Stats:
No. of players: 1-5
Amount of time to play: 45-60 min
Age requirements: 14+
Set-up time: 5-10 minutes

The Fantastic Four expansion adds Marvel’s first family to the Legendary deck-building series. It also adds new abilities, masterminds and schemes.

Legendary Fantastic Four Rules Description:

I am going to assume you have played Legendary. If you have not, read my review of it here. The rest of this article will focus on the new elements introduced in the Fantastic Four expansion.

Focus is a new keyword that lets you use Recruit Points to trigger special effects. This includes gaining Attack, drawing cards, rescuing bystanders and more. You may pay the Focus cost repeatedly to trigger the effect more than once.

Burrow is also a new keyword that the Subterranea villains have. This allows them to flee to the Street space if a villain is not currently there. This makes them hard to kill and might require you to fight them more than once to eliminate them.

The new heroes include Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Thing and Silver Surfer. Many of their cards use the new Focus keyword and are slightly more expensive than cards from the base set. Mr. Fantastic has tech and instinct card types and helps you draw cards. Invisible Woman is covert and ranged and can help you thin your deck and rescue bystanders. Human Torch is instinct and ranged has decent attack and can turn wounds into Recruit Points. Thing is typed as strength and instinct with cards that turn Focus into Attack. Silver Surfer has covert, ranged and strength and he adds Recruit Points which he uses for card draw and attack.

The new Masterminds are Galactus and Moleman. Galactus commands his heralds and they all have the Cosmic Threat keyword. Cosmic Threat allows you to subtract three from the villains attack for each card of a specific type you have in play. Galactus uses Master Strike cards to destroy the city. Eliminating city spaces and shortening the villain track. Moleman gains strength based on the number of Subterranea villains that escape.

There are four new schemes two concentrate on eliminating non-grey heroes and you lose once too many have been KOed. Another defends the Masterminds requiring you to spend Recruit Points or Attack to hit them. And the last switches the economy in the game when every other twist is drawn. This makes you attack with Recruit Points and recruit with Attack.

Quick Review of the Legendary Fantastic Four Expansion:

The Fantastic Four expansion for Legendary adds some interesting new effects, villains and heroes. I am glad to see Silver Surfer make it into the game. The new elements are easily incorporated into the base game with only a few additional rules.

The components for this expansion are great. I like the art and the rules are easy to read and follow.

The new Focus keyword is cool and creates some fun synergies with heroes in the base game. You might even want to keep some of your SHIELD Agents around just to help trigger your hero’s Focus abilities.

Of course the Fantastic Four have their own team symbol and their members use it. Sue even has a card that adds to her attack if you’ve play another card costing four Recruit Points. I like that subtle but clever injection of the theme.

Having Galactus in the game is also pretty cool. He is tough and requires you to add similar card types to your deck. His heralds make this a little challenging for games with fewer players, but they should be tough. His ability to destroy the city is an excellent mechanic that fits him well.

If you are a fan of Legendary and the Fantastic Four this is a must buy. If you have Legendary but not Dark City this smaller expansion makes a nice addition to the base game. If you have both Legendary and Dark City you should still give the Fantastic Four expansion a try.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 3 out of 6
Luck 4 out of 6
Player Interaction 4 out of 6
Replay Value 5 out of 6
Complexity 3 out of 6
Fun 5 out of 6
Overall 5 out of 6