Huch & Friends Ulm - English

Brilliant game, delivered on time...as usual...and perfectly packaged...thank you

Ulm is one of the best board games I've played in a while. Aside from the a little 3D Ulm Cathedral model that sits on the board, there's a rather neat mechanism at the centre of the game which I've not come across before.The game board shows medieval Ulm, and next to the afore-mentioned cathedral is the "Cathedral Area", a 3x3 grid which is filled with action tiles at the start of the game. Each tile shows one of the five different actions available to players, and on your turn you take a new (random) tile from a bag and slide it into the start of one of the rows or columns, which of course displaces the tile at the other end. You then take (in any order) the actions shown on the three tiles still in the chosen row/column (i.e. not the displaced tile). Now, you can't choose a row/column that already has a displaced tile at one end, so eventually the choices get limited, but don't worry, because one of the tile actions is to clear the displaced tiles off one side of the grid - the player who does this takes possession of the tiles, because they can be used later to pay for special cards (that give immediate benefits or end-game score). Acquiring those cards is the next one of the five tile actions.The third tile action is money, which gives you one coin from the bank, and coins are generally used for the fourth tile action, placing "seals" (no, not the furry aquatic mammal, or the singer of "A Kiss From a Rose", but the ones you use to authenticate documents). Running along the bottom of the board is the River Danube, and players each have a little barge, which start at one end of the Danube and progress along a track of spaces from left to right during the game (and guess what? Moving your barge one space is the fifth available tile action!). Progressing the barge does two things: first, the barge track spaces show minus victory points at the starting point (-11), and progressively increasing points as you go towards the other end (up to +11), so moving the barge effectively gives you points. Secondly, as the barge travels along the Danube it passes through different "quarters", each conferring a different benefit, and here's where the seals come in. When a player takes a seal action they pay 2 coins, place a seal in one of the quarters near their barge's current position, and take the benefit: acquiring additional money, say; or getting a "descendant" tile that gives you a special power for the rest of the game; or hunting through the card discard pile for the card of your choice; or acquiring the coat of arms for a "quarter", which will give points on acquisition, and also (if it's a gold coat of arms) points every time anyone places a seal in the corresponding quarter.There's a some other elements: for example, "Ulm Sparrows" which give points at game end, but can be used to swap out tiles from an area called the "loading docks" which has a small selection replenished each time a tile is taken from there; and there's also some set collecting with the cards, if you use them for end-game scoring.Each time a round starts you place a "tower tile" in the 3D cathedral and once 10 tiles are in there, the game ends, and you add up points from cards, and Ulm Sparrows, and determine the winner.I really liked this game: the tile pushing thing is neat, there's lots of random setup elements to increase long-term playability, there's a number of interlocking ways to get points, and once the core rule elements are grasped it all ticks along nicely. I will say, though, that whilst those core rules are pretty simple, there's some complexity around how the various card/descendant tile/coat of arms stuff works, and the first time I taught this game, it made the rules explanation a bit tricksy, but after a couple of turns we were all pushing tiles like we were born to it... :-)