Legends of the Arena solo play - One Stop Co-Op Shop

0:00 Hey everybody, this is Mike with the One Stop Co-op Shop, and today I'm doing a double play through of Legends of the Arena. And disclaimer that I got a review copy of this one. And if you like the content on the One Stop Co-op Shop, consider supporting us through Patreon. You get early access to our videos and exclusive videos every month you can't see anywhere else. You can also listen to our weekly podcast for reviews and design discussions, or join the conversation and say hi on our Discord. So, Legend of the Arena is a brawling game in the vein of Smash Brothers where you are attacking your opponent and you have unique characters and you're trying to knock them out of the arena. And you can play it 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, free for all, you can play with special arena effects, all this stuff. But, you can also, if you get the solo mode expansion, which they sent me, play against bots and that can be used to fill out a game. And it works really smoothly. So, I'm going to show you two 1v1 fights cuz it's a little bit rough to run 2v2 all by yourself. First one will be with very simple characters on easy difficulty and then we'll go to more complex characters and try out hard. In this case, I am playing Alicia, the unrelenting warrior.

0:58 She has mobility, melee combo potential, she's a brawler, rush down, multi strikes, all cool stuff. And I'm going against Fitz, the culinary crusher. He also likes melee combat, but he's a bit more defensive. And for setup, we lay out a board of seven cards and one from the center, we put portals for each team, and we put our fighters facing each other, so facing does matter for this game. And only five of the spaces in the arena are real spaces. The last one on each side is an edge space. You can move into that and then climb back up to the side, but if you ever get hit all the way off, you lose one of your stock of lives, and then in a 1v1 game you only have one of these. So, if you get hit off a second time, you lose. Each character has a set of basic attack cards, six for Alicia, so I've got all of those. And they've also got one ultimate card and three special cards.

1:45 I've shuffled the special cards, put them on top of the ultimate card, so I'll get to that in the fourth round, but I'm going to be getting random special cards in the first three rounds. And besides that, the game's pretty straightforward, so let's just go in. All right, so your character card that keeps track of your fatigue, which is going to determine basically how much damage you have and how much extra you get pushed when you get hit by somebody, shows the steps of the round. So, first I'm going to draw a card from the top of my meter, then I'm going to select three cards to play in order, then we're going to play then we're going to reveal, resolve, and push with our cards one after another, and then we'll get some cards back to our hands, some to the discard, and do it all again. All right, so I'm drawing Alicia's whirling leap ability, and then I've got her basic ones here. Let me show you what a card means. So, first in the upper left we've got the initiative value, in the case of Smash it's 50. Higher means faster in this game, so if you have a higher value card, you will go before somebody with a lower value card. Then it's got an icon reminder underneath the 50 that shows what the card does, which is a three damage attack, but the text of the card also specifies that it's a strike for three damage. Well, not really three damage, any strike kind of does one fatigue damage to an enemy. The value here, three, is how far you push the person after hitting them. And it's at range zero, which means it'll only work if an enemy is in your space. Just quickly walk through the other cards, we've got defensive pivot, which is very quick, gives you two block, which will make you get pushed less by an attack, and it might stop them from dealing any damage to you at all, and it also lets you turn if you want, which means facing the other direction. We've got dive, it's very fast, you turn to face the

3:16 furthest foe and then move straight to their space, which matters a lot in 2v2 or 3v3 games, then you also take the initiative token, which is a tie breaker when people have the same speed. We've got shot, a 50 speed attack, same as Smash, it lets you turn first, then you can do a one damage strike at range one or more, but it won't hit anybody who's in the same space as you. Then she's got a few more movement ones, back is a 65 speed one, if she's next to an arena she turns to face that edge, she moves one backwards and then she can turn, and then finally step, 95 speed, it gives you one block against foes you are facing. If you're next to to edge, you have to turn to face the center of the arena, and then you move one space forward. So, those are Alicia's six basic cards, but some characters have a different mix, although these are pretty typical. And then the one special card she drew is whirling leap. So, this one's 75 speed. She faces the furthest foe. She teleports straight to that foe's space. She strikes one at range zero, but she does not push them. So, she's just trying to hurt them and deal fatigue damage, as you'll see in a moment. And then if she fatigue the original target, she would also strike one on every other enemy at range zero.

4:19 That doesn't apply since we're not to doing multiplayer. And importantly, if I use the special card, it will get discarded. I won't have it in my hand, but all of these black cards are going to come back. So, for now with him at range two, let's do something simple. Let's do a shot. Try to hit him in case he tries to move. Then let's block in case he attacks us. And then maybe we can advance on him if he stayed back. So, we take these cards and we put them bottom, middle, and top in the order we want to play them, although of course it doesn't matter as much in solo. But then for the bot, and this is a really cool system, they have these special cards that have each of the priority for the bot on the back. You flip the topmost one, and it gives you conditional groups of cards for them to play in order. Really clever. So, here it says if Fitzwilliam's fatigue is less than three, right now it's zero, he hasn't been hit, he's going to play on easy difficulty, the green, gluttony, then back, then defensive pivot. And on hard difficulty, gluttony, then back, then shot. And if his fatigue had been at three or higher, he would have changed the cards he played a bit. And for the next round, this card will be off to the side, we'll pick a different one, and then we shuffle it back in. So, every card except the one they played last round is always in contention. All right, so now I've got our cards ready.

5:25 I'm going to reveal one at a time from the top. This entire set of three cards is called a sequence, and each individual little strike of cards is called an exchange. So, here my shot goes off first with 50 speed. I could turn, but I don't want to cuz then I would shoot off into nothing. And I strike one at him, and he has no defense on his card, which is great. So, how does striking work? It's summarized down here. So, first I check if my amount of striking is greater than their defense, cuz if not, nothing else happens. But here he has zero defense and I have one strike. So, first I'm going to shift their fatigue one to the right. This is if you played Smash Bros, kind of like the percentage damage you have. So, when you're at 50% damage, when 75% damage, and then 100, you become a lot easier to hit. And fatigue does not go away except for very rare effects. Okay, then after I move this forward one, and that's regardless of the strength of the attack as long as it got past their defense. Then I subtract any defense from my strike attack. So, here it's one because one minus zero, and I check that many spaces to the right of where their fatigue token is.

6:26 So, here one to the right is a zero push. I'm not moving him at all. He's not hurt yet. But if his fatigue was really high, I might have pushed him one or two or three. And that number is how much they have to move towards the direction of your attack, whichever way you're facing. If they get to the edge, they can clamber back on, but if they go beyond the edge at least one, then they're knocked out of the arena and they lose one of their lives. But yeah, here my shots did get their fatigue up to one, so that's something. Okay, then his card, which is a special for him, although the bot never uses up their specials, they can play them over and over again, is gluttony. It's 15 speed. If he was fatigued, it's exchange, which he was. He strikes two at range zero or more. Oh crap, I forgot the or more. So, he is going to hit me. I guess he's throwing that uh bone he ate at me. Oh gosh, and if you hit fatigue the target one additional time after applying the push and everything. Oh, good job, bot.

7:12 You got me. So, first they hit me with the attack and I have no defense and they strike me for two, so I get fatigued and then I get pushed zero. But then they fatigue me again. It was a double hit. Ouch. All right, next, uh let's see. I am first with a block two, which I played that for the previous turn. And I could turn around, but I don't want to not face him. Meanwhile, the bot played a back. So, it says if they're next to an edge, turn to face that edge. They are not. Then they move one backwards, and then they may turn. Again, the back of each bot's card gives their priority preferences, but a lot of it is pretty straightforward like they want to face me and not face off into nothingness. All right, pretty innocuous turn there. Okay, and then finally he blocked and I would have also blocked and I move one forward. Okay, so I am at least taking the center on him, but he hurt me a bit more than I hurt him. And all of my cards come back because they are just regular ones and I still have the whirling leap from last time to play later. And all of his cards come back as well because again they don't lose their special cards. But if they play their once per game ultimate card then just like a player they can't get that again.

8:15 And they gain access to their ultimate the same time that I gain access to mine at the start of the fourth round. All right, so let's see what new option I get. There's a good one, relentless cleave. I strike two at range zero in my space and then I repeat this card in the next exchange this sequence. So if I play this in exchange two, I'll do an extra 47 speed attack in exchange three before after my other card. I'll get to resolve too. I could try to go crazy with that now like I could leap at him and then do a relentless cleave and then maybe dive to make sure I get him with the third cleave. You know, I'm saying all this stuff, that sounds great. Let's do that.

8:54 So leap, cleave, dive cuz the dive will go before the cleave, made me automatically move to his space and take the initiative and then I'll definitely hit him for the second hit even if he somehow gets away between the leap and the first hit. Take this guy down. As for Fitz, again he is not shuffling in his more for me card yet. He draws a different random card and then this gets shuffled in. This one says snack break. Fitz is not next to an edge so we go to the next column to the right. Uh the otherwise which says back defensive pivot shot. So he's going to try to be defensive this turn. Not sure if it'll work out for him. In fact, I'm pretty sure it won't. Or maybe it will. Crap. Cuz he's going to get away from me and actually kind of turn the tables on me a bit. Okay, so my whirling leap goes off. I face the furthest foe. I move straight to that person's face. And by the way, you always count as facing each other when you're at range zero. It doesn't matter which way you're looking. Okay, then I strike one at range zero, but I do not apply push tokens. So, since he doesn't have defense, he'll take one fatigue, but nothing else. So, that gets him to two. And then I would have got to hit other people. That part doesn't apply. Okay, but then he's going to be all tricky. Since he's next to an edge, he faces that edge, and then he moves backwards, and then he could turn, but he doesn't want to. He's actually got me in the ideal position to hammer me off the edge while I'm totally facing the wrong way. Not great. Okay, next is two.

10:09 And oof, this didn't go well, did it? Well, he's uh just happily blocking away against nothing, but I am attacking for no effect. Now, I do want to put that to the side cuz that's going to trigger again in a second. Okay, and then we have my dive versus their shot. Okay, now this is going to work out better. So, my dive goes first with 90, so I turn to face him. I move to his space, and I get the initiative. Now, I just hold that until another effect says that I lose it, so I win ties right now. Then this is beautiful. His shot goes off. He can turn, but no matter where he turns, he's not going to hit me cuz I'm in his space. So, haha, you tried to escape, but you failed. And actually, now his turn priorities matter, so he's already facing me, so one and two don't matter. So, he's going to face the nearest edge. Now, basically, the bot knows that he's in my space if those both apply, so he wants to shoot me towards the closer thing. All right, but then relentless cleave goes off, and I strike at range zero for two, and he had no defense, so he does go down. And then one, two, dang, still didn't get pushed.

11:05 I would at least push him a little bit. Okay, now both of my specials that I used get discarded. I only get dive back. Well, there is a way to get your specials back pretty quickly. You'll see that in a moment. All righty, well, I'm in a slightly precarious position, and I'm kind of facing the wrong way. And let's see what I get now. Wind up. 98 speed, so very fast. I cannot be pushed or pulled this exchange, so I just will not move. All my strikes this sequence get plus one force, so that's the rest of the rounds. If I attack on like turn two and three, I'll get plus one, and I'll get the initiative. Is this the time to do that? I mean, I kind of want to turn, but the best what I could do would be to back up and be pushing myself towards the edge. So, maybe I just strike three at range zero, try to smash him away. It's a little bit slow, but it might get him, and I have the initiative right now. And then just keep hammering the pressure.

11:53 Well, maybe I move forward with potentially a block to uh try to get back to the center, and then I can shoot him. All right, and he is doing delivery service. Uh-oh, if this is equal to three, so he knows that I'm in a space, he's probably about to attack me really hard, too. Tenderize smash shot, that sounds pretty similar to my plan. All right, so let's see how this turns out. Oh, I forgot how good tenderize was. Yeah, this is perfect for him. Block three and strike three at range zero, right when I was doing my smash. Now, I would not move from uh his attack. The pushes don't resolve until after you've done all of the cards. So, I would like still hit him as I flew away. Am I going to survive this? I think I will. Okay, so he blocks three, that'll matter in a second, and he strikes three, and I have no block, of course. So, first I take one fatigue, and then one, two, three is going to make me get pushed one, and you put one of these tokens in the direction you're getting pushed, which is whichever direction he's facing, towards the edge. But again, you don't resolve until your card goes off. So, then I strike him for three, which does not get through his block, so he doesn't even take a fatigue, let alone get pushed. And then my push gets resolved. So, I am next to the edge. Wonderful. All right, next card, what did I do? And uh this is great, I'm just running right into his fist, Mike. Great job. All right, so I'm next to an edge, so I turn to face center, I'm already there, and I move one forward.

13:07 Great. Uh and then he punches me again. Now, it is minus one block, so it's only a two strike this time. So, I get one fatigue, and once again I get pushed one. Oh no, which means that my smash is going to miss and his shot Oh no, we both did a shot. Okay, and I have priority, so I hit him for one, he hits me for one, but he's not actually moving yet. And I am. But luckily it's only a one push. So I go off the edge and I clamber back up. I'm facing towards the inside back on the edge, but this is not good. He is definitely winning on fatigue at the moment. Just in time for me to draw my ultimate. This is once per game, no way to get it back. Carve a path. So 29 speed, not very fast. I strike a rain zero, then I immediately resolve all my pushes on the target instead of waiting until the regular kind of cleanup phase. Then I may move one forward, then I strike, push, move, strike, push, move. I do it two more times. So I could get up to three attacks as I kind of do a whirling dervish attack on him. Ah, is now the time for that? Ooh man, wind up combined with carve a path meaning you can kind of see if I designed some of these to be good little combos. That'd be pretty dang good. Now, he can't run very far. I think the furthest he can get is one away. I'm just trying to figure out like I don't need to use the dive. So what if I do wind up and then carve a path and I should be in his space or close to his space and then shot?

14:35 Not very defensive-minded of me, but it might work out. And now he also technically has his ultimate available, but there's only one card out of five. I mean, he's got four to choose from right now. There's only one card out of five that actually uses it and that's not it. So he's not going to do his ultimate right now. And let's see, distance is less than three, he's going to use link up to pull me then smash then defensive pivot. This should be interesting. Have a feeling we might be knocking each other out this turn. All right, so I've got wind up. Oh actually, this is going to work out better than I thought because uh wind up prevents me from being pulled. Cuz look, link up says strike one at any foe at range one to two. Oh, he's going to still hit me. But do not apply push tokens, he won't get moved by it no matter what. It's just for fatigue. If you hit, pull the target to your space. And then it also if you hit, your strikes in the next exchange this sequence have plus one force. So he does hit me, I do have no defense so I do get fatigued again. Man, so the minimum I would move now is two. That's terrible. But I don't get pulled cuz I cannot be pushed or pulled this exchange, but he did still count as hitting me. So if he hit me with the next thing, I think it was a smash.

15:31 Yeah, this is going to work out so beautifully for me. If he had hit me with that, it would have been 4/4 with Link-Up's bonus, but my Carver path is pretty slow. Oh, and let's not forget that Wind-Up is giving me plus one force to all my strikes. And I got the initiative, not that that matters. Yeah, this is going to hurt him a lot, and I like it. Well, actually maybe not a lot a lot cuz I might knock him far enough that I don't get to hit him a second time. We'll see. So first he punches really big, but he didn't actually pull me because I was winding up. And then I strike one at range zero. Whiff. Immediately resolve all pushes. Nope. Move one. Repeat. Strike one plus one from Wind-Up, two at range zero. So oh, actually this does work out great. He's going to go one, two, exactly one away. And again, cuz of Carver path, I resolve that immediately. Okay, then I can move one towards him. Absolutely, I want to be in the middle. Okay, and then one more time, I strike two again. So this time he's getting pushed two. So he's on the edge.

16:28 Not dead yet, but I am about to shoot him. And I may move one towards him. Nah. Okay, then the last turn. Oh, that's right. I forgot he was defending. So I could turn him, I'm not going to. He's not going to either. He blocks my one force shot. Actually, it's a two force shot because of the Wind-Up, but still not enough. So he does not get moved or anything. And that's my ultimate gone and my last special gone. But we're both on the ropes. We're both at six fatigue. Although my numbers go two, three, four, five, his are a bit more solid, so his go one, two, three, four. So he's just harder to get off the edge. All right, now we get to my draw step, and I have nothing to draw. My meter is empty. So what I can do is I can choose to take all of my special cards, wherever they are. So like even if I still had two in my hand and hadn't used them yet, I can choose to take all of my special cards, shuffle them, and make them into a new meter. But the ultimate does not come back. And yeah, here of course I'm going to do it cuz I didn't have any uh specials in my hand.

17:21 The only time you wouldn't choose to do this is if you already had specials you wanted to use. I got another whirling leap. I don't know if I want to use that. I kind of like being in the middle of the arena. All right, man. So, what do I want to do here? I feel like there's a decent chance he might try to like attack me at long range with his uh sausage links or uh with a shot. And then I could go for a one-two punch of a whirling leap and a smash, but if he hit me in phase two, he would definitely Oh, no, I guess I'd still be facing this way and he'd still be facing that way, so he would not be able to push me all the way off. Sure. Let's try it. All right, and what's he doing? Another more for me. Although this time his fatigue is very much not less than three, so he's doing step gluttony shot. Man, is gluttony the one where he blocks really well? I don't want that. All right, so this is pretty innocuous. He just moves up. We both block nothing. Oh, this worked out fantastic cuz he's going to miss me with the shot. So, yeah, I get to jump into his space and I hit him for one just to add fatigue. And then does he want to turn? Oh, that's right, he does. He wants to uh be facing this way to shove me off that way. All right, and what's going to happen now? Oh, we're just going to beat the crud out of each other and we're both shoving each other off the edge.

18:34 Great. Yeah, so first I hit him for three, which is definitely more than enough cuz he takes one fatigue, and then he goes one, two, and any amount past there is just four. But then because he was fatigued, he attacks me for two, and then he's going to fatigue me an extra time. So, one fatigue plus two means I also go off four, and then I'm also super fatigued. So, we both fly off. Oh, we both immediately pop back in wherever our portal was, and I believe all the cards would keep on resolving in the rest of the sequence. At least I didn't see anything in the rules that said otherwise. But we've both been knocked out once, so whoever gets the next blow wins. Uh-oh. It's one of my drawing. Huh, relentless cleave. Definitely not what I want. I don't want to get close to him cuz he has fewer long-range options. I mean, I could start with a shot. If I hit him, I feel like it would still be far enough to win the game immediately. Then I get block in case he does anything nasty. And then I can move closer to him to maybe try to cleave him if he's still alive. All right, and what does he get? Oh, it's his ultimate one. So, the middle column applies. His ultimate is ready and he does have a greater than three fatigue.

19:39 But distance is not zero, so he's going to block, uh jump on my space and smash me. Yeah, that that sounds about right. Oh, man, did I attack as my first action? I'm like pretty sure I did. I think I'm done here. Yep, so I strike and he blocks all of it. Darn it. And then I block while he moves. This is so bad. Yeah, I'm so 100% dead, y'all. Oh, wait a second. Do I dodge his attack? Yeah, cuz look, um I move one forward right before he does his giant swing, which attacks at range zero for X one plus his fatigue. So, it would have been uh nine. Yeah, that that would have killed me. But that's his one ultimate use. Okay, I feel good about this. Although I am facing the wrong way, but hey, so is he. Can I get winded up? And I can't be pushed when I do wind up. So, what if I do wind up and then relentless cleave in case he moved into my spot?

20:30 But if he didn't, I'll dive to make sure I get to him and try to cleave him for the finish. And hopefully he attacks in round one with the wind up. Although I guess with where he's facing, he probably won't. Well, we'll see. He's doing sausage rope, uh link up smash, defensive pivot. Oh, wait, wait, wait, no, no, I think distance means like in the direction they're facing. Cuz I just looked and link up is not attack someone that's not in his facing. So, I think he does the otherwise one for shot, defensive pivot step. Which is probably going to work out better. Let's see. Okay, so yeah, then he turns. He shoots me for one, which does get me to max uh fatigue, but I don't get pushed at all, thankfully. and I get the initiative back. Okay. Then, this works out well. Oh, wait, no, it doesn't. Well, I I attack for nothing and he blocks for nothing. Okay, but now um how's this going to work? So, he steps. He does a block one. Um he moves one forward. Okay, then I turn to face him. I'm already facing him, so I don't think it matters. I move to a space.

21:29 That doesn't matter. I already have the initiative. But, then I do do a three strike, but he has one defense cuz he's facing me, so only two gets through. So, that puts him to max and gives him four, which just is enough. 1 2 3 Get out of here, Fitz. So, let me set things back up. I'll show you a few more complicated characters, and we'll see how things go with them. So, this time we've got Lucius the werewolf versus Lord Grim the necromancer. Lucius starts out in human form and can transform into a wolf form. One is long-range, one is melee, and his cards will do different things based on what he's in. And Lord Grim can summon zombies. If they get killed, they'll block damage for him. They turn into coffins and he can summon them again. Lots of annoying stuff. I'm going to go ahead and try him on hard mode and see if he can come out with the win. So, Lucius has some things that are different. He still has step. He still has smash, defensive pivot. But, he has a slightly different version of back shot and dive. Dive is a wolf dive cuz it turns him into his wolf form. Shot is silver bullet and it's a strictly worse cuz it does not do the attack if he's not in human form. And calm down lets him move a second move backwards if he's in wolf form, and either way he transforms back to human form. And let's see what my first draw for special is.

22:42 Okay, draw or claw. If I'm in human form, I strike one at range one or more. If I'm in wolf form, I strike two at range zero. Nice flexibility there. Well, you know what? Let's go ahead and get some range attacks off to try to take down his fatigue. He might summon some zombies and block, but we'll see. So, I'll do silver bullet, then draw claw. Then, maybe setting up for next turn, I'll dive on him and turn into a wolf. All right, let's see what Lord Grim is doing. All right, he got imposing presence. Remember we're using the red now, which is interestingly the exact same as the green for the middle column, but in a different order. Fly fodder than arise my champions than shamblers to battle. All right, let's see how things work out for him. Okay, so fly fodder is 41. He's going to move all his zombies for he doesn't have any yet. Then he's going to strike at range one or more. So this is a shot basically. And then it says if you hit summon a coffin in the target space, which could become a zombie later. So you see we're both uh shooting each other with no defense. We both take a fatigue. We don't move at all. And I get a coffin in my space. Okay, next up. Oh, wonderful. Arise my champions. Unearth all coffins. Yep, I got one of those.

23:40 But first I shoot him for one more. Uh so it moves one, but still he's not quite getting pushed yet. Okay, and unearthing means he's become zombies. It says it on his card, but they have six speed uh when it matters. Like you always target if uh somebody's in the same space, you target the person with slower speed. So his zombies will tank for him. They also share his facing, so they go left or right with him. They also don't count as fighters. So if I have something like dive that tells me to move to the farthest fighter, I don't move to a zombie. I'll still uh go to Lord Grim. And when I attack, if it's a big enough attack, after I defeat the zombies and turn them back into coffins, then the attack will continue through if it has enough range to hit Lord Grim kind of through their bodies. Okay, and finally we've got shamblers to battle. Okay, well I'm doing wolf dive first. So I move over to him and I transform into wolf form. It actually has a different standee since obviously can't be on the other side since you're moving around for facing and I get the initiative which I already had. Oh, but this didn't work out well. He uh summons a zombie to my space. And for every space with zombies, the zombies strike X where X is the number of zombies on that space. So he hits me for one and we're both at fatigue two. But he's already got a couple zombies uh being annoying around here. All right, I'm a wolf. I want to try to smash him. Oh, this one looks great. Fight bite. So If three at range zero though it is slow. And if you're in wolf form and this action fatigues the target, remove one fatigue from yourself. I love it. But yeah, it's so so slow and I feel like he's a necromancer. He's probably going to run away as his first action if he's at range zero. So, what if I try to smash him? Then I wolf dive to wherever he

25:12 went and then I bite him. Might work out. Uh and uh he's doing my army. He knows we're at distance zero. It's probably not good. Shamble to battle back fly fodder. I'll see how this works out. All right, well, I do definitely smash him. So, I hit him for three. Technically, I hit the zombie first, so only two gets through. But that still pushes him one. Although not yet, unfortunately, he's going to summon a zombie here and then attack me for one. So, I just take a fatigue. Then he gets shoved back. Okay, two. Oh man, he's going to get away from my cool attack. And he's going to get me right on the edge facing the wrong way. This is terrible. So, I move to his space. Yay. And then he runs away and he can definitely shoot me in the back and he's going to. This is bad. Yeah, so he goes first. Uh so, he moves Oh, no, he moves all zombies one forward? No. Okay, then he strikes me at range one, which jeez, sadly already pushes me one. Now, I do get to crawl back up. Thankful Oh, wait, that's right, that doesn't happen yet.

26:07 I've got one push right now. And then he is summoning a coffin in my space. Four is the max number of zombies, by the way. So, now he'll start pulling zombies from other places. And the bot does have priority for that works. Uh but yeah, then I miss with my strike and I come back on after getting pushed. This is going a bit terrible. I got to get to the other side of the board or something. All right, I got my last special. Aim or maim. If I'm in human form, strike two. If I'm in wolf form, strike four. Oh man, if this strike hits with four more unblocked force, fatigue the target a second time. But even I get over him, there's a lot of zombies. Ooh, I forgot calm down can move me twice backwards if I'm a wolf. Which is probably good. Then maybe I block in case the zombies attack. And then I'll be back in human form so I can shoot him. Sure. Okay, take my leave. Uh he's not a distance zero, so he's going to do defensive pivot, step, bury them. I don't like the sound of that one. All right, what you got now? Okay, good.

26:59 He's blocking when I didn't do anything. So, I turn to face the edge, I move one backwards, and if I'm trying to do human, I'm doing range combat. I guess I do want to move one more backwards, and I'm back to human form, and then he is going to turn though. Oh, the actually never mind. His defensive pivot happens uh before mine. Although, it does say to treat the bot as smart, so I think they would at least like realize where I'm going to be and want to be facing that direction. At least that's how I play. All right, what's next? I'm blocking and he's stepping forward. Man, I just turned out of being a wolf. I don't want you to be right in my face. Okay, and then the one that sounded bad, bury them, and I'm doing nothing. Someone is zombie in any other space. Okay, that's at least good. But then they're all going to attack me anyway. Gosh, darn it. All right, they've got in the upper right here, bury them priorities. So, first they want to fatigue me, that's happening anyway, and they can't summon where I am. Then they want to add a zombie to an existing group or place a zombie as close as possible to Lord Grim. And in terms of removal priorities, showing you what the more complicated characters can look like.

27:52 They've removed the coffin furthest from Lord Grim. Okay, so if you take away this guy, they summon a zombie, they want it to be in another group, but then this guy is hitting me. Oh, wait, wait, hold on. Actually, things change a little bit. Cuz my silver bullet, it doesn't hit him, but it does hit that zombie. So, then for bury them, they still take away a coffin furthest, but they place the zombie as close as possible to Lord Grim. I don't know, I guess maybe over here would be more dangerous to me. But then I do get hit for one fatigue. Oh, wait, not just fatigue this time. I actually get pushed one. All right. All right, I'm getting my first ultimate, which means Lord Grim also has him. And yes, it did say two ultimates. I have sharpshooter that I get this turn. Next turn I get blood rage. And they actually combo really well together. So, I'm going to try and not to use this this turn, cuz it does a range attack, but then teleports you to the target space. Oh, wait, but actually this would probably teleport me to the zombie.

28:44 Man, [snorts] yeah, this is not nearly as good as it usually is, cuz usually I'll do a sharpshooter into a blood rage, which is like crazy damage. I don't know if I want to anymore. Maybe I should try to thin out the zombie horde with a smash in my space, and then a couple of range attacks and hope he doesn't approach me. And he's doing imposing presence again. Fly away, shambler. I feel like I'm not going to like this. All right, so I am first. I smash the one zombie in my space, and then he moves all the zombies forward one. He hits me for one, which actually makes me get pushed two spaces. And he summons a coffin in my space, which will be here cuz I'm not pushed yet. Yeah, then I get pushed two and climb back up. This is going to go terrible, y'all. Okay, then. Oh, he unearths all coffins. Okay, well, I'm going to shoot some of them cuz I am striking two. So, I take out two of them. It did not fatigue anybody or anything special. Okay, and then I strike one more time. All right, well, I did take out most of the zombies for the moment. You know, he's going to summon a zombie in his space, and then they would all attack. Which actually that worked out fine. All right, all my specials are gone, but I have gotten both of these.

29:49 But at the moment, the combo would not work, and I kind of have doubt that it would work in general. So, let's forget sharpshooter and try on a block in first, then wolf diving, and then blood rage if he's still there. I feel like he won't be there. This time he's got how dare you? Okay, if there are fewer than four zombies and coffins, nope, they're all out. Distance is not zero, so he's just doing the last one. Dive, do it myself, shamblers. Oh, which is the same for red and green. I've seen it few times. So, he's diving at me. That's interesting. Okay, so I block for nothing. Uh, he moves to that foe's space. He gets the initiative. I don't love that. Oh, I guess Yeah, should I turn? Yeah, that would certainly be better, and I'm going after him, so why not? Oh, shoot, he's going to strike two against me? Stop, dude. [gasps] All right, I do get the initiative back, but I'm about to be dead. And I transform to wolf form, but then he strikes two. If there was a coffin in his space it would be range zero to one.

30:44 There isn't. He just smacked me with a coffin. But, oh my gosh, I'm getting pushed for four, so I am super dead. Now again, I think everything keeps on being resolved even though I lost my life. So, I guess I'll come back in facing him. Not that it's going to do very much. Okay, so first he summons a zombie on my space, so he takes one of the coffins, then he attacks with zombies, nothing happening there, and then I would attack very hard at nobody, darn it. And I'm back to being a human. It's not going well, y'all. I barely managed to hit this guy. All right, quick note, I still have an ultimate in my hand, but I am out of specials. But, uh since I have nothing to draw, I can still shuffle my three specials and get one, even though I have the ultimate and I keep that. And I got aim and maim, huh. All right, well, I'm probably going to die. I'm just going to let this guy go crazy. Maybe he won't move.

31:30 I'm going to shoot his zombie and teleport to the space. It'll still get me to him, and then I'll try to kill him after turning into a wolf, and then I'll try to kill him again. No way this works, but uh let's go with a bang cuz I'm not feeling good here. He's got imposing presence. All right, let's go. Okay. Ah, he's going to hit me first. Okay, so uh he may turn, of course he will. All zombies move forward one. Uh oh, forward one. So, that means actually they all go here cuz they're facing the same direction as him. Okay, he strikes me for one, that's a little scary. So, I've got uh four pushing that direction. But, before that happens, I strike one at him. Finally hurt the guy a little bit, and I move to where he is, and I transform into wolf form. I wish I had done that earlier. Oh, if you hit someone with a coffin in the target space. But, here his priority would have been to remove it to coffin, and then it would have been put right back, so nothing. Okay, then I get my four push. So, uh still hanging on, but my uh close range attacks aren't going to do much here.

32:23 Okay, he's making all the coffins wake up, and I try to attack a range four, great. Okay, and then I strike a range zero, so I do get rid of that guy, which gives him a coffin to summon a zombie in his space, and then they attack. All right, well, I wasted my other ultimate, but I hit him. Whatever, he's not getting away. A best strategy ever. Going to do wolf dive, wolf claw, and then he's still going to be there, I bet. I'm going to smash him. None of this is going to happen, but

32:47 I can dream. I know, fresh troops. This is ultimate. If his ultimate is ready and the number of coffins is greater than zero, no. Oh, so actually he's not going to use it cuz it's uh four coffins, I guess. So, he's doing defense, dive, shambler. Come on, Mike, you got this. You totally don't got this. Okay, so I jump over to him, and then he blocks for nothing. Oh, would he want to turn? Yes, he would. He would have wanted to face the edge to shove me off. Okay, then he's getting initiative, but he isn't doing anything else. And I Oh, sorry, I turned to wolf form. Oh, I was already in wolf form? Well, either way, I'm in for wolf form. So, I strike for two, so I get this guy, and I do hit him. Oh, which is going to finally make him move. Hey, it actually makes him go off the edge, so he comes back this way. That's good for me. Oh, come on, let me just smash him. Let me smash him. Yeah! Let's go!

33:32 It's not over till it's over. So, he gets pushed three, so he's definitely dead, but he's going to summon his zombie in my space and hit me. Oh gosh, which is making me get pushed five. Oh, but look at this. 1 2 3 4 5. Haha, still in! Whereas he plops back out with no life left. Oh man, it's not over yet. I can still win. I just got to get him

33:54 somehow. Then I drew fight bite, which is like the healing one, but it's really slow. I think the regular smash will do me better here. I think I think it calmed down. That'll let me back up over to there, and then maybe I can like shoot him, although I'll just shoot a zombie. Maybe not. I kind of got to go big wolf or nothing here. So, let's do step, and then we'll smash him, and then we'll block in case it matters. Okay, and he's doing take my leave, defense step, berry. Didn't like the sound of those cards. I think he's going to totally block me. Okay, we don't attack. Um and yeah, he still wants to be facing that way to push me off, and I move forward. Ah, and then he gets away. Although he was facing the wrong way, and I do still defeat one of his zombies at least for a second. Okay, and then I'm blocking, but he's summoning a zombie in any other space. So, he's going to take this and clearly have it here. But then I block the attack, so that was good. Oh, and I'm definitely going to turn to face him now. All right, now this is interesting.

34:48 He's weak enough that if I get a shot into his back with no zombies, I will immediately win. So, yeah, man, let's go for it. Silver bullet, baby. If you do something slow, he's done. Oh, wait, I'm not a human. I'm not a human. Gosh, darn it. Oh, wait, I guess I'll do calm down. No, then I'll hit the zombie. Darn it. Why was I born a werewolf? The pain. Okay, uh we'll step instead and smash. It's way less likely to work and then I'll calm down if I'm still alive. Okay, and he's doing my army a fly defense shambler. All right, come on, I can get him. I can get him. Okay, so he's going to turn, but he knows that I'm moving in, so he won't do anything. And he wants his zombies to come this way. Um oh, wait, first I move in here. Yes, so then he wouldn't want to turn and all the zombies come in. I don't like that part. But he does miss you with the strike, so that's good. Okay, then I attack for three, but he blocks two and the zombie blocks a third. Gosh, darn it. No. Oh, then this is bad.

35:47 Uh so, I back away. Yeah, and then I don't want to back away again even though I could cuz that would surely kill me. And he summons a zombie in his space and tries to attack with it, but can't. Oh my gosh. Oh, I forgot. I could have shuffled these last turn to get better ones cuz I don't want the wolf attack one. So, I'll do it now. Oh, strike two at range one. Okay. We're going to do that. So, strike two at range one. Silver bullet at range one. And then block if we're still alive. Just shoot him off the edge. And okay, he got his ultimate one again, but again it doesn't apply, so he's doing defense dive shambles. That sounds terrible for me. Yep, so I do a range attack. I do defeat one of his zombies, but he blocks it. Oh, and I guess he'll turn back towards me. And then he moves before I get a chance to shoot him. And then does he kill me? Oh, I guess I'm blocking, so no. He just pulls this guy over and attacks me for one and I block it. All right. Man, should I just like try to turn into a wolf? Yeah, what if I do a smash? That could kill him if I get lucky. And then I'll wolf dive at him and then I'll claw him. And he's doing Oh, it is uh this is in zero back. Of course he is. Defensive pivot bury them.

36:55 Yes, I'm pretty sure he'll dodge out of the way and then sick his minions on me. So, yep. Okay, he backs away. I miss. Okay, but then he blocks and I turn into a wolf in his space. I get the initiative. I have a chance here. And he wants to turn to hit me that way. And ooh ooh, does it happen? Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Yes, so I am striking him for two. He doesn't have any zombies yet. So, he goes three. Let's go. Although, his card still happens, too. Ooh, but it's summoning a zombie in any other space. And yeah, he takes the furthest one away and then he wants to put it closer. And they would have attacked really big, but it's too late. Wow, I cannot believe I won that one. That was a bit of a tough battle. I don't think Lucius is a great match up for Lord Grim, but again in a 2v2 you could try to deal with each other's weaknesses.

37:43 But okay, that was two games of Legends of the Arena. I do plan to review this one eventually. I want to play it some more with my kids uh in versus mode. Also try some co-op team versus team. And with the expansion they sent me, there's 10 characters total, so more to try out. But I hope you enjoyed that one and thanks for watching. Special thank you to our biggest Patreon supporters, Matt G, Dan, J William F, Steve Wren, Andrew R, and Chris C. We'll see you at the next stop.