Please note that the Bohnanza expansion is not playable by itself; you must already have the original Bohnanza deck. What the additional 50 cards in the expansion accomplish is simply to add three new types of beans to the original eight in order to make the game playable for 6-7. (The original deck plays for 3-5.) It must be said that an excellent job has been done keeping the game balanced with the extra players and cards! If you find Bohnanza to be quite a bit of fun, as I do, and if you expect to play with 6 or 7, you can use this expansion as instructed with complete confidence that the game will be just as much fun as ever.

Wow, this one has to have the least interesting name of any expansion for any game, ever. If it were not for the strength of the original game, I doubt that anyone would buy this just on the strength of its title.

This expansion allows for more and less players for Bohnanza, offering up three new types of beans in various quantities, as well as rules for which bean types to include with differing numbers of players, as well as any rules changes in effect. If you own the Rio Grande version of the game, you have all of this part already, although they are not strictly compatible, since the illustrations on the cards vary a bit in regard to the rarity of the beans.

The big news with this expansion is the new stuff. There are now cards to represent the first and second bean fields, which are nice but not necessary. There are also job cards, which add a nice level of strategy to the game. The job cards show two values, the number of beans that must be in two side-by-side fields. The job can be played at any time from one's hand, and if the number of beans in one's fields exactly matches the job, the card is converted to one gold. The job cards migrate forward in the player's hand just as bean cards do, so there is a time limit as to how long before it can be used, so be careful! The next job card might not be advangateous considering your current field contents.

Should one go out and get this just on the strength of the new job cards? No, the jobs are nice but really not necessary. Should one get this as an add-on if one has the original German edition of the game? Most definitely. This is an expansion with real play value. Highly recommended.

Bohnanza is a wonderful game which is perched high atop the best-seller list at Funagain. Tens of thousands of players have been introduced to the joys of bean farming with this clever game.

For those of you wanting an even richer experience, this expansion adds nothing to the basic mechanics of the game, but does allow for a wider range of players. By combining these with the cards from the basic set in various permutations of bean types, the game can be played by as few as three or as many as seven players.

One important note, if you own the Rio Grande version of the game, you already have these cards. The artwork has been swapped a bit for some values, but the card mix is the same. This is ONLY for those purchasing the original German language game.

Highly recommended for all bean farmers.