Upper Deck Previews Legendary: Buffy The Vampire Slayer

The Buffyverse will soon be getting a brand new tabletop experience, so you better get those wooden stakes ready.

The game in question is a new version of Upper Deck‘s popular Legendary series, a deck builder that has had success in taking on other big licenses like Marvel and Aliens. Like those other versions, Legendary: Buffy The Vampire Slayer will task 1 to 5 players with defending Sunnydale from some of the franchise’s biggest villains, and Upper Deck is infusing the game with plenty of Buffy hallmarks.

Since the initial announcement, Upper Deck has released more details about the tweaked gameplay, but the nuts and bolts of Buffy will be familiar to fans of past Legendary installments. If you aren’t familiar with how those games work, here’s a quick rundown.

Players start out with a 12 card deck made up of 8 Watchers and 4 Initiative Soldiers. You’ll shuffle this deck and then pick 6 cards to start the game with. Each card has an Attack number and a Recruit Point number, which you’ll use to attack the villains and recruit other heroes respectively.

The board has 5 slots across it representing Sunnydale, and each turn you flip a new card over from the Villain deck. You also have 5 choices from the hero deck below it, and a big bad deck is located to the left of both sections. You’ll take out villains in the Sunnydale section to keep them from escaping, otherwise, consequences (called Schemes) will come your way and halt your progress. You’ll do this by recruiting more powerful heroes to stack your attack stats, which will allow you to take out the Big Bads and complete the game. The person with the most victory points by the end of the game wins.

You’ll accomplish your goal with heroes like Buffy, Angel, Giles, Willow, and Xander, and will face off against villains like The Master and a horde of demons and hellhounds.

Now, that’s just a quick summary, and Buffy will change up that basic structure a bit with two new gameplay mechanics. Hit the next slide to find out a bit more about these changes to the game.

Light/Dark Track

Legendary: Buffy The Vampire Slayer will introduce a new mechanic titled the Light/Dark Track, which will have a continuous effect during the game.

The track is split into Dark and Light sides, with 1 – 3 slots on either side. When the game beings players will place the Darkness counter on Dark space 1, and the counter will move depending on what abilities are activated throughout the game. Some cards will have an “Advance the Dark” or “Advance the Light” option on them, which will move the counter down or up respectively. Players will feel this in the Big Bads especially, as they all have Dark abilities that are activated once it hits Dark 3.

Likewise, if it is on the Light 3 slot, a player will gain a Courage Token (next slide), and both abilities will then reset their respective counters.

If a villain escapes Sunnydale, players will advance the Dark, but if you defeat a villain in either Sunnydale High or Downtown, you will advance the Light.

Also, Hero, Villain, and Bystander cards have Dark/Light consequences, so make sure to be on the lookout.

Hit the next slide to find out what Courage Tokens do.

Courage Tokens

Buffy will also switch things up with the introduction of Courage Tokens.

You’ll start the game with 1 Courage Token, and more can be gained by using certain Hero cards. You can also gain them by defeating particular villains.

So, what exactly do they do? Well, you can use them in two different ways. You can spend your Courage Tokens on your turn to gain 1 Recruit Point, which will help you gain some extra points to purchase a more powerful hero. You can also gain 1 additional Attack, so if you are so close to being able to take out a villain and need an extra boost, you now have a way to do so.

The good news is that you don’t have to spend them as soon as you get them. You can save as many as you want, which will help you either take on a lingering Big Bad or purchase one of those more powerful Hero cards.

It looks like Upper Deck is pulling out all the stops for its newest Legendary recruit, and fans should have a blast with these new mechanics.

Legendary: Buffy the Vampire Slayer will hit stores on September 16th, and you can check out the official rulebook here.