Now I'm not sure I actually want to write this review now, but even after 5 losses, I do think Ticket to Ride: Legends of the West is a great game. Mind you, I've come close to winning several times, but I haven't found a way to win yet. Let's dig into this game and talk about what we love about it.

Game Overview

First, Ticket to Ride: Legends of the West is not your typical Ticket to Ride game. It is a campaign legacy version of Ticket to Ride. So what does that mean? Well first as a campaign game, it means that you will play multiple consecutive games of Ticket to Ride with each game advancing the story in some way. In this game, you will play 12 sessions of Ticket to Ride.

So what do you mean by Legacy? Legacy means that each game you play will also fundamentally change the rules of the game, board layout and even the cards.  Which means by the end of the 12 games, you have a unique copy of Ticket to Ride. It also means, you can not reset the game to its original state. 

In this review, I won't spoil anything that is revealed after your first game. I'll leave that for you to find out. What I will say generally about the later content is that it is well worth the cost of the game given the amount of content in the game box.

In Ticket to Ride, the goal is to draw cards of specific number and color that match the route between two cities. You can then claim the route by discarding those cards. The goal is to complete "tickets" which show larger routes between cites and if you claim the entire route you gain the dollar value listed next to the ticket. So for example, you may have a ticket for New Orleans to Boston, If you have claimed a route between cities that completes this ticket, you also get the bonus of the ticket. If however, you don't have this complete route by the end of the game the bonus id deducted from your final score.

Game Components

When you open the box, you are greeted with a sheet that clearly states DO NOT look at anything unless you are explicitly told to during the game.

At the start of the game, there are 5 board pieces that make up the game board. These encompass the Northeast US all the way down to New Orleans. They do not include Florida or anything west of the Mississippi, Those are considered "Frontiers" which are represented by sealed boxes inside the game box and a larger box containing the upside down board pieces. These additional frontiers are also not to be looked at. There is a lot of hidden its in the game.

Besides the frontier boxes, there is also a conductor's toolkit box which you don't open. There are 5 "Company" boxes. These represent the 5 train operators in the US. Each train company is represented by a colored set of plastic trains.  I chose to play the B & O because I remembered it as a property you can buy in Monopoly. The box has two sides to it. One side can be opened easily and is called "The office" . This is where you store all cards or items you gain that need to be used in each game. The other side of the box, called the vault,  has a slot to insert your end of game "bank slips" which you add up at the end of the campaign. As the game progresses, other items do get added to the vault when directed by the game.

The game also includes ticket and train cards (as in normal Ticket to Ride) along with newspaper event cards. Newspaper events change a single rule when they are drawn. They get drawn as players draw train cards into their hands, they may draw a newspaper which directs you to turn over the next event card. If you are familiar with Pandemic, this is essentially how Epidemics work. 

Finally, there are a number of decks that are specific to the Legacy game. There is a story deck, which at the start of the game, shows a "Pause" icon and says don't read until step 3 of the end of game rules. There are also a set of postcards Players get directed to draw these at various points in the game. These are double sided. One side is the postcard which is read aloud and adds flavor text to the game, while the other side is hidden from the other players and only revealed when the condition is met. These postcards provide the players with advatages throughout the campaign.

The game does come with helpful card dividers, and a molded plastic box insert so everything has its place in the box. We really love games who not only pay attention to the game, but also the storage of the game between games.

Game Setup

Every game of Ticket to Ride : Legends of the West is setup slightly differently. The rulebook provides the setup steps, however at the start of the campaign there are 9 setup rules and then the game jumps to rule 14 - Rules 10 -13 and rule 15 get revealed as you play. Also there are about 30 rules total that get added to the game throughout the entire campaign. We are about halfway through and we only have a handful of new rules. The other thing is once you get the rule that lets you add frontiers, the order in which the rules comes out will differ based on the order in which the frontiers are chosen.

The basic setup is to layout the current board, shuffle the correct number of newspapers into the train deck based on the number of players, deal train cards, deal tickets and the person who was last the game before gets to start.

Now as new rules join the fray, this setup will get adjusted. One of the things we love about the hidden aspect of the Legacy game, is you never know what rules will be added or what rules will be adjusted. This game provides you with "postcards" that the story deck directs you to pull which are stickers that get placed directly in the rule book.

Game Play

It's difficult to not talk about specifics for Ticket to Ride: Legends of the West, so we'll talk about how the game starts and overarchingly about the types of discoveries we have made. Again no spoilers. 

The overall game plays like any Ticket to Ride. On each turn, you can take one of three actions. Draw two train cards, complete routes between cities, or draw new tickets.  Unlike normal Ticket to Ride, you do not score points after each route you collect. In this game, the long game is key. You will gain money for every ticket you complete, and lose money for every ticket you fail to complete.

In our game, I managed to negate all money by completing one route of $11 and failing to complete another for - $11 (needless to say, I wasn't too happy).

During the game, you can collect additional money by laying down routes that meet specific revealed conditions. These are listed on newspaper events and other cards you might receive during the campaign. 

Some cards you get are with you for the whole campaign, while other cards get retired to the Dead Letter Office after being used a specific number of times.

The game ends when any one player has 2 or less trains in the reserve. When that happens, you complete the round and then everyone has one more round to go.

At the end of the game, you add up how much money you collected write it on a bank slip. This includes how many dollars you earned from completing tickets. You also get a bonus for how few trains you have left in your reserve. After that, players add up their money and a winner is declared. Then typically, the players will then read the story deck cards after the "Pause", leading to the "Stop" and this is when new rules are revealed and either applied to the rulebook or sometimes applied directly to the game board.

We've been very vague here on what comes out as you advance the story. We want you to experience that for yourself. We will say that after your first game, there is a very thematic item that gets introduced to the game and its something you end up using each of the later games and we loved to see it included in this manner! (so its not all stickers) . Also each frontier we've added so far (for us its Florida, Great Plains and Open Range) has added thematic elements that add to the immersion of that Frontier region.

Overall Impressions

Although I have lost the first 5 -6 games, I'm really loving playing this game. It has us hooked! We want to know what's in the rest of the boxes. The nice thing is each game only lasts an hour so you aren't tied to the table for 2-4 hour sessions.  When a new box gets opened, it's like Christmas. It's something brand new. As we mentioned in our review of Pandemic Legacy, it's like a sadistic Advent Calendar. - here though, it's more of a regular advent calendar and this is due to this game being competitive vs cooperative. 

We'll definitely finish playing this game and will update this review if it's warranted! We highly recommend it!!