Board Game Expansions | Nerdologists https://nerdologists.com Where to jump in on board games, anime, books, and movies as a Nerd Fri, 11 Apr 2025 14:53:21 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.3 https://nerdologists.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/nerdologists-favicon.png Board Game Expansions | Nerdologists https://nerdologists.com 32 32 Top 5 Games Better with an Expansion https://nerdologists.com/2025/04/top-5-games-better-with-an-expansion/ https://nerdologists.com/2025/04/top-5-games-better-with-an-expansion/#respond Fri, 11 Apr 2025 14:52:35 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=9533 What games are better because of an expansion? An expansion shouldn't fix a game, but they can take a great game up a notch.

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This is an interesting list to do and one that I don’t love to do. Why, because good games shouldn’t need expansions. And I’ll say this, I think that the games I have on the list are generally good games. If a game is bad, I’m not going to keep it around to get an expansion to fix it. But what games are made better by having more of it?

Top 5 Games Better with an Expansion

5. New Frontiers – More Variety

I’m not only telling you which games are better but how they are better. I enjoy New Frontiers, a Roll for the Galaxy Board Game quite well. And even out of the box it’s a fun game. But this is one of those games where the expansion does it right. It just adds in more stuff. That means you get more variety and variability in what you start with. Is it needed for the game, not completely, but I think that it makes it better because it just adds in a little bit more to the game.

So what does it add, it adds in new home planets, new planets and new development that you can do. All of those things are in the base game. It also adds in new actions that you can take. Those new actions replace the old ones and they provide again that added variety. And you can add in goals with them as well. Plus there is a solo mode now. But mainly it just adds more of what you already like about the game.

4. Pitchcar – More Track

I think this one is easy to understand why it’s great to have expansions. Expansions just give you more track for the game and allow you to create crazier different routes to go on. It gives you that freedom to decide, do we want to have a track that goes up and over? Do we want to do a loop? Do we want to make some narrow sections or really long straightaways? All of those things are now an option. I’m not sure that I need to say more than this, so I won’t.

Pitch Car
Image Source: Ferti

3. Marvel United – More Characters and Villains

This one is odd because I think there is a tipping point for it. Now I am definitely past that tipping point. I have everything in terms of game play for Marvel United. And there is so much stuff. I haven’t even dug into all the Marvel United: Multiverse stuff. But this is a great and simple to table cooperative game. It is made even better by the fact that everything is plug and play. It is so easy to drop in a villain or a hero from another set and just start playing. No matter who it is, it’s just a few minutes to get started.

And I think the expansions really do help. The core box of Marvel United is fine. I don’t think it stands out as an amazing game. Though, if you’re not a gamer, it’s good because it’s easy enough to understand and no heroes or villains are too complicated. And while none of the heroes or villains are complicated in the expansion, they tend to add in more flavor which is great and I think for people who enjoy the base game at all, they are needed for more robust game play.

2. Dice Throne – More Characters

Speaking of more characters, I think that Dice Throne really benefits from the expansions. And the expansions are just that, they are more characters for the game. The big reason is that the characters in the base game are fun, but they aren’t great. The Barbarian feels pretty standard, and that is on purpose. But you get six characters, originally, and if you are like me and love you, you want more.

So I think that the expansions are really great. And I think that the Marvel expansions are great as well for multiple reasons. One, they are fun and thematic. But it is also a great spot to get people into a game system who might be interested in it without the IP (intellectual property). And those characters are thematic as well, so it works very well.

Lost Ruins of Arnak
Image Source: CGE

1. Lost Ruins of Arnak – Expedition Leaders

And this is the game that made me think of the topic. I got to play Lost Ruins of Arnak twice last night. One time was just the base game, and the other time with the Expedition Leaders. Now, I love Lost Ruins of Arnak even as the base game. But the Expedition Leaders make it a even better. So what does Expedition Leaders add?

It is mainly just adding in what it says, expedition leaders. These are unique starting cards and leaders wit their own flavor to the game. It really makes for a more interesting experience because now everyone has something unique that they do in the game. And while the base game offers variety, this adds in more, just through the leaders. But it also gives you new research tracks and more cards to mix in, so it’s a great expansion where it just adds in more. But not just more, a bit more complexity as well, if you want it.

Final Thoughts

If a game isn’t good out of the box, I don’t want an expansion to fix it. I want a new, fixed, version of the base game. And I think that for the most part publishers are good about this. All of these things where I talk about the expansions, the base game makes a good game better.

The closest to a game that I’d be not so interested in without the expansions is Marvel United. Spinmaster Games wanted the base game to be simple because they wanted it to be in Target. And I understand that, but as a gamer, it felt like it was too little to me. I could see the fun in it, but I wanted that more, and because I love Marvel I got that more for it.

But the others really are great games without the expansions. The expansion just make a great game better. And the times where I’ve seen an expansion needed to fix the game, it’s often Kickstarter. And it’s often a time where they offer that expansion that makes the game good as part of the Kickstarter or crowdfunding campaign. Which I find to be a bad practice and definitely don’t want companies doing. Always give us the whole game in one box.

What are some of your favorite expansions for board games?

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Top 10 Board Game Expansions https://nerdologists.com/2022/09/top-10-board-game-expansions/ https://nerdologists.com/2022/09/top-10-board-game-expansions/#respond Wed, 07 Sep 2022 15:28:28 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=7335 What board game expansions are really wroth having, which ones add a lot to game play? I have 10 I really like.

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I’m sure if I were to look on Board Game Geek (BGG), I could just find the highest rated expansions. But that’s boring. What are my favorite expansions? Which expansions maybe live in the base box, or are fun to mix in when I can? Let’s took at my Top 10 Board Game Expansions and see which ones really stand out to me.

Top 10 Board Game Expansions

10. Tainted Grail: Echoes of the Past

This one is lower on the list because it’s cool, don’t get me wrong, but not needed. In fact, it can make the game a fair amount easier at times because you get more powers. But getting those powers can be hard, because dying is not ideal or being near death. Still, it adds in good story and background for the characters. And you feel like as your character you are chasing something slightly different than the other characters.

Tokyo Highway Overhead
Image Source: Self

9. Tokyo Highway: Cars and Buildings

Tokyo Highway is a pretty dexterity game where you are building out roads going over and under other highways and trying to get your cars played out and not knock anything down. The Cars and Buildings expansion just adds more cars and more buildings that you can use, and different shaped cars. I basically always play with those. And the buildings, why not throw all of them in there and make the Tokyo area as crazy as you can.

8. Welcome To… Maps

This one is a catch all, not the last on the list. But the map packs and season rules for Welcome To… are a lot of fun. They definitely add some interesting twists on the game. But they don’t really make the game harder to play. It’s just a new thing to think about but generally one that is simple. The ice cream, you want to go up in numbers to collect the ice cream on the road. The Easter one, you want to be able to circle the eggs on the houses with numbers like 6, 8, 9, or 0. So something more to think about, but not too much.

7. Small World: Be Not Afraid…

There are a number of Small World expansions, some of them like the modular map, not needed. But ones that are like Be Not Afraid… are good because they just add in more races/classes and powers. It just means that you get more variety in what you are playing and a lot of the time that is what I want in a game. Do you need to know what the new races and powers do? Yes. Is there only one sheet when there should be more? Yes. But it’s easy enough to mix in.

6. Roll Player Adventures: Nefras’s Judgement

At this point we’re getting close to what I’d consider to be a needed expansion. This does a lot of the things that Echoes of the Past does for Tainted Grail. But it gives you a few more fun choices of your own with that. With Tainted Grail, it’s about completing goals. Here, you just go places, you get story and you get to make choices that affect the alignment of your character. I like those extra choices you get to make in the game.

5. Marvel Expansions

Marvel United
Image Source: CMON

This is a cheat one, it’s a catch all for Marvel Champions and Marvel United. All of th ese expansions are great. They either give you more characters to play as or more villains to face off against. Hard to go wrong with that. Even the campaign expansions for Marvel Champions, it’s mainly just more heroes and villains. You can take any hero through the campaign, and you can play those villains outside of the campaign.

4. Clank! In! Space! Apocalypse

Apocalypse takes a game that can be hard, if you push your luck too hard, and can make it harder. Normally there are black cubes you pull for Lord Eradikus from the bag and they do nothing. Now they are filling up a board that can power him up, potentially. And you can spend to remove them but that’s at a cost to doing what you want to on a turn, which is a fun balance for the game. Clank! In! Space! is great without the expansions, but this one adds in so little it’s easy to just drop in that one new mechanic.

3. Betrayal at House on the Hill: Widow’s Walk

This starts a run of ones that just add in more, it’s an expansion that adds in more content to the game but not more complexity. Widow’s Walk is just more haunts that can happen, more omens and items and things that you mix into existing decks of cards or tiles. Are the haunts balanced any better, not really, but it’s more and as a game that I’ve played a lot, I don’t mind having more.

2. Deception: Undercover Allies

This one mainly just adds in more to the box, but the new roles are fun as well. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong might not need it, as there is a lot of stuff in it, but it’s easy to integrate and makes for just more content to have mixed in. And as I said, the new roles are fun as well. One that I really recommend because of how easy it is to mix in.

Pitchcar
Image Source: Self

1. PitchCar Extensions

I think that these are almost needed, at least one, or maybe two. Do you need all of them like I have, probably not. Do you need to get more like I want to? Definitely not. But is it a blast to have all of them. More just means you have more tracks you can build and bigger tracks that you can build. A lot of the time that’s just the fun that you can, to have a big track that you can play in an evening. So more is great for PitchCar.

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of just solid expansions or expansions that I don’t use that often. I liked Forgotten Circles well enough, but it was too fiddly for me to put on the list. Even though Gloomhaven is my favorite game. Or there are other ones, The Fountain of Youth for The Lost Expedition that I’d shuffle in sometimes. Same with for example Potion Explosions expansions. Some just don’t fit in the box and others might but if they are in the box, it makes it harder to play.

There’s even a situation, with Roll Player where my copy hasn’t hit the table. I have the expansions, I have everything in baggies, but I need to get an insert to make it work to be played. It’s just too much else in there otherwise.

I did skip too expansions that tended to just be another campaign for something. Sea & Sand for Destinies, just another game. The Signature Series cases for Detective, really it’s own game that you barely need the base for, if you do at all. They are kind of in a unique category. I love the stories for the Tainted Grail expansion games, but it’s basically a new game.

What expansion do you love in your collection?

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What Board Games Do I Want An Expansion For? https://nerdologists.com/2022/03/what-board-games-do-i-want-an-expansion-for/ https://nerdologists.com/2022/03/what-board-games-do-i-want-an-expansion-for/#respond Tue, 29 Mar 2022 14:46:19 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=6847 What board games need expansions? Probably not any, but which ones do I want to see get expansions and what type of expansion would I want?

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Expansions come out for a lot of board games, but not all of them. Mainly, if a board game doesn’t sell all that well, they might not come out with an expansion for it. Or the game might be so simple that there isn’t that much room to add an expansion to it. And board game expansions come in a few different varieties.

  • Add More Players
  • Add More Content
  • Change Up The Content

Most of the ones I’m going to want expansion for will be in the last two categories. Rarely do I want to add more players to a game, unless it doesn’t change how long the game is. Six player Catan, for example, takes longer than two player Catan.

So let’s get to the list.

Points Salad

Point Salad should really have an expansion, but it is not an easy one to give an expansion to. Point Salad is a set collection game where you draft cards from a tableau. You either draft vegetables or scoring cards. And that is why it’s tricky. The scoring cards are on the back of the vegetables, so you can’t just add in more veggies easily. If you added more you’d need to redo every single card, and at that point, it’s just a new game.

So how would I make it work?

I think I’d add in a toppings expansion. So stuff like croutons, bacon, cheese, nuts, dressing, things like that. And they would influence how scoring goes. But they would need to be in the big tableau to able able to score. I don’t know how you’d change it up too much with them, but maybe they get played in a row of veggies or they use up certain veggies for their scoring.

Homebrewers
Image Source: Board Game Geek

Homebrewers

Homebrewers is one where I just want more content for it. I want more end game scoring objectives, I want more playable characters, I want more ingredients to brew with. The game is a ton of fun and a really fast engine building game with a theme I love of brewing beer.

Mainly, I think with the ingredients there is room for more powers that you could add to them. And more things you could do to play around with the different types of ingredients. So that’s what I’d really like for it. It’d just be more stuff that you could do. I know there is an equipment pack for it, but that’s impossible to find, so I consider Homebrewers one that needs an expansion.

Sonora

Sonora might seem like an odd one, how would you expands this roll and write game? In it you flick discs, that determines where you can write. So you write on your player board in four different areas that all combo together. Sonora is a roll and write game where it is all about the combos.

This is one where with how they built it that you can slide the main board in and out, I want to see a new main board and new player boards. Give me a whole new Sonora puzzle with completely new roll and write sections to be working on, all while still flicking discs. That would just be fun to have more for the game.

Mesozooic

Mesozooic
Image Source: Z-Man Games

One that I wrote about recently. Mesozooic is a combination of a drafting game and a sliding puzzle. It is a lot of fun as you try and complete routes in your dinosaur park, get enclosures completed, things like that. You can read more about it here.

I’d like to see an expansion that adds in some new scoring. I do need to mess around with the advanced scoring cards as well. But even more wouldn’t be bad. And I wouldn’t even mind seeing more players add to this game. It’d make the game even more random at higher player counts. But that’s okay, the sliding puzzle itself makes the game pretty random as it is.

Ohanami

Ohanami is an interesting little game about putting numbers in order. The game is simple in that you draft two cards and you add them to any of three columns you have going. But the number must be either higher or lower than what is already in that column. Plus there is scoring that develops over time.

What would I add to Ohanami? Probably ways to score more points. So a new scoring pad and some scoring cards that give you bonus points. Like a multiplier for the longest run of numbers that you have consecutively in a column. Points for the column with the most cards in it, stuff like that. And have there be three bonus cards you play with each time. Just seems like a simple edition that could add more to the game.

Paper Dungeons
Image Source: Alley Cat Games

Paper Dungeons: A Dungeon Scrawler Game

Paper Dungeons, another game that I’ve talked about recently. In fact, you can see me play it over on Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel. Or you can watch it right below. But this is a dungeon crawling roll and write game where you are leveling up heroes, fighting monsters, crafting items and more. It’s a great puzzle of a game.

I want to see more monsters added to this game. More monsters with different rewards and possible even some different behaviors. Or maybe even trait cards you could play on monsters that make you consider how strong you want to be when fighting it. Stuff like that which change up the monsters and maybe make them feel more unique.

Titan Race

And the final one is Titan Race. This is a racing game where you can race a few different ways. You can loop over the same track three times, or you can make a grand prix and play on three boards. Each board has special interactions, might hand out damage, might let you jump or move faster. And each racer has a power as well that they can use.

Titan Race is a game that won’t get an expansion, it’s been out for a while at this point. But I’d love one for it with more boards and more racers. I think that when it comes in Tiny Turbo Cars might replace this. But Titan Race will be simpler, so it might be one that sticks around for that, because the game is a lot of fun. I’d like more boards and more variety and maybe even the shot for a longer race, though that’d make the game take longer

What Board Games Do You Want To Get Expansions?

What are some games that you think need expansions. So many games these days do get expansions so it was a trickier list to make than sometimes. But I think I came up with a lot of good games. And while I was writing the article, I ordered the equipment expansions for Homebrewers, so it only should kind of make my list.

There are some games, like Unfathomable, the more I play it the more I might want an expansion. But right now I don’t need one for it. And if it makes it more complex to teach or get to the table, I won’t get it to the table as much. Or it depends on how well I can keep them separated to pick and choose what I want to play with.

Let me know ones you’d like to see get expansions down in the comments below.

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Malts and Meeples: Board Game Unboxing https://nerdologists.com/2021/04/malts-and-meeples-board-game-unboxing/ https://nerdologists.com/2021/04/malts-and-meeples-board-game-unboxing/#respond Thu, 15 Apr 2021 13:21:17 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=5564 Time to unbox some a new board game and a few board game expansions on last nights Malts and Meeples. Plus a sour beer to talk about.

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VIDEO HAS NO AUDIO. Something happened to my settings so no audio came through. I’m going to leave the video up for right now and this article. But again, no audio in the video.

A new order from Miniature Market has come in yesterday, the one that I talked about in last Fridays Point of Order. So since it made it in time and I wasn’t sure what I was going to stream, let’s see what I picked up. There was one new game and a grand total of 6 expansions in that box, though only expansions for two different board game systems.

The Games

Downforce

I want to play more racing games, and Downforce is one that has been on my radar for a long time. There is just something about a good racing game that seems so much fun to me. Pushing my luck, betting on the winners, that just sounds fun. And Downforce is an interesting game when it comes to that area. It isn’t your standard dice chucking racing game, but instead it’s a game that has you betting on the winner and hoping you invested smartly in the cars that you own based off of the cards you have. I also love how the movement works via card play. The fact that you play a card that moves multiple cars potentially really adds to the strategy of the game and the speed of the game.

Not Alone: Sanctuary

The first of the expansions, this one is just something fun and different in terms of the games I have in my collection. Not Alone is a pretty simple one versus all game. One person playing the planet and trying to take out crew members from a crashed ship as quickly as possible before they can be rescued. That is a ton of fun. And it is good for large groups. You play with up to eight people with seven people controlling the crew and one person being the monster. Being a crew member is fun, but I really like being the monster who is stalking everyone. It is a good game of cat and mouse that offers more choices than most large group games.

Aeon’s End Expansions

I’m getting close to having everything for Aeon’s End. I backed the last Kickstarter and from what I can tell, there are two more small box expansions that I need to pick up. I use need loosely, it’ll take me a long time to get through all of this content. But I really like Aeon’s End a lot, so I could see just taking time over a few years and getting through all of the content. Plus they are putting out more story driven content now for it, including two legacy games, so I am all for that. These expansions don’t add to that, but they generally add in more nemesis or mages to play with as well as some new cards. I really just like the concept so much of not shuffling your cards in a deck building game.

The Beer

So, I don’t think I mentioned the name of the beer, which was a mistake on my behalf. It is Spray Tan Sour from Outstate Brewing in Fergus Falls, MN. It is a small brewery with super local distribution of it’s cans. What I like about it, is that it has a nice fruit to it with pomegranate and cherry, but they mainly keep it from being too tart. The issue with some sours is that they can be too punch in the mouth sour, whereas as this one is the type I want to drink on a warm day while sitting outside. I won’t need a spray tan when drinking it. What is your favorite sour beer?

Which of those games sounds the most interesting to you? Do you have any of that you’ve enjoyed?

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Expansion vs New Game https://nerdologists.com/2020/09/expansion-vs-new-game/ https://nerdologists.com/2020/09/expansion-vs-new-game/#respond Tue, 08 Sep 2020 13:59:17 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=4727 So, when building up your board game collection, it can at times reach the point where you have so many games that you just don’t

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So, when building up your board game collection, it can at times reach the point where you have so many games that you just don’t play them all that often, and that you have a core few favorites that you play all of the time, so the question always is, do you add more new games to your collection or should you get an expansion?

Now, both have benefits in terms of your game collection. So I’m going to talk about the pros to both, and probably some cons as well, but when it comes to gaming, for me getting more games you can play is never going to be a bad thing.

The Argument for Exapnsions

So the argument for getting an expansion or starting to focus more on getting expansions is that you’ll probably play their content more. For a lot of games, Small World, Pandemic, Sagrada, and others, you’ll often just find yourself always having the expansion in the game. So if you are playing those games often, you’ll get more use out of that content.

It also can increase the replayability of those games. Stuff like Pandemic and Small World are great for introducing new people into board gaming. But it can end up feeling like you are playing the same game over and over again. So getting new roles in Pandemic or getting new monsters and abilities in Small World that can create combos or new strategies to try, those things will freshen up a game for a player who plays those games a lot.

Image Source: BoardGameGeek

Sometimes you can also not increase the number of boxes for the games by getting expansions. If the expansion can be stored with the base game, or vice-a-versa, you don’t add any new boxes to your collection that take up shelf space. Now, this isn’t always the case so sometimes you’re just adding boxes like normal, but if you are tight on space, that’s one reason to consider an expansion over a new game.

The Argument for New Games

With a new game one of the big selling points is that you can try something new. Sounds obvious, but it might allow you to find a new type of game or a new favorite game by trying out something new. Or you might find an improvement upon a game that you already like, if you like something like Splendor, trying Century Spice Road or Century Golem Edition might give you a game that you like better or that people in your group will like better, even though the feel of the two can be similar.

A new game also allows you to fill in gaps in your gaming collection. Now, everyone will have different types of games that the prefer, but sometimes you might need a party game, and you might need it so that you don’t get stuck playing a party game that you really don’t like. Or maybe a euro or deck building, or whatever it might be. So filling in some of those areas that you might not have enough of for your gaming group and to keep it interesting is important as well.

The Arguments Against Expansions

While I talked about the added variability, one thing to be slightly concerned about with adding more is the addition of complexity to a game. So you might take a game that is relatively easy to get to the table and make it harder by adding in additional rules or roles to explain. So while technically the game has more replayability because of those things, it will see the table less because it’s harder to pull out with a group of new to the game players. I have a friend who has several expansions for Galaxy Trucker, but because it’s harder to teach with those in the box, they raretly get played with.

Also, an expansion might not add in that much more to a game, so kind of the opposite of the one above, but if it just adds in a few more cards or a modular board, or something like that, it might not feel like it changes up the game that much, so it doesn’t add to the game play or it getting back to the table again.

Image Credit: Game Base

The Argument Against New Games

The most obvious one is that you might not like the game, as simple as that. It’s an unknown commodity to you and there’s a risk/reward to factor in to it. Now, the more you’ve played games and played a variety of games, the odds of finding a complete miss aren’t that high, though it might not be something better than you already have on the shelf.

Speaking of shelves, space is also a concern. Because it is something completely new, it could take up a chunk of space and if you are limited in how much space you have, it might be the case where you won’t have room to store a new game. Now this can be rectified by getting rid of a game, but you might love all the games that you have, so then you have to make a choice if you decide to get any new games.

So, is there a better option, getting expansions or a new game? I don’t really think so. I think expansions can breath new life into an old game if you get them, but if you’re enjoying the base game, there’s no reason to. I think that new games can help you find things that you love and new favorites but probably have a higher chance of being a dud. It depends on how people play their games. Normally, I’m writing this mid Covid-19 Pandemic 2020, I play a lot of new to me games and a lot of different games, so having a good variety is great and something I really enjoy. But if you’re with a group who likes their handful of games, expansions are a great way to keep that feeling fresh.

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GenCon Preview – Top 5 Expansions for Sale https://nerdologists.com/2019/07/gencon-preview-top-5-expansions-for-sale/ https://nerdologists.com/2019/07/gencon-preview-top-5-expansions-for-sale/#respond Wed, 31 Jul 2019 13:00:55 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=3375 I’m on the road to GenCon! So I’m writing this ahead of time, and I’m excited to be getting there. So disclaimer like before, I

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I’m on the road to GenCon! So I’m writing this ahead of time, and I’m excited to be getting there. So disclaimer like before, I don’t know anything that Fantasy Flight might be talking about on their In Flight report. But what are the expansions that Board Game Geek has on their preview am I going to check out? Only five of these, because I some of them I don’t have the base game for.

Image Source: Board Game Geek

Five – Cloudspire – Chip Theory Games is also coming out with a couple of expansions for Cloudspire. The game looks cool, and maybe, if I get to demo it, it’s really awesome, I’ll grab the expansions for it as well, but I’d be curious to know what they add to the game, if it’s just more story, or if it adds something else to the game, like new actions or places to go to.

Four – Detective: City of Angels – Bullets over Hollywood – This one is an expansion to a game that I want to check out. If the game looks good and I get there fast enough to get it, I’m not going to rush, I might end up getting the expansion as well, but getting more cases and things to do in this Detective game, it seems interesting, especially since I don’t know how replayable the game is going to be after you’ve finished a case.

Three – Sword and Sorcery – I’m adding multiple ones here, like some of them higher on the list, because there is a whole new story arc to go through, but also there are a couple more characters, and while I might never play all the characters, I do kind of want them for my game. I’m excited to get this game either to Malts and Meeples, or possibly this will be the game I play with friends after I’m done with Gloomhaven.

Two – Sagrada: The Great Facades – Passion – First of the trilogy of new of expansions. This one seems fun, I really do like Sagrada and I need to get it back to the table. I don’t know that I need more for it, but having some new dice is interesting, having some new goals is cool, and having some different private objectives is really really cool. So I’m excited to get it added into my game.

Image Source: Amazon

One – Welcome To… – So many expansions for this, but they are all interesting. You get different city maps that might be set in Halloween, or maybe now there are fallout shelters on the board. I definitely want to get a couple of these to add even more variability to the game. It’s a game that has worked well every time I get it to the table, and I think these expansions will keep at at the table for a long time.

Are there any expansions that you’re looking forward to coming out at GenCon? Any that I’ve missed, probably since I don’t have the base game?

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Board Game Expansions https://nerdologists.com/2019/05/board-game-expansions/ https://nerdologists.com/2019/05/board-game-expansions/#respond Mon, 20 May 2019 13:37:46 +0000 http://nerdologists.com/?p=3132 Kind of a different topic today. I’ve talked a lot about board games, but I haven’t talked much about one of the trends in board

The post Board Game Expansions first appeared on Nerdologists.]]>
Kind of a different topic today. I’ve talked a lot about board games, but I haven’t talked much about one of the trends in board games, and that’s expanding an existing game. Expansions give you more content in a board game in one of several different ways. I’ll go through the main three that I see board games being expanded in this article.

Image Source: Catan

The first is the simplest way, and that is there are companies expanding board games to get higher player counts. Catan was the first game to do this, that I know of, where it was out of the box a 4 player game, but you could buy the 5-6 player expansion for the game to be able to play with a larger group. For me these expansions are kind of hit and miss because some games are already pushing their upper limit with the out of the box player count. Adding in additional players often increases the amount of time the game takes and can increase how much time you have between doing something meaningful. If it doesn’t do either of those things, I think that it can be a fine expansions, but it won’t ever be my preferred type of expansions. But this one is one that is pretty simple to explain, it just allows more people to play the game at once.

Image Credit: Game Base

The next one is the expansion that adds in content to a game. And specifically with this type of expansion, it’s an expansion that is going to add in a new mechanic or tweak to the game. To use Catan as an example again, Seafarers of Catan adds in ships and islands. These are mechanicaly additions. Most of the time, this is something that is going to be easy to add in or take out from the base game. However, sometimes it’s just tricky to know what was added in, and that can be a downfall of these expansions. Maybe I don’t always want to play with the expansion, but it might not be possible to split them out. The other problem is that you can end up with two many expansions. For Catan you have Seafarers, Cities & Knights, Traders & Barbarians, Explorers & Pirates and 5-6 player expansions for all of them. If you were to get everything for Catan, you’d be in for around $500. Now, that might be worth it to you, but you can see how you can push too far in the game play expansions. Pandemic and Carcassone do the same thing having a lot of expansions to the base game. The biggest offender of having too many expansions coming out would be Smash Up and Marvel Legendary. Both of those games seem to come out with a couple expansions per year at least, and they’ve been going at it for a while. Now, sometimes these expansions make the game a lot more interesting. This is both a good and bad thing. Sometimes these extra content/game play expansions just take a good game to a great game, so that’s a good thing. However, sometimes, an expansion will be essential to the game being enjoyable. Other times, the expansion will take a poor game to a good game. That seems like a solid thing, but if the base game isn’t fun without an expansion, you’ve basically just bought the full game in two parts. So these expansions can be a bit more troubling, but often do add in good variety to games so that if you’ve played the base game a lot, you can change it up.

Image Source: Across the Board Cafe

Finally, you have story expansions. These expansions are not possible for every game, while the other two normally are, whether they should be made or not. Story expansions have to be for a game that has a story to it. Something like Gloomhaven which has a 100+ hours of game play story is getting an expansion that has more story coming after what happens in the base game. Games like Folklore: The Affliction and Sword and Sorcery also do this. Since these games really focus on the story, the replayability of the game, without an expansion, can be a little bit tricky. Though, something like Gloomhaven, it’s been long enough since I started playing it, that with a different group I’d be up for playing it again. How these games are often made more replayable also is that you have multiple characters to jump into the game with, so if you play a different character your experience might be different than it was the first time through. That is one thing that Sword and Sorcery does, it gives you another way to play through the main story with a different character expansions. That would fall under content/game play expansion versus a story expansion though. I really like story expansions, because it allows me to continue playing with a character that I like, or it allows me to delve further into a world that has been created. I’m excited for Tainted Grail coming out from Awaken Realms for that reason. It has the base game and two expansions with the kickstarter, and it really takes you through a large chunk of the world that they’ve built and through generations.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever come across an expansions that I would consider needed. I think that there are a few that add in interesting things to games, such as extra races and powers for Smallworld, but, I haven’t run across any that are needed. Some of it might be because I won’t buy an expansion just to make a game good, so if I don’t like the game, I’ll move on from it.

What are some of your favorite expansions? Are there any expansions you consider needed?

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