How to Get Started with Western Legends
Western Legends is a cooperative board game set in the Wild West, published by CMON. You and your crew of outlaws, sheriffs, and legends take on a campaign against increasingly difficult scenarios. The game is turn-based, with each player controlling a character that has unique abilities and a specific role in the group. If you are looking to play, here is what you need to know about setting it up and getting through your first session.
Western legends game setup and how it actually works
The core loop of Western Legends is straightforward. A scenario is chosen, the board is set up with the appropriate enemies and objectives, and then players take turns moving, shooting, and using special abilities. The twist is that the game is fully cooperative. Everyone plays against the scenario AI, not against each other. You win or lose together. Each character has an action bar — usually four slots — that you spend actions on during your turn. You can move, shoot, reload, use a special ability, or perform a scenario-specific action. The economy of the game revolves around managing your action slots and keeping track of your ammo and health. Sound simple? It is, until you are facing a boss encounter where you have two turns to kill it before it wipes half the table.
I learned this the hard way during my third campaign. We were running the "Clash at High Noon" scenario with four players. We had optimized our loadouts perfectly — two gunslingers, a tracker, and a shaman. Everything was going smoothly until the boss entered its second phase and gained immunity to all damage except one specific type. My gunslinger was useless. We spent three full rounds doing nothing but trading shots. We lost. The lesson was immediate: you need at least one character whose abilities can't be trivially countered by a phase shift. Going forward, I always build at least one character into each party who has a versatile or adaptive mechanic — usually the shaman or the scout — because rigid loadouts are a fast track to a bad ending.
Choosing your first characters
If you are new, avoid starting with the more complex characters like the Shaman or the Drifter. They have layered mechanics that require understanding of synergy chains and resource management that you will not have yet. Instead, pick the Gunslinger or the Sheriff. Both have clear roles, straightforward abilities, and they teach you the core mechanics without overwhelming you. The Gunslinger is the baseline damage dealer. Their abilities scale nicely as you unlock upgrades, and their basic attack is reliable. The Sheriff is a support tank — they can protect other players and deal decent damage while drawing enemy aggro. Playing these two together in a two-person team gives you a clean introduction to how positioning, cooldown management, and threat control work in practice.
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Understanding the upgrade system
Between scenarios, you earn gold and XP. Gold is spent on permanent upgrades at the saloon between missions, and XP unlocks new abilities for your characters. This is where the game gets deep. The upgrade paths branch in ways that are not immediately obvious. For example, investing heavily in the Gunslinger's "Quick Draw" ability early on might seem aggressive, but it completely changes your pacing in later campaigns by letting you act before most enemies even move. Conversely, stacking defense upgrades too early can leave you fragile in the mid-game when bosses hit harder. There is also a deck-building component tied to your character cards. Each character has a hand of cards that represent skills, items, and bonuses. Drawing the wrong cards at the wrong time can cost you a mission. I used to ignore the card deck entirely and just rely on my character's base abilities. That changed after I ran a scenario where the enemy had a mechanic that disabled passive abilities if you didn't draw at least two action cards per round. I failed that mission four times before realizing the deck wasn't optional — it was the engine that powered everything else. Now I treat card management as seriously as I treat position on the board.
Where to find and download the game
The physical board game is available through major retailers and specialty game shops. If you are looking for a digital version, Western Legends also has a standalone video game adaptation that you can purchase on Steam. The PC version retains most of the core mechanics from the board game, though some campaign depth is simplified. For the full experience with all expansion content, the board game remains the better option, but the digital version is a solid entry point if you want to test the mechanics before committing to the physical setup.
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
New players tend to cluster together. It feels safe, but it makes you an easy target for area-of-effect attacks. Spread out. Keep at least two spaces between characters whenever possible. Another mistake is hoarding ammo. Reload early and often. Running dry in the middle of a boss fight is one of the most common reasons people lose campaigns. There is also the problem of over-optimizing one character at the expense of the team. I have seen groups dump all their gold into making a single character a damage monster. That works until the scenario requires crowd control, healing, or unlocking a door, and then your one-trick pony cannot contribute to those mechanics. Balance your investment across the party. Spread your gold and XP so that every character can fulfill at least one role beyond dealing damage.
The game does have a steep learning curve in the early campaigns. The rules for certain mechanics like cover, line of sight, and the villain's turn structure are not always intuitive. I would recommend reading through a full walkthrough video before your first game. It cuts down the setup and confusion time significantly — instead of spending 45 minutes figuring out rules mid-game, you can be playing within 15 minutes of sitting down. One more thing worth noting: the game is not without its flaws. The AI can behave unpredictably in later scenarios, sometimes making moves that feel unfair rather than challenging. The expansion content is sold separately and can get expensive. And if you miss a turn order advantage, there is no easy way to recover. These are real issues. They do not make the game bad, but they are worth knowing before you invest heavily in it.
