Carcassonne: Star Wars (2015)

About this game

Description from the publisher: Carcassonne: Star Wars combines the exciting adventures of the Star Wars universe with the gameplay of Carcassonne, with the known rules of the game being simplified through clever changes that bring an entirely new feel to the game. This is similar to Carcassonne but with Roads replaced with Trading Routes and claimed by Merchants instead of Robbers, Cities replaced with Asteroid Fields and claimed by Explorers instead of Knights and Cloisters replaced with Planets and claimed by Conquerers instead of Monks. There is no farming equivalent. Faction symbols (Empire, Rebel Alliance and Bounty Hunters) provide scoring bonuses regardless of what faction your Meeples belong to. Majority control is determined by dice rolling with the highest result rather than the sum determining the winner, although tiebreaks and defeats still provide some points. A player receives dice equal to the number of his Meeples involved in the majority control plus an additional one for using his large Meeple and one for any matching Faction symbols but this is always capped at three dice. One notable change is that Planets can be conquered by placing tiles adjacent to the Planet tile where the player now has the options of placing a Meeple on the adjacent Planet tile or on the tile he placed. There is also a four player team variant where it is the two Empire colours (black/Darth Vader and white/Storm Troopers) versus the two Rebel Alliance colours (red/Luke Skywalker and green/Yoda). Orange/Boba Fett is not used.

Does it fit your group?

• Group size. Works with 2 to 5.
• Rules load. At 1.6/5 this is a light game — explain it in a few minutes, good for a table that has not played much.
• Age. The publisher suggests 7 and up. That rates the rules rather than the artwork, so judge the box yourself for younger players.