“In the world of Galecrest, sky pirates set sail on the winds in search of adventure, treasure, and glory. As an admiral, you command a vast and varied crew…but so do your rivals sailing other ships in the pirate fleet. Each day the fleet lands on a different island where you’ll send a crew member to collect your share of the loot, hoping they’ll return to boost your growing group of characters.”

Such is the flavor text as you dive into piratey adventure in Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest.

The original Libertalia board game was published 10 years ago (2012) and now there’s a new ship on the seas (or in the sky – as is the case with the new theme).

Stonemaier Games recently released this revised and expanded edition of Libertalia with new artwork, 40 characters per player, a reputation system, deluxe loot tokens, and a solo mode.

We owned the original Libertalia and sold it a few years ago in one of our game purges. Now that we’ve played the new Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest, will it meet the fate of the original and find another home? Or will it find a permanent spot in our game closet?

Let’s dive in and see…

 

How to play Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest

The goal in Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest is to be the wealthiest sky pirate. Players gain wealth as they loot treasure and goods across 3 voyages.

The general flow of the game is that each day of a voyage players simultaneously select a character card from their hand to play. Once revealed, they’re placed on the island from lowest to highest and their daytime abilities are resolved in ascending order. Then in descending order, players collect loot and use any character dusk abilities – after which all characters go to their player’s ship. Then night abilities activate.

At the end of each voyage, players activate any anchor abilities and score loot and doubloons (then discard them). Players keep any non-played characters in their hands for the next voyage but those in their ships are discarded. A new voyage begins as players add more characters to their hands to play on.

Now if you want more details…

Set up

To set up the game, players first choose the side of the board they want to play – Calm or Stormy – with the difference being different loot abilities.

Each player gets a set of 40 character cards (in their chosen color), a scoring dial, and a graveyard tile. Loot tokens are randomly drawn from the bag and placed on the Day spaces for the voyage – each day space gets loot tokens equal to the number of players. The colored reputation disks are randomly placed on the reputation track and players take the doubloons listed below their reputation marker.

One player then shuffles their character deck and randomly draws 6 character cards. All other players retrieve those same number character cards from their own deck. Thus, every player has the same 6 characters in hand to start the game.

Game play

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.

On each day, players simultaneously select a character card from their hand. They reveal them at the same time and then place them in ascending order on the Island portion of the game board. If matching characters are played, the player with the higher reputation (based on the reputation track) places their character to the right.

Starting with the leftmost character and going in ascending order, each player activates their character’s Daytime ability.

Then starting with the rightmost character, each player with a character on the island gains a Loot token from that day’s space. Then if that player’s character or the loot token they take has a Dusk ability, they carry it out. If that player’s character is still on the island, they take it and place it in their ship (area in front of the player).

After each player has activated their characters on the island, any loot remaining on that day is put back in the bag.

Then all players simultaneously activate all night abilities of characters in their ships.

If players have to discard one of their characters, they’re placed face down on their graveyard tile.

Players then repeat this process for the next day of the voyage.

At the end of each voyage, players activate anchor abilities on both their loot tokens and characters in their ships.

Players then increase their score dial by the number of doubloons they’ve gained that voyage. Then everyone discards all their doubloons. And unless specifically stated on a character or loot, players put all loot tokens back in the bag and all characters in their ship onto their graveyard. All character cards in a player’s hand remain in their hand.

At the end of the first and second voyage, players reset for the next voyage. This includes setting out loot tokens, gaining doubloons based on their location on the reputation track, and adding more character cards to their hands. One player randomly draws 6 new characters from their deck and all other players again retrieve those same numbered characters to their hands. Thus, the same 6 characters are added to all players’ hands. (But which characters each player carried over in hand from the prior voyage may differ.)

At the end of the third voyage, players compare their score dials to determine the richest sky pirate and winner of the game!

 

Can the whole family enjoy Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest?

While the general game play of Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest is very straightforward to understand, there are a lot of nuances in the game that makes it a game best suited for teenagers and above.

And for this older crew, it’s those very nuances that makes the game so fun to play!

Everyone starts out with the very same 6 characters they can choose from. But depending on what loot tokens are out on each day, and what you think the other players are going to play, everything will change after that first day of the first voyage.

Timing can be critical and second guessing is par for the course. Plus, your best laid plans can go awry very quickly as soon as another player gets just ahead of you in play order, grabs a saber, and eliminates your character from the island.

And every game will play out completely differently because of the extensive variety in the game!

That variety is super evident in the shear number of character cards – each with its unique abilities. And that’s really what the game is all about – using the character abilities as best you can to maneuver into the lead with the most doubloons.

There are 40 character cards and over the course of 1 game, players will only play with 18 of those characters (6 new characters added to players’ hands for each voyage). Imagine the number of potential combinations of mixing all these abilities!

We also love how each player carries over to the next voyage any characters remaining in their hand. So even though everyone will add in the same new 6 characters to their hand, each player’s options will still be unique to them for the next voyage.

The 40 character abilities vary so much – granting doubloons based on certain conditions, getting extra loot, eliminating other characters from the island (or their owner’s ship), gaining back characters from your graveyard, moving around on the reputation track,  copying other abilities, and much more.

Plus, when those actions trigger plays into all your choices. Do they activate at Daytime, Dusk, or Night? Or do they have an Anchor ability that activates at the end of a voyage? And some have combination of each of those timings!

Another bit of variety comes in the form of the loot tokens set out each day.

The random combination of loot available will factor into which characters you choose to play on which days. Since the collection of the loot goes from the highest numbered card to the lowest, if there’s something you really want, you’ll want to play a higher card. But will that mess with your other plans of what you could gain from playing a different card first?

Also, don’t forget to factor in which cards you think the other players are going to play. Because maybe you can mess with their plans at the same time. Oh, the choices!

If that weren’t enough variety, throw in the option to play with the Stormy side of the game board – where the loot token powers are ratcheted up a notch. Plus, the game also includes loot tiles that players can use to cover over the loot ability spaces on either side of the board. This means you can mix and match whichever loot powers you want to play with each game!

Another great thing the game has going for it is that up to 6 people can play. And since it’s a simultaneous-selection game, adding more players doesn’t add much more to the length of play. Plus, things get really interesting when there are 6 pirates vying for loot.

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.

As with most Stonemaier Games board games, Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest also has a solo mode. Solo mode in board games isn’t of interest to us, so we can’t give our opinion of how well it plays. But if you like solo mode in your games, that’s another aspect to look into with Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest.

 

How does Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

We really like this new, revised version of Libertalia. And since it’s scoring so high on our “let’s play again” game meter, it’s going to be a keeper in our game collection!

It’s a fun game with so much variety in the combinations of the characters and loot, that every game plays out differently. And the nature of the game also plays out differently depending on the people we’re playing with. Which we’d completely expect because with the simultaneous selection during each day of every voyage.

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!

The Board Game Family would like to thank Stonemaier Games for a review copy of Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest.