Designer: Pascal Bernard (Cadwallon: City of Thieves, Conan, Time of Legends: Joan of Arc)

Artists: David Demaret (Batman: Gotham City Chronicles, Claustrophobia 1643), Mythic Battles: Pantheon), Julien Fenoglio (Mythic Battles: Pantheon, Time of Legends: Joan of Arc), Stephane Gantiez (Claustrophobia, Codenames, Libertalia, Lords of Xidit, Mythic Battles: Pantheon, Rallyman, Seasons, Snow Tails, Survive: Escape From Atlantis!), Nicolas Jamme (Alien Menace, Operation Commando: Pegasus Bridge, Time of Legends: Joan of Arc), Stef Kopinski (Deep Madness, Mythic Battles: Pantheon, Necromunda, The Others), Bayard Wu (Reichbusters: Project Vril, Super Fantasy Brawl, Time of Legends: Joan of Arc)

Publisher: Mythic Games (Mythic Battles: Pantheon, Super Fantasy Brawl, Time of Legends: Joan of Arc)

Genre/Mechanisms: action points, area movement, dice rolling, miniatures, modular board, variable player powers, war game

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Time of Legends: Joan of Arc 1.5 is already fully-funded.  In fact, pledges currently total more than 6x the initial funding goal with 8 days left to go on the campaign.

Player Count: 2-4

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: heavy

Risk: medium-low

What It’s About:  A juggernaut of a production featuring sculpted miniatures and 3D scenery, resource management, an activation point system, and card play.

How It Works: Every expansion, of which there are many, includes an additional 2-5 scenarios, and that’s on top of the base game’s 17 scenarios. Many of those expansions includes additional rules tweaks, but for simplicity’s sake I’ll be sticking with the base game’s rules here.

Gameplay includes a Council Phase at the beginning of each Round and a Camp Phase at the end of each Round. In between those 2 Phases are a Player’s Turn Phase for each player involved. So a 2 player game would have 4 Phases, a 3 player game would have 5 Phases, and so on. During the Council Phase, the first card of the Round Deck is revealed, and each player takes the corresponding number of Activation Orders. Then the top 3 cards from the War Council Deck are drawn and placed into The River. If there are any duplicate cards, the duplicate is discarded and replaced. Each player then selects one of the War Council Cards and applies its effects. Finally, any player wishing to maintain an upgraded Character must perform Upkeep, spending 1 XP token for each level 2 Character, or it reverts back to a level 1 Character.

Then, in player order, each player performs an Orders Phase and a Reserve Phase. During the Orders Phase, the player chooses an Order from the Player Board and places it in an allied area of the game board. This activates all player units in that area, but their actions can be resolved in any order chosen by the player. For each unit, the player declares their action and then resolves it. Orders include Activation, Charge, Reactivation, and Interrupt. There are also 4 types of available actions– Unit Actions, Character Bonus Actions, Skill Actions, and Player Actions. Unit Actions include Moving, Attacking, Recruiting Civilians, and Waiting; Character Bonus Actions include Discussing, Commanding, Using Equipment, and Upgrading a Character; Skill Actions include Haste, Jump, Charge, Prayer, Heal, and Engineer (and are specific to those characters possessing said Skills); and Player Actions include Playing a Legend Card and Triggering an Intrigue. This continues until the player runs out of Orders or decides to end their turn. During the Reserve Phase, the active player removes spent Orders from the game board and returns them to the common pool. They move unused Orders from their player board to the appropriate reserve areas, if there is room to do so. Any Orders that can not fit in the reserve areas are also returned to the common pool. After the active player completes their turn, the next player executes both their Orders and Reserve Phase, until all players have taken their turn.

The final phase is the Camp Phase, which determines the fate of all Disrupted units. Rally each unit in the waiting section of the Infirmary (moving it to a Rally Point with enough capacity to hold it, or to a Rally Point in a free or allied area). Then players roll the Doom Dice for each unit in their Disrupted section. Depending on their roll, the unit in question may also Rally, it may remain Disrupted and stay in the Disrupted section, it may experience Death and be destroyed, or it may experience a Delayed Rally due to psychological fatigue from the horrors of war, and be sent to the Infirmary.

Once the Round Deck has no cards left, the game ends. If any player has fulfilled the victory conditions of the current scenario, that player is declared the winner. Some scenarios trigger the end of the game as soon as the victory conditions are met.

Comparisons:  Time of Legends: Joan of Arc is very simply a massive endeavor. The expansions, stacked on top of each other, are easily taller than your average human being. The sheer amount of miniatures, castles, and terrain in the almost $1,000 all-in package really puts this beyond the scope of most board games and into the realm of a larger, miniatures skirmish game, but there are dedicated rules that are consistent across this enormous package of gaming. When all is said and done, the best comparison may simply be HeroQuest.

What Should I Pledge?:
$80 Teutonic Pledge: the new Teutonic Knights expansion, with all unlocked 1.5 stretch goals.
$109 1.5 Complete Pack Pledge: includes the Teutonic Pledge rewards, plus a Deluxe Storage Box.
$129 Core Pledge: includes the original Kickstarter’s core box plus the Reliquary Box with all Season 1 stretch goals.
$889 Legendary 1.5 Pledge: includes everything mentioned in the various pledge levels above, plus the Legendary Dragon Expansion, Apocalypse Expansion, Legendary Battles Expansion, Siege Expansion, Ars Nova Expansion, Battle of Cravant Expansion, Unleash Hell Expansion, Ottoman Army Expansion, Siege Equipment Expansion, Activation Banners Pack, Neoprene Playmat, the Role-Playing Game, RPG Dice, Extra Bases Pack, Combat Dice Pack, Dice Tower, All-In Card Sleeves, Compendium, and New RPG Expansion.

Add-Ons:
$129 Core Box + Reliquary Box
$80 Teutonic Knights Expansion
$70 Legendary Dragon Expansion
$90 Siege Expansion
$70 Apocalypse Expansion
$65 Legendary Battles Expansion
$60 Village Pack Expansion
$40 Unleash Hell Expansion
$20 Ars Nova Expansion
$30 Siege Equipment Expansion
$30 Ottoman Army Expansion
$60 Roleplaying Game
$10 RPG DIce
$39 RPG Expansion
$30 Compendium Expansion Book
$10 Battle of Cravant Expansion
$30 Scenario Collection Book
$39 Deluxe Storage Box
$32 Neoprene Playmat
$30 Plunder Kit
$10 Base Ring Kit
$20 Oversized Core Tiles Kit
$350 Majestic Bundle: includes the Legendary Dragon, Unleash Hell, Legendary Battles, Ars Nova, Siege Equipment, Village Pack, and Apocalypse Expansions
$210 Mythic Bundle: includes the Legendary Dragon, Unleash Hell, Village Pack, and Apocalypse Expansions
$190 Heroic Bundle: includes the Siege, Legendary Battles, and Village Pack Expansions

KS Exclusives:
None.

All-In Total: Okay Captain Moneybags, in the continental U.S. you’re looking at $889 for the Legendary Pledge plus $105 in shipping for a total of $994.

Time of Legends: Joan of Arc 1.5 completes its Kickstarter on Wednesday, October 16th and tentatively ships in October 2020.