Wouter & Ymke 
A classy version of a classic game!
2-5 players, ages 7+
Playing time: 30-45 minutes
Designer: Klaus-Jürgen Wrede
Artists: Marcel Gröber & Anne Pätzke
Publisher: 999 Games
https://www.999games.nl/
Since its release just about 20 years ago, Carcassonne became one of the most popular gateway games around, drawing many new people into the board game hobby. The tiles of this new Anniversary Edition have a lot of references and easter eggs to the history, expansions and other stand-alone versions of the game.
Apart from the additional artwork and UV-print on the tiles, this version brings you the base game of Carcassonne, but also these 3 mini-expansions, including a new ‘Anniversary’-expansion:
The River: Instead of starting the game with the start tile, players take turns placing the river tiles, resulting in a larger map with the river in the middle dividing the play area in half. The game feels more balanced as automatically the points for the farmers at the end of the game will be lower than when playing without The River.
The Abbott is an additional meeple that can be placed on a Garden or Monastery when placing a tile. Instead, you can also remove the Abbot if you don’t place a meeple on your turn, scoring points like you would normally do for the Monastery at the end of the game.
The Anniversary mini-expansion: The tiles from this expansion show an arrow, which gets activated when another tile is located in the direction to which the arrow points. There are 3 different bonus actions you can take: placing a meeple where you already have one, placing a meeple on an unfinished project or just taking an extra turn.
These mini-expansions make this 20th Anniversary just perfect, with new ways to play and score points when you’re used to playing the base game and are looking for more variability and depth for your plays of Carcassonne.
The game comes with a sticker sheet so you can dress your meeples, and each tile got a special touch, as they’re finished with shiny UV-print.
The box has probably one of the most beautiful and classy covers I’ve ever seen, and brings a well deserved tribute to the game. If you don’t have the game yet, this special edition is the perfect time to get it!
