Glen More II: Chronicles

Build your own Scottish village

Glen More II: Chronicles is a tile-laying game for two to four players which takes around 60 minutes to play. During the game players add tiles to their village tableaux. In so doing, players are able to activate various tile abilities to generate resources or victory points. In an interesting twist, having a large village may mean you lose points at the end of the game.

Main board: rondel with 3-player set up

Clan board with David Hume tile at top

Components and set up

The main board and separate clan board are placed together in the middle of the table. The appropriate clan tiles are placed on their spaces on the clan board. The game tiles are then separated according to the letter (A, B, C or D) on their reverse side and shuffled. Each letter pile is then placed face-down on the relevant square at the top of the main board. The remaining tiles (with ‘S’ on the reverse) are the start tiles. These are placed on the rondel, i.e. the track, which goes around the main board. One tile on each square, starting from the top-left corner and proceeding clockwise. The ‘World’s End’ tile is placed at random in the ‘D’ pile (this will trigger the end of the game) and the David Hume character tile is placed in its place just above the top of the clan board.

Player meeples

'World's End' tile

Resources

Each player takes a set of tokens in their chosen colour. This will include eight Scotsmen and ten clan markers. Each player then places one Scotsman on the rondel, proceeding anti-clockwise from the first ‘S’ tile, one Scotsman on each square. Then fill the remaining empty spaces on the rondel with tiles from the ‘A’ pile, making sure to leave one empty square before the last Scotsman. Place all the resources (sheep, cows, grain, stone, wood and whisky barrels) to one side as a common supply, together with the victory points and money. Then, each player receives their double-size home tile. One Scotsman is placed on the right-hand (‘castle’) side of this tile. Finally, determine the start player. This will be the player whose Scotsman is last on the rondel. This player receives 5 money, the second player receives 6 money and so on.

Now, we are ready to start.

Game money

Player home tile at start of game

Victory point tokens

Gameplay

Player turn order is determined by the position of the players’ Scotsmen on the rondel (the main board). Looking at the rondel in a clockwise manner, the player whose Scotsman is in last place, ie the player whose Scotsman is next to the empty space on the rondel, is the active player. The active player then chooses any of the tiles on the rondel, takes this tile and replaces it with their Scotsman. Then, the top tile is taken from the leftmost stack at the top of the board and this is placed in the empty space that existed BEFORE the Scotsman was moved, ie the Scotsman’s start space is now the empty space. There will always be one empty space on the rondel at the start of each player’s turn.

Once chosen, the tile is placed in the player’s village. Two placement rules apply: 1) the new tile must be placed orthogonally adjacent to an existing tile in the village; and 2) the new tile must be placed either orthogonally or diagonally adjacent to an existing tile which has a Scotsman on it. Having been placed, the new tile and all those touching it are activated. Play now proceeds to the next player. Please note that the next player might actually be the same player, as the active player is always the one who is last on the rondel.

Tile Anatomy

Each tile has a title at the top and a background image. These merely add flavour to the game and do not impact upon gameplay.

The top-left icon designates the tile type which is typically used for applying bonuses. The bottom-right icon presents the activation ability of the tile. This could be to produce a resource, eg grain or wood, or to allow Scotsmen to be moved or to generate victory points. The bottom-left area indicates any one-off bonus for placing the tile, while any cost entailed in choosing the tile will be displayed in the top left. The rulebook gives more precise information in this regard.

Character card

River tile

Stacking tile

Tile Types

There are three types of tile in the game. 1) It is important to note that a river flows through each player’s start home tile. This river must always flow horizontally and only river tiles, ie tiles with a blue river icon top-right, can be placed at either end of the river, thus extending it, again horizontally. 2) By far the majority of tiles are picture tiles that can be placed anywhere, with the exception of the restriction outlined above. 3) The final tile type are character tiles. These tiles are not added to a player’s village, but are placed to one side and used for scoring. In addition, character tiles allow players to place one of their circular markers on the clan board, thereby claiming useful bonuses. Taking these tiles provides the added bonus that the village does not grow in size. This has implications for scoring.

Game End

The game continues until the ‘World’s End’ card is placed on the rondel. This will happen while the ‘D’ is being used. The game finally ends once the last player’s Scotsman has passed this tile. Scoring then ensues.

Whisky barrels

Scoring occurs three times during the game, ie when stacks A, B and C are exhausted, and once at the end of the game. On each occasion, points are awarded with respect to characters cards, landscape cards, whisky barrels, and the number of Scotsmen on players’ home tiles. In each case, the player with the fewest of each of these four items receives no points. The remaining players receive points depending on how many of each item they have over and above the number the player with the lowest number has. Points allocations are listed at the top of the main board. At the end of the game points are also awarded for the money a player has. The final element of end-game scoring is village size. Again, the player with the smallest village receives no points, but then other players receive minus points. So, if Player A’s village has an area of 10 tiles, Player B’s village has an area of 12 twelve tiles and Player C 20 tiles, then A receives no points; however, B receives minus points for 2 tiles and C minus points for 10 tiles. This is part of the attraction of taking character cards during the game, as they do not add to the size of a village. Further, some tiles allow a player to build upwards, thereby not increasing village size.

Impressions

Glen More II: Chronicles has an easy rule-set, meaning there is little barrier to play for a wide range of people. Essentially, turns entail choosing a tile and then placing it. Scoring is also quick and straightforward. The overall result is that there is little downtime.

Landscape card

Visually, the game is appealing. And the components are well made and display a degree of design. The Scotsmen meeples have different shapes and sticker sheets are provided to add bling to various components. I also greatly appreciate the YouTube video produced by the publishers which shows how to store all the components in the box. The only downside to the components are the circular clan markers. These are cardboard, while almost everything else is wooden; they are also small and easy to lose.

This is a massive game. The box includes a base game plus 8 expansions. Replayability is therefore a given. Each expansion adds a small number of new rules. I will review the expansions separately.

This game is easy to teach and fun to play. It provides a gentle introduction to the rondel mechanic and provides gamers with an evolution of tile-laying which many may have first encountered in games such as Carcassonne. Readers should try this title out for themselves. I don’t believe you will be disappointed.