The board is also double sided. One side is the “Calm” side which features easier, friendly abilities, and the other is the “Stormy” side which has more complex, devious abilities. Similarly, the loot tiles also have calm and stormy abilities so you can choose to add in stormy loot abilities to the calm side of the board and vice versa. Libertalia is full of little mind games like that. While the bluffing might not be in your face, it’s still there in satisfyingly subtle ways. This progressive asymmetry becomes more and more pronounced with each round as you never play all your cards during a round. Each player will have leftovers when they add six fresh cards, and they likely aren’t the same leftovers you have. Reputation The game is played over 3 voyages that each consist of days. The first voyage is 4 days and the next voyages each increase by 1 day. While the game can play well at low player counts, we think Libertalia shines best at player counts of 5-6. If you like games with a lot of player interaction and great variety, then we highly recommend getting a copy of Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest!

My biggest complaint is that thematically the ships are airships, which is one of my favorite concepts. But it’s just window dressing. There is no mechanical connection to the airship theme. It only serves to distance itself from the original, which is fine, but a bit of a bummer nonetheless. The game looks great regardless. GameplayThe adjacency restriction feels limiting in a bad way. Maybe it was meant to prevent kingmaking or dogpiling, but it just felt like my agency was being taken away for arbitrary reasons. Especially because it only matters in player counts of four and higher. Verdict Anyway, I’ve been pleased to discover that Winds of Galecrest lives up to its promise in being an evolved and improved version of Libertalia. Not only that, but it is perhaps the most un-Stonemaier-like game in their entire product lineup. Against Stonemaier’s usual tropes and their stated tenets of game design, Winds of Galecrest is inorganically round/phase-based and highly interactive to the point of potential hostility. Indeed, it appears that Jamey Stegmaier is willing to make exceptions to his carefully crafted brand when it involves a favored classic—and thank goodness for that! I’m always keen to discover hidden gems in the hobby that have been forgotten or overlooked. And if you’re wondering where the best place is to start digging for gold, you’d be hard pressed to find a better mine than Reiner Knizia’s ludography. The cardboard doubloons are fine, I would’ve liked a few more but only because I take the coins for things like Loot tokens as I go which depletes the stash a little. I think having the coins in their own storage tray that can be used during the game is another lovely Stonemaier touch.

The next essential ingredient to Art Robbery’s success is the emphasis on timing. Because each round has a clear ending enshrouded in the mystery of who will trigger it, players must decide when they will pull the trigger and claim or steal a token in hopes of it remaining in their possession until the round end. If you sit on your best cards and wait too long to retrieve a token, then the round can suddenly end without you putting your hand to good use. The good news is that your hand does carry over from one round to the next, which provides another layer of long-term planning and hand management. We also really like the new artwork. The original game was typical, pirate artwork with dark colors and sinister-looking characters. However, the artwork in this revised version gives off a fun and lighthearted vibe. And we really like that approach. But even then, I had actually tried the original Libertalia for the first time ever last year and thought it was ok at best. My main gripes were that the design seemed to age poorly in terms of game length, graphic design, tiebreaker resolutions, strategic depth, and so on. Lo and behold, Winds of Galecrest was revealed along with what appeared to be smart solutions to all of the problems I had with the original game. So despite my primal instincts warning me to stay away, I couldn’t help but give Stonemaier Games and Libertalia another chance. In the timeless words of Aragorn: “For Paolo.” …or Frodo. Why not both? The feel of the game changed as well. Usually a game of Libertalia, when played with 5 or 6 players, is full of laughter, chaos, and rivalries. At two, there just wasn’t a lot to think over. You kind of knew which cards your opponent was going to play and the game itself felt quiet and subdued. One last set of powers to activate, the anchor powers. Then count up the doubloons you have and add them to your treasure chest by setting the dials. Return every tile to the bag and discard all characters played to the graveyard (unless you have an ability that says otherwise, of course!)

Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest

A surprisingly solid 2-player mode has been introduced as well as a solo mode for those interested.