My family – especially kids (Natan, 12 and Kuba, 10) but recently my wife too – appreciates more and more family games which you can play in campaign mode, where history unfolds and new game concepts / elements / mechanics emerge. We had a true blast with The Adventures of Robin Hood and it was not a surprise for me that under the Christmas tree another great title was awaiting me – Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West.

To say that we had a blast with that title would be an understatement. This competetive game leads us through the whole story of the train network build-up and expansion in North America, adding a lot of local flavor, unexpected twists and turns as well as ways to develop your company. It took us twelve sessions – which we played in two and a half months! – to complete the adventure. That says something about the commitment and fun we all together had with this title!

Let us talk now a little bit more about the game details, present its great component, say couple of words about game play and conclude with the set of impressions that game left us with. Enjoy!

Watch out: there will be SPOILERS below! So read on your own risk!

The game

Let me start with a couple of introductory words, which will set the context. In Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West, players embark on twelve journeys across North America as 19th century pioneers. The campaign begins on the East Coast, with players working their way to the West from one adventure to the next, meeting challenges along the way.

As in Ticket to Ride, completing your tickets will remain your primary goal, but you will need to develop other skills if you hope to overcome the unexpected events and your resourceful rivals. Game after game, route after route, you will continuously fill your vault with earnings. As the story progresses, you will open frontier boxes that unlock new rules, content, and many more surprises.

In the Legacy style, Legends of the West is a unique experience molded by player choices. Each player has their own role to play, allowing them to change the way the story unfolds around them. Combined with evolving mechanisms that change as the game progresses, players will have a new experience every time they gather around the board.

At the end of the twelve games in this legacy campaign, you will have transformed your game into a unique copy that you can continue playing for a lifetime.

The gameplay

In below section I would like to call out key moments from our campaign as well as important elements of design which draw our attention. Each play was different – both in size, length (from 20 minutes to 2 hours), rules wise and complexity too. The gradual introduction of those elements really allowed kids to catch up with the changing environment and have fun till the end – although, not always with full optimalization of every move.

However, it was experience, discovering new map tiles as well as new interesting mechanics which was driving us forward – not to mention kids begging & urging to play another session as soon as possible! This is probably the best recommendation I can give for this design 🙂

PS. You can click on each of the images to enlarge to full screen in new window.

The game starts small and slow. At the onset the map consist of few pieces and covers no more than 25% of the target area. This is good to refresh basic Ticket to Ride mechanics although even here we are getting some new, small twists.
We will play of course with very nicely produced standard cards in several colors plus Locomotives which act as Jokers. The number of colors will be reduced though which will allow for a bit faster play (in the area of track building).
Each company will have its bonus card (above our Polish version of the game) to which with the time more components will be added (like extra bed card above). The number of carriages will also start to increase, from ~20 to over ~50, depending on scenario.
Of course, the key components of the game are tickets, which you try to fulfil. And once you do it, you shall…
…punch them! Yes, what kind of train game it would be if we would not have conductors checking and validating the ticket!
With time the map grows – we add one Frontier Board after almost every session. Each such area comes with special, dedicated box which adds tickets, random events as well as some new twists and turns to regular game mechanics.
Speaking of new game mechanics, what will you say for a haunted train ? This can be a real nuisance in your railroad network!
Not to mention some other possibilities to earn dollars like or well-known California Gold Rush or even treasure hunting!
In the end, the whole map will be discovered and there will be option to run transatlantic trains! But be wary, the California Earthquakes might destroy your connections!
Close-up on the map at the height of our last session; it looks so beautiful with all those routes (many of them manually stickered), trains, big cities, ports, special company representations, etc. Wonderful!

The impressions

Playing Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West was definitely a great time spent with the whole family. Let me now share my experiences, observations and simply – impressions from the game itself:

  • You know, the train theme is simply great; I know this is not specific to legacy version of Ticket to Ride; still, observing the progress of railroads expansion through the XIX century is an unique experience.
  • What I appreciate mostly when playing with kids, is the gradual introduction of new mechanics, components and rules. That way the title is accessible also to younger fans, and even if in last, most complex sessions they might not be able to optimize each and every move, they at least grasp the game mechanics and can play fluently.
  • I like how the victory points system works. There are multiple sources of them, and pursuing one or the other balances itself out with other means of acquiring wealth. On top of this, the initial scenarios allows to score moderate amounts of money, so there is no way you will stay behind form the onset of campaign – it is relatively easy to catch up!
  • Looking at the above pictures you can observe great quality & variety of components – the map is simply outstanding, all the cards, elements – not to mention Conductor Punch which is simply gorgeous!
  • However, the fun does not end once you finish the campaign. There is a possibility to play a full map games in non-legacy, regular mode with some of the rules from the Campaign. That definitely extends the longevity of this title!

Summary

That was definitely one of the best experiences our family had with playing together. The sheer emotion of discovering new map areas, game mechanics and components made for a very memorable experience. All the gold rush, the haunted train or the bandits where very cool and thematic concepts introduced – and concluded – as the game progressed. I can wholeheartedly recommend this title to all fans of Ticket to Ride and Legacy games!