Carcassonne: Expansion 6 – Count, King & Robber is unsurprisingly the sixth expansion for the brilliant tile placement board game Carcassonne. Originally released back in 2007, a new print has just been released featuring the new post-2014 art style. The expansion features four modules that can be added into the core set (The Count of Carcassonne, The River II, The King & Robber and The Cult) though not all simultaneously. However, aside from adding tiles does the expansion offer added value to the Carcassonne experience? Let’s find out!
As mentioned not all of the modules can be added into the core set at the same time and this is due to The Count of Carcassonne and The River II both offering new starting tiles. While more experienced players could house rule these together, similar to the way the rules state The River II can be combined with The River expansion, let’s look at them individually. The Count brings in a large starting city, the city of Carcassonne itself, that has surrounding it green fields, a few roads and even two started cities to jump on from the offing.
Made of two large “tiles” the city itself is effectively 3×4 normal tiles in size and helps start the game with a solid foundation to build from in all directions. As veterans would assume, the city and its various roads do split fields, with the city itself counting as the standard 3 points for field adjacent farmers. The city might be a starting tile on one side but on the other sees The Count of Carcassonne wander the city.
When playing with the Count the city starting tiles are flipped over to reveal four distinct regions: the castle, market, blacksmith and cathedral. Whenever a player completes at least one feature that they don’t score points for they get the option to place a meeple from their supply into any of the 4 regions of the city. If they do this the player can also move the Count to any of the four locations. Each region of the city has a type of feature matched with it: the castle with cities, the blacksmith with roads, the cathedral with monasteries/shrines and the market with farmers.
At any point when a feature is complete if anyone has meeples in the corresponding city region they can move them to the feature in a bid to share/take control, unless the count is in that region of the city. This can see meeples piling out of the city of Carcassonne as players look to steal or share huge scoring cities, roads or monasteries. At the end of the game meeples placed on the market, again unless the count is there, are free to take to the fields. This can significantly alter the way the end game scoring goes. While you don’t have to participate in the take-that style opportunity, chances are if you don’t you’ll lose.
Carcassonne Expansion 6 contains one element of Carcassonne that I’ve been waiting to play with my newer edition of Carcassonne for a long time, The River II. The River (I) is now included in the base game and many experienced players will use it to start off every single game. This module of the expansion much like the original adds to the variability of the starting setup, resulting in each game feeling even more unique than before. The River II goes one step further by including a T-junction river tile. The T-junction is always the second tile placed after the river start tile giving players options of which stream to continue. Like with The River there is a slight railroading constraint of not being able to double back the river, but it is well worth it for the different start in each game.
The Cult brings in 5 shrine tiles, that are shuffled into the draw pile. Unlike normal tiles shrines have an additional placement rule, that they cannot be placed adjacent next to two or more monasteries, on top of the usual extension of the illustration rule. If placed next to a monastery shrines give the option to place a meeple as a heretic. This triggers a race with the monk on the monastery, with only the first to finish their 3×3 grid gaining 9 points. If not next to a monastery then they are treated as one. Shrines can differ from one game to the next, depending on when they are drawn. In one game they can be rather confrontational and in others just increase the amount of monastery style buildings scored on the board; it all depends on the draw pile.
Finally, is the King & the Robber. The King comes into play as soon as the first city is complete. The King token is placed onto the city and the person whom completed it, whether they scored points or not, gains the King tile. Each time a larger city is completed the King moves and the tile with it. When it comes to scoring whomever controls the King gets a point per completed city including the city of Carcassonne. The Robber, despite the name, is extremely similar to the King but instead is based upon roads, rather than cities.
Aesthetically the tiles included fit perfectly with those in the core Carcassonne set. So much so that without the crown symbol or memory of what the original tile set included players would struggle to remove them. One does stand out a little in terms of featuring a volcano at the end of the river, and the city of Carcassonne is huge, but otherwise the art style differences are non-existent. Just make sure that you are getting the version that matches your core set.
Unfortunately, I’ve found that the King & Robber don’t add anything to the experience, and unless someone else massively wanted to try them out I’ll probably leave them in the box. When it comes to The Cult the take-that feeling is certainly there, so they fit into a game with other expansions such as The Count, or even the likes of The Flying Machines, where your features can get stolen from under your meeples’ feet. Some will love another way to ninja in on features to gain control, or at least share in the points earnt by another player. Maybe it just depends what sort of game you’re in the mood for. Conversely, The River II and the City of Carcassonne starting options will be in constant rotation with The River (I), providing increased variety from one game to the next.
[Editor’s Note: Carcassonne: Expansion 6 – Count, King & Robber was provided to us by Asmodee UK for review purposes. The game is currently available on 365 Games for £14.99. It is also available from local UK board game stores, find your local store here]
