at the far end of the map, they are basically already knocking at the castle's doors the moment you start. And the castle can't really cope with a lot of them (useless guards?). It appears to me that the roleplaying element is stripped off the game as far as possible. You better just run and collect whatever the quest demands. And while you're on the way, try to push your fight up, because of some powerfull boss that needs to be killed in time. Which is done by beating monsters, which on the other hand increases the game speed again. I get the idea of artifically pushing the speed forward, to increase the tension, I just don't like it very much.
Next to that, you have just very limited items to level up the characters. But you wouldn't have the money to buy more of them anyway, since money seems to be very rare as well.

So my problem is, the rules and design of the game is on one hand created to make it easy to learn for unexperienced players.It also is meant to be quick, setting up the game seems to take longer than actually playing it. But the mechanics that evolve through the rules are pushing the difficulty to levels, that usually are found in games for experienced, consequent players, that put effort and time into learning to master the game. This seems to be very contradictory. Seems like giving a student driver a F1 car to practice. Or rather a go-cart with a F1 engine.

But maybe someone could explain to me what is appealing to them? I would be glad. I would like to know why this game is so popular, when two experienced players lose interest after 3 rounds already.
Sorry for the long text - I just felt the urge to let it go..

[TheDefiantPirate]

This game feels like it would be a good one to write your own adventures for kinda like DnD but the system is easier to work with

[Mark-OutWest]

I like the game but the rule I would change is only moving the narrator piece on the timeline at the end of the day for exactly the reason that you let monsters just walk right by you and your character development suffers for this. It shouldn't need to be this fast.

[IcoKirov]

Hi
I want a coop game that i can play with my girlfriend. note that she is not very nerdy as i am, so things that are too hardcore in either gameplay mechanics or the fentasy settings, may push her away.
We have Pandemic and she enjoys it. but i search for another one.
other games that she likes are things like Carcassonne, Ticket to ride and so on, but those are not cooperative. 
I would get Legends of Andor, but i'm not sure if she will like it, (I think she will). so i would do it mainly for me :)

So a coop game for 2 people that is more on the casual side (like pandemic) that more people are possible to play it. Thanks!


Great video BTW

[EclecticCamel]

So, we got this on your recommendation, and it was a hard pass for us. It just feels way too restrictive. I think the biggest issue we have comes down to having to bump the narrator up for everything you kill. I understand it is part of the "puzzle", but it just feels like needless kicks to the balls. Reminded me a little of Majora's Mask and (to a lesser extent) Lightning Returns in that, you have things to explore and stuff that needs to get smacked in the mouth, but you can't really explore or deviate off course or the whole thing falls apart. Or maybe the stupid witch is in the 14th fog tile and you get kicked in the balls again anyways, even though you didn't do anything "wrong". We strongly preferred Runebound 3rd edition (I know you weren't a fan, but we love it), which feels a lot more like a proper adventure game and isn't as prohibitive but still maintains a similar sense of urgency.