Ahoy, landlubbers and seasoned captains alike! It’s no secret that the Golden Age of Piracy holds an enduring mystique. The draw of fortunes amassed through daring escapades on the high seas is irresistible. But while the pirate’s life is never easy, DPH Games has managed to bottle the essence of this adventurous era and refine it into their newest offering: Legacy at Sea (LAS).
If you’re anything like me, you already have a favorite pirate-themed game—perhaps the venerable Merchants and Marauders (M&M). Let me tell you now: Legacy at Sea stepped into those big shoes, and fill them it did.
Here is why you need to hoist the Jolly Roger and set course for Legacy at Sea—and how this modern classic evolves the pirate game genre beyond its predecessors.
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The Allure of LAS: Art, Mechanics, and Strategy
From the moment you lay eyes on Legacy at Sea, you know you are dealing with a game of high quality. The game comes in a standard medium-sized box, fitting well on your shelf, and looking “fine” while sitting there. Upon opening the prototype, the reviewer was wowed by the components, which include minis for most things, great tokens, and a set of dice to kill for. The board itself is a work of art, featuring a great period map of the carrier. Even the peripheral pieces live up to the high quality expected from a DPH game.
But a beautiful game needs the mechanics to back it up, and LAS delivers dynamic and engaging gameplay at every turn.
Strategy That Keeps You Adapting
Legacy at Sea is a challenging combat, resource management, and reputation management game. It incorporates every category advanced casual players look for: offense, defense, rush, and engine building.
The game’s core mechanics ensure massive replay value, utilizing a randomizer based on a set of dice and really nice cards, making every game inherently different. The shifting playscape forces players to adapt their skills at each level, resulting in an amazing and highly adaptive play style. Not since early MTG has the reviewer seen such an adaptive play style in a box game, noting that this level of strategy is usually reserved for expensive miniature war games like Warhammer or Bloodbowl.
Success hinges on crucial decisions regarding movement and objectives. The game’s movement scheme is simple to pick up, yet complex enough to define success. Players must constantly decide if they are going to race from port to port or focus on stealing goods to earn their points. Further complicating things, Encounter cards and Story cards can create game effects that change even the best-laid plans of the scallywag captains.
The True Pirate Experience: Customization and Risk
Players embark on their careers during the Golden Age of Piracy. You start by selecting one of several infamous captains, such as Bart Roberts, Edward Teach, Anne Bonny, or Calico Jack. Each captain begins with specific starting supplies, crew, and cannon, and an initial skill level in Ferocity, Leadership, Seamanship, or Tactics. For example, Edward Teach (Blackbeard) begins with a suggested Schooner and starts with a skill cube placed at level 1 for Ferocity.
As you accumulate experience by plundering merchant ships and successfully navigating encounters with Warships, Storms, and Pirate Hunters, you can spend these collected cards to increase your skills.
The pursuit of fortune involves more than just plundering, however. You will also tackle Prospect Cards—missions that offer rewards upon completion. These missions range from mundane tasks like delivering fabric or salt-pork to more complex political maneuvers like conveying incriminating documents or engaging in peace talks. You can claim prospects like “The Daughter,” requiring you to retrieve her from a Guadeloupe inn and deliver her to Cartagena for a stout reward.
Be warned: a life of crime invites risk. If you choose to plunder, you must successfully roll plundering dice against the targeted ship’s defenses (Cannon, Crew, or Maneuverability), augmented by your captain’s Ferocity. A successful plunder nets you gold, goods, or crew, but a response die roll can result in taking damage or losing crew. Furthermore, if you successfully plunder a Spanish ship, you increase your Spanish Animosity. This animosity means you must pay a bribe (gold or goods) to the controlling officials if you attempt to land at a Spanish-controlled port.
Even your movements are dictated by dynamic events, as the game unfolds over a series of years. Story cards, drawn after each player’s turn, reveal historical events that create game effects. These cards may place a plague token in ports like Cartagena or Charleston, signal a Hurricane blocking passage through the Western Sea, or announce that major historical figures like Benjamin Hornigold have declared Nassau a pirate republic.
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Legacy at Sea vs. Merchants and Marauders: The Modern Edge
For many years, Merchants and Marauders defined the gold standard for pirate board games. But time marches on, and the reviewer, despite his long-standing affection for M&M, notes that LAS is a more modern game.
The core differentiation lies in the refinement and incorporation of new elements:
1. Modern Mechanics and Strategy: Legacy at Sea utilizes elements that simply did not exist in the early part of the century when M&M was developed. This gives LAS a clear advantage in mechanical depth and strategic complexity. The adaptive playstyle in LAS, which demands constant tactical shifts across offense, defense, rush, and engine building, sets a new bar for strategy in the genre.
2. Dynamic Story Integration: While M&M offers a sandbox experience, LAS integrates stories from actual historical events, allowing players to adapt their strategy to what is occurring in the game world through the sequential Story cards. The year-based decks (1716, 1717, 1718) ensure that the challenges evolve dynamically, requiring the replacement of Ocean and Encounter decks to match the current year. For instance, as the years progress, ships in the 1717 deck may be more challenging than those in 1716, demanding players hire more crew or upgrade their ship.
3. Comprehensive Gameplay Loop: LAS incorporates more elements into the game, giving it a more refined standing than M&M. The complexity is visible in the detailed player board layout, which tracks skills, claimed prospects, plunder used for experience, and the crucial distinction between current animosity and face-down, retired victory points. Features like the ability to upgrade ships, manage crew stationed on deck versus sails for maneuverability, and send valuable gold and goods safely back to a home port with the risk of mutiny add sophisticated layers to the resource management aspect.
In short, while Merchants and Marauders will always hold a cherished place, LAS is the evolved, refined, and strategically deeper pirate game the modern board game market demands.
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Your Destiny Awaits
The golden age of piracy is waiting, and how your story turns out depends entirely on your choices. Whether you are hunting Treasure Ships (like the Segovia or La Orotava) or simply trying to survive a Hurricane blocking the Windward Passage, Legacy at Sea promises an immersive and challenging adventure.With a high score and a robust endorsement, this is a legendary game that deserves a spot in your collection. Secure your copy of Legacy at Sea and forge your legend on the seven seas!