Western Legends

What you just described re: playing with Ante Up, but having the board itself off limits, is pretty much the way we do it with less than 5 players.

I received my Blood Money expansion Kickstarter yesterday. I wasn't expecting much of it, other than some additional characters and cards, but was very pleasantly surprised, and am very excited by what it contained.

The new characters and mechanics are clearly inspired by "Deadwood" (i.e. there is an Al Swearingen character) and you can get Legendary Points (VPs) by buying up property.

What I am most excited by is that the expansion includes variants that allow you to focus the game on the the aspects you want. So, for example, you can play focused on Outlaws vs Marshals, or Gamblers, or Ranching. There is also a 2 player variant played only on the small expansion board from Ante Up that focuses on Homesteading.

Also, the Kickstarter included a hard cover rulebook with all the rules for the core game and all the expansions, plus all the variants. I think this must have been a stretch goal, because I don't recall ordering it. I really appreciate this as the game has definitely evolved and there have been so many expansions, that keeping the rules straight has been a bit difficult.

Jackwraith wrote: I'm kind of sorry my first experience was such a mediocre one.

Due to Western Legends being kind of sandboxy, it can definitely result in a mediocre experience - just folks wandering around doing a bit of this, and a bit of that, with little player interaction, especially at lower player counts on that big board. I'm hoping that the variants provide focus, and makes the experience more consistently good. Although. looking them over, it will still require buy in from the players. Like just because you go into it agreeing that you are all going to play the Gunslinger variant, there doesn't seem to be anything preventing a player from jumping ship and going Homesteader, other than that their character's ability won't give them any homesteader advantages.

It would be foolish of them not to make the consolidated rulebook and variants available as a pdf. I would be surprised if they didn't.