Having the out-of-print edition of Carcassonne makes wasting money on unnecessary expansions both harder and easier. Fortunately, some expansions are more about the concepts than the components, so there are plenty of opportunities to enhance your game on the cheap with some pick 'n' mix accessories and intellectual property theft.
The Apprentice (The Phantom)
- 6 x mini meeples
The Phantom expansion seems potentially game-breaking to me, but its minimal components are inviting DIY abuse. You can buy unofficial hollow meeples, but even those are pricier than I'd like for such a basic add-on, and they're too similar to the teacher anyway.
Since it only needs a token that's identifiable as yours, but distinguishable from your other pieces, I gave the theme a rational rewrite and made it your young apprentice, represented by a 12mm mini meeple (16mm regular and 19mm big follower pictured for comparison). It balances out the big one quite nicely. I don't know why they didn't just make it like this in the first place. I suppose they are a bit fiddly.
Mage & Vampire (Mage & Witch)
- Purple mega meeple
- Count meeple (from Count, King & Robber)
- 6 x magic portal tiles (from The Princess & The Dragon)
Repurposing the seldom-used Count and his plain predecessor for more fun diversions, triggered each time a magic portal tile's drawn.
No longer in use
The Count of Carcassonne
- Carcassonne Start Tableau
- Purple mega meeple
Before getting the original tile jigsaw in the Count, King & Robber set, I made do with the one-piece starter tile and a no-frills purple guy, who was admittedly a little less intimidating without the cloak. The slab was donated to a school maps project and the purple guy became an equally unimpressive DIY Mage.
King & Robber Baron
- Orange messenger meeple
- Orange robber meeple
- Pen and paper
These stand-ins served us well before their proper tile equivalents came along, but since the first edition didn't think to include marker tokens, I've retained the figures to track the largest features on the board. We also have real messengers now, just to make it look even less like a king, but the robber still works.
