Tuesday 14th June - Carcassonne with Dragon Expansion

Carca-Dragon-exp-Web
Originally uploaded by coljen.

Carcassone is a game that is enjoyed by all our group, and this week we were going to give the Dragon and Princess expansion a run out. Basically you have a dragon (suprise), and when tile with a .......dragon on it is laid, the dragon moves six spaces. Each player moves the dragon one space, any meeples that are on those tiles get eaten (go back to the player). You also have a.......Princess. Her image is on certain city tiles and when these are placed the player has the option not to place a meeple but to remove an existing meeple from the city. Wait, theres more, you also have a fairy.
This cute little wooden piece, resembling a member of the KKK more than a lickle fairy, can be moved if you do not place a piece and it protects the tile it stands on from the dragon.
There are a couple of other different tiles, a magic gate tile that allows you to place a meeple anywhere on the board not already occupied or scored. And volcano tiles that move the position of the dragon around. How did it play, well, it could be quite cut throat if the players want to play it that way. Personally I think that is the only way to play it. Even if I did get munched by the pesky dragon on several occasions. You think you have a quite good position, then, munch.....you have several meeples back in your supply. I scored 8 points for a city early on and then never scored another point until the scoring at the end. A massive city began to take shape with Richard, Steve and Garry all contesting it. The tile needed to complete it finally appeared with a grateful Garry placing it, Richard had been kicked of by now by the Princess so Steve and Garry scored a huge number of points, over 50 if I remember correctly.
I must say that I think this expansion does add to the game, some people may not enjoy the more confrontational aspects, but hey, munching dragons is cool. There are so many full expansions and mini expansions I think you have to be careful which you play with because they do not all mix and match. The game could turn into a chaotic mess. We played with just the basic set.

Final Scores
Garry 143, Steve 122, Richard 107, Colin 52, Neil 40

We rounded off the evening with 3 games of that very good cardgame Gschenk. People have definitely got different strategies for this. I seemed to think most points won in the first game. Doh! A good round off for a good evening.

Game 1
Steve 27, Richard 31, Garry 32, Neil 44, Colin 65
Game 2
Garry 5, Colin 8, Richard 25, Steve 28, Neil 79
Game 3
Steve 7, Colin 15, Richard 25, Neil 31, Garry 39