I really like Lancaster. And I like the big box better. But be careful! Amazon sent out the regular box in December 2016 with a sticker over the UPC that said "Lancaster Big Box Strategy Board Game". I think someone put the wrong sticker on, but I thought you should be aware. If you bought the game at the end of 2016 from Amazon, make sure you got the right thing! :) (if it says Big Box on the front of the box, you got the right thing)



In general Lancaster is a great game. There are a lot of rules, but once you learn them it's easy enough to teach others in a play-through. It's a middle-weight worker-placement with area control. It almost has a bit of an auction game with the law votes. There's a good progression and a lot of interaction between the players. Officially you can play 2 player, but I think the sweet spot is 4-5 plays with 3 player still being better than 2 player. Two player is a poor imitation of playing with more people.



The big box is better than the normal game. First of all, the map is nicer. It's not nicer like it's different--well, just the art is different. It's exactly the same in how the game plays and everything is in exactly the same place. The castles are less blocky and more varied. There are rivers in the more varied terrain, and there are boats in the ocean. I've heard a few people say they like the simple castles of the old board, but I really like the better artwork of this board. The old board felt like good fan art while the new board seems professional. The rest of the components are about the same as the regular box but they're very high quality.



The expansions are pretty cool too. And getting the expansions in the big box means that they all fit in one box. The insert that holds everything is very well done.



The first expansion is Lancaster: The New Laws and there is is mini expansion called Lancaster: Reward Tiles. These are not the kind of expansions to start playing with when you're first learning the game. Not because they are too difficult, but because they're more there to add variety than they are to change up everything. The New Laws expansion mixes in or replaces the laws from the base game. It adds some differences but it's the same idea. The Reward Tiles expansion can add some new bonuses but it doesn't mix up the actual game too much.



The second main expansion, Henry V, mixes up the gameplay more and adds a whole other area to the gameplay. To me it almost makes the game "Lancaster 2" because it changes up the gameplay so much. I think this again helps the most once the base game has gotten stale. If you don't play Lancaster often, Henry V adds enough new rules that it can be hard to keep track up. Henry V is really an expansion for the fans! I think fans usually say it makes a good game better but casual players may think it ruins the game by complicating it.



There's a lot of good game here. I really like the base game and I really like it with the expansions. I really think this is one of the better games of the last few years and I think that the big box is the best version. I think this deserves more attention than it gets.