Vasel’s Law Vindicated? RHEINLANDER Re-released!

Vasel’s Law states that if a game is good enough, it will get a reprint eventually. Tom Vasel admits that his namesake prospription has not always come true — games like Glory To Rome have a long list of suitors but complications beyond human understanding seem to prevent the game from ever coming back into availability.

One of those ‘grail games’ for many euro game fans is an old Reiner Knizia classic, Rheinländer. Rheinländer has seen at least two earlier editions, one from Parker Brothers back in 1999 in a mass market edition, then another in 2005 from Face to Face Games. And if Rheinländer has been on your gotta-have-it-somehow list, you are in luck.

25th Century Games announced the expected titles for their upcoming Kickstarter this fall: Rheinländer plus the new Ra The Dice Game. Thanks to Chad at 25th Century, I was able to play Rheinländer with the gumbo krewe on one of our Euro Monday game nights, before sending it on to more reviewers.

Before I get into the gameplay, I do want to note that this edition has an absolutely gorgeous box cover and board from the inimitable Ian O’Toole. Plus, in typical 25th Century Games fashion, the production we were provided had tons of chunky wooden pieces representing the tokens in the game. This feels like a game that would stick around in your collection for a while.

But let’s talk about the gameplay, because this twenty+ year old game is probably not top of mind for many players.

Rheinländer is all about controlling the lands surrounding the beautiful Rhein River in Germany. I was lucky enough to visit the Rhein area back in the late 90s on a [i]jumelage[/I] trip for my hometown to nearby Belgium.

My sister and her family just happened to be stationed near Frankfurt in Weisbaden, and before and after my town duties, I toured up and down the Rhein. The steep valleys were covered in riesling grapes ready for harvest, and the castles that looked down upon the river provided just enough backdrop for my imagination to recreate the scenes of dukes and lords guarding the western front of the Germanic areas and exacting their tolls.

So, yes, Rheinländer is a typically abstract math puzzle by the good doctor, but the mechanics of the game certainly fit the theme. The winding river across the gorgeous, multi-colored board, certainly is an fitting homage to the river area from my memory.

The gameplay is relatively simple, with an obvious goal of scoring more points than the other players during the game as well as in the end game scoring, by controlling “duchies” along the river. The turn feels very Kniziaesque. Play a card out of your hand, place a night, then draw a card. If you draw a “ship” card instead of a knight action card, then move the ship that many spaces down the Rhein and draw another card.

Simple enough. But oh such delicious decisions with every card. See, when a player plays a card, they add a knight to one of the sections relative to that card’s number on the board, if there is a free space. If the player controls both sides of the river (knights in the two spaces on each side of the river) they may even place a knight in the river. Swimming knights are the best.

But they have two other simple choices that ratchet up the interaction among players. Instead of following the number on the card, they could choose to add a knight adjacent to one of their one knights so long as it is not touching any other duchy. Or they can even just follow the ship along and add a knight to the land adjacent to the section of the river marked by where the ship is currently.

The first time players play this game and see what happens next, that’s when the lightbulb goes off. When two or more knights of the same color are adjacent, then they form a “duchy” marked by one of the player’s “knights.” But if an adjacent knight of a different color is from a duchy that is larger than the first duchy, then the adjacent knight’s player knocks out the previous duke and that player plays their own duke. The original player does get to add some in-game scoring, though, with points awarded for all the knights, dukes, castles and cities.

The first player to place a knight into a section touching one of the tiles gets control of that tile. These can add more to the scoring or give the player special powers. The special power tokens are called “landmarks”. If you control the landmark, take the card that it represents until someone else gets control of that landmark.

Once all players have played their knights, the game ends. One more scoring happens, but this time, the Dukes are each worth five points instead of just one point.

Like the best of the Knizia games from that time period, Rheinländer has three things going for it: the ruleset is a breeze to introduce, the turns are quick and easy to understand, and there is lots of interaction between the players as they jockey for position on the board — I’m thinking of classics like Tigris & Euphrates, Babylonia, and Blue Lagoon.

Plus, there’s a little bit of lagniappe. I also like the some small Johnny Pac style variants that players can throw in to change up the scoring or the gameplay in small ways to keep the game fresh.

During my brief time visiting this new edition of Rheinländer, I loved the production of this game, and I loved the combination of just enough luck in the card play, just enough interaction in the duchy control, and just enough small little variants that change up the experience. It’s a keeper and one to check out when it hits crowdfunding this fall.

Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler!
— BJ from Board Game Gumbo
** A prototype copy was provided by the publisher. **