Pandemic LEGACY...and nobody is talking about it????

I'd also like to take a moment to comment on the box color issue. Clearly, this is an ISIS terror plot designed to get Americans to waste money and to fragment the gaming community.

First you try to ruin Hitler for me and now ISIS too!! What gives, is nothing sacred anymore?

The fact that they took what is 100% a Euro game and have convinced 62,000 from the Euro crowd to write on their games...it's astonishing. There's no public outcry, no weeping of the vaginas (the Euro-snoot version of hand-wringing), no Change.Org petitions...nothing.

In fact, I think I want to get a Change.Org petition going just to see how many people we can get to sign it, if for no other reason than to have those email addresses so that I can send them a daily email photo of a sharpie.

According to BGG one of the covers is "anime" because it has an Asian guy on it and why would it have an Asian guy on it if it isn't about placing your samurai in such a way that it will impress the Emperor's royal samurai placer?

I have played Pandemic just twice. There was such a disconnect between theme and mechanics that I just couldn't enjoy the game. The rules felt too arbitrary, so it was more like executing a process than playing a game. I can see where a Legacy-style modification might make it more interesting, but since my issue was with core mechanics, I will still pass on it.

Wow. I've never really heard that there's a disconnect between theme and mechanics with Pandemic. Hell, I think they're perfectly paired.

Yeah, really. Diseases show up. You send specialists out to perform various epidemiological tasks to prevent them from spreading. The mechanics totally support that narrative line.

Shellhead wrote: I have played Pandemic just twice. There was such a disconnect between theme and mechanics that I just couldn't enjoy the game. The rules felt too arbitrary, so it was more like executing a process than playing a game. I can see where a Legacy-style modification might make it more interesting, but since my issue was with core mechanics, I will still pass on it.

Have you tried Defenders of the Realm? I liked the decisions in Pandemic, but, I ended up trading it for Defenders of the Realm which has more of a narrative and includes basic combat. Before I traded away Pandemic, I had just read World-War-Z so I added a bit of excitement to Pandemic by changing one of its outbreak colors to a zombie virus--I chose black. I assigned each character a fire team body guard with hit points and ammo counters. I marked certain cities as resupply for ammo counters. I assigned one zombie for each black cube present at a city. I stole the basic combat system from the Zombies board game. I also used its cheap plastic zombies and some plastic soldiers from my son's toy box for the fire teams on the board. It was a lot of fun. Your character had to fight off the zombies before being able to cure the zombie virus cubes at the outbreak cities. Characters would get overrun by zombies after their bodyguards died off, or, the world would just end the usual way as provided by the game. Fun times...

I enjoyed Pandemic all right. It does make some sense mechanically, but nothing really specific. You could make the theme pretty much anything as subsequent games have shown. It was certainly influential in that regard but only on a mechanical level. For me, it only ever worked as a solo game, in a group it was dull and I'll probably never play it that way again... in fact I sold it so I probably won't play it again anyway. But I have thought about it from time to time since it was so good solo, but there is nothing about it that says to me "play this in a group". I think it's popularity mostly stems from people's fear of conflict (conflict heavy games scare a lot of people away in my experience) and it's simplicity, a quality that doesn't mean much to me either way.

stoic wrote:

Shellhead wrote: I have played Pandemic just twice. There was such a disconnect between theme and mechanics that I just couldn't enjoy the game. The rules felt too arbitrary, so it was more like executing a process than playing a game. I can see where a Legacy-style modification might make it more interesting, but since my issue was with core mechanics, I will still pass on it.

Have you tried Defenders of the Realm? I liked the decisions in Pandemic, but, I ended up trading it for Defenders of the Realm which has more of a narrative and includes basic combat. Before I traded away Pandemic, I had just read World-War-Z so I added a bit of excitement to Pandemic by changing one of its outbreak colors to a zombie virus--I chose black. I assigned each character a fire team body guard with hit points and ammo counters. I marked certain cities as resupply for ammo counters. I assigned one zombie for each black cube present at a city. I stole the basic combat system from the Zombies board game. I also used its cheap plastic zombies and some plastic soldiers from my son's toy box for the fire teams on the board. It was a lot of fun. Your character had to fight off the zombies before being able to cure the zombie virus cubes at the outbreak cities. Characters would get overrun by zombies after their bodyguards died off, or, the world would just end the usual way as provided by the game. Fun times...

Dude, write up those rules, please. Please. Please. Please. Please. That sounds like it's fucking grand!

I, too, prefer Defenders, but having played Pandemic 100+ times at least, I'm of the mind that it might be that I like Defenders more due to variety's sake. That said, I've played Defenders a whole lot too.

SuperflyTNT wrote:

stoic wrote:

Shellhead wrote: I have played Pandemic just twice. There was such a disconnect between theme and mechanics that I just couldn't enjoy the game. The rules felt too arbitrary, so it was more like executing a process than playing a game. I can see where a Legacy-style modification might make it more interesting, but since my issue was with core mechanics, I will still pass on it.

Have you tried Defenders of the Realm? I liked the decisions in Pandemic, but, I ended up trading it for Defenders of the Realm which has more of a narrative and includes basic combat. Before I traded away Pandemic, I had just read World-War-Z so I added a bit of excitement to Pandemic by changing one of its outbreak colors to a zombie virus--I chose black. I assigned each character a fire team body guard with hit points and ammo counters. I marked certain cities as resupply for ammo counters. I assigned one zombie for each black cube present at a city. I stole the basic combat system from the Zombies board game. I also used its cheap plastic zombies and some plastic soldiers from my son's toy box for the fire teams on the board. It was a lot of fun. Your character had to fight off the zombies before being able to cure the zombie virus cubes at the outbreak cities. Characters would get overrun by zombies after their bodyguards died off, or, the world would just end the usual way as provided by the game. Fun times...

Dude, write up those rules, please. Please. Please. Please. Please. That sounds like it's fucking grand!

I, too, prefer Defenders, but having played Pandemic 100+ times at least, I'm of the mind that it might be that I like Defenders more due to variety's sake. That said, I've played Defenders a whole lot too.

Dude, I don't know if it's grand, but, here you go. There's not much to this variant, but, here's what I did when I owned Pandemic.


Let’s play Pandemic: World War Z where you’re part of the UN’s WHO’s Special Anti-Zombie Task Force Zulu. Your job is to combat the Zombie Virus (the black cubes), but, unfortunately, you also must deal with the other ordinary pandemics in the world at the same time if the human race is to survive. Everything in Pandemic’s setup, rules, and gameplay are the same per its instructions except for the following rule additions below.

Setup
At the start of the game, randomly add another Research Station on the board (in addition to the one at the CDC in Atlanta). Gather these parts to use in the game: (1) life and ammo counters; (2) plastic figures for zombies and soldiers; and, (3) one six-side die.

Zombies
Whenever a black cube is placed on a location city, also place one zombie figure in that city. Zombies have one life point and die after unsuccessful combat.

Black Cubes/The Zombie Apocalypse Virus
Player characters can only begin eradicating The Zombie Apocalypse Virus (removing the black cubes) only if there aren’t any zombies present at that location.

Research Stations
In addition to their normal game function, Research Stations now also serve as “ammo caches” for the UN’s WHO’s Special Anti-Zombie Task Force Zulu, and, as a last resort, act as missile launch stations (See Missile Strikes: Omega Man, below). Whenever you build a Research Station, place two ammo tokens beside it. Whenever a Research Station runs out of ammo tokens and if its location city doesn’t have a player character present at its city, then it’s considered overrun, destroyed, and removed from the board. Presumably, the overrun occurs because the city’s citizens and looters panic after seeing Task Force Zulu abandon and loot the location of resources.

Special Anti-Zombie Task Force Zulu/Soldiers
Give each player character the requisite number of soldiers to act as their security forces (2 player game=4 soldiers; 3 player game= 3 soldiers; 4 players game=2 soldiers). Each soldier receives two life tokens & two ammo tokens. Each soldier may hold a maximum of two ammo tokens. Soldiers travel wherever the player character goes. When a soldier dies he becomes a zombie and his figure is replaced with another zombie.

Ammo Tokens
Ammo tokens are spent to reroll unsuccessful die rolls during combat. Soldiers and Research Stations each start with two ammo tokens a piece. Soldiers may replenish ammo tokens by visiting Research Stations. Research Stations cannot replenish their ammo tokens unless they’re newly rebuilt at another location. Player characters may share their ammo tokens with each other if they’re both in the same city.

Combat
Combat happens whenever a player character travels to a city that has zombies. Combat continues until there are no player characters present or all zombies are defeated. Soldiers attack by engaging one zombie at a time. A player character may retreat after combat starts by using an available move action (if available) after his soldier(s) make one attack. Combat is resolved by rolling a six-sided die. If you roll a 4,5, or 6, you kill a zombie. If you roll a 1, 2, or 3, then your soldier loses a life point unless you spend an ammo token to re-roll. If your soldier rolls a 6 (a head-shot), then he gets another attack on another zombie. A soldier dies when he no longer has life points. When he dies, he becomes a zombie and his figure is replaced with a zombie figure. When all of a player character’s soldiers die, he is overrun by the zombies and eliminated from the game.

Missile Strike: Omega Man
Whenever a Research Station is occupied by a player character, he may choose to spend all of his turn’s actions to input the launch codes needed to order a MERV missile strike directed at one black cube and zombie infected city of his choice whereby all zombies are killed and black cubes removed. Player characters choosing this action are eliminated from the game since, naturally, the Research Station self-destructs and is also removed from the board.

Enjoy!

Risk Legacy may be my favorite gaming experience of all time. My gaming group is excited for Sea Fall, but I'll have to placate them with Pandemic Legacy in the mean time.

www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/39920/gam...cy-or-goodbye-mumbai

It's probably poor form to post a boardgamegeek link on FAT, but this click bait does have a good preview of Pandemic Legacy.

Those Pandemic Z rules are fucking brilliant, mate. Going to print them on a half-sheet and laminate them in my Pandemic box. You just breathed new life into it.

@Drew: Thanks for the link. This really makes it a lot clearer. Sadly, I'm not paying 70$ for it, but it really does look awesome. Love the RPG aspects of the roles.

SuperflyTNT wrote: Those Pandemic Z rules are fucking brilliant, mate. Going to print them on a half-sheet and laminate them in my Pandemic box. You just breathed new life into it.

@Drew: Thanks for the link. This really makes it a lot clearer. Sadly, I'm not paying 70$ for it, but it really does look awesome. Love the RPG aspects of the roles.

Yep. I'll wait until an online retailer makes it a daily sale.