Carcassonne Expansion Review – Messengers and Mayors
The Messengers and Mayors expansion for Carcassonne is all about extending your influence within the realm. Can you place these pieces strategically to earn more points, or will this expansion include too many new rules to be fun for new players? Let’s take a look!
What’s in the Box?
Messengers and Mayors is one of the bigger expansions for Carcassonne, and includes 3 new figures, in each player colour. The Mayor, Messenger, and Scarecrow figures are new additions to the game, along with 12 new land tiles and 6 Town Hall tiles. This expansion has less tiles than other expansions, but more ways to use figures and score points!
Review
Wouldn’t you know it? Another river tile to add to the Rivers Expansion, included in all base copies of Carcassonne currently being sold at various local game stores! At this point we don’t need to beat a dead horse – this is fabulous, and I love it. Done. Alright, into the meat of this one, and there is a bit to go over! This expansion is all about playing pieces onto the board on your turn INSTEAD of placing a standard meeple. And before we talk about what each do, I want to say how much I love this feature. So often you place tiles and don’t have a great meeple placement opportunity, so it’s nice to have other opportunities to place different figures out on the board, making each turn a but more valuable than it might have been before.
The mayor can be placed onto a city tile that you just placed, even in a city occupied by another player. When a major tile would be surrounded on all 4 sides, the mayor activates; you can swap the meeple of another player with one of your meeples, which more than likely will give you control of the city. This is a bit of a “mean” expansion element as you can steal cities from other players, but we felt it didn’t happen so often to make it ruin the fun for everyone. The new Town Hall tile helps mitigate some situations. A town hall tile can be placed next to a mayor, regardless of colour, and that mayor will get “called away” to an important meeting, i.e. they are removed from the board and returned to their owners supply. Whew! City saved!
Scarecrows are placed into fields like farmers, and have a variety of abilities that can be triggered when, like the mayor, they are surrounded on all four sides. When this happens, players can either swap the scarecrow for a meeple in their supply, or they can lay the scarecrow down so it counts as a farmer for final scoring. This is a huge opportunity for people to earn points and steal farms. Since the scarecrow CAN be placed in a field with another players Meeple, there is an opportunity, if playing with Inns and Cathedrals, to swap the Scarecrow for the larger meeple that counts as two, and potentially steal a farm!
Messengers can be placed on a road tile you just placed, and when that road feature is completed, you can either return the messenger to your supply, or move that messenger along to the next uncompleted road or city attached to your current road. The messenger has a strength of 1, and can move onto a road or into a city occupied by other players. This could be a way to steal road or city points from another player, or at the least, earn a few points for tying in a city. This piece is wildly valuable if used correctly, and I love the strategic elements it brings to the game!
Conclusion
Messengers and Mayors is not going to be for everyone. This is a fairly “mean” expansion as you look to steal farms, roads and cities from other players. That said, I love the strategy this box adds to the game, and it is one of my favourite expansion to play with.
Article By Adam
