Camelot Legends

Customer Reviews

Great idea but coming short Review by Gagnonator

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Camelot Legends is a good looking card game but there is some major problems that ruin it all. After a few games, it is obvious that if the players are experienced, only luck decide the winner... there is too much bad knights compare to good knights so if a player get two or three good knights, he's almost assured he will win.

On the positive side, the cards looks great and the three levels of difficulty makes it easier to play with beginners...but that's it. (Posted on 10/22/10)

Should have picked something else Review by Murray

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I won a card game of my choice from a Zman games contest and picked Camelot Legends because I like Arthurian stories (I also have Shadows over Camelot). After a few plays, however, I wished I picked something else, like Fairy Tale.

The quality of the game is good, the artwork is great and the theme is well done. As a fan of the knights of Camelot, I was happy with the text and the references. However, as a person who has played a lot of games, Camelot Legends came across as fairly bland to me.

Don't even bother with the beginner level game, as it strips away a good portion of interesting bits away from the game. The game is not that hard at all to learn and playing with Immediate rules right off the bat will allow you to see the game as it truly is and allow you to figure out the tricks and tactics appropriate for the game.

There is a good amount of interaction involved as you play the knights off of each other. However, if a good player gets a good starting hand and some lucky draws, it is pretty hard to stop them from dominating the game. There isn't too many choices available to players as the cards pretty much play themselves and good moves are fairly obvious. After a couple of plays, we retired the game to the back of our gaming shelf. (Posted on 10/2/09)

Camelot Legends is quite a fun, mid-level tactical card game. It is easy enough to learn and compact enough for portability while strategic enough for most players to enjoy. While there is a high luck factor, it is balanced out by the numerous special a Review by TR

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Camelot Legends is a card game based on the legends of King Arthur and the Round Table. In Camelot Legends, players take on the roles of the various persona’s in the legends of Camelot, using parties of stalwart knights, malicious fighters and beautiful ladies to complete a variety of quests taken from the legends in three locations. A well balanced game, Camelot Legends elegant mechanics provide quite a bit of replay value for fans of the Arthurian legend.

Appearance: Camelot Legends comes in a small box that fit’s the 100 plus cards that make up the game. Art work on the game harkens back to Renaissance artwork of the subject matter, with some visually stunning pieces and some more average work. The usage of the various icons to depict the strengths of a character is clever and saves a lot of space, and since the vast majority of times remembering what each of the six strengths are is not required, works quite well.

Rules / Ease of Learning: Camelot Legends comes with rules for a beginner, standard and advanced game. The rules are laid out in a pretty simple to understand manner, so introducing the game to players is not particularly hard. There is very little reason to play the beginner game unless against absolute beginners to board games / card games as the standard rules are much more interesting. The difference between standard and advanced games is really negligible - it’s a matter of which cards are in play.

In Camelot Legends, players have 3 locations where Quests will appear - Camelot, Cornwall and the Enchanted Forest. Each of the three locations have two (2) specific skills/strengths that quests that appear there will likely call upon the most. At any one time, there can only be three quests in a location, with each quest having a minimum requirement in points for its skills that must be met to complete the quest. In addition to Quest cards, there are also other types of event cards that can appear - bidding events, heraldic events (bonuses to specific characters) and special events.

Players begin the game with 5 character cards. Each character card depicts a particular character from the Arthurian legends ranging from well known characters like Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain to lesser known figures such as Sir Bors and Sir Kay. In addition to the Knights, various Ladies are also depicted. Each character has strengths in 6 different areas, with points ranging from -1 to 6. A number of characters have special power text on their cards, these text allowing the characters to attack, disable or boost their own characters or others (often in the same location only).

During each turn, players draw a new event card; playing them to the end. Players may then activate any special abilities they desire to on their characters before attempting to complete any quests. Only one quest per location may be completed a turn, allowing players to complete a maximum of 3 quests per turn only. These quests are removed from the location and placed in front of the player, with any special rewards taken at that time.

Players now have two actions they may take. Each action allows them to either draw a new character card, play a single character card into a location (maximum of six characters per location though) from their hand or move up to two characters to a new location.

The game ends when the final event card is drawn and completed, with the number of event cards in a deck varying depending on the number of players. The final event card is always a special event which acts as a different location. The winner is the player with the highest number of victory points gained.

Gameplay: Camelot Legends is a tactical card game that plays quite fast with two players. In general, we would suggest three to four players as the two player game, while going much faster, lacks some of the tension and strategic decision making required for the larger games. In particular, we found that two player games were a lot less ruthless as special abilities involving damaging / hurting characters were less used as locations were quickly ‘owned’ by one player or another.

Camelot Legends definitely has a luck element as both the random draw of the character cards and event cards can play into one player or the other’s hands. On the other hand, careful use of the various character cards and abilities can provide a levelling advantage and it never seems too unbalanced. Certainly the random heraldic and bidding events can provide a quick boost to the lucky player.

The most confusing aspect of the game is the various special abilities available to each character. From boosts to points to abilities to harm other characters, keeping track of all this information can be quite frustrating for those not used to this. On the other hand, the use of various tokens can help indicate which characters are receiving bonuses (as mentioned on BGG), though this does not include the various ‘offensive’ abilities characters might have.

Other than this, the game plays quite well with very little other aspects that can be considered particularly confusing. It is quite fun, with each turn moving relatively fast once all players are familiar with the characters in play (and their special abilities). The shift in the number of quest cards is an in-built time-limit to the game, though in smaller games, the draw of non-location event cards (I.e. quest cards) can sometimes create a really scarce victory point game.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the game are the notes on the various characters that will spark the interest of Arthurian fans. The inclusion of even minor characters from the legends will have players puzzling out who they are, revisiting the information kindly provided in the rule book and discussing the various strengths of each character as depicted in the cards and the legends

Conclusion: Camelot Legends is quite a fun, mid-level tactical card game. It is easy enough to learn and compact enough for portability while strategic enough for most players to enjoy. While there is a high luck factor, it is balanced out by the numerous special abilities in the characters that level out the field. In addition, the game holds to the main theme very well and is sure to thrill any fan of the Arthurian legends for this reason.  (Posted on 1/30/09)