Legendary Encounters: Predator

After playing Marvel Legendary plenty of times I got the chance to play Legendary Encounters.  Both games are very alike but do have some differences.  Recently I probably have played Encounters Predator more than Marvel Legendary so I thought it was time I wrote about it a bit.

A few things to start with, because the basic game play is almost exactly like Marvel Legendary, which I have already written about here, I will only really be talking about the differences between the two games.  Also it is worth noting there are lots of versions of Legendary Encounters out at the moment including Predator, Alien (plus an alien expansion) and Firefly.  All the versions can be used together (plus with the Marvel set as well).  I have only played Predator at the moment so I can't talk about the other versions.

Main Differences Between Predator and Marvel
The biggest difference between the two games is that Legendary Encounters: Predator has two game modes, pure Co-op and completely competitive.

In Co-op the players play as humans and will play through the stories from the two predator movies.  Instead of a Mastermind that must be defeated like Marvel Legendary there will be 3 missions that must be completed in order to move on to the next.  Normally these missions will require the players to do something like clear certain spaces in the Wilds, kill a certain enemy or find cards in the adversary deck.  Once the final mission is finished, the players win or lose together, there is no victory points for saving bystanders and defeating enemies so it is everyone wins together or loses together, no competitive element like Marvel Legendary.

In Competitive play the players will be Predators playing against each other to get the most Honour (victory points) throughout the game.  They will get these from the enemies they kill during the game.

Both versions have different sets of card for both the adversary deck and the HQ deck.

Another big change is that in Encounters cards from the Adversary deck are dealt out into the Wilds face down.  Players must spend some of their attack to scan a space and turn the card face-up.  Once it is face up if can be fought like a normal enemy or will trigger if it is an event or trap.  How much attack it takes to scan a card depends of the space it is in.  Those on the right (most recently dealt from the deck) are more expensive to scan than those on the left (which have been out longer and pushed along).

Another big change is that the game now includes a Combat Zone.  When cards reach the end of the Wilds instead of escaping like they do in Marvel Legendary they enter the Combat Zone.  Once there they will attack the players directly at the end of each turn they are still there giving the players Strikes.

Strikes work differently from how Wounds did in Marvel as well.  Instead of just filling your deck useless card they now remove Health Points from the player.  Players can die in this version if they lose all their HP.  They can be healed by cards that can be brought that help discard Strikes.

In Encounters each player gets an Avatar as well.  These are who the player is in the game, there plenty of different ones available, with ones for humans and Predators.  The Avatar will give the players HP, defence and one special card that starts in their starting deck.

Finally there is a new mechanic in Encounters: Predator that wasn't in Marvel Legendary.  Coordinate is a new keyword that allows players to lend a card from their hand to another player on the other players turn.  Any card with the Coordinate keyword can be lent but players can only lend one each per turn.  After the card is placed in the owning players discard pile and a new one is drawn.  It really increases the player interaction in the game and is a great way get a card you need to pull off a nice combo, especially since some cards have effects that only trigger if a card is coordinated to you on your turn.

So Which is Better?
This is a tricky question and honestly I like both.  I prefer the mechanics in Encounters, I think it is better with the Avatar's and the Combat Zone.  I also think Strikes are a nicer way to handle damage than Wounds in Marvel Legendary.  I like the way you play through a story in Co-op it does feel more thematic than Marvel Legendary, it really does feel like playing through the movies.

However their are a lot fewer combinations of cards in Encounter than Marvel.  With only a few Characters to put into the HQ deck based on characters from the films you have fewer than you do in Marvel.  Also the players only really work with the others from the same movie, you can mix them but they don't combo as well with each other in a mixed deck.  The same goes for the missions, their is only a limited number, 2 sets (one for each movie), and that does hurt replay-ability a little.  I like that in Marvel there are so many combinations of Heroes, Villains, Masterminds and Schemes that it is almost impossible to play each combination.

The two game modes is nice and there are rules in the book to combine it with Legendary Encounters: Aliens so you can do Aliens vs Predators which is pretty cool.

Overall I think there is space for both games, they are both solid deck-builders and well worth playing both.  Really I think it just comes down to which theme you prefer unless you massively like the differences in mechanics between them.  But if you don't like one it is unlikely you will like the other.