So sorry... this game is SOLD OUT 😢
$73.50

Homesteaders Write 10th Anniversary Edition and the New Beginnings Expansion in one awesome-filled bundle!

10th Anniversary re-release!!!  Game ON!

This bundle includes the 10th Anniversary re-release of the base game as well as the New Beginnings expansion that supports a 5th player! I have to admit that I have a crush on Tasty Minstrel Games… there… I said it! ?? This team knows how to produce a sweet deluxe game – hands down. Now, this particular game has not been formally “deluxified” in actuality… but, that’s only because the components were already so darn SWEEEEEEEEEET!

Over 100 wooden bits! Ahhhhhhhh! ?

That’s a direct quote from the Kickstarter campaign page… and believe me… between the game play and the awesome game bits, I was ALL-IN from hello! If you visit this site often, you know I am irrevocably hooked on sweet components… and this game has solid, well-crafted bits galore!

Custom wooden resources and meeples notwithstanding… we’ve got metal coins, metal point tokens, and a 10th Anniversary sleeve.

I mean, honestly, if you bundled up the components to this game and just shipped it to me in a ziplock bag without any actual game involved… I would still be happy!  ? Ha!  But fear not… there is a SOLID game lurking amidst all of these Upstart-level components!

Bid, Build, Dominate!

Homesteaders is like Puerto Rico, minus action selection, plus bidding. And I mean that in the most complimentary fashion possible! This game manages to bring a wonderfully medium weight experience into a game that takes maybe 8.37 minutes to teach and only 1 – 1.47 hours to play. Note: these estimates may be off by as much as 12.697 minutes ?

Now normally I would say that I’m not the biggest fan of bidding.  Or as my buddy Mike might say, “It’s not my favorite” – which is a super polite way of saying “I would rather light myself on fire than eat/try/experience ‘X’” Hahaha.  OK, seriously though… I have to admit that usually I can be found saying that I don’t really like bidding games.

But then, someone will say, “How about Power Grid?” and I’ll say… “Ohhhhhhhhh… I LOVE that game!!! It’s in my top ten!!!!” So yeah… take my preferences with a grain of salt ?

Gameplay in Homesteaders is elegantly straightforward. You decide where to place your worker meeples (within your own town), you draw income (where you get money, resources, whatever), then you pay $1 in silver for each worker you have (whether they are gainfully employed or sitting on the side of the board), and then you bid on the available auctions.

If you win an auction, you gain some benefit. Largely this means you get to build a specific type of available building… but it might mean gaining workers or trade chits (which allow you to trade in the marketplace) or advancing on the railway development track (which gives you certain bonuses each time you advance). You get the idea.

Elegant. Fun. Exponential build-up of tension’y goodness!

I love this game… and I love TMG’s production quality. Done.

Designer Alex Rockwell did a fantastic job with this game. I need to research other titles by this talented designer and add them to my collection forthwith! Obviously this game has withstood the test of time… so there’s nothing I can add that hasn’t been said before. And, I’m sort of a total noob to board gaming… so who cares what I have to say?!?!? ?

Anyway, this is like a less-time-consuming, amazingly fun and tension-filled game, that blends the best of Power Grid nail-biting bidding with “must-have” Puerto Rico buildings… all in a package that is easy to learn, relatively quick to play, and is served up with a delightful mélange of sweet-as-heck components. ?Class dismissed.

Begin summer recess.

We are done here.

The expansion…

Although I understand that the mathematics of board game design favors 4-player games… or at least that’s why I think most games sit comfortable at 4 players (smile)… I really love when a game shines at 5 players. Total tangent… I was afforded the amazing opportunity to share dinner with Dávid Turczi at Gen Con this past year… and I was literally hanging on his every word. The mind of a substantive boardgame designer is a beautiful thing (pun intended). I should have totally asked him about the 4-player deal… I am certain he would have been able to explain it! Darn!

Anyway… the expansion adds a 5th player. And… we’re done.

Haha.  No, no… the expansion also adds the new Event phase that adds some round-limited effect that players must adapt to. Mind you, many of these are positive.. but still… the new Events Phase adds a bit of flavor and unpredictability to an already awesome game!

Additionally the New Beginnings expansion adds the opportunity to take a rail line rather than building a building. Wait… was that grammatically correct?  I don’t know… but I think it works. At the end of the day, for me, the biggest plus of the expansion is a 5th player option. I haven’t yet played with 5 players but early reports from the field indicate that it works very well… and I could not be happier! I mean, it’s tough ditching that 5th friend to play a solid 4 player game… hahahaha.  Just kidding… just kidding… ?

Wrap up d’jour…

Ridiculously sweet components. Metal coins and metal point token add-ons. Elegant, simple rules. An exponentially increasing, in-game tension that will have you biting your nails from year 6 forward. A 5th player expansion. My fellow Upstarts… we are done here. This is a MUST for the collection in my opinion. But I leave it to you to decide. Homesteaders 10th Anniversary Edition plus the New Beginnings Expansion. Snag a copy while you can!

Class Dismissed ?

Ages: 14+
Players: 2 – 5
Play Time: 60 – 90 minutes
Designers: Alex Rockwell

Artists:
Publisher: Tasty Minstrel Games
SKU: Tasty Minstrel Games 002
MSRP:
Combined cost for both games
currently running around $100-110
on eBay and other sites at the time
of this listing (NOV 2019).
Our Price: $73.50
Link to BGG:

 

So sorry... this game is SOLD OUT 😢


SKU Tasty Minstrel Games 002 Category Tag


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Description

Homesteaders and New Beginnings Homesteaders 10th Anniversary Edition AND the New Beginnings Expansion! Game on on on!

Homesteaders is an auction and resource management game in which players bid on the opportunity to build certain types of buildings, then spend resource cubes to build one of several buildings of that type. The buildings confer abilities, income, and points; some automatically and some requiring a worker.

The game lasts ten rounds, with each round consisting of an auction phase followed by a building phase. After the last round, players take one final income phase and have one last chance to buy and sell goods and use their building abilities before scores are tallied.

Players score for their buildings, bonuses conferred by buildings, and points earned throughout the game from selling resource cubes. The player who builds the best combination of buildings and best manages the nine different resources in the game will score the most points and win – as long as they don’t take on too much debt!

New Beginnings Expansion…

The world is changing. Settlers spread westward across the American continent, and railroad companies follow. Back east, sweeping laws are passed, and tensions between the North and South escalate into a civil war. How will these events affect the humble inhabitants of a burgeoning frontier town?

Homesteaders: New Beginnings includes all the components needed to add a fifth player to the game. In addition, the expansion adds more auction and building tiles to give more variance to each play session. It has 25 “jumbo size” resource components, and each of these counts as five resources of normal size. Lastly, the expansion includes an event deck, with every round of the game altered slightly by an event.

 

Additional information
Weight 8.1 lbs
Dimensions 12.5 × 10 × 6 in
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