Players: 2-4
Time: 1-2 hours
Difficulty: 3 (of 10)

The Components

Camelot Legends is a card game in a slightly larger box. It comes with:

• 100 cards
• 3 location sheets
• 4 reference sheets
• 1 rulebook

Cards: The cards are printed full-color on sturdy card stock with rounded corners. There are three types of cards: characters, events (including 3 "final" events), and special cards. Each card includes a very large amount of information.

There are 60 character cards. Each one depicts a character from the Arthurian stories in a unique full-color illustration that takes up about a quarter of the card. A name and heraldic allegiance span the top of the card. Down the right are the six characteristics of each character (combat, diplomacy, adventure, cunning, chivalry, and psyche). At the bottom left of each card is the text explaining what it does, as well as a bit of color text.

There are 37 adventure cards. Each one of these again has a full-color picture, slightly taller than the character artwork. Besides an explanation of the specific event and the name, you also get a victory point value across the bottom, as well as an iconic representation of what's required to complete the adventure (e.g., "18 adventure").

Finally the 3 special cards just depict three special things that can sometimes go from one character to another. They're "Excalibur", "High King", and "Love Potion". Each one has some large artwork, special rules, and a victory point value, arranged just like the VPs on the adventure cards.

The first thing worth noting on the cards is the artwork. It's universally very good, and the inclusion of 100 pieces of original artwork in a game like this is nothing short of amazing. Z-Man Games appears to have gone out to the CCG artist community for this game, and thus we see work from many CCG artists that I personally recognise, including Ed Beard Jr., Mark Poole, Jeff Menges, and Quinton Hoover. It's a pity they couldn't have found a way to make the artwork larger, but there is a ton of information on the cards, so there wasn't the room given the design of the game.

The overall design of the cards is worth commenting on too. It's attractive, thematic, and well-executed.

On the question of utility, there's a lot of things that were done well in this game. On the events the victory points are always large and easy to see, and the quest requirement icons nicely match up with the characteristic icons depicted on each character. Another very nice touch is that characters which can affect other characters are always marked with either a dagger or a rose, and so you can see from afar that something's a threat.

However, I also feel like the game didn't go as far as it could have to maximize utility, and in fact there are a couple of missteps too. The most frustrating problem for new players is the fact that the six characteristics are depicted on each character and on the quests with a series of six icons--nicely thematic shields. However in card texts they're instead called by name. The player reference helps by relating the names and icons, but you really don't want to have to be looking back and forth. I'd memorized the symbology within my first game, but it's still a problem for beginners. I had a similar problem on occasion with the allegiance shields, which are named in the text, but shown iconically on the cards. This comes up less frequently.

Another trouble that I ran into was with the optional card texts which give certain characters special powers which may be executed during a turn. These options aren't highlighted in any way, so every turn you have to scour over a half-dozen or more characters to figure out which ones have actions that you can take. Just marking the word May in bold would have helped things a lot.

Overall, throughout the game I had a lot of trouble figuring out which of my cards could do which things. I also constantly lost track of what my opponent's cards could do and they lost track of mine. I think a lot of work could have been done with iconography to make cards even more obvious and easy to use. To a certain extent this is a natural problem when you have 100 different cards, and literally every card has different powers. However, it still does remain a barrier to play, and I suspect it would be a lot of games before I had a good, intuitive grasp on most of the cards in the game. In no ways is this a gamebreaker, but it does obfuscate the game's play somewhat.

Sheets: There are three medium-sized cardstock sheets which each depict a location (Cornwall, Camelot, or the Perilous Forest); each location also helpfully lists the two adventure types (with characteristic icons) most likely to occur there.

There are also four smaller player reference sheets which each list the six characteristics (with names) and all the phases of the game, and are overall a nice add.

Both types of cardstock sheets are printed full-color on medium-light cardstock, and generally look nice.

Rulebook: A 20-page full-color rulebook that's attractively laid out and has a nice reference of the 9 allegiance types on the back cover. The rules are well-written for the most part, but are fairly awkwardly divided into "Beginner" and "Standard" rules. Unfortunately you have to page back and forth, because for example the rules for Standard game setup give a bunch of rules, then say the rest is done according to the beginner rules. Ugh. I can understand the desire to include a beginner's game, but still the standard game rules should really be complete in and of themselves, so that you don't have to forever refer back to the simpler game.

Box: The box is a fair amount oversized for the cards contained within. This is a pretty common issue with card games, because most retailers aren't willing to give a tuckboxed game the attention it deserves, so I usually shrug my shoulders when I see this unless the box is really outrageously large (which this isn't). The box helpfully has a simple cardboard tray to keep your cards from going all over.

Arthurian Mythology: I'm a big fan of Arthuriana, and I've got a decent-sized collection of Arthurian games that have come out over the last two and a half decades. (My oldest is King Arthur's Knights, by Greg Stafford, published in 1978.) As a result I really pay attention to how well a game adapts the Arthurian mythos. This one dose a superb job. I think it's the best themed Arthurian game that I've played. Each individual card, from "The Grail Castle" and "Theft of Excalibur" to "Sir Kay" and "King Mark" gives a great feeling for that character or event. This is not just a question of name, artwork, and color text, but also well-designed and thoughtful special abilities.

Before closing up on the components it's worth noting one additional thing: this game takes a lot of space to play. If you have a small table you won't be able to play it, and if you have a large table the game will fill it.

Overall, the game is beautiful and the theming is perfect. A lot of hard work has been done on utility; in the end more work is needed to make the game easy to play, but that's as much a problem with the game system as with the components. Thus I've decided to give Camelot Legends a full "5" out of "5" for Style. I'd like it if this game were easier to play, but I can't ignore how well-done the components are already.

The Gameplay

The object of Camelot Legends is to collect the most victory points through successful quests (and the ownership of a couple of special cards representing magic items and rulership over the island of Britain).

Setup: Three location cards are placed in the middle of the table, representing Cornwall, Camelot, and the Forest Perilous.

Each player is given an initial hand of 5 characters.

The event cards are shuffled, 17 to 23 of them are placed in a face-down pile, and 1 of the 3 final events is placed below them.

The players begin the game with each one placing one of their characters at a location of their choice.

Order of Play: Normal play now begins. Each player takes the following actions during his turn:

1. Draw Event Card
2. Use Optional Card Text
3. Complete Location Events
4. Take Two Card Actions

Draw Event Card: A player draws the top card from the event card and plays it appropriately. There are a few different types of events:

Location Events. Most cards fit this category. Each one lists a location (one of the three standards), any special rules, a requirement to accomplish it (usually 9-18 of one characteristic, but sometimes a value in each of two different characteristics), and a victory point value.

For example, "Siege Perilous" is a Camelot Event that requires 15 adventure to complete and gives 5 VPs plus very good protection for one of the player's knights.

Special Events. These have some special, instanteous effect, and are then discarded.

Heraldic Events. These give a bonus to one allegiance of knights; only one is out at a time.

Bidding Events. These events cause an auction to occur, where players bid knights until they reach the maximum count for the adventure. Everyone who bids knights loses them, but only the player who bid the knights with the most of certain characteristics wins the adventure (and thus gets the VPs).

For Example, "Visit to the Otherworld" is a bidding event in which each player can bid up to 3 characters, and the player who bid the most adventure + psyche wins the 5 VP card.

Special Locations. These are combinations of locations and events, which gives knights a new place to go to, and certain requirements they must meet to achieve victory points. They're laid out near the standard three locations.

Final Events. There's only one of these in each game, and it comes up last. Effectively these are Special Locations too.

For example, "Dragonslayer" is a Final Event that requires 18 combat and 18 adventure to complete and gives 7 VPs (and ends the game).

Use Optional Card Text: Some characters have optional text that you "may" use if you decide to. These mostly discard other characters (and are marked with a dagger) or do various things to males (and are marked with a rose) or let you temporarily increase some of the characteristics of your group. Usually the character who uses his special power is discarded at the end of your turn.

You can use each special power just once on a turn.

Complete Location Events: Now you get to complete any location events for which you've met the criteria (typically some minimum value in one or two characteristics for your whole company, which is to say you sum up all of the characteristic at the current location and try and meet this minimum). You can only complete one event per location per turn; you can complete a couple if they're at different locations.

If you complete an event you remove it from the location and put it in front of you as a victory display.

Some events also give the player access to one of the three special cards--Excalibur, the High King, or the Love Potion. If this is the case, the player takes the card and attaches it to one of his characters.

Take Two Card Actions: Finally, you get to do two actions from a set of three, repeating the same action if you desire. They are:

1. Draw a Character Card. To a max of 5.
2. Play a Character Card. To a location, to a maximum company size of 6.
3. Move Character Card(s). Move 1 or 2 cards from one location to another location, to a maximum company size of 6.

Ending the Game: Eventually the Final Event is drawn. It's a Special Location, so it's set to one side, and knights can start moving there if they so desire. When the final event is successfully completed, the game ends.

Each player then adds up the value of his completed events and any special cards he owns. The player with the most Victory Points wins.

Game Variants: The game actually comes in three variants: Beginner, Standard, and Advanced. What I've described above is the complete game. Simpler games use a subset of the cards in the game, and leave out some of the rules. They have fewer event types, don't use the special cards or final events, etc.

Relationships to Other Games

Camelot Legends is ultimately a Collectible Card game in a non-collectible package. It's pretty easy to imagine a slight variant of the game where each player is building from their own deck of characters.

The uniqueness of the individual cards is pretty common for a CCG, but I think Camelot Legends actually overdoes this aspect. Each card has a lot of text, and most cards have no icons, bold-faced phrases, or other methods to help you keep track of what they can do. Thus on the face of the cards themselves Camelot Legends is a lot more complex than most CCGs. This problem is also more relevent because you have a fair number of cards out, and they're scattered across the whole table. I'm going to talk more about this in The Game Design, but here it's worth pointing out just as a difference from most CCGs.

In the world of Arthurian games, Camelot Legends is one of a few different card games that I've played in the genre. It's generally one of the most well-developed and interesting.

The Game Design

I really wanted to love Camelot Legends. It's got beautiful cards, great theming, and an elegant, yet interesting game system.

Unfortunately I ran into problems with how the game actually played.

The core problem is, inevitably, what I've described a few times: the huge variability of the cards, and the fact that there's no good way to keep track of what does what. I'm really tempted to fudge this and say, "but CCGers will be more used to this type of complexity," or "the complexity will eventually be resolved through continued play." However, I think that ignores what's a real problem.

I've played a lot of CCGs including Magic: The Gathering (for years), Jihad, Illuminati: New World Order, The Babylon 5 CCG, Redemption, and Shadow Fist. Heck, I was the official Chaosium net.representative and rules lawyer for Mythos for a couple of years. The complexity of keeping track of individual cards is higher in Camelot Legends than in most or all of the above. (Jihad and INWO might have been slightly comparable, but it's been a long time since I've played them, so I'm not entirely sure.)

As I've said, there's a lot of reasons for this. Component usability improvements could have helped. The fact that there's no card duplication and the cards are all scattered across a huge playing area both contribute.

Still, more than once I had to point out to other players that what they were doing didn't really make sense because of some special power I had that wasn't easily readable from their side of the table. Ultimately, that's a problem, and though some players will eventually conquer it, it can't be ignored.

I had one other problem with the game design, which is that the timing of the game was very awkward. Throughout the early game everyone was mainly spinning their wheels, waiting to get critical mass of characters to complete quests. Then, there was a sudden flurry of quest completion. And then things started to get fairly interesting, with more moving of characters around the table, and real jockeying for position ... just as the game came to a quick end. The monotony of the early game and the abrupt end of the late game both felt awkward, though these issues might have been less obvious if there was a slightly different assortment of event cards in any particular game. (I felt like we had too many non-location events, but looking through the actual deck I think we had a pretty average distribution.)

With that said, I'll also comment that there's lots that's good about the game. First, it has a lot of the advantages that you see in CCGs. The individual cards are evocative, interesting, and pretty, and there's a lot of variety in gameplay from one game to another.

In addition, the event completion system is elegant and with the ability to move characters around or sacrifice them for various short-term advantages, it feels like there's a lot of strategy and tactics possible. In many ways it reminds me of a Reiner Knizia design because of the solid mathematical basis at the core of the gameplay.

In the end, however, I think that the very interesting gameplay is somewhat overshadowed by the fact that it's hard to play the game because there's actually too much variety among the cards and no good way to keep track of everything. If things had been a little simpler, I think the game would have been much better. Overall I've given the game a high "3" out of "5" for Style: slightly above average.

Conclusion

Camelot Legends is a beautifully produced card game that's extremely true to the Arthurian mythos. There's also an interesting and elegant game system at the heart of everything. However, there's so much variety among the CCG-like game cards, and you have so many of them out at the same time that the complexity ultimately obfuscates and detracts from the elegant game system. It's generally recommended for Arthurian enthusiasts and serious CCG players, but others will probably find it overwhelming and/or too hard to play.