Game: Legends of Robin Hood

Thread: Re: Parts Manifest

Great Dane — 2008-02-16T08:09:45+00:00

chansen2794 wrote:
I just got this game awhile ago in a trade and I've had trouble tracking down a components list.
That is hardly surprising, as the game doesn't come with one.

You have everything.

Thread: Parts Manifest

chansen2794 — 2008-02-16T04:33:16+00:00

I just got this game awhile ago in a trade and I've had trouble tracking down a components list.

This is a list of what I have:
54 Merry Men Counters
42 Gold Counters
64 Cards
5 Characters and stands
1 Game Board
1 Rule Sheet

Can anyone confirm this is what should be in the game?

Thanks in advance.
- Chris

Thread: L of RH Review by SOS - with Movement variant

sos1 — 2007-04-28T16:13:05+00:00

Legends of Robin Hood is a very light, fun game of friendly competition. Each player takes the role of someone in Robin Hood's band, and they have a friendly wager: who can raise the most money for the poor in a given time frame. If band members should tie for the amount of money, then the one who raised the most followers to join Robin wins.

The game is suitable for children, but is still fun for adults to play with children. The board is an attractive layout of the area around Sherwood forest, including the towns of Nottingham, Arlingford, Wakefield, and Kingslea, as well as Nottingham Castle, Gisbourne Castle and Arlingford Castle. The players can choose to be Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, Little John, Alan a Dale or Will Scarlet. (Not being able to play Maid Marion is a serious omission, alas, which will limit the game's appeal to women and girls.)

Cards as Player Actions

Card play drives the game - it's actually a very simplified version of Up Front. There are four different "suits:"

* blue circles (movement cards),
* black triangles (fortune cards),
* red hexagons (ambush cards), and
* green squares (special cards).

(Note that this is especially friendly to color-blind people: suits have color and shape.)

Each turn, you are allowed to play one of each suit, at most. You may play the cards in any order - thus, you could start your turn on a Forest Road space, play a black card that says: "Rob tax collector on any Forest Road," then play a blue card to move to Nottingham, where you play a green card that says: "Nottingham Fair - recruit one Merry Man automatically." Finally you could play a red card on another player reading: "Sherrif ambush in Forest." At this point, your turn would be over, and you'd draw enough cards to fill up your hand again.

(It's important to realize that when you play an ambush card on an opponent in the game, your character isn't squealing to the authorities on them - no member of Robin's gang would do that. Red cards represent forces beyond individual characters, and the player, not the character, is sicking the Sherrif onto another character.)

The green cards are a miscellany of good cards to have - Maid Marion gets you out of a castle if you've been arrested, a horse doubles your movement, a disguise allows you to evade an ambush, a Fair gives free recruits, a Message Arrow allows you to draw cards from another player, a Secret Passage allows an extra move, and so on. There is enough variety to make the game enjoyable, interesting, and have a high replay value.

Cards as Randomization and Time Keeping

The game uses cards in the draw pile to resolve chance occurances, such as ambush, recruitment, robbery, etc. (This is another way it resembles Up Front.) Certain cards have bows or swords at the top (and some are blank at the top), and drawing a sword while robbing a tax collector means you get one gold. You draw a number of cards equal to your band of Merry Men, so it's good to build up a large band. Ambushes reduce your band size, though.

The time limit is twice through the deck for each player in the game. That is, if there are four people playing, you go through the deck eight times. (I have two decks, mixed together, and just go through four times, though - makes for a better game.)

Problems

The only real fault, aside from not including Maid Marion as a character to play, is that you can sometimes get a run of bad luck that stalls your quest. Having no movement cards is the worst: you're stuck in place while watching others dash about the board. This can be frustrating, and I recommend the following fix:

* Your Movement rate is 1 plus any movement card played.
* You may move 1 space without playing a movement card.
* If you move one space without playing a card, you may not play a blue movement card later that same turn - your move without a card counts as having played a blue card in that case.

Summing Up

Still, the faults are minor - the game is enjoyable, and ranks high in the class of games that adults can play with children and both thoroughly enjoy.

-Review originally published 1993

Thread: Re:Advanced Rules

Chump — 2005-03-30T18:18:14+00:00

Dear Jimzik,

Request rationale for each of the above additions. Thanks!

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Gialmere — 2005-02-18T16:15:38+00:00

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Gialmere — 2005-02-18T16:15:38+00:00

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Gialmere — 2005-02-18T16:15:38+00:00

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Gialmere — 2004-11-21T13:53:41+00:00

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gnoccarello — 2004-10-12T12:42:10+00:00

Thread: User Review

Jimzik — 2004-02-22T01:31:38+00:00

This is a Robin Hood game you can pull off the shelf and immediatelly start playing. For being such a simple game it is still a lot of fun as each player maneuvers his band across the map using playing cards to help himself and twart other players. There are 4 different color of cards and you can play 1 from each color during the course of a turn. Blue gives you movement, Green gives you aid, Black lets you rob or recruit and Red is played to hinder other players. Players take the roles of Robin, Friar Tuck, Little John, Alan A Dale or Will Scarlet and try to recruit Merry Men to gain the most gold during the game. Game length is set at 2 re-shuffles of the deck of cards per player so that a 4-player game would last 8 deck plays. This is a fun little Beer & Pretzels game that begs for the owner to paint figurines instead of using the carboard stand-ups.

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Jimzik — 2004-02-22T00:24:26+00:00

Our Heroes in miniature

Thread: Advanced Rules

Jimzik — 2004-01-21T20:33:49+00:00

It helps to use these following additions to a very simple but fun game.
1) May use your end of turn discard to move 1 if you didn't move that turn (lack of movement card).
2) Place your token in camp if you discard your hand. The leader is NOT ALLOWED to discard hand!
3) Can elect to go into disguise (using a card) during your turn. May not ambush/rob/recruit. Movement is x2. Remove disguise at START of turn or when discovered.
4) If captured, roll 1D6: 1-3 = lose 1 turn, 4-6 = lose 2 turns. Lose 1 gold piece if captured.
5) Maid Marion: may play on table and roll 1D6: 1-2 held in Nottingham Castle, 3-4 in Gisbourne Castle, 5-6 in Arlingford Castle. 1st player to reach Marion IN DISGUISE draws 3 cards and gets 3 gold for each Sword result.

This is a fun little game that is best enhanced if you have painted miniatures for all the characters.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2002-10-02T00:05:14+00:00

HEROES
Robyn of Locksley, played by Karol
Little John, played by Chris
Will Scarlet, played by Joe
Alan a'Dale, played by James
Friar Tuck, played by Dave
(Dave was indisposed when characters were being chosen, so was Stuck w'th' Tuck)

HIGHLIGHTS
The good Friar apparently had just tapped a keg at base camp before the band scattered to rob the rich, because there he sat and steamed like a mincemeat pie for days until he drew some movement cards.
Little John skillfully and steadily robbed his way to a fair lead throughout the first few weeks, but such merely drew the attention of the rotten Sheriff. Poor Little John was ambushed many times and was imprisoned at Nottingham Castle no fewer than 4 times.
Meanwhile, Robyn had amassed a small army. At one point near the end, she thieved a whopping 12 gold with the assistance of 11 Merry Men, catapulting her into the lead.
Destitute Alan a'Dale couldn't manage to pull a successful heist until well after the half, whereafter he was quickly pickpocked. He finally won the second archery competition he entered and was again promptly cutpursed.

FINAL SCORES
18 Robyn (Karol)
11 John (Chris)
7 Will (Joe)
4 Tuck (Dave)
1 Alan (James)

MORAL OF THE STORY
Once you hammer the leader with ambushes and get him captured, there's no reason to continue ambushing him, as he can't successfully perform robberies until he can successfully recruit more men. Instead, the Sheriff and Guy of Gisbon need to turn their attentions to the outlaw with the largest retinue.
I suggest the following rule changes:
1) Return to camp to cache your gold. Then, if captured, lose all gold carried (not cached).
2) If you have no movement cards, use any one other card as a Move 1.
3) Allow players that are in the same space to trade cards and/or gold between them.

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2001-11-30T18:17:43+00:00

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2001-11-30T18:17:40+00:00