NOTE: This game review is slightly different because it reviews a game's expansions rather than the stand alone game. However, these expansions add so much to the original game, they are worthy of their own review. If you are unfamiliar with how The Quacks of Quedlinburg base game plays, please read the optional intro to The Quacks of Quedlinburg base game at the bottom of this post.
There are two expansions to the The Quacks of Quedlinburg base game: The Herb Witches and The Alchemists. Players can mix one or both expansions with the base game. The base game and The Herb Witches expansion was originally published by North Star Games. The Alchemist expansion was published by CMYK Games, whom is now publishing all versions of the game.
The premise of the game, with or without expansions, is for each player to take on the role of a country doctor creating concoctions, using a press-your-luck mechanism, to showcase at a 9-day bazaar. At the end of 9 days/rounds, the player with the most victory points is declared the winner.
It is worth noting that I passed on purchasing the base game several times, unsure if it went with our group. Once I did finally buy the game, I was surprised at how much we enjoyed it. This is one of those games where players are very vocal - either excited they managed to pull the one ingredient chip they were hoping for or disappointed they just blew up their pot. Though I was hesitant at first, I am definitely glad I bought this game as we have had a lot of fun playing it.
This post is broken into the following 3 sections, feel free to jump directly to one:
- General summary - consisting of information about overall enjoyment, theme, replayability, and upgrades
- Complexity - consisting of information about the rulebook, setup, player turns, and overall learning curve
- Player turns - consisting of game type, game flow, rule you are likely to miss, and favorite aspect
General Summary
Number of players we had: 3
Our play time (not including setup) 1 hour 45 minutes (The Alchemist expansion added about 30 minutes and was our first time playing).
Overall enjoyment
Our group enjoys both of these expansions as they add so much more to the original game. Both expansions effectively extend the game play without taking away from the original game in any way. In general we are fans of expansions, especially for games we really enjoy. Occasionally we are disappointed with an expansion because it does not feel well thought out, causes the game to feel clunky or more complicated, rather than adding enjoyment to the base game. This is absolutely not the experience with either of The Quacks of Quedlinburg expansions - they both accent the base game and add to it in fun ways.
The Herb Witches expansion adds one-time abilities each player can use during any round. It also adds a new double-sided ingredient book for each ingredient, providing a total of six different versions of benefits for each ingredient (barring a select few). The Alchemists adds a new game within a game aspect where players work to help patients suffering odd conditions. In helping the patients, players gain certain benefits.
Both expansions mesh with the original game very well, adding lots of new features without being overwhelming. Even when playing with expansions, the game is still very fluid. Overall we love the new abilities, cards, and side-games included within the expansions.
If we had to pick something that frustrated us it would be that in The Alchemists expansion, the way the Earworm patient works, it can be nearly impossible to control stopping your potion to gain a ruby during the end of round steps. At the same time, it provided a way to add ingredient chips to your pot without fear of exploding your pot which can be helpful.
Theme
The theme of the game is well thought out. The game board is compact, with scoring around the outside to track player progress and a round tracking token in the middle with reminders of several things that occur in later rounds. Player boards are bigger, with room to create your concoction and hope not to blow your pot up.
The expansions do a great job of extending the theme and can be incorporated without feeling like the additional pieces were an afterthought. This includes pieces sliding next to different areas of the original player board. I credit much of this fluidity to the fact that the designer remained the same from the base game through both expansions.
Replayability
The expansions increase the replayability in many ways.
The Herb Witches expansion adds:
- A fifth player.
- Three types of herb witches, each with four different one-time use ability cards.
- New double-sided ingredient books, each with new benefits for using that ingredient.
- New lockoweed ingredient.
- Orange pumpkin 6-chips.
- Overflow bowls so players can build bigger pots.
The Herb Witches expansion adds a new ingredient with new benefits, an additional double-sided ingredient book for each existing ingredient, and twelve witches each with a unique one-time ability, of which only three are randomly selected for each game.
The Alchemist expansion adds:
- Alchemists flasks.
- Eight patient charts with four double-sided matching essence cards for each player.
- Two double-sided lockoweed ingredient books with new benefits.
- Twenty additional fortune teller cards.
The Alchemists expansion adds additional locoweed ingredient books, fortune teller round cards, and a game-within-a-game with the addition of the patients and matching essence cards and alchemists flasks. There are eight different patients, of which three are randomly chosen for each game. Players then secretly select one of the three patients to help during that game.
Upgrades
In addition to the expansions, the Board Game Geek store has replacement bit packs for the ingredient tokens that go inside player bags for both the base game and The Herb Witches expansion. These are not the cheapest upgrades you will ever buy, but they look and play amazingly well. Also, if you have any players in your group with dexterity issues - these are way easier for them to play with and are absolutely worth it!
Complexity
Rule book
The rule books for both expansions are well-organized and easy to follow. Both have lots of images to demonstrate how the new items work, full explanations of the additional ingredient abilities, patients, and overall game play. The great thing about the rule books is that they have an extended explanation of each side of every ingredient book. This is handy because sometimes the short version on the ingredient book needs a little more explanation.
Setup
Setting up the expansion portions of this game probably adds about five minutes for each expansion used. There really is not too much extra that needs to be done and with players working together, setup is quickly and easily accomplished. Those pieces that are added to the player boards slide in nicely next to the original board and do not take up that much more space.
Turns
Turns are slightly longer with both expansions. The Herb Witches expansion adds to turns when players choose to utilize the one-time abilities of any of the three herb witches randomly selected for that game. Abilities may pertain to the potions, evaluation, buy chips, rubies or victory point phases. Using these abilities is not usually longer than a couple of minutes and oftentimes additional players choose to use abilities when another player does, as they realize it is a good time to do so.
The Alchemists expansion adds slightly more time to the base game as it is comprised of several parts. Each player increases the essence of their alchemists flask the same way - basing it on the number of unique ingredient types in their bowl (minus cherry bombs of course), plus any exploded player pots adjacent to them and if they ended up pulling exactly seven cherry bombs. This part of the expansion is done simultaneously and takes less than a minute to calculate.
Next, each player figures out what benefit, if any, they receive from the patient they are trying to help based on the essence they built. Players can also play this part out simultaneously, or one after another when multiple players have selected the same patient. Either way, this portion only takes 1-2 minutes.
Lastly, each patient card has a unique ability that affects different aspects of the potion phase. As a result, all players are concentrating on building their pots, keeping track of the number of cherry bombs already placed in their pots, as well as making sure they take advantage of any benefits associated with their chosen patient. This portion adds an average of 2-3 minutes each round.
Overall learning curve
The overall learning curve for The Herb Witches expansion is very low. The new items are easy to follow and implement. The overall learning curve for The Alchemists expansion is slightly higher, yet also easy to master. The way the patient cards affect the potion building phase is not at all difficult, instead it requires players to pay more attention while building their pot so they do not explode their pot or miss out on one of their patient's benefits.
Player turns
Play type
Both expansions continue the base board game with a symmetrical, press-your-luck style game that is fun and can be won by any player.
Game flow
The flow of the expansions is very fluid, even though they do add a little bit of play time versus using only the base game. Still, because most phases of the game are executed simultaneously, the game does not lag.
Rule you are likely to forget/miss
The rule we consistently forgot was from The Alchemists expansion. When playing with the 11-cost locoweed ingredient, remember that for each locoweed chip in your pot you get to move your essence marker in your alchemist's flask an additional space forward AFTER calculating your essence. For some reason we consistently forgot this even though it can be extremely helpful.
Favorite aspect
There are several reasons why we really like this game, but our favorite aspect from the expansions are the game within the game that the alchemist's flask creates. Each player gets to pick which patient abilities they want to utilize, so there are several side games going on, and this makes the game more interesting and engaging.
The Herb Witches and The Alchemists expansions for The Quacks of Quedlinburg are very fun and engaging expansions that add to the base game in several different ways. Both expansions integrate perfectly into the base game and do not take away from the game or make the game feel disconnected or clunky. Instead, they offer additional ways to strategize by slightly increasing the complexity and greatly increasing the replayability.
Both expansions are great for any game group, family night, new players, and those who like luck based games or some strategy because there is definitely some strategy in the patients you choose to help and the ingredients you acquire during the buy phase.
Optional Intro to The Quacks of Quedlinburg Base Game
For those unfamiliar with The Quacks of Quedlinburg base game, it is a press-your-luck game where players blindly pull ingredient chips out of their player bags in hopes of building the biggest pot, all while avoiding the cherry bomb chips that can explode your pot and cause you to lose some of the round end benefits.
The bigger a player pot the more victory points a player earns and the better ingredient chips they can afford to buy, as long as they didn't explode! If a player's pot explodes during the potion building phase, they will only be able to collect victory points OR buy new ingredient chips that round. Each round the player's pots will become more unique based on the additional ingredient chips players purchase and add to their bag.
In addition to multiple types of ingredient chips, each with their own unique benefits, there are several sizes of most ingredient chips. More expensive chips build your pot faster, but can be harder to acquire in earlier rounds. Each round also has one unique aspect introduced by that round's Fortune Teller card. Last but not least, players who fall behind in victory points are given an advantage at the beginning of each round to help them stay with the group.
