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have to coax the patients from the central market- place, down their respective path
(blue or yellow) to their stall. This is done by collect- ing the required
ingredients and placing them in chemistry bea- ker—without it
exploding.
At the beginning, there’s a lot of back and forth. But a patient who has made it from the marketplace to the stand, then gets placed on the treatment track in the guildhall. However, when this happens, the market stand gets moved two spac- es further away from the marketplace, thus increasing the distance the next patient has to travel. The first player to bring in six patients gets crowned head quack. This triggers the immediate end of game. However, if the game goes to seven rounds, the player with the most patients wins. The game can last up to an hour, especially at the beginning when players are trying to learn the rules. More
on that later.
What is also new in this game are the
names of the ingredients required for the potions; and some of them can produce gold, which is the currency used to buy more valuable ingredients. This version too, has several sets of ingredient books, providing plenty of variety. However, the part of the books that tell you what re- wards you get are not new. And instead of the fortune-telling cards that come with the original game, you now have turn cards illustrated with a balance scale
that also provide additional rewards. One of these cards gets revealed every round, providing additional rewards.
One side of the scales shows a single set reward. On the other, the player who finished his potion last gets to place in- dividual ingredient tokens. That other player now has to make a difficult choice between the set reward or the separate items. You can either get gold or upgrade an alchemist’s ingredient, which eventu- ally gets you even more gold. That’s a really nice feature.
Taken on its own, without consider- ing the original game, The Quacks of Quedlinburg: The Duel is a good game. Of course, die-hard fans will say that you must have both. Unfortunately, for those who already own the original game there’s no discernible value added, no “Aha!” effect.
As to the components and the rules, the publisher Schmidt Spiele wasn’t very diligent. In the first edition, a bonus tile used at the beginning of the game had to be replaced because of a printing error. Thankfully, the corrected tile had already been included in the box. The rules also had errors. For example, the number of ingredient tokens was completely wrong. It’s normally not a big problem, but be- cause there are so many pieces in the game, it makes sense to count them at the end of the game, so that none of them end up as vacuum cleaner fodder and are lost forever. It’s not just bean counters who meticulously check the pieces and are happy when nothing is missing.
The structure of the game rules is not great, either. They are confusing, and some important rule details are only ex- plained in the almanac or the appendix. Take the turn cards, for example. They
either give you a reward immediately, or later on in the game. The rule is that you place the card in front of you to use it later. However, this isn’t described under point four, the “market supervision” rule, but later in the turn cards appendix. If you overlook this detail, you’ll be puzzled and lost in the fog for a while. (tw)
Title:
Designer: Illustration: Publisher: Players: Age: Duration: Price:
The Quacks of Quedlinburg: The Duel Wolfgang Warsch Dennis Lohausen Schmidt Spiele
2
about 10+ years about 45 – 60 minutes about 24 euros
Reviewer
Edwin Ruschitzka
I prefer the original.
Christoph Schlewinski 7
Stephan Zerlik 8
Exciting tug-of-war for the patient’s patronage. An early potion explosion sets you back a lot, which is skillfully absorbed by the well-functioning catch-up mechanisms.
7 Stephan Kessler 6
Maren Hoffmann
Has the odd imbalance. Not bad, but if you have the original, you don’t need it.
Playing appeal
7
The three-dimensional tile-laying game by Rita Modl relies on clever planning and timing!
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