Homesteaders

I played Homesteaders twice over the weekend and i believe it lives up to the hype.

There are some production problems; there is damp in the box, the printing on the tiles is off set and the auction board feels like a week dead kipper.
However, the game is not priced at a premium and it is a debut from new publisher Tasty Minstrel. But most important the game play is fantastic.

At heart it is a classic 'turn stuff into better stuff with buildings and ultimately into loads of VPS' game follwing in the footsteps of Caylus and Le Havre. Homesteaders has a delicious twist - there is an auction for the right to build which adds a valuation to every planned building and conversion you plan to make. The twist is further spiced by the fact that there is one less auction than the number of players. One player will have to pass (they get something for passing ). The game is played over 10 auction rounds and you might be building between 5 and 8 times over the course of the game, so knowing at what point to pass but also not letting other players win the right to build makes the game very tense.

Thouroughly reccomended!