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Further Expeditions
Scythe still remains one of the most popular games in modern tabletop gaming (if Board Game Geek is anything to go by) so a sequel set in Jacob Rozalski’s 1920+ universe was perhaps inevitable. Expeditions is a game of exploration which sees players flip tiles as they move their mech around a large corrupted landscape performing quests and battling corruption as they go. Expeditions is a very different game to Scythe but the immersive world is still so vivid and the pleasure of exploring and discovering denizens of the land is what keeps me going back again and again. However, despite the original game gaining great reviews, there were a few small things that had irked players and Expeditions: Gears of Corruption is an expansion that seems to be created to address those issues whilst also adding more of the good stuff.
Gears of War
The first thing to be addressed in this new box of delights is complaints of first player advantage. For those who have played the game, the southern area is the only place where you can gain any of the four base workers and in a four player game (sometimes with three) it is impossible for everyone to get a worker in that first move which can delay triggering card powers. I have to say I never bumped up against this issue and have myself won multiple times without gaining a worker on the first turn. But with new players, watching someone else take what can be a powerful action on their first turn when they cannot, can start the game with a slight bad taste in the mouth. So there are a few new things to address this. First is a drafting mechanism which allows players to choose their mechs and characters in reverse turn order. This also adds in a slight asymmetric element where each mech starts with a number of resources. It also adds a hero worker for each player. These hero workers are essentially wild, and can be used in place of any colour whilst also counting towards your seven worker achievement goal. These all feel like simple additions but really help kick start the game and allow all players to hit the ground running. The final complaint was lack of dual layered boards, which sounds like a petty niggle but with such important resource tracks it became so frustrating moving them back after every little accidental nudge. Well worry no more as this new box provides dual layered boards for all base game mechs plus two shiny new mechs.
Power Corrupts
This expansion is not simply a box of fixes but also a load of new stuff to plug into the base game. First is two new mechs. The Scarecrow and the Mole. Both of these utilise the map tokens. The Scarecrow can spend a token to take a basic action on a refresh round. This feels fairly low powered compared to the others as most players are trying their best to not take a refresh action often. The Mole, however, feels very powerful! When on a space with corruption, you can spend a map token to take the action buried below the corruption tiles giving you access to meld, upgrade and boast very early on. The map tokens also come with an upgrade. Now when you get a token for exploring you get a surprise bonus. I love this addition. Apart from one of the goals, map tokens never felt worth getting but now there is a push to explore quickly creating a race-like effect to get up to the north. There are also more cards and four more characters/companions to choose from. The most interesting new character is Baaliahon with their companion Zephon who lean more into the weird, cultist nature of the game. They allow you to gain free corruption tokens and then spend them to complete quests. I really liked all of these new options. They all offer a slightly different way to come at the game and challenge regular players to try different techniques. But there is one new mechanism that really shakes things up.
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
The Corrupted Mech adds a new adversary that enters play when a player boasts for the first time. This mech will move around the board giving out penalties when it crosses a player and offers vanquish-able cards that act like standard corruption tiles. It’s amazing the difference this mechanism adds. Suddenly a lower player count game can feel quite busy and aggressive and at higher player count games can lock up the board quite tightly. I certainly wouldn’t play with the Corrupted Mech every game but every now and again it’s great to spice things up and throw in some extra carnage.
There are also pieces for a fifth player so for those inclined there is an option for a busier game. Overall, this small box feels like it adds quite a lot for its fairly low price. Aside from all of the experiential upgrades which all feel fantastic, the new stuff really adds more replayability to what is already a very replayable game. If you are already a lover of Expeditions then this is a no brainer but even if you are new to the game I would argue that the upgraded items are worth it from the off.
