Stonemaier Games | Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest | Board Game | Ages 14+ | 1-6 Players | 45-60 Minutes Playing Time

Product Information

Higher ranking crew members get the first pick of the treasure, while lower ranking ones get to activate their abilities first. My ratings are higher for the multiplayer game as something I love about Libertalia is the player interaction and conflict created, which naturally there is less of in a solo mode. I can see that we could have been clearer by noting directly in the component list which card number isn’t there. Then there’s the Automa/Pilferer deck, where you reveal six cards from the deck and you take the matching six cards from your hand (like in a regular game). Finally night actions are activated, these may be found on recruited characters on each player’s ship in front of them.

Almost all of the reviews on Board Game Quest are from review copies of a game provided by the publisher. Maybe it was meant to prevent kingmaking or dogpiling, but it just felt like my agency was being taken away for arbitrary reasons.

I suppose this might be frustrating to some looking for a way to select their path and stick to it, but in a game where jockeying for position on a single ranked track every turn is the only way to score, you have to expect some shenanigans. This highlighted that I am a rulebook person and when I subsequently needed to check something, I didn’t have any point of reference as to where to look. In contrast the loot token bag is a little lack lustre and I did think that this could’ve been printed with a cool design.

And so the decisions go on, like a galleon spinning in an endless whirlpool, until you’ve tried to out-think all the double-think and come to a conclusion. Just got my copy in New Brunswick – looks great and I can’t wait to get it to the table this weekend. It is undoubtedly the case that once you have internalised the flowchart and how the Automa prioritises the loot tokens, playing Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest solo becomes a smooth experience in terms of upkeep, as the turns of the automated opponents take little to no time to execute thus keeping the flow of the game snappy. It’s one of the few games outside of the social deduction genre which gets better and more interesting with higher player numbers.It unfortunately won’t work, because several of Automa’s character cards refer to “you” and there’s no single “you” when there are two humans. Now that we’ve played the new Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest, will it meet the fate of the original and find another home?