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All you need to know about Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game

Is Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game fun to play?
Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game

Players: 1 – 5 players | Game Duration 30 – 60 mins | Min. Age 17+ | Game complexity: MEDIUM Genre: Card Games, Fighting, Horror, Movies / TV Theme, Science Solo game mode: Yes | Co-op: Yes | Online Version: No

What is Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game about?

It’s an objective based deck building game. In deck builders, each player starts with the same hand of cards (one card per character class) and during the game, they add more cards to their deck to enrich it.
 
Aliens are the theme of this particular deck builder, especially the first four Aliens movies. In addition, it’s an objective-based game. Therefore, it is recommended that you play the “story” from the first film, Alien, when you play the very first game. There are three objective cards that will be used and a stack of character cards that you will be acquiring throughout the game. Additionally, there is a special build for the deck of “Hive” cards, which represent the aliens and hazards you will encounter during the game. The hive deck also contains the answers to most of the objectives you need to complete.
 
Typically, the rounds move quickly and are very easy to follow. Each round, players will draw one facedown Hive card and place it on The Complex path. In the Complex path, there are several smaller sections based on locations from the movies, such as ventilation ducts, airlocks, weapons lockers, etc. The card is drawn and placed in the right most spot in The Complex, pushing all other cards to the left one space. It represents the aliens slowly making their way towards you through the complex. On every turn, you will be pushing cards into the Combat Zone if they move off the far left spot. Cards in this area now cause players to draw Strike cards at the end of each turn. Players can be killed with these cards.
 
Fortunately, there is a way to avoid all of that. During the draw hive card phase, players will play their six drawn action cards. The order in which they are played is important since some of them activate abilities from other cards based on their icons. At the very beginning, none of this matters since your main cards are either “buy” or “attack” cards. Using your “buy” cards, you can purchase cards from the “HQ” space, where there is always a selection of face-up cards available. After you buy cards, they go directly to your discard pile, and when your draw pile runs out on later rounds, you will switch back to your discard pile to draw from. It’s a pretty standard deckbuilding mechanic, but fun nonetheless.
 
“Attack” cards serve a couple of purposes. It’s hard to see those sneaky aliens up there moving through that complex. After all, one of those cards could be your objective! The sooner you reveal it, the sooner you’ll gain the advantage. In order to do that, you need to scan a particular area of the complex. You have to pay the scanning “price” to flip the card at each location of the complex. Then, you resolve any “when revealed” actions and go about your business. Now that you’re aware of what’s coming, you can prepare properly. Because aliens typically cannot attack from complex areas, you have some breathing room. In addition, you can kill those newly revealed aliens with attack points later on, or right then if you have enough. When you destroy or remove a card from the complex, it creates a gap in the line. So the next turn, the hive cards being pushed will just fill that gap instead of filling up closer to the combat zone.
 
After you play all your cards and take all your actions, any aliens you face in the combat zone will force you to draw strike cards, at which point you discard your hand and draw six new cards to start the process all over again. This is primarily a cooperative game, so if players complete all three objectives in whatever scenario they are playing they win! However, all players must survive if they are to win.

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Rulebook and How to Play Guides

Official Rule Book

How to Play Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game and Review Videos

Awards Won by Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game

2014 Golden Geek Board Game of the Year Nominee 2014 Golden Geek Best Thematic Board Game Nominee 2014 Golden Geek Best Solo Board Game Nominee 2014 Golden Geek Best Card Game Nominee 2014 Board Game Quest A

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