Legendary Encounters: Alien- Strategy and Tips for movie scenarios- Part one: Alien Movie

Originally I intended to follow up with this post after the original one for Legendary Encounters: Alien. I apologize but this ended up being a huge undertaking. For the next few posts I will be posting my strategies for the film scenarios included in the game, starting with the original alien film. I'm a traditionalist when it comes to the Alien saga so I've adhered to the Film themes and haven't done any mix and match. Hopefully this explains why I'm formatting my advice this way. As always feel free to debate/critique my post below.

An important thing to note is: each of the film scenarios is missing one of the card categories which changes the overall strategies for play.

For this scenario players will be on the Nostromo ship. The HQ cards will all have the Weyland Yutani symbol on the top left of the card. There are no "strength" cards to work directly with either the Mercenary or the Gunner characters. For this reason I would recommend playing the following: Synthetic, Medic, and Scout with the option between Commander or Executive as 4th player. A 5th player can be the other leader, Technician, or Researcher. See my post about Avatar selection for some more advice.

For all players, the high value cards (7, 8 or 9 cost) need to be purchased as soon as possible. Any character that can afford them should by them ASAP no matter the deck compatibility. The exception to this rule is any character close to being eliminated should never buy these cards. These need to remain available to those still in the game.

The Scout player will likely look at the "You have your orders" cards for purchase power. They are okay and can be picked up whenever you have purchase power to spare. Actually anyone who has some purchasing power to spare should grab them, using them to bury expensive (5 or 6 cost) cards and getting affordable cards in to play may be better for the team early on while later in the game using them to pump through the deck to get the more powerful cards out. They are cheaper than the sergeants and give the same purchase power. However the sergeant coordinate ability really helps make the powerful cards affordable. It comes down to if you have the high value cards in the store early get the sergeants so they can be purchased. "Review the Nav data" is a massively helpful card, especially in the end game. The high damage and coordinate ability are the perfect combo for this scenario. Grab the "expert navigator cards" if the others aren't available because the damage and ability to draw extra cards are going to help out in the end game.


The Medic will obviously buy as many "first aid kits" as possible. This will help keep players in the game and provide much needed purchase power. This should all be spent on the "find it and kill it" cards. The high damage and coordinate power on these cards will be vital later in the game. These are way more important than the "you are my lucky star" cards. So if you have the option between the two pick the "find it and kill it."

There should be a player focusing on buying the leadership cards, be it the executive, the commander or the synthetic: someone needs to be a leader. "Quarantine Procedure" will be your main focus here. These cards will help you thin out the starter cards from the players decks, increasing the chances of better card combinations. These are the only cards in this scenario that let you do this so make sure you do this much as possible. "Captain of the ship" is your next priority. These will really stack the damage up. While the power on "teams of three" seems powerful it won't be effective until the late game when you have thinned your deck of starter cards. There are no leadership cards with purchase power so remember to buy either the "Sergeant" cards or "you have your orders" cards.

Whoever is left over should be focusing on the intel cards, meaning the Synthetic if there is a leader in play. Pick up as many "motion detector" cards as possible. These will help with purchasing better cards and help with getting rooms scanned without sacrificing attack power. This purchase power will be well spent on the "Repair the ship" cards. If you can keep the power station clear this will help you have large hands of cards. However the "Electric Prod" cards will be very valuable when it comes to the end scenario. The main big bad at the end needs to be in a specific room and these cards will ensure you can make that happen, the sooner you can get these the better.

This scenario's first objective, "The S.O.S." seems pretty easy, just find the two parts of the S.O.S. signal. It can be easy if you plan properly. The big problem will be the alien egg cards. They don't seem to be a big threat at first, they do not strike or move, however this means the blind cards feeding in to the facility move to the next available space. This means new blind cards can enter the combat zone fast. The other HUGE threat for the eggs are when the event cards come up. Any revealed egg hatches a face-hugger. You can end up with the threat of early game chestburster(s?) in play and that will spell certain doom. Event cards also trigger the current and next player to draw strikes. The first hazard card adds two cards to the complex. Couple this with spaces blocked by eggs and you can find yourself suddenly overrun. Kill the eggs ASAP.

Or you are screwed

In the second objective "No one can hear you scream" the game can go sideways quickly. Hopefully a player will have the "Electric prod" because there are enemies that gain health in the combat zone. Pushing them back may be more effective then direct combat. Sealing the ventilation shaft will be a challenge. First the shaft controls need to be found, then you will need to clear the ventilation shaft and afford to spend purchase power all at once. The problem is the high cost of revealing what is in the room (4) followed by the damage rating of whatever is in the room, then the (2) purchase power. Most characters won't have that all together at once so coordinating will probably be the only thing to help the characters, this is why you should buy any coordinate cards as soon as possible. The event cards will really hinder you because they cause the next player to discard 2 cards. The hazard card is a bigger threat because the top card of the enemy deck goes directly in to the combat zone. You may find yourself facing end game threats very early on because of this. There is a positive card in this objective: "Jonesy" the cat. He allows a player to heal a flesh wound from any number of players. While flesh wounds aren't as bad with 1 damage, they can add up. These are also a more common strike card. I would give this card to the medic character. He can use it as the first card from his hand, triggering the first aid kits. Healing the flesh wounds with this card saves the first aid kits for the more serious strikes.

The final objective "A perfect organism" will be very hard. Since the previous objective blocked the ventilation shaft it means there is one less space in the complex and enemies are always one space closer to the combat zone. Threats will be coming faster and they are stronger now. Especially since event cards cause the leftmost enemy or hidden card to jump directly into the combat zone. Hopefully you will have thinned your decks of starters and bought some stronger cards by now. Almost all of the enemies in this objective have double strikes or unavoidable strikes. The one thing you absolutely need in this scenario will be the airlock controls, with this card in play you can use purchase power to move an enemy to the airlock. This is the only way to kill the big bad Perfect Organism, but it could also help pull enemies out of the combat zone to prevent strikes. Scan as much as possible and coordinate to eliminate threats. A special threat is the enemy Ash. This synthetic from the movie has 8 damage but cannot be killed without a player coordinating. Yet another reason to buy up all the coordinate cards. The final hazard is a self destruct. When revealed it moves toward the combat zone as an enemy. Think of this as your timer. Once it arrives in the combat zone every player draws 3 strikes. Pretty much a potential total party kill moment. This can be prevented by spending 8 purchase power so hopefully someone will be able to coordinate with sergeant cards to make this happen.

For most Alien movie buffs this kind of doesn't really fit with the first film. It helps to think of the enemy cards more as one of a number of attacks from the main enemy rather than individual enemies.

Come back soon for the Aliens scenario post.

Until next time: on the internet no-one will read your blog.