Exalted: Legacy of the Unconquered Sun

Has anyone here played Exalted: Legacy of the Unconquered Sun? While ordering A Touch of Evil the new Exalted boardgame somehow made it's way to my order and it's open and out of shrink on the floor of my man cave. I've been looking for a good character-based fantasy boardgame but since I'm deathly sick of tired old D&D thematic elements I won't try Runebound, Descent, or any of those other ones. I've never played the Exalted RPG but it's apparently more of a unique fantasy setting.

What's the lowdown on this game?

No idea. In general I haven't heard too good of things about White Wolf board games, so in general I've stayed away from them.

metalface13 wrote:

No idea. In general I haven't heard too good of things about White Wolf board games, so in general I've stayed away from them.

Yeah I heard the first Exalted game wasn't stellar. From what I could tell this one look better. It will be the next game I learn and play, hope it wasn't a $52 blunder.

Wait, it's another Exalted game? See White Wolf doesn't even try very hard in marketing toward board gamers. Seems more like they're trying to get their RPG players to buy their board games.

Yeah with a game that is $75 at full retail (a big box chock full of components) you think they would have advertised it to the boardgame community. Maybe White Wolf's games sell themselves to the RPG players.

Yeah, file this one as "FROM OUT OF NOWHERE~!"

It looks like an OK production, but nothing about it screams "$75 good" to me.


And as for the rules usually accompanying a WW non-RPG production...uh...those usually aren't "$75 good" either.


Geez, with these adventure games crawling out of the woodwork, it almost feels like the whole 1995 CCG glut where they were coming faster than anyone could keep up with them.

I did pick it up. It is one of those Euro/AT hybrid.

It is a semi-cooperative questy game. Travel the map, roll on encounters, grab loot. The loot you get is of the form of cards (action and equipment), and mana tokens that you can spend to start other quests.

Pretty typical. The odd bits in this design are:

1. They nicked the excellent movement/action/calendar system from Thebes. Red November uses the game system. Barnes and I were both thinking that Thebes could easily be a fantasy adventure game---and this is the answer.

2. Each player has nemeses which force him to go off and deal with something or suffer some consequence. This is mostly again cribbed from Thebes, as it kind of resembles the exhibitions from that game.

3. The co-op thing is the weird bit. There are extremely vaguely described victory conditions. Basically, anyone present at the conclusion of the main big quest is a winner.

You could play the game cooperatively, single player, or in teams. Technically, all of those in the same game with shifting alliances. There aren't any mechanics in the game dealing with alliances, but anyone can help anyone resolve any quest or nemesis battle. It is very free-form and RPG-y.

I'm looking forward to trying it, but I'm not expecting a lot. Oh yeah. The game board weighs a full metric ton. It is like they packed a brick inside the box. The rest of the bits are actually a bit underwhelming.

My wife and I played last night. Yes there are characters and villians with different stats and special attacks, quests with varying awards, epic quests that trigger cataclysms when they aren't resolved. But when I looked at that big board with all those spaces and a few quest tokens the rest of the board was empty. Kind of like some of the game that wasn't there...empty. The attribute tests for the quests and the rivals (other characters your characters have to fight) are the only opposition faced throughout the game. Those elements worked but I don't think there was enough. There should have been storms or plagues or something. The fluff text on the quests kind of replicates those kind of story elements but a short, added set of rules for one other general type of encounter or event would make this a much better game. The comparisons to Thebes are fair comparisons but Exalted: LotUS goes the long way around to get things done. We had to bid together to resolve the epic quest, we didn't have the renown tokens to attempt them on our own. Started out interesting but got a little dull and I didn't like being forced into playing cooperatively when according to the rules you can play competitively. I'll give it another shot with more players to see how it goes.

There are a few neat thyings going on in this game but there could have been more. Good thing I didn't pay full price.

It's frustrating watching White Wolf's learning curve with board game design. Based on quantity and quality of components, their games look great. They have excellent licenses to work with, and some interesting ideas, but it feels like every design gets handwaved through the play-testing process. Like the previous Exalted boardgame... how could they possibly publish a multi-player wargame that only allows you to attack one opponent per turn? Or Mwahahaha!... the game tends to stall out near the end due to leader-bashing. My own game Dark Influences underwent heavy revisions, resulting in a pretty decent game that just happens to be a little lacking in fun. I keep hoping that White Wolf gets better and finally knocks one out of the park, but I worry that they may be dragged down into ruin by their Icelandic overlords.

Shellhead wrote:

It's frustrating watching White Wolf's learning curve with board game design. Based on quantity and quality of components, their games look great. They have excellent licenses to work with, and some interesting ideas, but it feels like every design gets handwaved through the play-testing process. Like the previous Exalted boardgame... how could they possibly publish a multi-player wargame that only allows you to attack one opponent per turn? Or Mwahahaha!... the game tends to stall out near the end due to leader-bashing. My own game Dark Influences underwent heavy revisions, resulting in a pretty decent game that just happens to be a little lacking in fun. I keep hoping that White Wolf gets better and finally knocks one out of the park, but I worry that they may be dragged down into ruin by their Icelandic overlords.

Playtesting could have been better on E: LotUS, I think it would be really hard to lose if you're playing a tight co-op game. This game could have been great with Exalted's (relatively) unique setting but instead it was mediocre and overpriced. This is a $35 game with a bigger price tag. Doesn't suck, not great, overpriced.