It's politics, intrigue, and conquest in The Expanse: Doors and Corners, the first expansion to the game based on the popular Syfy series. There's a total of five new modules you can use as part of th
It's politics, intrigue, and conquest in The Expanse: Doors and Corners, the first expansion to the game based on the popular Syfy series. There's a total of five new modules you can use as part of the game, greatly expanding your options. Use one, two, or all five, each one changing the game in distinct ways. It's really like getting five expansions in one.
From the release:
Based on the acclaimed and visionary television series from Syfy and Alcon Television Group, The Expanse Board Game is a game of politics, conquest, and intrigue for two to four players. Players spread their influence through the solar system onto important Bases using characters and events in the Expanse Universe. The Expanse: Doors and Corners adds new 5 modules to add an engaging new element to the strategy and gameplay as players compete for dominance in the Expanse Universe.
The Expanse: Doors and Corners Expansion contains five (5) new modules that add an engaging element to the strategy and game play as players compete for dominance in the world of The Expanse. On top of that, you can use any number of modules in any combination in conjunction with the base game*! Want to only user the Leaders module? Awesome! Want to combine the New Tech, Resource Tokens, and Protomolecule modules? Even better!
The five modules included in this expansion are: Leaders, New Tech, Resource Tokens, Protomolecule, and Variable Setup. Leaders go with fleets and can add influence when they move with a fleet. New Tech allows variety and surprise in what powers are available. When a tech is earned you have three random choices for that tech. Resource Tokens can be spent in several ways including helping to pay CP costs, adding AP to a card (max 4), moving up the initiative track, and earning bonus points for having the most at final scoring. Protomolecule adds a new scoring opportunity. Variable Setup allows fleets and influence to be placed anywhere at the start of the game.
I know. I know. The title makes it sound like this should be part of the Terrain Corner. But really, Doors and Corners, a new expansion coming for The Expanse from WizKids gives players a whole host o
I know. I know. The title makes it sound like this should be part of the Terrain Corner. But really, Doors and Corners, a new expansion coming for The Expanse from WizKids gives players a whole host of new options for their games. There's Leaders, Resource Tokens, New Tech, and more.
From the announcement:
WizKids is pleased to announce that The Expanse: Doors and Corners, the first expansion for The Expanse, its game of politics, conquest, and intrigue, based on the acclaimed television series, is coming soon to North American Game Stores!
In The Expanse, players use characters and events in the Expanse universe in order to spread their influence and compete for dominance. The game’s accessible, card-driven system allows players to utilize action points in order to move or place fleets and influence, and use their faction’s unique abilities to gain control over the solar system.
The Expanse: Doors and Corners expansion adds five new modules to the game—Leaders, who can go with fleets and can add influence when they do so, New Tech, which gives player three random choices whenever a tech is earned, Resource Tokens, which can be spent in a variety of ways to add AP, help pay CP, move the initiative track, or earn bonus points, Protomolecule, which adds a new scoring opportunity, and Variable Setup, which allows for fleets and influence to be placed anywhere at the start of the game. These modules can be used in any combination in conjunction with the base game, adding new and engaging elements to the strategy and gameplay.
The Expanse: Doors and Corners is a fantastic addition to this exciting game, allowing you to spread influence throughout the Expanse universe in a whole new way! This expansion is coming soon, so be sure to preorder it at your Friendly Local Game Store or online today!
It's Saturday. Usually, that would mean gaming. But Friday meant gaming for me, as a friend came over after work and we played some Guild Ball, Bunny Kingdom, and Apotheca. Great way to spend a Friday
It's Saturday. Usually, that would mean gaming. But Friday meant gaming for me, as a friend came over after work and we played some Guild Ball, Bunny Kingdom, and Apotheca. Great way to spend a Friday. So, what am I up to Saturday? Well, I'm in the CMON Offices, helping pack orders for the holiday sale. Yeah, seems people loved those deep cuts. And since I feel partially responsible (as the one they tasked with actually changing the prices on all those things), I felt it only right to help pack everything up. But while I get orders together, I know you're here for a heaping helping of reviews. Heaping helping because we didn't have a Roundup last week, due to the holiday.
So, this week we've got: Near and Far, Queendomino, The Oregon Trail: Hunt for Food, Dog Might Games Traveler Dice Tower, Campy Creatures, Camel Up, A Game of Thrones Card Game, Colt Express, Truth Bombs, Ex Libris, Star Trek: 5-Year Mission, Slide Blast, Happy Salmon, DownForce, Smash Up iOS, Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time, Ink Monsters, The Quest for El Dorado, Reef Route, Crabs, Werewords, Fog of Love, Museum Heist, Crosstalk, Potato Pirates, Tulip bubble, The Chameleon, Ulm, Asset Drop Subscription Box, Tortuga 1667, Dwar7s Fall, The Expanse, Tokyo Highway, and Ulock!
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at The Oregon Trail Hunt for Food the card game. This is an expansion based off The Oregon Trail card game released last year and overly popular Target store purchase. Both of these are exclusive to Target and I do recommend picking them up (if you can find them). Each game has a different feel and that is what I like best about this expansion. It offers another type of experience that can be enjoyed as a stand alone or add-in to the original.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at the new DOG MIGHT Traveler Dice Tower. This thing is pretty cool and hold up to 20 dice while allowing for 7 dive to be rolled all at once. It offers a back carving in the wood and a lazer engraved image in the front. You can choose from up to 20 different different woods/finishes and its on kickstarter doing very well right now! It has super small form factor for a dice tower and is a great add on to the Component Collector if you already have that.
In this video I will teach you how to play including: Setup, the different phases of the game and how they work, player turns, and final scoring. I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours.
Campy Creatures is a love letter to the 1950’s monster movies played out as a deduction card game. You’ll be playing as a mad scientist on his devilish mission to collect mere mortals for your zany experiments. Of course, you’re not going to put yourself in danger, so you'll instead send one of nine different monsters to capture innocent engineers, teenagers and archaeologists.
Camel Up is a fun, fast paced racing game for the whole family. It has won numerous awards since it’s release in 2014; blending simple to understand gameplay with the perfect mix of strategy and luck, all rolled into the unique theme of camel racing.
Players control a set of camels racing around a track in the desert with coloured dice, betting on the camels as they go. Each camel has its own dice of the same colour that controls how many spaces forward it moves each time it is rolled. There are rewards for predicting the winner of each leg and the overall winner and loser of the entire race, with the person who has collected the most prize money at the end of the race becoming the winner.
A Game of Thrones is an advanced strategy game for 3-6 players designed by Christian T Peterson, the creator of the legendary Twilight Imperium and founder of Fantasy Flight Games.
The game is set on the island of Westeros, where each player takes on the role of one of the six Great Houses who inhabit the island at the start of the story. Over the course of ten game rounds, each player will attempt to gain control of the most castles and strongholds to cement their claim as holder of The Iron Throne, and subsequently ruler of Westeros.
Hold on to yer’ hats and climb aboard the Colt Express for a rootin’ tootin’ robbery ride and the chance to bag some serious loot. Colt Express is a turn-based family board game that puts you in the shoes of a Wild West Bandit looking to rob a train. Using cards from your hand, you take it in turns perform actions that will help you pilfer the most loot before your rival bandits get there first.
The game is designed for 2-6 players and features not only one of the best “boards” I have played on but also some of the most genuinely fun moments in my board-gaming career. The game table is comprised of a locomotive at the front of the train and then train carriages equal to the number of the players in the game, plus one.
A great party game for me involves learning some embarrassing truths about my friends and being able to taunt them for it, in a friendly well-meaning way of course. I got my hands on Big Potato games’ new party game ‘Truth Bombs’ and assembled the Playopolis team for a few games this week.
Ex Libris is a game about being a librarian, which at first may seem a bit monotonous, but given your library is set in a fictional town, where gnomes, goblins and mummies reside it is anything but dull. Add in one of the most anal library inspectors you will ever meet and hundreds of different books, and you have something a bit special.
As a self-confessed bookaholic I was excited to get my hands on a copy of Ex Libris to play and review. Published by Renegade Game Studios and designed by Adam P. McIver, Ex Libris was first debuted at the 2017 GenCon and generated a great deal of hype.
Games that are attached to a well know Intellectual Properties can be a bit hit and miss. What you tend to find is that many of these games rely heavily on the IP to drive sales (I’m looking at you, every TV/film version of monopoly) because the core gameplay isn’t all that great or different. Occasionally though, a games mechanics and its theme go together like bread and butter, with each element complimenting the other and providing a greater experience for players as a result. Is Star Trek: 5-Year Mission a shameless money grab or can it boldly go where no man has gone before?
After a little bit of time off, we are back with another edition of Parental Guidance. If you haven’t read any of our past articles, the goal of this series is to help you find games to play with your family and friends outside of the usual gateway games (which you are already probably sick of). Once again we are going to take a look at three board games I chose to play with my parents during our latest gaming session. For these reviews, I’ll provide a quick summary of the game, followed by why I thought it would be a good choice for my non-gamer parents. My mother will then comment on what she thought of the game.
On one side of the coin, Near and Far is a game about equipping an adventuring party by visiting various buildings in town. On the other side, players make choices about which locations outside of town to visit and, possibly, have adventures requiring heroic choices. The results of these and the placement of camps deliver journey points, the victory currency of the game.
The gameplay contained in Smash Up relies on a multitude of half-decks of cards, each with a theme (pirates, aliens, zombies, wizards, etc…).Each player makes a deck of cards from two different themes. The goal is for a player to take control of bases, which are worth a varying number of points, and the player with the most strength at the base when the threshold is reached, wins it. On a turn, a player can play 1 minion card to a base and 1 action card. Usually, players are trying to play cards with abilities to give them higher strength, play more minions, or disrupt other players. Once a player manages to get 15 points from winning bases, the game is over and highest points wins.
The goal in Professor Evil is to rescue 4 treasures before the Professor can lock enough away. Each player will get to control a unique character, each of which specializes in a specific area of the game (movement, locks, etc…). Once the board is seeded with switches and treasures, you are ready to begin.
Ink Monsters is played over a series of rounds. Each round, a 12-card circular layout of monster cards is placed on the table with the pen card above one of the monsters. Every player also has a hand of 3 action cards.
Every turn, players may play an action card to manipulate the movement of the pen card and draw a replacement. Then, they MUST take the card located under the pen. Once they do this, the pen moves to the next monster.
One of the most common ways people sum up a game (and indeed the same way Board Game Quest does it) is to mention the primary mechanisms in a game. For example, a press-your-luck, dice rolling game might immediately conjure visions of Yahtzee and other derivative games. Unfortunately, this can also have the effect of turning noses in the air when a particular mechanism is mentioned.
This deserves mentioning because the game reviewed here has two of the mechanisms some gamers love to hate. The Quest for El Dorado is a deck building race game set in the wilds of a South American jungle. Two to four players will be acquiring cards representing useful resources or personalities and use them to navigate the various terrain types.
There are some games that kids somehow become familiar with by the time they are about three years old. Tag, and all of its varieties, is one of those. At my son’s preschool they play a somewhat modified game of tag called Sharks & Minnows, which is basically tag where you try to be the last minnow standing.
Reef Route might as well be Sharks & Minnows: The Board Game. It plays 2-4 players, aged 5 and up, in about 15 minutes.
Crabs is a hand management card game for three to five players. Players are catching, raising, and binding crabs to fulfill contracts and get valuable crabs. The player with the most points after the points threshold is met wins.
Werewords is a social deduction guessing game for four to ten players. Players are members of a village on either the villager team or the werewolf team, trying to either guess the magic word or prevent it from being guessed, respectively. The team that reaches their goal without being discovered by the other team is the winner.
To begin, mix together the mayor card, a werewolf card, and the seer card, plus villager cards to equal the number of players +1, then deal one card to each player, placing one card face-down in the center of the table. The player who receives the mayor card receives the Yes/No, Maybe, So Close, and Correct tokens, takes the face-down role from the center of the table, and starts the app.
Fog of Love is a card-based “storytelling” game that attempts to replicate the experience of falling in (and sometimes out of) love with a partner. There are the usual butterflies of excitement at first, followed by the drama later. (Dealing with the in-laws, anyone?) I’m not going to try to explain every rule and phase of the game. It’s best understood as more of a story. The mechanics support the story, but it’s easier to wrap your head around it if you see what the game is trying to achieve.
Your goal is to satisfy your character’s destiny. You begin the game with the same number and type of destinies in hand as your partner. During the game you will gradually secretly discard destinies until you have only one left. This will be the one you must achieve at the finale in order to win. (More on that in a minute.)
The goal of Museum Heist is to claim 3 artifacts. Each round, a group of 7 thieves pursues 1 piece of artwork, but only one player will be able to claim it.
At the start of a round, each player secretly chooses one of the 7 thieves, placing a corresponding card facedown in front of them. No one knows who you chose, and you don’t know who others chose, and it’s entirely possible two or more players chose the same thief.
CrossTalk is the party game of subtle conversation in which two teams race to guess secret keywords. Each round, teams select a clue-giver, and those clue-givers are given knowledge of the same secret keyword. The goal of the clue-givers is to help their teammates guess this keyword before the other team.
Roast, mash, or fry your opponents and send them down to Davy Jones’ locker — but before you can reign terror on the high seas, you have to first master the art of potato war. Use programming concepts such as functions, loops, and conditionals to fortify your attacks. If that’s not enough, you could just loot and hijack your way to victory by saving Potato King from the deadlock of doom.
When in need, summon the Kraken to your aid and deny everything…
In 1637, the tulip craze fuelled one of the first speculative investment bubbles. Coveted tulip varieties led to skyrocketing prices with tulip bulbs costing more than houses in Amsterdam. Then just as suddenly as it started, the bubble burst when investors could no longer afford even the cheapest bulbs, leaving economic turmoil.
In Tulip Bubble, players buy and sell on a fluctuating market, trying to earn the most guilders. The game flow includes a preparation phase, buying phase, and selling phase, with these phases recurring until the bubble collapses or someone manages to outwit the markets by purchasing a black tulip for 120 guilders before that collapse occurs.
Ulm is at its heyday. The construction of the Ulm cathedral has not yet been completed, but the city is already wealthy and prestigious. In Ulm, players try to expand their spheres of influence and to make optimal use of the hustle and bustle on the marketplace around the cathedral.
I recently ran a news item about a brand new subscription box service – Asset Drop. Andy from Asset Drop very kindly offered me the November box to review – here are my thoughts…
I must admit, I did rather enjoy The Curse of the Black Pearl – Captain Jack running around the Caribbean drunk and sunburned was an entertaining film that refreshed the way we looked at pirates. Even if it was responsible for a million poor attempts at dreadlocks from Hallowe’en partygoers from then on.
I say refreshed – we’ve always loved pirates and it seems that Façade Games agrees as their most recent game, Tortuga 1667, is centred around the loveable, survy-ridden rogues as they plunder a galleon for more booty than a Beyonce music video.
The initial reaction to Tortuga 1667 is that it is gorgeous. Even down to the fake book that it’s stored in and the roll out map you play on. It’s such a lovely looking game that you can’t help but like it right from the off.
I think I must secretly be a Dwarf. At 175 cm tall, it’s hard to justify that statement, but I have a beard, I don’t mind being underground, I like large stone structures, I enjoy drinking ale and I listen to loud music. So, I’m going with it. This kinship I’ve just made up is going to be used to thinly explain why I find Dwarfs’ Fall from Vesuvius Media so appealing, at least the idea of it anyway.
Actually, there’s a few reasons why I backed Dwarfs’ Fall on Kickstarter and it wasn’t entirely based on my affinity for rock. The artwork is very whimsical and I love its cartoon style. It’s cute and serious at the same time. There is the other hefty reason that it is in fact a worker placement, so of course I gave it a looksee being the Euro-lover here are Collider Towers.
It's the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Man... my grocery list was 2x as long as usual. I got 2 turkeys, some sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, dressing, carrots, and ingredients to ma
It's the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Man... my grocery list was 2x as long as usual. I got 2 turkeys, some sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, dressing, carrots, and ingredients to make 2 pumpkin pies. ... I, uh... kinda take Thanksgiving seriously. My fridge is rather full. But before we get there, we've gotta get you those reviews I know you so desperately desire.
This week we have: Hotshots, Alien Artifacts, America, Noxford, Twilight Imperium, Rhein: River Trade, Queendomino, Exit the Game Wave 2, Folklore: The Affliction, and The Expanse.
The game board is made up of 18 randomly placed tiles, each of which has a specific scorch limit that players must be aware of. To combat the fires, each player will control a firefighter with a special ability.
Alien Artifacts is card driven 4x game (eXplore, eXploit, eXpand and eXterminate). Players manage their hand of resource cards to build a vast fleet of ships, develop fantastic new technologies, and discover far away worlds (well, they are on the table in front of you, so they aren’t THAT far away, but I am trying to stick to the space theme).
After plopping all the components out of the box and laying out the board, setup is pretty much complete. Players will take turns guessing answers to the current topic shown on a variety of subject cards which sit in a box hiding the answers at the bottom of the cards. Guessing tokens record the players answers.
If players guess the exact right answer out of State, Year, and Number types of answers, they earn 7 points. Any answers adjacent to the correct answer get 3 points. Players can also gain points from guessing that no player has a correct answer. Turn order rotates so everyone will have a chance to guess early.
So there are no thematic stakes at play in Noxford. Rather, in this simple design you head a seedy crime syndicate looking to muscle in on turf throughout the ever evolving city of Noxford. And muscle others out. All with steampunk card art. If you can outmaneuver your opposing bosses by deploying henchmen around key districts, the town will soon be eating from your hand!
Twilight Imperium is an epic 4x strategy game (well, technically 3x but let’s not quibble over details) wherein players compete to expand their galactic empire, conquer planets, exert their influence, and ultimately prove the worth of their people to rule the galaxy from the throne on Mecatol Rex.
Players take on the role of the head of a freight company that moves goods to cities along the Rhine. You’ll take orders that designate which city to deliver the containers and how long you have to do it. You, along with the other players, will charter planes, trains and ships along with your own personal fleet of trucks to deliver these goods and collect money on the contracts. Whoever can earn the most capital by the game’s end is the winner.
To begin each round, players take turns selecting an order card from the market row. Each card is a contract that dictates where you promise to deliver goods and how long you have to do so. When taking a card, you’ll put a number of time markers on it as indicated by the card you choose.
In this video you can find out my spoiler free thoughts on Exit the game Wave 2 by Kosmos. (Wave 2 is The Forbidden Castle, The Forgotten Island and the Polar Station)
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Folklore the Affliction a newish game from Greenbrier Games and its on its second printing in kickstarter right now! so check out the link below to get in on that. Man, I go on for a while on this one - over an hour actually! this really is a great game and a fantastic implementation of your classic RPG but in a board game style and approach. It has a ton of content and expansions already available. Please look into this one and consider your options as I am not sure we will see this one in retail and you may only be able to get it through kickstarter and Con's. Excellent game!
For those who don’t know, the story of The Expanse is set in our solar system some two hundred years in the future. Four political entities struggle for control, and comprise the playable factions:
the United Nations of Earth, the technologically advanced Martian Congressional Republic, the oppressed asteroid belt miners of the Outer Planets Alliance, and the mysterious ProtoGen Corporation.
It’s an interplanetary cold war that threatens to become hot at any moment, which is why it’s not surprising that the game is very much reminiscent of GMT’s classic Twilight Struggle (a fantastic game about U.S.-Soviet conflict from 1945-1989). Just like that game, the emphasis in The Expanse is on subterfuge and intrigue rather than open conflict, and high player bluff skills are definitely rewarded.
Saturday night's alright for gaming.Saturday afternoon's alright for gaming.Saturday morning's alright for gaming.Pretty much all of Saturday (Saturday, Saturday) is good for gaming. I'm... not curren
Saturday night's alright for gaming. Saturday afternoon's alright for gaming. Saturday morning's alright for gaming. Pretty much all of Saturday (Saturday, Saturday) is good for gaming. I'm... not currently gaming. I'm baking (yes, again), getting ready for an early Halloween party later. So, while swapping out pans of cookies in the oven, I'm also getting you these reviews. Let's hope nothing burns.
Today we have: Unfair, Sagrada, Forager, Seikatsu, Scythe: The Wind Gambit, The Expanse, Outpost: Siberia, Burgle Bros. iOS, Lisboa, and Loot.
Sagrada is a dice drafting game in which players are attempting to create a beautiful stained glass window for the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia. Over ten rounds, players will place dice into their windows and try to gain the most points by completing their window and accomplishing public and private objectives.
At the beginning of a round, a number (determined by the number of players) of dice are drawn from the bag, rolled, and placed into a draft pool. Beginning with the start player, play moves clockwise around the table. On their turn, a player may take both actions described below in any order. They may also opt to take only one action, or none and pass their turn.
Forager is designed and written by Adrian McWalter and Quinton Dalton. Those names maybe familiar, as they previously designed the Napoleonic rules Over the Hills, and Adrian has also written the Albion Triumphant and A Clash of Eagles expansions for Black Powder from Warlord Games.
Seikatsu is a devilishly simple game. For a 2-3 player game, each player sits facing one of the colored sections of the board and draws two tiles from the bag. On a players turn, they must place one tile anywhere on the board. They will then score a point for that tile, plus any matching birds on tiles adjacent to the one they placed. They finish their turn by drawing a new tile. Then the next player takes their turn.
The expansion contains two separate modules that can be added either individually or together, depending on what changes you want to make to the game. These two modules are:
Airships – Seven airships are included in the expansion (one for each of the five factions in the base game as well as for the two factions from the expansion) – these vehicles add options for transporting workers/resources as well as impacting other aspects of the game, from encounters to combat. Resolution Tiles – Eight resolution tiles are included with the expansion – these tiles alter how the game ends, allowing players to adjust how their game ends beyond the “first to six stars” from the base game.
In The Expanse, you take on the role of one of the factions vying for influence and control of the solar system. Each faction has their own unique powers that give them an advantage in some aspect of gameplay and scoring. Each faction starts with fleets deployed and a small amount of influence in the solar system areas. The player last in the initiative track takes control of the Rocinante, giving them an extra fleet and some special powers (discussed later.)
The gameplay in Outpost: Siberia has had some minor updates since its debut at Gen Con 2017, so we’ll start with the basics and then tell you the changes.
Each player in Outpost: Siberia gets a unique character to control and 12 events (some good, some bad) are shuffled into the Expedition deck (with the monsters). The rest of the cards form the player deck.
While the Burgle Bros interface may lake the polish we’ve been spoiled with lately, the game still plays smoothly. Some early bugs have been ironed out with a series of timely patches. It’s always a good sign to see developers regularly supporting their releases.
If you’ve never played Burgle Bros before, the game does include a guided tutorial that walks you through both the interface and how to play the game. For veteran Burgle Bros players, you can probably skip this and go right into the game play, as the interface isn’t that hard to figure out.
Lisboa is an incredibly deep game. There are a lot of mechanisms at work and, as such, readers who need the most specific explanation of rules would behoove themselves to download a PDF of the rules. Here’s the gameplay in brief for the crowd short on time.
Each turn, players will be playing a single card from a hand of five. These come from stacks of four card types. Three card types represent Nobles who will help the players complete tasks rebuilding the city and the economy. The other card type represents special municipal events that will aid players.
The rules for Loot are easy, but the choice presented each turn makes for the engagement. On a turn, each player will either play a card or draw a card.
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