James Bond is coming to the Legendary deckbuilding series

Updated 2019.10.23 (Article originally from 2018.11.28)

Another franchise has joined the Upper Deck's Legendary deckbuilding series, after other titles like Aliens, Firefly and Big trouble in little China.
This game is now released. It's a BIG one, with over 600 cards.

Content

Rulebook, Game Mat and 600 cards:

• 14 cards for each of 20 different Heroes (280 cards)
• 8 cards for each of 4 different Villain Groups (32 cards)
• 9 cards for each of 4 different Mission Groups (36 cards)
• 10 cards for each of 4 different Henchmen Villain Groups (40 cards)
• 40 "007 Basic Starter Heroes"
• 20 "00 Agent Basic Starter Heroes"
• 5 Special Starter Heroes for each of 4 eras of James Bond. (20 cards)
• 2 Miss Moneypenny Starter Allies
• 30 Gadgets
• 30 Wounds
• 4 Masterminds, each with 4 Mastermind Tactics (20 cards)
• 8 different Schemes
• 5 Scheme Twists
• 5 Master Strikes
• 22 Extra Cards
• 60 Dividers

Game Summary

Each player starts with their own deck of basic starting cards. At the start of your turn, play the top card of the Villain Deck which allows Villains and Missions to enter “On Assignment”, acquire Gadgets, and wreak havoc on the players in other nefarious ways.
Then play Hero cards from your hand to generate Attack, Recruit Points, and special abilities. You use Attack to defeat your enemies.
You use Recruit Points to recruit more powerful Heroes from “Q Branch” for your deck. Whenever your deck runs out of cards, shuffle your discard pile to make a new deck, including all the new Heroes you recruited.
This way your deck gets stronger and stronger over time. Build up enough power, and you can defeat the Mastermind! But be careful: If the players fail too many Missions, the Mastermind wins the game!

In other words, much like other Legendary games villains will enter the game one by one, and you can defeat them with your heroes. So far so good. Each player gets 8 Agent 007" cards and 4 "Agent 00" cards from the start, each with purchase power and attacking power, as usual in Legendary. But each player also gets a "Special Starter" depending on which Bond you are playing, there are 4 different ones, and which one goes into which game is decided by "the Movie".
The Movie is basically a combination of Mastermind, villains, henchmen, mission and extra cards which are added together.
For instance, there is a The Goldfinger movie scenario where Auric Goldfinger and Oddjob carries out Operation Grand Slam, which are the mission cards. You can defeat these like villains in various ways. Against Goldfinger stands, of course, the Sean Connery version of Bond, which you will get a card from in your starting hand. So a bit more of a hassle than your normal Legendary game. Each movie also has two scheme cards, pick one and play. Mix in the master strike and scheme twist cards.
Another new thing is that you will divide the villain deck into 3 parts, A, B, and C, so things happen in a particular order (so you don't get plot twists at turn 1 etc).
Gadgets are basically like bystanders, you'll shuffle a few in your villain deck and keep the rest facedown on the playmat, next to the wounds. Miss Moneypenny are ally cards and can always be recruited, like Maria Hill in Marvel Legendary.
Add your heroes that go with the movie in a deck, and you are good to go.
For more details on how to play the game, please consult the rulebook, which you can find further down on this page.