Together think, plan, fight

A friend told me on the way to game show in Essen, I should play there absolutely "Andor"; it was a very well-made "cooperative game". I followed the advice of my friend, played three times "Andor" and I'm thrilled! There is not only one winner; Rather, all the players play together so that they solve the tasks and run at the end either successfully commissioned or fail together. Winning or losing does not matter basically. It's about the decisions taken in concert, the way you play, the courage or the wise precaution that you can exercise while playing.

What happens? A narrator tells the story of the kingdom of Andor, as it needs to defend itself against various threats. Players are "heroes" (dwarf, wizard, archer or warrior), have different skills and can collect in the game gold, will points or strength points. For this they have on a timeline each seven to ten hours; when all players have exhausted their timeout, the round ends and there is a vote and new challenges. Suddenly enemy Gors or dragons appear. Suddenly an important letter is necessarily to be carried from one end of the playing field to the other. What at first seems easy to defeat a Gor in the fight turns out on a little dice luck as very difficult challenge. It makes sense, another hero to ask for help and to fight for two or even three of us against the enemy creatures.

At the show, we had a very good instructor who has the game left its magic and its mysteries; he always told only so much that we had players with the necessary knowledge for the next train. But the surprises arising in later rounds because the event cards are shuffled again, because the other players depending on the character have very different ideas about what you could do, and because the game, as the title indicates, multiple narratives involves. I'm very curious to see how the game in the different rounds in my circle will develop each. After I had learned the basic rules once, everything was relatively new logical and consistent. The game instructions seems well thought out and leaves you wanting more; soon it will probably upgrade to the basic game.

Why not full marks? Andor is not for the novice game and not for players who get excited about the willfulness and stubbornness of some players. One goes to a relatively complex gameplay that can take some time; you need for the right players.