Hands down, our ninth game of Clank! Legacy was our collective worst. In a total reversal of the last bunch of games, Brennan perished in the depths of the underworld, not even able to collect an artifact before he was gobbled up. Even though he's won the most games, he's now the only player to die with zero points (and he's done it twice). Stirling was the only one of us that made it out in one piece, but due to the reckless pace he had to set to get there, he ended up with only around 60 points. That means that I, even though I was killed, won the game! I managed to crawl above the deep line before I was taken by the dragon and so I still scored my 77 points. Hurray for me! I move past Stirling into second place with two wins. He has one and Brennan is kicking our butts with six wins.
So what happened? Why did game nine see our lowest scores yet when we had our highest in just the last game? Well, let me tell you!
(1) Our usual strategy didn't work so well. For the last few games we've decided to only buy static cards from the market so that we wouldn't trigger any dragon attacks. This gives us four or five rounds of getting into the dungeon and not having to worry about the dragon. Then, even though we have a lot of clank in the bag, we're only drawing a few cubes at a time still. This allows us the time to get done all the things we want to get done. Well, this time we made the mistake of picking up an artifact (whoops, that was me) and accidentally getting some dragon eggs (three of them, all Brennan's fault). That meant that when it was time to pull cubes, we were already at the four or five cube mark. Plus, the dragon attacked after almost every one of our turns (who shuffled those cards? Oh, wait, I was the only one who was allowed to touch the pieces...). Needless to say, we got out butts kicked by the dragon and had to limp our way to the exit. This lead to the fact that...
(2) I won! Alright, it was not an impressive win, but a win is a win! I knew pretty quick that Brennan wasn't going to make it out. So did Stirling. So did Brennan, actually. By that time though, it was too late. He has sort of a "go big or go home" mentality in Clank, that's probably why he wins big most of the time. Well, today he lost big and I must selfishly admit that I was happy about it. The race was on between Stirling and I. Unfortunately, he had better resources that allowed him to get to the exit before me. Fortunately, I had collected a lot more good stuff and still managed to beat him. My only hope of winning the campaign is that Brennan's two zero point deaths will drag him down a little bit.
(3) THIS is a legacy game. So far this is only my third legacy game, but I feel like it's done right. Gloomhaven is amazing in so many ways, but the story feels more cohesive and not so overwhelming in Clank! Legacy. Granted, I've only played about 15 scenarios in Gloomhaven, but the story and events feel less connected than in Clank! Even the legacy elements of stickering and writing on things in Gloomhaven feels disconnected and separate. Placing a town on a map that you don't actually travel across is not as exciting as finding a new section of the cavern in Clank! Especially when you're the one to discovered it and reap the rewards.
I'm also about two-thirds of the way through Charterstone with Sharayah, Logan, and Jenn, and it's been a while since we've played. The new elements add new learns that you have to learn but don't really want to. In Clank!, everything new is exciting and fun, or at least awful and terrifying and impactful.
(4) If only it were a solo game... If I could play this game myself, (like, really by myself, not playing four of the characters and pretending I don't know what they can do), it would be my perfect game. I'm praying there is a sequel because I already want more of this. Maybe, just maybe, they'll work in their glorious app for the base game to make the second version soloable. Fingers crossed, right?
Another day, another death. Only a few-ish games left of this bad boy before Brennan is crowned champion. After that I'll throw down my full (and hopefully spoiler free) review.
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