Expansions: Best and Worst

I don't get expansions until I've played out the base game, which rarely happens. I might make an exception for Liebfraumilch und Knackwurst.

The CCG mention got me thinking about CCG expansions/blocks. The only CCG I was into enough to get a feel for each expansion was Star Wars CCG, so here I go:

Best expansion? Special Edition, IMO. It was full of cool stuff from all three movies, and this expansion really changed the feel of the game by adding objective cards and a slew of other stuff to help you get your deck to do what you want it to.

Another favorite? Reflections. This wasn't so much a new expansion as it was a mix of all the old expansions. If you were out of the game for a little while and then came back, this was perfect for you. It had 18(!) cards per pack, way more than other sets' boosters for the same price.

Another good expansion? Hoth. It added another planet (the game only had Tatooine and the Death Star before that), along with cool combat vehicles (AT-ATs, AT-STs, and snowspeeders) for both sides. Some of the new unique characters were quite good in any setting (not just on Hoth).

Another good one? Third Anthology. Not really an expansion, I guess, but it was a box of various boosters and starters, with an up to date rulebook and glossary for the game (which included errata for cards that had been slightly changed). It also had some great promo cards, including R2 in Red 5 and some objectives that actually made the epic events in A New Hope usable.

OK expansions?
A New Hope: the first expansion. Added more cards to the mix, including the Death Star and Ghhhk/Houjix (a great interrupt), but I feel like it favored the LS over the DS with all the new Rebel pilots and matching ships. Maybe this was a good thing, as I feel that the LS was a bit weaker than the DS in Premeire if neither player had the main characters. The epic events were cool in theory, but impossible to use (each one needed a combo of around 10 cards to pull off).

Jabba's Palace: This expansion introduced starting interrupts and a bunch of other "tutors" to the game. With Jabba, the audiance chamber, and all the aliens that have special abilities there, this expansion favored the DS. In fact, if you see a DS deck without an objective, I'd be surprised if it wasn't based around Jabba's Palace.

Endor/DSII: I didn't buy much of these expansions, and this is about where I stopped buying cards, but both of them were released close to each other and were well balanced between the LS and DS, I thought. There was some obvious power creep here, though; a lot of the weapons were just straight-up better than earlier ones (probably because most weapons sucked in earlier blocks). One of the best things to come out here was the preconstructed decks, each one comming with some great cards (like good versions of Han, Chewie, and Ackbar in the LS one, and an AT-AT, some AT-STs, and some decent ships and pilots in the DS one).

Crappy expansions?
Degobah. The worst. After Hoth, I was like, "What the heck is this?" It didn't seem to have any good cards that weren't really rare. It introduced new lame ways to drain your opponent's force without interacting with him in any way (in the form of cards like Asteroid Sanctuary and the Jedi Tests). The DS got the Executor and a bunch of bounty hunters (but no Fett), which was cool, but everything else about this expansion sucked. It was so bad that a lot of people quit the game at about the time this expansion came out.

Cloud City. Nothing special. All sorts of lame rules on capturing people. Cloud sectors. Wonky Sabbac rules that served no real purpose in the game. *yawn*

I'll just throw Tatooine and Couruscant down here. I have some cards from both, though I've never actually played with them. The defensive shields seem like a good idea, but podracing as an effective way to retrieve/drain force, plus all the other episode I stuff, really changes the game. There was some major power creep going on here, too. Maybe I just don't like the idea of episode I cards mingling with the original trilogy cards, but I don't like it. The new "maintenance" cards (e.g. Han, Chewie, and the Falcon) seem way overpowered, too.

I like Cities & Knights, but I think I prefer just basic Catan. I also haven't played the Mare Nostrum expansion yet although I do own it. The Galaxy Trucker expansion is the only thing that's kept that game from the sell pile thus far. I'm also a fan of the Sands Of Al-Kalim expansion for Runebound. The only other Runebound expansions I have are a few of the card ones to add to the market and encounter decks. For Arkham I have everything released thus far.

If we're getting into CCG's then the one I played enough to have a feel for each expansion was Babylon 5. The average game takes 2 hours and I've played over a 1000 times. Definitely my favorite space empires game ever. The first couple expansions were good and the rest got progressively worse each release. The best expansion was Great War because it added the most new worthwhile stuff to the game, including allowing up to 9 players.

Galaxy Trucker The Big Expansion really adds a ton of re-playability to the core game.

Cutthroat Caverns: Relics and Ruins is an awesome expansion and adds some very cool new mechanisms.

Tide of Iron: The Designer Series Book because I'm biased, it's a cool idea, it helped me make better scenarios and there is a very interesting collection of Designers in there with some pretty cool takes on what TOI could or should do.

Twilight Imperium Shattered Empire, because every human should pick that one, it's essential.

Worst?? I'm not sure on that one, the Zombies!!! expansion and the Puerto Rico one suck, maybe... I don't have many that I don't like but the Pitch Car stunt race looks irritating too. Although I still want it.

Favourite this week:-
Race for the Galaxy: Rebel vs Imperium
Michael'll be pleased to see that RftG now has cubes.
N.B. The Rebel colour is not PINK, it is officially called PALE RED.

Least favourite:-
Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm
'cos it's £1 a card! (I dislike Goals and Solitaire.)

Notahandle wrote:

Favourite this week:-
Race for the Galaxy: Rebel vs Imperium
Michael'll be pleased to see that RftG now has cubes.
N.B. The Rebel colour is not PINK, it is officially called PALE RED.

Least favourite:-
Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm
'cos it's £1 a card! (I dislike Goals and Solitaire.)

Oh man, spill the beans on Rebel vs. Imperium!
My bro and I have been playing RFTG quite a bit on that Web site some dude set up.

I hear that Rebel vs Imperium will have you able to attack each others planets. Yay for interactive

metalface13 wrote:
" Oh man, spill the beans on Rebel vs. Imperium!"
Start worlds:-
Imperium Warlord has See 1 extra card for Explore, +1 Military, +2 Rebel Military.
Rebel Cantina has Place Military world as Non-Military at full cost (not Alien), during Production draw 1 card per Rebel world in tableau.
A two player variation has you starting with those two and the usual draw 6 discard 2. But you also get their respective 6-cost Developments in hand: Imperium Seat and Rebel Alliance. Almost certainly the version I'll be playing first!

Black Barney wrote:
" I hear that Rebel vs Imperium will have you able to attack each others planets. Yay for interactive"
Don't get too excited, it's only four cards! So out of the total of approximately 180 cards, that's less than 2% of the deck. Interaction, but not as we know it, Jim. Two of them are the 6-cost Developments:-
Imperium Seat has +1 Rebel Military, plus the ability to takeover a Rebel Military world.
Rebel Alliance can Place a Rebel Military world as Non-Military at -2 cost, plus the ability to takeover an Imperium Military world and adding to your normal Military total +2 per Rebel world in your tableau.
The other two cards are both:-
Imperium Cloaking Technology, a 1-cost Development which is a one-off as you have to discard it from your tableau. You have a choice between two abilities, the first allows you to place a Non-Military world as Military at -2 cost, and the second allows you to takeover a Military world from a tableau that has at least +1 Military. So, four takeover cards, two of which might be better used with the Place at -2 power...
Also, for a takeover to succeed, you need to equal or better the Military total of your victim.

There are two Rebel Pact cards, a 1-cost Developments that gives you -2 cost when using a Place Military as Non-Military power (i.e. useless on it's own) plus a defence against takeover: +2 for each Rebel Military world and +1 for each other Military world in your tableau. Looks like the intended playing style is for the Imperium to hit hard and early, and for the Rebel to grow strong by the end.

The memorable other goodies are: half a dozen cards with a mix and match Explore power (add to your hand and then discard), Hidden Fortress (5-cost Military neutral world) which gives you +1 Military per Military world in your tableau and allows you to go up to 14 worlds, and Pan-Galactic Research (6-cost Development) which gives See +2/Keep +1 for Explore plus -1 Development cost plus get 2 cards for Production plus your hand size can go to 12, and seems a great all-rounder.
Also a 1-cost -1 Non-Military/+1 Military for Novelty Good worlds, a 3-cost -1/+1 for Rare Elements, two -2/+2 for Genes (one a 5-cost Alien Military and the other a 1-cost neutral). Oh, and there's four other 6-cost Developments, Rare Elements and Genes get a 6-cost Non-Military planet, Alien gets a 7-cost Non-Military and 8-cost Military, Rebel goes to 9-cost

I'm looking forward to several two player games tomorrow.

Yeah, it doesn't sound like there will be a ton of planet hijacking unless you play the two-player Imperium/Rebel start ups, but it's a welcome addition nonetheless.

Is it just me or does it seem like there's not many Imperial cards to begin with?

Rebel has 7 in RftG + 2 in GS + 7 in RvsI = 16
Imperium has 2 in RftG + 1 in GS + 7 in RvsI = 10

Notahandle wrote:

Rebel has 7 in RftG + 2 in GS + 7 in RvsI = 16
Imperium has 2 in RftG + 1 in GS + 7 in RvsI = 10

F:AT is dead!

Fuck RftG. Go play Roma instead. You'll be happier. Seriously.

Best expansions:

Advanced Civiliation - Opened up some new "tech trees", and IMO made an already great game better.

Code of Bushido - Added the Japanese to the ASL system in a way that didn't create huge rules overhead, but yet preserved they very unique way the IJA fought in WW2.

Descent: Road to Legend - Completely remade Descent into an awesome campaign game.


Worst Expansions:

El Grande expansion - Took one of the few cool things about the game and removed it. (ie, bidding for action cards) Now everyone can enjoy a more fair and boring game experience.

Anything for Supremacy - Nothing they did could help that steaming turd-pile of a game. All the expansions did was tease you into thinking, "Hey maybe *this* one will make the game not suck!" All they ended up doing was making a crappy game, longer, more complicated, and me poorer. Yay...


-Will

yeah, AMEN to that. the El Grande expansions KILL the fun of that game. They live in the bottom of the box in shame now.

I like expansions that introduce new elements rahter than "fix" broken ones. I find it hard to pony up for an expansion who's herald is "it fixes everything" rather than "all this cool new stuff". If an expansion is released merely to "fix" broken elements with a few new reduindant features thrown in it had better be cheap.

I think the video game model in this respect has been followed closely by some of the newer board game expansions. I personally favor the TOI expansion type that expands on an already well known area and adds more to the game rather than a jumble of fixes as with the Doom expansion. I just can't bring myself to buy this sort of thing for that type of price. If a fix is needed make a small box with rules changes, some new cards and maybeone or two new figs just to feel like the box has weight.

That being said i wish FFG would do something more with the armor rules because presently they have introduced new models of tanks with the exact same stats as ones that already existed in the game - when there is clearly room to broaden the scope. I don't see how a STUG and a Panzer IV should have the same stats when they are completely different vehicles, other than just adding a new model.

They missed an opportunity to intoduce armor facing and turetless aspects but otherwise the expansions released to date have been quite good and add more than fix.

Best Expansion (Historic Category):

Cosmic Encounter Expansion #9.

Long, long before these interwebs were around, and long before FAQs became common, CE was spiraling completely out of control. While not perfect, #9 was at least a solid attempt to get things corralled and under control, and provided a written document that could be referenced by anyone.