Auf Heller und Pfennig - Game Review

This was one of the first four German games I was introduced to by my friend Bill Dove and it was an instant hit.

HOW TO PLAY

The basic idea is to earn as much money (Hellers) as possible over 3 rounds of play, down in the Marketplace.

The Marketplace is depicted by a beautiful gameboard made up of 30 squares (6 Rows by 5 Columns) where all the action takes place.

During the course of each round the Marketplace gets filled with a combination of Tiles and Markets.

Up to 22 Tiles can be places during each round and these can be made up of:-

Markets are depicted by wonderul round wooden tiles in four colours (one colour for each player). The Markets are stamped with a number of gold lines from 1 to 4. the number of lines representing the amount of wares available. If there are four players, each receive 10 markets, 4 X 1 line, 3 X 2 line, 2 X 3 line and 1 X 4 line.

At the sart of the game the 22 Tiles are mixed face down and each player is given their Markets and draws one Tile which they look at but keep face down in front of them.

Each player also receives 50 Hellers in cash and each of the 3 rounds proceeds as follows.

On your turn you may do one of 3 things :

The round finshes when all 30 spaces have been filled with either a Tile or a Market. At this stage, cash is payed out to each player in turn depending on the "net value" of the rows and columns their Markets occupy.

This "net value" is the sum of all the positive and negative Tiles that have been placed in each row and column.

For Example if Morat has a "3" value Market in a column where there were Customer tiles valued at -6, -4, 5, 2, 4 then the net score of the tiles is (-6 + -4 + 5 + 2 + 4) which equals 1. Cash is then played to Morat based on the "net value" multiplied by the Market Value. in this case 1 X 3 = 3 Hellers.

The idea of course is to end up with your Markets in rows and columns that have a positive net value !!!

To make matters even more interesting there are the 3 special types of Tiles metioned in the table above.

Once all payments have been made to each player the round has finished and the board is completely cleared. All Markets valued as 1 are handed back to their respective players to use again if they wish but all Markets played during the round of value 2,3 or 4 are permanently removed from the game.

Two more rounds are played in identical fashion and the player with the most Hellers is declared the winner !!!!!

MORATS VIEW

A simple game to learn but one which offers plenty of strategy and room for dirty tactics !. Each round invariably is different and it is not uncommon for a different player to win each round thus making most games very close right to the very end.

For more adult players and those with a more mathematical bent the use of the Heller coins is really uneccesary as a pad and paper is a much quicker method of totting up the scores. In fact if you are unlucky you can take as much time getting the scores right and dishing out the dosh as playing a complete round !

Most games I've played, the players tend to want to get on with the next round so it's best to try to avoid this down time. Be warned though the younger generation will insist on seeing all their Gold, Silver and Bronze Hellers stacked up in front of them !!

Tactics tend to get dictated by the type of tiles that gets laid early on, it gets really wild for example when the first tile is a Cutomer TIle valued at +6. A frenzy of Markets at value 3 and 4 appear only to be thwarted by the Bad Customer tile valued ay -6 !!!.

Our classic line is "Sorry I really had no other choice" as your partner dumps the Evil Eye on your little nest egged row or column !!!

A very enjoyable game and one I have yet to tire of playing, definitely worth 4 Flag and although relatively costly is a MUST BUY !

Reviewed by Richard Parris

VARIANTS

First of the two variants offered in the orignal rules, In this variant:

The game ends at the end of the rond in which the player places their last Market tile. The round continues until all spaces in the Marketplace are full or no player can play further. It is then valued as normal, and the player with the largest amount of money is the winner.

Second of the two variants offered in the original rules and in this one all the 22 tiles are placed face up at the beginning of each round rather than face down.

I like this option as it brings out the very best and worst in people previously known to you as friends and wives !!!!

If you do not play one of your market stall pieces in a given turn, you may draw a tile. You may then play either the drawn tile or the tile you have face-down in front of you. If the latter, the drawn tile becomes the new face-down tile to keep in front of you. You may look at both tiles before deciding which to play, but if you drew one, you must play a tile, not a market stall.

Draw a tile every turn. You may play this tile, one of your market stalls, or a tile face-down in front of you. If you play lots of stalls, eventually you will have lots of tiles to choose from during later play !. Again, you may look at all your tiles before deciding what to play, but in this variant, you can opt to play a market stall even after drawing a tile.

Deal all the tiles out evenly to the players, who keep them hidden from each other. Any excess are placed face-down in a pool that will be drawn from later. Each turn you may play any of your tiles or a market stall. When a player has no more tiles (even if he has market stalls remaining), on his next turn he draws one of the excess tiles and plays either that or a market stall. This variant is not recommended in the 2-player game, as you can figure out exactly which pieces your opponent has.

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