The Abbey and the Mayor is the 5th large Carcassonne expansion, and in my opinion is the best expansion to date aside from Inns and Cathedrals. It adds new bits, new mechanics and new tiles, all of which make the game more enjoyable, and to top it off, it comes in an orange box, which makes your boardgame shelf more colourful and appealing.

Note what a wonderful addition this bright orange box will add to your boardgame collection.

New Bits: You get the mayor, a meeple with crazy disco pants, who becomes a mega-knight equal to the number of shields/pennants in his city. You get the barn, which chucks farmers from their fields and then scores as a mega-farmer at the end of the game. But it's not over; you get a cart, which places like a regular meeple, but then can move from one feature to a connecting feature once its feature of origin completes. Outside of the Princess and Dragon, this is the only way you can get onto a tile you don't place yourself. All of these new bits are really cool looking, and every Carcassonne player loves to add new wooden pieces to his/her repetoire.


New Tiles: The new tiles are all really fun, and fit the expansion really well. For instance, there is a new mega-city piece with two pennants on it. This, along with other new pennant-laden city pieces makes the mayor more effective. This expansion also comes with the 4-way monastery/cloister, so if you put your cart here, when it finishes, there's a good chance you'll be able to move your cart off onto a road. Almost every tile encourages the use of the new pieces and mechanics that have been introduced, so it's nice to see some thought was put into what new tiles to include.

The new double-pennant city tile. All new tiles are also marked with a small barn symbol to distinguish them from other Carc tiles. Some people think this is great, others really don't like it... I really don't have a problem with it.

The Abbey: I think the most controversial aspect of this expansion is the Abbey, so I figured I'd comment on it separately. This piece allows each player, once per game, to fill in a hole in the map (an empty square surrounded by tiles on 4 sides). It completes any features it touches, and can be used by the player as a cloister. The tile has an orange border to distinguish it, and many players feel that this takes away from the aesthetic appeal of a completed Carcassonne map. I don't really feel this way, as nothing bothers me more, than having one critical tile taken, and then not only not being able to finish something, but having an ugly hole in the map at the end of the game. Personally, I think this tile, although looking a bit out of place, actually fits in very well, and is a great mechanic to add.

As you can see the Abbey doesn't toally stick out like a sore thumb, but it does look a little odd. This would be an example of illegal Abbey placement.

In Summary: This is a non-confrontational Carcassonne expansion (as opposed to the Princess and Dragon and The Tower), that adds some great mechanics to an already great game. The bits are nice (as always), the tiles are well-conceived and the box is orange. Some small complaints are that the Abbey doesn't totally look like it fits in, and the mark on the front of the tiles might bother some purists, but aside from that, I see no reason not to grab this expansion right away if you're a Carcassonne fan!

Verdict: 9/10