Category: Upvoted

I have never played the regular version of ‘Die Burgen von Burgund’, as we call it in good old Germany. Since the card game came out only a couple of days ago and my FLGS was selling the copies for 12 EUR, I decided to buy the little game before going all in on the big version of Castles of Burgundy.

So here’s a quick review of the game after 3 regular 3 player and 2 solo games:

Feel: The box is suprisingly small. It’s a standard box for small games here in Germany. The insert is cardboard and has two compartments for the cards. The cards are somewhat small and might be a bit fiddly for people with big hands.

Grade: B-

Rules: The rulebook is small, concise and excellent – at least for the German version. Like all Alea games, a summary of the rules is featured in a small column of each page, so you can skim the summary to either get right to game or to look up things. Some examples for turns and scoring would have been nice.

Grade: A-

Gameplay:

The game is great. Each player gets a pile of six cards to use as dice. All cards are multifunctional in that way – they either serve as dice or buildings.

Draw two of your six dice cards and decide which one to use – manipulate the card with workers (give them +/- 1) and take one of six actions: Grab a building as a project, build a project and use its perks, grab up to two workers, grab a silver, sell goods, convert silver and workers to victory points. Every building placed in your ‘county’ grants an immediate bonus for you – e.g. placing a mine lets you take two silver etc.

Additionally, each turn, you can buy three cards for three silver, pick one of them and either use it as another die or place it face up as a project.

A round ends after each player has placed his six dice. The game ends after five rounds.

Every building has one of seven colors. You want to collect triplets of the same color in order to score points at the end of the game. Monasteries work as wild cards, being the first player to complete a triplet or to have a card of each of the seven colors scores bonus points, as well as different types of animals.

Grade: B+

Price: I paid 12 EUR – An excellent price for such a deep ‘little’ game.

Grade: A

Final grade: B+

My BGG score: 8

Summary: The card version of CoB is an excellent game for an excellent price. The gameplay is solid and fun. Even the single player variant is great. Unfortunately, since I’ve never played the original, I cannot compare this game to the big version. But on it’s own, CoB: The Card game is a solid 8 on BGG for me.

Things I did not like:

1. The cards really are small. You need to shuffle the cards well after each game, in order to randomize the outcome of the ‘rolls’, i.e. your draws. Otherwise, the game might become unbalanced quickly. Standard cards would’ve been a lot easier to handle.

2. The game is not very colorblind friendly.

3. The game should include a player aid for the possible actions

Buy this game if you like: San Juan, Imperial Settlers, Castles of Burgundy (well, yeah)

Pictures!

[edit] Formatting

I have never played the regular version of ‘Die Burgen von Burgund’, as we call it in good old Germany. Since the card game came out only a couple of days ago and my FLGS was selling the copies for 12 EUR, I decided to buy the little game before going all in on the big version of Castles of Burgundy.

So here’s a quick review of the game after 3 regular 3 player and 2 solo games:

Feel: The box is suprisingly small. It’s a standard box for small games here in Germany. The insert is cardboard and has two compartments for the cards. The cards are somewhat small and might be a bit fiddly for people with big hands.

Grade: B-

Rules: The rulebook is small, concise and excellent – at least for the German version. Like all Alea games, a summary of the rules is featured in a small column of each page, so you can skim the summary to either get right to game or to look up things. Some examples for turns and scoring would have been nice.

Grade: A-

Gameplay:

The game is great. Each player gets a pile of six cards to use as dice. All cards are multifunctional in that way – they either serve as dice or buildings.

Draw two of your six dice cards and decide which one to use – manipulate the card with workers (give them +/- 1) and take one of six actions: Grab a building as a project, build a project and use its perks, grab up to two workers, grab a silver, sell goods, convert silver and workers to victory points. Every building placed in your ‘county’ grants an immediate bonus for you – e.g. placing a mine lets you take two silver etc.

Additionally, each turn, you can buy three cards for three silver, pick one of them and either use it as another die or place it face up as a project.

A round ends after each player has placed his six dice. The game ends after five rounds.

Every building has one of seven colors. You want to collect triplets of the same color in order to score points at the end of the game. Monasteries work as wild cards, being the first player to complete a triplet or to have a card of each of the seven colors scores bonus points, as well as different types of animals.

Grade: B+

Price: I paid 12 EUR – An excellent price for such a deep ‘little’ game.

Grade: A

Final grade: B+

My BGG score: 8

Summary: The card version of CoB is an excellent game for an excellent price. The gameplay is solid and fun. Even the single player variant is great. Unfortunately, since I’ve never played the original, I cannot compare this game to the big version. But on it’s own, CoB: The Card game is a solid 8 on BGG for me.

Things I did not like:

1. The cards really are small. You need to shuffle the cards well after each game, in order to randomize the outcome of the ‘rolls’, i.e. your draws. Otherwise, the game might become unbalanced quickly. Standard cards would’ve been a lot easier to handle.

2. The game is not very colorblind friendly.

3. The game should include a player aid for the possible actions

Buy this game if you like: San Juan, Imperial Settlers, Castles of Burgundy (well, yeah)

Pictures!

[edit] Formatting

http://www.gmtgames.com/p-572-pendragon-the-fall-of-roman-britain.aspx

I’ve been looking forward to this for ages, numerous screenshots have popped up over the past few months and it looks fantastic! And it’s just hit the P500, so hopefully this will get enough support to be released (the designers were hoping for a 2017 release)!

EDIT: In case it’s unclear how to order something via P500 – you just order it as normal from the GMT website. It’ll get billed when it’s ready to ship.

http://www.gmtgames.com/p-572-pendragon-the-fall-of-roman-britain.aspx

I’ve been looking forward to this for ages, numerous screenshots have popped up over the past few months and it looks fantastic! And it’s just hit the P500, so hopefully this will get enough support to be released (the designers were hoping for a 2017 release)!

The designers have set up a pretty active facebook group for the game here with lots of pics of gameplay and development: https://www.facebook.com/PendragonRomanBritainCOIN/

More preview pics can be found here: http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX/.1ddb05b3/0

EDIT: In case it’s unclear how to order something via P500 – you just order it as normal from the GMT website. It’ll get billed when it’s ready to ship.