For Families
Plague, Rats and KnightS
Rattus
Cultivate to fight the Black Death!
Kid
Family ein
Friends
Expert
Alter 10
Spezial
After a long interval we wanted to have a games evening again at home and try a few new games. After browsing through the new arrivals in the Austrian Games Museum we decided to try, beside some other games, also Rattus.
The topic of the game I thought rather repulsive, rats and Plague are not really agreeable or appealing subjects, but my husband convinced me to try it all the same. Against all expectations I thought the cover of the box rather well-made, it depicts rats scurrying through a town.
After opening the box you find a board, 49 rat tiles, 20 population cubes each in four colours, 6 Class cards and 1 Plague marker. The board shows Europe, divided into 12 regions and with a separate space for the so called „castle“. The 49 rat tiles are divided into 12 starting tiles and 37 normal rat tiles. The 12 starting tiles are set aside, shuffled face down and in a game of four distributed in the 12 regions of the board, 1 tile to a region. The other rat tiles are stacked face down. In a game for two 8 regions of the board are used, 10 regions come into play in a game for three, and starting tiles are placed only into these regions, the rest is shuffled in with the standard rat tiles. Finally, we determine a starting player.
At the start of the game all place to population cubes into a region. Theoretically all players can choose the same region, but this would be bad tactics. After this first placement round each player, in anti-clockwise order, positions 2 more cubes in a region of his choice.
When all players have 4 population cubes on the board, the starting player begins the game proper. Remaining cubes form a player’s population stock. The game is played in rounds and in his move a player can position his population cubes in a region on the board. Aim of the game is to have the majority of population cubes on the board at the end of the game.
In your move you can choose from three actions:
Relocating the Plague marker must always be the last action of a player and ends his turn. Placing of population cubes is an action a player must do, taking and implementing of class cards is optional. Both actions can be done in any order.
Placement of population cubes
A player can position exactly the amount on population cubes in a region equivalent to the number of rat tiles in this region.
Drawing and/or implementing of Class Cards
In your turn you can only take one Class card and place it in front of you. But you can use each Class card on the table once per turn, including a card just placed. This gives a player the opportunity to implement several action within this part of his turn.
There are 6 different Class cards: King, Farmer, Knight, Monk, Merchant and Witch giving the player different actions. You can take away a Class card from a player anytime and use it for yourself, theoretically the same card can be used by all players within one round.
But the cards do not only yield advantages. When the pestilence is evaluated after the pestilence marker was relocated cards can be the reason for having to remove population from the board.
The King lets you place one population cube into the castle protect it against the Plague to
The Farmer gives you an additional population cube in a region
The Knight allows movement of the Plague marker over 2 regions and assists in forcing a Plague.
The Monk moves a rat tile from one region into a neighbouring region
The Merchant lets you move 3 population cubes into an adjacent region
The Witch lets you look at two rat tiles and – if you want – switch them
Relocating the Plague marker
The last action of your turn is relocation of the Plague marker into an adjacent region. If you place the marker into a region without rat tiles your turn ends instantly.
If one rat tile is in the new region the player adds another one to a region adjacent to the region with the Plague marker. If two or three rat tiles are in the in region with the Plague marker, you add two tiles to adjacent regions, either both into the same region or 1 each in two different regions.
After placing the new rat tiles the Plague is evaluated. A plague occurs only if a minimum of 1 rat tile and 1 population cube regardless of what colour are present in the region with the Plague marker. You turn over one of the rat tiles in the region. The number on the rat tile is compared to the number of population cubes. If the number of cubes is equal or higher than the number on the rat tile a plague occurs. If the number is smaller the rat tile goes out of the game.
If a Plague occurs the rat tile becomes important a second time: Besides the number the rat tile shows several symbols and / or the letters M or A. When letters are present they are implemented first. M means majority and players with the majority of population cubes in the region take back one cube into their stock. A means all and in this case all players take back one of their cubes in the region, if any are present.
Symbols on the rat tiles correspond to symbols on the class cards. A player with population in the region and an affected Class card must take back one cube per symbol into his stock.
The game either ends when a player has placed all his population cubes on the board or when the last rat tile has been placed. Then one last round is played counter-clockwise, each player is restricted to the actions available to him from the Class cards he currently owns.
Then in all regions Plague is evaluated one lst time and after that the player with the most population on the board wins, in a tie the player who would be the next to play.
The game comprises simple mechanisms and offers little appeal to experienced players. The topic is not really suitable for a typical family with children but would be suited ideally for that target group as regards to complexity and requirements. So what target grouo did the designers have in mind?
I consider Rattus to be a rather average game with no special appeal and thus I do not like to recommend it.
In our rounds opinions differed widely. Most players did not want to play again. My husband, however, and some others thought that the game was really suitable as a staring game for newcomers and inexperienced players and that they would play it again. But all agreed to it that it is not really a good game, after all.
The design of game and box is well done, but does not strengthen the appeal.
The rules are short, but not really clear and well structured, this could have been done better. Die Spielregel ist zwar kurz gefasst, aber leider nicht wirklich übersichtlich und gut gestaltet. Dies hätte man auch wesentlich effektiver erklären können. My conclusion: Unfortunately not a really good game, but I cannot call it bad either, just average. I can’t even recommend it for a certain group of players, but the age stated and the simple mechanism destine it for the family or for playes with little game experience.
Spieler : 2 - 4
Alter : ages 10 and up
Dauer : ca. 45 min
Autor : Ase & Henrik Berg
Grafik : Alexandre Roche
Vertrieb A : Piatnik
Preis : ca. 23,00 Euro
Verlag : Huch & friends 2010
Genre : Placement game
Zielgruppe : For Families
Mechanismen : Place cubes and tiles
Zufall : 5
Wissen :
Planung : 5
Kreativität :
Kommunikation : 5
Geschicklichkeit :
Action :
Kommentar :
Simple mechanics
Simple short rules
Attractive design
Topic does not work for the target group
Cooperation with White Goblin Games
Vergleichbar:
Majority game with action cards
Atmosphäre: 3
Maria Schranz:
Somehow Rattus has managed to sit between chairs – it does not have a family-friendly topic but has simple rules but is not easily understood – thus it is not really good but also not really bad – you will have to decide for yourself!