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Like a board game in its own right, we expect top returns for our investments in expansions. We want them to challenge us. We want them to elongate the breadth of what the game can offer, without bloating the experience. We want them to make us fall head over heels in love with the base game, all over again.
There’s such a phenomenal number of board game expansions that get released each year. 2020 was no different. Which are worthy contenders? We got four board game bloggers to nominate their Best Board Game Expansion of 2020. Do you agree with our bloggers?
Nathan Coombs – Oceania (Wingspan)
Expansion [ɛkˈspanʃ(ə)n] Definition:
Variable noun. The process of becoming larger greater or more extensive
Noun. A thing formed by enlarging or broadening something.
My vote for Best Expansion of 2020 is a firm Yes for Oceania, the latest addition to the Wingspan line-up. The base game took the gaming world by storm. It should gain credit for broadening the minds of many non-gamers to the fun of board games. In that regard, one might call it a ‘gateway game’.
However, for those of us on this side of the pond with antipodean connections, the game – while lovely – is quite ‘American’. To be honest, the birds held little interest, but the gameplay was superb. For me, the attraction of Oceania has been in three new areas.
1.Dice. This game recognises that Australian birds drink nectar. This allows a wild foodstuff and quicker liberates the playing of bird cards. This frees up the game and speeds its progression. There are penalties though, to holding on to this valuable nectar.
2.Decks. 95 new bird cards enter the fray, sharing the same beautiful artwork from Natalia Rojas. They enhance the game, ten-fold. These extra cards can give end-of-round and end-of-game bonuses, too. They add an additional dimension to play.
3.Down Under. The Oceania decks also give an end-of-game bonus, with some birds strong scorers. By adding new goals, players have to concentrate on extra points or penalties at the end of the four turns.
As a game, Oceania fulfils the expansion definition with perfection. Its appeal gets broadened. The number of cards in play makes it bigger, and the tweaks to the rules and goals make it greater.
We now won’t play Wingspan without the Oceania expansion.
Tom Harrod – Age of Artisans (Architects of the West Kingdom)
Architects of the West Kingdom (by Shem Phillips and Garphill Games) exudes popularity. It’s a worker placement game with high levels of interactivity. Send your workers out to gather resources, so you can construct Buildings cards. The fascinating part is you can kidnap your opponents and then send them to jail, making a profit! But this creates a key symbiotic relationship. Grabbing your workers back from jail means you can place them again.
Age of Artisans adds two major differences (as well as new Buildings and Apprentices). One is the Artisan worker, itself. This is an extra worker you get, a twenty-first. When you place it, the Artisan ignores one loss of Virtue, if necessary. This makes places like the Tax Stand a lot more appealing! It also acts as double-worker when you place it, which is crucial. (It counts as a regular worker after that, if you add a later worker to the same location.)
Your Artisan’s a shortcut to getting extra resources quicker. Or, it gives you two actions for the price of one at, say, the King’s Storehouse, or the Town Centre. Timing when and where you place it is pivotal. You’ll also want to get it back as often as you can, to keep reaping that benefit each time you place it. But this paints a great big target on your Artisan, a lure for other players using the Town Centre…
The other addition is dual-purpose cards. When you claim one, you can add one per Building card you’ve constructed, or one per Apprentice you’ve hired. The Adornments provide stated end-game points, plus immediate rewards (resources or free action). These sit above your Buildings. Tools sit below your Apprentices. These further strengthen the location benefit provided by the Apprentice. It’s like a second bonus action you can take.
Each time you send a worker to that location, it becomes quite a powerful, unique combo. The more Tools you gain, the more end-game points you earn. Not mention building powerful game-long benefits for yourself. Which is the better path to take?
The clincher is that to get Adornments or Tools, you have to send a worker to the Guildhall. Not to speed up the game, but you place it atop one of your previous-placed workers there. This eats up how many workers you have left to play within your pool. It also forces you to build more (or contribute to the cathedral). There’s a spot in the Black Market to claim Tools – so the worker isn’t a permanent loss. But to do that it costs coins and loss of Virtue! Age of Artisans takes Architects and pumps oodles of extra unique strategies into the mixer.
Gavin Hudson – Shadowed Paths (Journeys in Middle Earth)
I began 2020 as somewhat of an expansion sceptic. Many, I’ve found, add rules and modules that needlessly complicate and over-egg a clean design. Yet, looking back on my purchases and plays for the year, there must have been some moment of conversion. Why? Because I invested no small amount in extra content for games I already loved.
Petrichor, Tiny Towns, Cthulhu: Death May Die and more got enhanced and supersized. My favourite expansion by far, though, was the Shadowed Paths expansion for The Lord of The Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth.
Journeys in Middle Earth, for those who don’t know, is a co-operative dungeon crawl-style game. It uses an app to create random-generated elements to missions. I was already enamoured with the game and had played through the two campaigns that utilise components from the core box. As a result, I was super excited to experience new adventures within the world.
The expansion brings new heroes to play as – including Gandalf, much-missed in the base game. There are also new baddies: spiders from Shelob’s brood in Mirkwood, pit goblins, and the fearsome Balrog. All have gorgeous, sculpted minis. Plus, new terrain tiles bring new mechanisms and places to explore.
Like the DLC campaign taking the storytelling of the base game to a whole new level, so too Shadowed Paths takes the narrative up a notch. The story forks. This enables players to choose the order in which they encounter campaigns. Choices made in one mission impact on future quests through the corruption mechanism.
For me, Shadowed Paths is a perfect expansion. The changes it makes to the original game are interesting and organic, without shocking or overwhelming you with new stuff for new stuff’s sake. It feels like the game is finding its stride and realising its potential. I hope the continued new campaigns continue in this vein. They are creating such a fantastic and enjoyable universe within which to play.
Rob Wright – Shadows of Salvation (Shards of Infinity)
I know I may be sounding like a stuck record here, but Shards of Infinity is still one of my favourite games of all time. My Best Expansion for 2020, then, has to be Shadows of Salvation.
Usually, expansions add a new mechanism, or an extra player, or a new play mode. Shadows of Salvation adds all three. First, it introduced the new faction: Aion. This has lots of robo-dogs, and its hero, Rez, is a time-travelling Superboy type with a big red sword. Second: it introduced the ability to WARP cards (in a nutshell, fast-play any hero cards in the central row). Third, it gave you a whole new co-operative mode to play with, which is probably the biggest shift of all.
Rather than fighting against each other, you now have to play off against a ‘big bad’ and their legions of doom. This brings it closer to the Legendary format. But what this does (that Legendary doesn’t) is put it in the form of a campaign. The game comes with a storybook that contains the campaign story. Also in here are the bosses (six in total; though a campaign sees you play versus three in a ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ format).
The book also includes their setups (hit points, mastery effects, shadow champions and attacks). Every round against the boss gets played together, so the emphasis is on co-operation, here.
Defeating bosses allows you to add new cards to your starter deck, so there’s a legacy feel to it. Though the campaign is short, there’s room for replayability. Why? Because you can always choose another path and get a different set of bosses. Not only that but for your pence you get a lot of expansion!