Game: Sagrada 5 and 6 Player Expansion
Publisher: Floodgate Games
Designer: Adrian Adamescu & Daryl Andrews
Artist: Peter Wocken
Main Game Mechanisms: Dice Drafting, Pattern Building, Set Collection
Number of Players: 1 – 6
Game Time: 20 – 40 minutes

Here is a link to our review of the base game of Sagrada if you want to check out the basic rules!

If you type Sagrada in our website’s search bar, you will see that it comes up quite a bit. It is my number one game. Since we have started logging our plays (post-Origins 2017), Sagrada has been played over 35 times. It has been taught to my teenage cousins, my best friend, everyone in our game group, and more. So, when Marti and I heard that there was going to be an expansion, we hurried to the Floodgate Games website and got our preorder in.

Description: The 5 and 6 player expansion adds a decent amount of content: two player boards, one in yellow and one in orange, more dice, 6 private dice pool boards that correspond to player colors, tool, private objective, and window pattern cards.

The private dice pool is what makes it possible for you to play Sagrada with 5 and 6 players more quickly. How it works is that before normal play starts, all players take two dice of each of the five dice colors for a total of ten dice, roll them then place them in their private dice pool.

Then, you play the game as you normally would, have the start player draw the amount of dice that is one greater than the number of players from the dice bag and roll them, then draft only one die from their roll and one from their private pool following normal dice placement rules. Then play goes on to the next player and so on until everyone has completed 10 rounds of the game and drafted enough dice to hopefully be able to fill their stained glass window.

Review: This expansion adds content that generally helps speed the game up. The private dice pools make it so that a 5 and 6 player game is feasible and not ultra drawn out like I imagine it would be if the normal drafting process from the base game were to apply to those player counts. It even helps speed up games with player counts as low as three. But, at two players, the private dice pools can lead to analysis paralysis and can be punishing because you don’t have as many dice, and therefore fewer choices, at the end of the game. We definitely enjoy the private dice pool at 3+ players, but at 2 players, we’ll probably just play it the usual way.

I love that they included more cards: tools, private objectives, and window patterns. There can always be more tool cards for variability, but in this expansion they only added two. These are two tools that are meant for the private pool, and they basically replace tools 7 and 8 from the base game, which can’t be used if the private dice pools are in play. I hope that, if they put out another expansion in the future, they will include more tools.

The component quality is of the same caliber as the base game – the cards are of the same stock, the colors are vibrant and you can’t tell any sort of difference between the dice from the base game and the dice from the expansion. The Favor Tokens from the expansion are a different size than the ones in the base game, but if you look at your player board, you can see where they’re supposed to fit and they fit perfectly. It doesn’t affect gameplay at all, but I know some people may not like the lack of uniformity so I wanted to mention it.

I love that the new private objectives have to do with the pips of dice in a certain pattern on your player board – it adds a lot of variability and makes it much more thinky. I wish they had included more private objectives, but I definitely appreciate what they did include. The additional window patterns give you more options for threes and sixes, which are the easiest and most difficult patterns. I wish there were more cards in general, mainly because this game is my favorite of all time and I would never turn down additional content.

Try, Buy, Deny: If you want more content for Sagrada, this expansion is a definite buy. Especially if you want to introduce Sagrada to more people, this expansion is for you. If you play Sagrada strictly two player, I would say to try the expansion. Even if the private dice pools aren’t your thing at lower player counts, the additional cards add more variability to Sagrada – it’s totally worth it even if you’re just getting those. If the base game isn’t for you, the expansion probably won’t change your mind – the private dice pools may make a difference, but otherwise, you’re still playing the same game.

Game On!
Sarah