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.

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

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.

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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Pitchcar

Pitchcar is a dexterity racing game. And really, that’s about all there is too it, you are flicking your car, which is a disc, around the track. If you fall off, you go back to where you flipped from. If you tip over, you go back to where you flipped from. You take turns, the first person to make it the whole way around, they win. The second person, second place, and so on and so forth. You get points for your position, so you could play multiple times and see who the overall winner is.

What I Didn’t Like

Honestly, there isn’t much that I didn’t like about Pitchcar. My table could be larger for it, but that’s an issue on my end. I guess, if there was anything, it was that the game might be too simple. Now, don’t get me wrong, as you’ll see, I had a blast playing the game. But it is just around the course, I was hoping that it might be up there with Ice Cool for me, but I think it’s just a step below, because Ice Cool has just that tiny bit more going on. Other than that, no negatives. And I think keeping track over multiple races, that would make it more fun and offer more of a challenge.

What I Liked

This game is stupid fun, and I really mean that in the best way. Stupid might sound bad, but it isn’t. This game is all about flicking your car and seeing what happens. You can practice and get better, for sure, but even if you are playing it for the first time it’s still fun. When you pull off that great shot, it feels amazing. And it’s like Ice Cool in that when someone pulls off an amazing shot no one is mad that they are doing better, everyone cheers.

So that’s another thing that I like, it’s a competitive game that doesn’t feel that competitive. Sure, someone probably has taken it too far with Pitchcar and gotten mad because they keep flicking it off the track. I don’t want to play with that person in general and definitely not play with them on Pitchcar. At the same time, that person probably knows after seeing Pitchcar set-up that the game isn’t for them. So they wouldn’t play anyways.

Finally, I really like how accessible this game. In my negatives, I said that I missed the objectives from Ice Cool, thus making Ice Cool a bit better. Now, I think Ice Cool is as simple as Pitchcar, but offers a bit more strategy. Pitchcar, though, is still extremely accessible and I can see in two years setting it up on the floor and playing with my kid who will then be 4. And I can see my kid beating me. I can see bringing this to a FLGS (friendly local game store) and playing it. I can see playing it at the holidays or at an convention and people loving the game. It is a game for everywhere.

Who Is Pitchcar For?

Honestly, I think this game is for almost everyone. There will be some people who don’t love flicking or dexterity as much. That said, I find that flicking games go over better than stacking games because a larger person can do it easier. Like I said up above, I can imagine playing this game almost anywhere with anyone.

Do You Need Extensions?

So, I mentioned Extensions above, that is not a common term with board games. What are extensions, well, they are just more track pieces that extend how large you can make the track. So basically, they are expansions in normal board game terms. I think one or two extensions will probably make the game even more fun. Just the base game will still be a blast, but with the extensions you can make all sorts of wild tracks to go on. Even another copy of the base game would give a whole lot more options for building.

That said, the base game takes up a bunch of room and would be plenty of fun. It still offers a lot of track options to be built. You just might not have quite as many so might not pull it off the shelf as often. I, however, do have three more extensions coming today for the Loop, and two more that just add in extra pieces to make it even bigger.

Final Thoughts

This game is stupid fun. Like I said, it might not be for everyone, such as those people who want their games to be more serious, but I think most people will like it. The rules are simple and easy to follow and there is just so much that can be done with it. Pitchcar is on the docket for board game night in July and I can’t wait. Especially because I’ll have two more. I will 100% be putting the leaf into our biggest table in order to make as large and crazy a track as possible.

Overall Grade: A-
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: A

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