It wasn’t too long ago that I reviewed Architects of the West Kingdom, designed by Shem Phillips and SJ Macdonald. And now, I’ve been able to try out the Age of Artisans expansion, which introduces new mechanics and gameplay tweaks to the worker-placement games from Renegade Game Studios and Garphill games.

The board game can now support six players, and there are exciting additions that will complicate—in a good way—the original tabletop experience.

The main objective in the game—to score the most victory points by the end of the game—has not changed, but some of the mechanics have been balanced or modified to enhance the experience and provide new opportunities for players to pursue their own strategies. The way in which players construct buildings or advance work on the cathedral remains, but these options are bolstered by ways to improve the buildings you construct and the apprentices that you hire.

Architects of the West Kingdom was a great experience. Let’s see how Age of Artisans builds on the base game.

STORY

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was the Carolingian kingdom. So construction continues on the Cathedral and on the other buildings in the city. Only now, there are more apprentices, more architects, and more possibilities in the West Kingdom.

Journeymen have returned to the city as master craftsmen, equipped with knowledge of new crafts and tools. The guildhall has never been so busy! While some apprentices spend time learning new skills, others adorn the city’s buildings with everything from golden tapestries to stained glass windows. But don’t let the shimmer of lights and fancy wares deceive you. For not all that glitters is gold.

There are more options than ever now. How will you claim victory?

GAMEPLAY

Before we discuss how the gameplay has changed with the Age of Artisans expansion, we need to talk about what comes in the box. There are components and rules adding new content to the game and other pieces that improve the gameplay with helpful changes.

With a sixth player, there are two markers and twenty workers for the orange player, along with two double-sided player boards. The expansion also includes 12 buildings cards, 12 apprentice cards, and 24 of the craft cards (that can be used to modify both buildings and apprentices).

There is also a small Guildhall board to overlay on the space from the base game, a Black Market overlay card, player aids to remind players of certain rules and VP conditions, as well as a score pad to simplify scoring at the end of the game.

I’ll explore the new content first and how it affects gameplay.

The Craft cards each possess both an Adornment and a Tool. The top portion of the card is an Adornment that can augment any building it’s added to, with either immediate or end-of-game bonuses. The bottom portion of the card is a Tool that can add to the existing ability of an Apprentice. Adornments and Tools can enhance a player’s resource-gathering or variable actions, but they can also add VPs throughout the game.

And the inclusion of these building and apprentice upgrades will create new combinations for players to experiment with. It’s another layer of strategy that I find delightful.

Two of my favorite adornments influence the state of workers on the board. One allows the active player to release all of their captured workers from other players’ boards and the other releases all of a player’s workers from Prison. Those actions are normally reserved for worker-placement at the Guardhouse, so it’s cool to circumvent that restriction while also crafting an Adornment with extra VPs on a building.

A super useful Tool that can be added to Apprentices is one that provides each of the three skill types, which can help you construct buildings in the future and contribute to end-game VP conditions. Another one gives the player a free Building card any time the Apprentice ability is activated, which helps prevent a player from having to spend a turn grabbing one from another location on the board.

That’s the best part of the new Craft cards. They allow for shortcuts and creative combinations for players to exploit during the game. It will be a while before a group discovers all of the different possibilities that exist with the infusion of new cards. And the addition of twelve more Buildings and twelve more Apprentices further supports that change.

Artisans are the final component in the Age of Artisans expansion. These special workers have benefits that activate upon placement on the board. Players have two options: when placing an Artisan, it counts as two workers and it can ignore one virtue loss. Now those two abilities should never activate at the same time. Virtue loss only occurs at the Tax Stand, the Black Market, and occasionally when hiring Apprentices (though it could help you release captured workers without losing Virtue at the Guardhouse while also providing an additional action).

Once the Artisan has been placed, though, it only counts as one worker from that point on—until returned to the player mat and placed on the board the next time.

But its abilities can be manipulated in creative ways, and I enjoyed the variability that the new mechanic introduced.

Overall, there’s a lot to like from the content that was added.

VISUALS

The other components in the expansion make the visual element in the game more appealing and the table more streamlined.

The Guildhall board in Age of Artisans has inset spaces for the placed workers, so they won’t get knocked around if the table is shifted at any point. The player aids combine the multiplier card for resources and friendly reminders into one card, which is a simpler design choice. The score pad makes tallying VPs at the end of the game a quick and easy process.

And all of the pieces match the visual style of Architects of the West Kingdom—and the West Kingdom Trilogy in general.

The rulebook comfortably fits all of the pertinent information into a slim booklet. The instructions are once again accompanied by helpful explanations for players to see the cards and rules in action.

Bravo once again to Mihajlo Dimitrievski for his wonderful artwork, as well as Renegade Game Studios and Garphill Games for a well-designed, well-organized board game product.

REPLAYABILITY

Architects of the West Kingdom had depth, but Age of Artisans enhances the base game and expands the variability in the tabletop strategy game. There are even more ways to play now. With the bump up to six players and all the new rules, game night will be even more fun.

Solo play is still supported so that excellent feature remains.

This worker-placement game has gotten even better.

WHAT IT COULD HAVE DONE BETTER

Great expansions both bolster weaknesses in the base game and introduce new gameplay elements that revive a love for the game. Age of Artisans does that. Apprentices reset more often in the Guildhall now. Components that simplify and clarify gameplay have been added. Craft cards, building cards, and apprentice cards broaden the deck and widen the strategy.

My only complaint is that the expansion can’t really fit inside the original box, so it’s another board game box on the shelf. That’s a small issue, though, and one that can be resolved by removing inserts, etc.

VERDICT

Age of Artisans is an excellent expansion that introduces new ideas while improving on old ones. More buildings and apprentices help to bolster the base game with increased variability for players and the addition of both the Artisan and the Craft cards guarantee that there are so many ways for players to achieve victory.

It doesn’t overly complicate the original game, but it makes welcome changes. Not all expansions are created equal, and this one fine-tunes an already remarkable game into a tabletop favorite.

If you liked Architects of the West Kingdom before, this will just cement it as a strong candidate on game night.