Catan: The Helpers DLC – Review

It’s been six months since we sailed to the island of Catan for our review back in February, but it’s time to return with a helping hand from a few friendly faces in the new DLC.
The helpers, adds 12 new cards to the deck, giving assistance from the inhabitants of the island to make life a little easier.

Stina provides a trade frenzy which allows any resource to be exchanged at a 2:1 ratio, while Asla forces another player to trade their resources with you and Digur can free up your tiles by chasing the robber back to the desert.

The Helpers adds two options to the game creation menu, the first allows you to turn on or off the extension, which will randomly add one card per player, so a 4-player match would see 4 helper cards added to the deck.
The second option enables “All 12 Helpers variants” which puts all 12 cards in play meaning you have to be a little more cautious about what cards other people might have, adding a deeper more tactical layer to the gameplay.

It’s a little confusing when the Helper cards are also characters you can use as your avatar, and I would have loved to see certain cards left out dependent on which characters are playing, but they have remained true to the Baird game and the rules imposed with the official expansion.
Either way it’s an interesting addition to the game that matches its real-world counterpart, and provides new strategies and depth.

The cards are well detailed, and it’s always pretty clear what each helper does and how it will affect your game, but it’s going to be more beneficial to learn how each card will benefit the user, so you know exactly what you’re up against, take for instance that Asla card mentioned earlier, forcing resource trades could be crucial if you have a stockpile of resources that other players are struggling to build up, usually you could corner the market forcing them into trades that benefit you greatly or wasting their own resources to acquire ports, but playing that one card, could scupper your plans and greatly affect the flow of the game.

It’s certainly a new level of depth and some will thrive, but others might find themselves turning off “The Helpers”, to have a slightly more predictable game.

To help anyone unsure about how each Helper might effect the game, here’s a full list of the 12 cards and the actions each perform.

• Asla: Forced Trade – forces another player to trade 2 resources of your choice.
  
• Carla: Development card swap – replace an unplayed development card with a new one.
  
• Diara: Development card choice – free resource swap and a choice of 3 development cards.
  
• Digur: Chase robber to desert – move robber to desert and obtain 1 resource from where he left.
  
• Gregor: Assign Knight to building – Discard a knight card to get a cheaper settlement or city upgrade.
  
• Hilda: Resource Compensation – Get a resource card if a 7 is rolled.
  
• Hogni: Move a road – Move an end road to a new location.
  
• Kaja: Take Robbers resource – receive 1 resource dependent on the robbers position.
  
• Ryan: Take card from leader – select a resource card from a player with higher victory points.
  
• Stina: Trade Frenzy – Choose one type of resource and exchange at a ratio of 2:1
  
• Yngvi: Makeshift road building – substitute 1 lumbar or brick for another resource when building a road.¹
  

While many will consider the standalone expansion pack at £6.99 it’s worth mentioning the overall Season pass, which is a sizeable purchase at £24.99 (especially compared to the game price of only £16.99)
But the season pass will provide both the Helpers expansion now, but also the cities & Knights expansion (due February 2024) as well as three content packs for Autum 23, Winter 23/24 and Spring 24, which will each bring 3 new characters, a themed robber, map, UI and artwork aesthetic overhauls.
It’s quite a large outlay of £43 for the game and season pass, but if you’ve found yourself adopting the position of the latest Catanian and don’t mind making yourself at home, there’s enough content to keep you entertained for months and months.

Another option for anyone who doesn’t own the base game is the super deluxe pack, which bundles the championship map DLC and the Helpers Expansion with the base game for £24.99, but I’d personally rather invest in the season pass if Catan is a game that you feel you’ll keep returning to time and time again.

Overall “The Helpers” expansion isn’t going to please everyone, casual players aren’t necessarily going to enjoy making the game even more strategic and convoluted…
However, fans who look forward to a more engrossing and tactical experience will welcome the added strategy from the 12 new Helpers cards.
But as an overall package, it’s going to please long-standing fans, without offering enough to interest those not already calling themselves Catanaians.

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