Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest Review

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Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest Review

The Cardboard-Based Characteristics

Stonemaier and Growing Rapid Reviews

Seeing the board game section of Rapid Reviews get better by the day gives me a warm feeling in my tummy. I write for other board game sites but have been getting requests from publishers directly recently, so I am helping Rapid Reviews grow their board game content. You can only imagine my complete overwhelming joy when I woke up one morning with an email in my inbox from Jamey at Stonemaier Games. I know, right? Exciting.

Stonemaier are big news in the board game industry, especially for a small site like ours. They make some of my favourite games on the market. Deep, beautiful boxes with well-crafted components and lovely art. The only downside was choosing which of their impressive portfolio to review. I almost picked the Co-op Viticulture expansion as we do love to make wine in our house, especially on a Friday while drinking a bottle of bubbly. Anyway, I am babbling a little, in the end, I settled on the reprint of Libertalia. So, grab a cutlass, glug your grog, and welcome to the Rapid Review of Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest.

Cards and Cutlasses

So, Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest, which I will be referring to in the future as just Libertalia, is a reprint and slight reworking of the 2012 game of the same name (minus the Winds of the Galecrest bit). I had heard tidbits about both games while being in and about the hobby and have always wanted to try either of them. I like pirates and love stabbing my opponents in the back, metaphorically speaking anyway.

In Libertalia, you command a crew of uncanny pirates on three voyages; how you use your pirates and the timing of your actions is vital to get a wooden leg up on your opponents. The setup is easy. Give a deck of forty pirates to each player, along with a chest score dial and a graveyard tile. Then, as is before all three voyages, pepper the loot piles with lovely bright loot tokens. Then you are ready to go. I appreciate how a game can support up to six players and have a very minimal setup time. Shiver me, timbers!

Light Rules, Big Fun

Libertalia is one of those games that has a very thin ruleset, you get the jist in just a few minutes. It is however the room that is left by a light ruleset that gets filled with player interaction, emergent tactical nuance and strategy. I adore games that allow the players to tell the story, rather than a heavy set of rules. We got straight into the action and were never hampered by the ruleset, I never once had to refer back to the rule book once. Beautiful.

Before each voyage, a single player shuffles their forty pirate cards and picks out six randomly. These cards are all numbered uniquely and are relayed to the other players, who then extract them from their decks. These will be the six pirates you use for this voyage. Each player having the same cards throughout the game creates an interesting dynamic. We do need to discuss these cards though so you know how they change the ebb and flow of this game.

Each pirate card has a value between one and forty. This value determines when the pirate will trigger during each phase of the game. The way they trigger, what they do and how they all interact is controlled by both the number, which is like an initiative value and their printed ability. These little interactions create stories and moments in each game that are always different and compelling. You don’t use all the cards and due to each game being random, the subset of powers and timings on when they are played create a unique experience each time.

Initiative and Activation

After all players have secretly selected a card, you then arrange them on the board in initiative order. Then going from left to right you activate any of the ‘daytime’ abilities of each of them in order. After that you go in reverse initiative order, activating any ‘dusk’ abilities and picking one of the loot tokens from the current voyage. You then return any remaining pirates, as some of them will not survive, into each player’s ship and activate all of the pirates on your ship’s evening abilities. It sounds a lot but most characters only activate in one of the phases so it is all simple and moves at a brisk pace.

To give you an example of how good this system is, there is a card called Brute that basically kills the highest card played in that round. In our game, we were all dealt both that card and the Aristocrat card. If you are the only player with the Aristocrat on your boat at the end of the voyage, you get five doubloons. If not you lose three. This scenario created a very cat-and-mouse game of who could kill each other’s big money card.

The funny thing was one player around the table laughed and stood with joy in the last hand of the voyage when everyone else’s Aristocrat and been killed and they played theirs. You should have seen their face when the cards were flipped and they had not counted the number of Brutes that had been played correctly. Shame that, sorry not sorry. Libertalia creates a web of possibilities in each game. You have to play each game independently and you must react to other player’s plays and predict, bluff and second-guess your way to victory.

Sea-Based Sub-Plots and Mini-Games

Along with the cards that create little subplots and minigames, the loot tokens have interactions to deal with too. This adds a further layer of juicy decisions on top of what card you play each turn. Each turn you pick your pirate card with the following things in mind. What powers does it have? When will they activate? What are my opponents playing? What loot token do I want? When the loot tokens offer massive points, a loss of points or even death. Every card you play in Libertalia is both glorious and excruciating. It’s wonderful.

You have to look at your hand, look at the loot, predict what your opponents will do and try and navigate this piratic minefield. It’s a hoot. Everyone I have taught it to loved it, it’s so simple yet blossoms with pure joy and the massive decisions handed regularly to all players. It bears its fruit and after a few turns you truly see how all these cogs work together to make a truly great experience that borders on a party game at times. Stupendous.

Lovingly Crafted

Component quality, as with all Stonemaier Games, is brilliant here. The board is bright, the card art is beautiful and the loot tokens are a joy to feel. They feel like Azul tiles, that clacky-ness you only get from Bakelite and they are lovely to have in your hand. There are score dials and trays and everything fits back into the box beautifully. There are a few bugbears I have in board gaming, boxes that are too big and games that don’t go back in their boxes correctly. Fortunately, Libertalia is guilty of none of those.

I think we do have to touch slightly on the fact that this game is the first reworking Stonemaier has done. I loved the bit in the rulebook from Jamie where he describes the process he and Paulo Mori took to update the game’s mechanisms. It’s a nice touch and I really enjoyed seeing the differences and why these decisions were taken. It’s a small thing but I appreciated it nonetheless.

Unique and Massively Entertaining

Libertalia has so much going for it. It scales well, and even plays great, surprisingly, at two. It’s easy to learn but leaves the players with room to experiment and bounce off each other in weird and wonderful ways. The cards and loot tokens make sure every game is different and how they all interact is superb. You can’t sail into Libertalia with tactics in mind, you have to play the game and the players in front of you and adjust on the fly.

Libertalia feels like a party game with a bit more bite and weight to it. I would have no issues teaching it to seasoned gamers and newbies alike. It has the perfect mix of easy setup and small teaching time paired with a massive amount of fun and interaction. What more could you ask for? Right, I’m off to make Brian walk the plank, he took my loot token, AAARRRGGGGHHHH!

Rapid Reviews Rating

4.5 out of 5

4.5

If you would like to buy the updated version of Libertalia, you can from the Stonemaier store here.