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I love Valeria Card Kingdoms, giving it 80% in my review and calling it a 'Machi Koro killer'. Unfortunately when the Kickstarter for the Flames & Frost expansion hit I was on a 'wife enforced' break from the crowdfunding platform.
Luckily Daily Magic Games came to the rescue by sending me a copy. Eat that wifey!!
Last Time on Card Kingdoms
For those who don't know, Card Kingdoms is a tableau building game, in which you roll dice to activate citizen cards with in that tableau. This generally earns you resources which you will use to fight monsters, buy domains and hire more citizens. The game ends when the 'market' of citizens, monsters and domains is reduced by a number of stacks dependent on player count.
Fire & Ice
Fire & Ice contains another complete set of cards for the game, including dukes, citizens, monsters, domains and new exhausted cards called 'events'. Events are not entirely new to Card Kingdoms, with the two small expansion packs introducing them to the game. They are mixed in with the exhausted cards and now when a stack from the middle of the table is empty you have a chance of drawing an event card instead of an exhausted card. Events are global effects that happen as soon as they come into play.
The new cards bring a number of new icons into the game, including a new wild symbol. For Card Kingdom veterans these will present no problems, and the new cards work really well. They have been balanced well with the existing sets. Monsters now seem a bit stronger but this works well with the rewards they offer.
Hot & Cold
You can play Flame & Frost with just the cards from the expansion, but it works best to mix them in with the base set, especially the monsters. In terms of citizens, if you have this and the base set you now can choose between three citizens for each dice roll represented. This alone is a huge amount of variety. As more domain, dukes and monsters are added too this expansion makes a lot of sense for Card Kingdom fans.
I found Flames & Frost made me think more carefully in my buying options. Card Kingdoms has always been a game plentiful in resources, with some seeing this as a negative. Over time I have come to see that it is more about how you spend those resources, and the expansion only solidifies this.
Flames & Frost & Then Some...
I was also able to try two smaller expansions coming later on this year and at the start of the next. The first, Agents, adds a row of cards at the top of the 'market'. These are fairly powerful one shot powers a bit like citizens that you hire for immediate effect. Agents is an addition to the game that gives more options to players, which is great, but it's the relatively small change in the next expansion, Peasants & Knights that excites me most.
Peasants and Knights are the player's starting cards, taking the numbers five & six for dice rolls. There are more available in the market, but they always seemed like the worst type of buy. However Domains require that you have certain 'types' of citizens to buy them. The market peasant and knight would be one of these types.
This expansion makes both the peasant and the knight double types. This small change makes them much more valuable as cards. In fact it is so fundamental that I will never play without these improved cards again.
Warm & Tingly
Flames & Frost could be accused of being a lazy expansion to some degree. There will be those that say it 'just adds more'. To an extent this is true, but when that more is so damn tasty it's easy to have your fill. Yes the changes are mainly subtle rather than sweeping, but you are essentially getting another half of the original game to play with. This makes the already fantastic replay-ability of Card Kingdoms truly exceptional.
Be warned, these extra choices do add to the set-up options and time, mainly choosing which cards you will include! However the insert is well set-up to make this as speedy as possible. If you don't want the whole meal then I can recommend the mini expansions too, both those existing and the Agents and Peasants and Knights to come. I know it's a minor change but my favourite is the Peasants and Knights!
As per the base game, the art work and components are excellent throughout - as I have come to expect from Daily Magic. I love the style and detail that has gone into them and this only rounds out the package for me. If you know Card Kingdoms you know what to expect, if you don't then pick up the base game, and start saving for this too.
