Western Legends – What Else Should You Buy?
We have played and reviewed a ton of Western Legends content so far, including the base game, the Blood Money expansion, and the Ante Up expansion. But there is so much more you can pick up for the game, some of which we have to talk about today, and others we still haven’t tried! But what do we recommend picking up, and which should you pass on? Let’s take a look!
First and foremost, if Western Legends is one of your favorite games, we recommend picking up all of these extras. They are all fantastic, and we highly recommend them all. But we know that upgrading a game isn’t something people do just on a whim, so we will do our best to highlight our favorites! It is worth noting that for the tokens, we only have the cattle ones, and we have not tried the playmat yet! Alright, without further ado, here we go!
Small Box Expansions
There are three small box expansions for Western Legends. They are the Fistful of Extras expansion, the Wild Bunch of Extras expansion, and the Good, Bad, and Handsome expansion. These are all small box options that only slightly alter your games of Western Legends. They are meant to supplement the game, rather than be something super meaty like Blood Money or Ante Up.
The Good, Bad and Handsome includes three new characters to add into your mix. They are pretty interesting new characters and are great to add into your collection. If you wanted to play as Butch Cassidy, though, you’ll need this expansion. With so many characters already available in Western Legends, I’m not sure this would be the first mini-expansion I’d pick up. It does add some story cards that make the game more combative, but I’m not sure that’s really the game most people want to play. The one interesting thing about this expansion is that it adds some legendary items and ways to obtain them. If you want more items for your game, this could be a decent, cost effective way to do it. If you are feeling good about the characters and items in your current setup, you can pass on this one!
In Fistful of Extras, players will once again get a few new characters. This is a theme across all Western Legends expansions, so obviously we again wouldn’t recommend picking this up just for more characters – there are plenty already. A little brown bag is included with this expansion which is for storing your legendary tokens (instead of a pile on the table). It’s a cool idea, but the bag mouth is so small it’s hard to put your hand in it to pull out tokens.
I do find this set more attractive than The Good, Bad, and Handsome though, as the new items included in this box are pretty interesting to me. The Holster allows you to discard Poker cards to lower the value of a card played against you, and the new Peacekeeper weapon gives you additional Marshal Points when arresting other players. Couple these cool items with 6 new characters, new character figures, and brand new Joker Cards, and you have a box I can highly recommend picking up.
The Wild Bunch of Extras expansion box was released alongside Ante Up, and it’s the box we’ve used the least so far. That said, some of our Ante Up review covers things in this box, so be sure to check that out! If you can get your hands on this box, we also highly recommend it.
Not only does it come with new cards to add throughout, providing more variety, but also provides title cards that give each player a “title” at the start of the game. There are also cards included to play a two-player variant of the game, unique event cards that add a bit of (good) randomness to the game, and so much more. We haven’t even cracked into everything this expansion adds, but can confirm it’s worth getting!
Cosmetic Upgrades
I am a sucker for games with cosmetic upgrades, and Western Legends is no different. I will say that unless this is one of your favorite games and you play it a ton, I wouldn’t bother with any of these upgrades. But if Western Legends gets played often, these are nice ways to increase the table presence of your game.
The publisher has released a number of Poker style chips for this game to replace the cardboard chips you got in each box. These chips are amazing, and feel great to fiddle with and use. We currently only have the cattle token chips, but are actively looking to replace all of our other chips, including those legendary point chips! If we get our hands on them, we will be sure to tell you all about them!
We also were given two wooden trays to hold the cards from the General Store and the trading post. There is nothing wrong with the cardboard holders included with the base game and the Ante Up expansion, but these wooden variants are really nice. I even used a bit of glue to make mine even more solid, and they are a great way to elevate your gameplay experience.
Overall, I think everything released for Western Legends is worth getting if you plan to play the game a lot. Each and every box provides variety, and in a sandbox game like Western Legends, that’s something you want in spades. While we do recommend some expansions over others, you cannot go wrong with whatever you might purchase!