Pandemic Legacy

Pandemic Legacy is a board game in which players take on the role of a team of disease fighting specialists attempting to contain and cure outbreaks of several contagions. Characters travel to cities around the world to fight infection and/or share information with other characters in an attempt to find a cure.

Pandemic Legacy is based on the game Pandemic. In Pandemic players square off against four diseases. They rush around the the world trying to stop infections from spreading whilst researching cures. Outbreaks occur and the diseases spill over into nearby cities. After around an hour and a half the game ends and the players have either found the cures to all the diseases and won or they've run out of time and the diseases have spread out of control.

Pandemic Legacy introduces an episodic narrative element to the mechanics of Pandemic as well a perpetuity to the game state. Legacy plays out over 12-24 game sessions/episodes (Each session represents a month of game time). If during a game session a disease breaks out of control in a city and population begins panicking , there will still be unrest in that city in the next game session that could lead to rioting. Characters persist throughout the entire game improving on their abilities and possibly losing some capabilities due to injury. If a character suffers too many injuries or happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time that character can die and is out of the game for good. Yikes, I know.

Friends of ours, Michael and KayLynn, got Pandemic Legacy for Christmas. I had a chance to try out the first session with them. It was really fun. Intense, but fun.

Spoiler Alert: I will be revealing details regarding certain plot twists in the first game session.

January 1
Center for Disease Control
Atlanta, Georgia USA

Flu season has been harsh this year. A particularly persistent strain has cropped up in London and Madrid is beginning to show up on the eastern seaboard of the United States. In Manila, there are scattered reports of a respiratory disease. Bubonic plague has broken out in Riyadh. Meanwhile, a strange virus has reared it's head in western Africa. Our resources are stretched thin but we have a capable yet untested response team ready to be deployed. I guess there's no time like the present to learn. 

Christmas Jones - Scientist

Liang - Dispatcher

Hawkeye  - Medic

Christmas Jones: Dr. Jones has a background in virology, xeno-pathogen dispersion trees and martial arts. She's recently returned from a research project in Ghana studying variations in unladen swallow average speed related to parasitic infestation. Her knowledge will allow the team develop cures more rapidly and with less resources.

"Hawkeye" Pierce: Hawkeye is new to the CDC but has extensive experience as a combat field medic. He will be the tip of the spear for our ground effort, facilitating treatment for the hardest hit population areas. We received Hawkeye on "loan" indefinitely from the Army. Through undisclosed sources it's reported that while Hawkeye is extremely resourceful he has issues with authority, spirit distillation, long monologues and women.

Liang Ng: Liang came into the employ of the CDC through the former CDC dispatcher who had independently decided to subcontract his work responsibilities to Liang (a Chinese national) so the former dispatcher could maximize his kitten video observation time. Liang proved so successful in the role (and so cost-effective) that that the former dispatcher was given permanent leave. Liang will be the logistical glue that holds the operation together coordinating the efforts of our team across the globe.

To set up the the game we drew nine cards from the infection deck(Each card has a city on it) to determine where the four various diseases had already taken hold. The infection level of a city is represented by 0-3 cubes with zero being no infection present and three meaning the city is in very bad shape and on the verge of outbreak/panic/rioting. The first three cities drawn including Madrid and Paris got three cubes. The the next three cities got two cubes and the last three cities each got one cube. After cube placement all drawn cards went into the discard pile.

There's a separate deck of player cards which also have cities on them as well as other useful items. The city cards are in four different colors representing the four diseases. The object of Pandemic is to find a cure for each disease by collecting five cards of the same color. Cards can be traded but only if the trading players are both in the city represented on the cards. Cards can also be used like airplane tickets. Have a card for Sao Paulo? You can get there from anywhere in the world in one move.

On a player's turn he/she take up to four actions including:

1) Move to an adjacent city
2) Discard a card to move to the city on that card.
3) Treat a disease in your current city and remove one infection cube
4) Cure a disease by discarding five cards of the same color at a research center (e.g. CDC in Atlanta)
5) Give a card with to another player or take one from another player

There are some other actions including setting up research centers and other movement options. Certain roles improve one or more of the actions. For example, the scientist only needs four cards to cure a disease. The medic removes three infection cubes when making treatment action.

After taking his/her actions the player draws two cards from the player deck. Spread out through the player deck are four epidemic cards. If an epidemic card is drawn, the cards in the infection deck discard pile are shuffled and placed on top of the infection deck.

Once the player has collected his/her two cards and/or resolved any epidemic cards the player draws two (up to four in later game stages) cards from the top of the infection deck and places a disease cube on the affected cities. If the number of cubes on city is greater than three there's an outbreak. Panic increases in the city and the player puts an infection cube on each surrounding city. Too many outbreaks in a city can lead to rioting or worse.

January 7
Essen, Germany
I have a bad feeling about this one. Liang found transport to London and was able to organize direct flights for the rest of the team. Hawkeye made it into Paris but wasn't able to get to Madrid before a surge in cases swept the city into a brief fervor. We set up a mobile treatment unit and the city seems calm for now.

Our research has hit a wall though. The flu strain, COdA-403, has mutated into a form resistant to all our treatments. We're going to have to try to contain it for now and focus on finding cures for the other diseases. Liang is setting up a research center here in Essen and Dr. Jones is enroute to Shanghai.

Kaylynn destroys the old objective card with relish. There's no going back and Michael knows it.

In the game box there's a big stack of plot cards. These are carefully ordered to provide a cohesive story line. So, no shuffling! Certain events trigger when plot cards are revealed. Our first plot card was revealed after the second outbreak. It explained that the disease represented by the blue cubes (COdA-403) had mutated and for the time being was incurable. We were instructed to destroy our original objective card (Cure all for four diseases) and take the new objective card (Cure the three non-mutated diseases). We decided Hawkeye should stick around the Atlantic seaboard and put out fires while Liang and Christmas Jones tried finding a cure for the red disease in eastern Asia.


January 25
Lagos, Nigeria

Success! Christmas Jones quickly found a cure for the respiratory disease threatening the Far East and the team was able to eradicate it before it gained a foot hold. The plague in the near East fell soon after and currently the team is converging in Lagos to put together the final elements for a treatment for the disease ravaging Africa and South America. Well done team! Well done! COdA-403 is still keeping me up at night but I'm hopeful.