Carcassonne Central

The Entourage
The entourage consists of 6 transparent phantoms in 6 colors. The purple phantom is for the gray player.

Additional Rules
Each player gets that phantom of its color. In the course, a player may place this phantom as a second follower on the board. In this way, he may place two followers on two different features on the same tile. When a player gets back the phantom, he may use it in a later turn as well. The phantom can also be used alone and always counts as a regular follower.

Detailed rules on www.carcassonne.de.

At least a sort of reason for the plastics

I find it hard to believe that they had to resort to purple instead of grey.

So am I missing something between Entourage/Phantom and Festival/Celebration/Party?  Not the rules for Festival so much as just the special 10th anniversary base set it is packaged with.  I was under the impression that the 10th anniversary set comes with see through meeples just like the ones in Entourage...only Entourage gives them a special ability all their own when playing one.  How can these be played together when all the meeples would be the see through?

Am I misinformed about the 10th anniversary set.  I can't recall where I saw that so I can't reference it.  Maybe it was BGG?

Nope. No misinformation. The Jubilee edition includes all transparent meeples meaning it is incompatible with the OTHER 2011 release: The Entourage. Funny how that worked out.

But if u have the base game and by the special addition, you will only need phantom rules?

Yes, if you have any other version of the base game (Carcassonne, Wheel of Fortune, Big Box 1-3, Limited Edition) you can buy The Entourage expansion and use it properly. Only if you have the Jubilee Edition can you not properly use the Entourage. In that case, I'd suggest using a normal follower to act as the Phantom.

So besides a bunch of plastic meeples, what else 'new/ does anniversary set off exactly?

A new scoring track that's in the shape of a meeple. "The Celebration" 10-tile expansion. A giant meeple-shaped Carcassonne container (probably made of tin). A square rules booklet that possibly has new corrections/edits from the old version. A high price tag. That's pretty much it.

And of course the celebration tiles are all i'm interested in that.  One set of those tiles and one set of clear meeples for entourage is all i car for out of this whole lot. 

Wouldn't it be fantastic (yet utterly unrealistic) if RGG just had tunnels, crop circles, plague, celebration and the entourage meeples as one special anniverasry edition expansion.  Perfect.

Ah well, heres to dreaming.

I won't hold my breath...

I was thinking they should have called the "Phantom", the "Shadow". That's closer to what he actually is. When you deploy a meeple, there's his shadow right along on the same tile.

In my last communication with Jay he said he hoped they would be released this year.  I hoped having just come back from Nurmberg, he would know something more.  I guess not.

I believe "Phantom" is just a commonly agreed upon translation within the fan community. RGG/Jay has yet to announce what it will be called in English.

Who's connected? Can someone drop a hint to RGG?