Expeditions Board Game Review

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Expeditions Board Game Review

The Cardboard-Based Characteristics

Words and stuff

Mechs, corruption and meteorites. Sound fun? Well, these are the ingredients to Stonemaier’s new board game set in Jakub Rozalski’s amazing, alternate 1920+ world. Welcome to Expeditions. Expeditions is a stand-alone sequel to 2016’s ever-popular Scythe. In Expeditions, various heroes and their animal companions are funding their own Expeditions to fight back the corruption. This corruption is spreading from mysterious fallen meteorites and hopefully, the crews will return with amazing artefacts and covered in glory. Welcome to the Rapid Reviews Expeditions Board Game Review

Expeditions is a card-driven, engine-building game where you pilot fantastical mechs, gain new tech and uncover new, possibly corrupted territories. What I enjoyed about Expeditions is how the card play exploration and its various systems all interlocked to create a tapestry of options and strategies. I also, upon initial reading loved how this game retained my two favourite things from Scythe, the achievement and action selection systems. Let’s dig in!

The Setup

Setup in Expeditions is fairly simple, yet does require a little time to do. Hand out random mech mats and character cards, which make all the players have slightly differing abilities and starting options. Then create the world map by laying out the hex tiles, this ensures a slightly different game every time, Yes, the tiles are the same but the order of them and how they are revealed will be different. Grab the handy token tray, grab the corruption sack and place them both near the board. After that, hand out the various tokens, shuffle the cards, place a few of them on the map and you are ready to explore!

One thing that is quite irregular, yet nice when you get used to it is how the cards are laid out on in your player area. Cards to the left of your mech board are called ‘your hand’ and cards on the right of your board are cards you have played, discarded or gained. When you play a card it moves from the left of your board to the right to join the ‘action line’. More on all this juicy stuff below.

The End Condition

Much like Scythe, Expedition’s endgame is triggered by a player getting to four achievements. These achievements, of which there are many, range from building cards, exploring tiles or even clearing corruption. I do adore how Expeditions, like Scythe before it, gives you a variable end-game trigger that you can tackle however you wish. You are not forced into anything, you can choose which of the achievements to go for depending on your play style and the cards you accrue. Of course, you may need to pivot at any time if something arises or an opportunity presents itself but that’s what makes these games so moreish.

Turns, Actions and Gameplay

Selecting your actions and how to play your turn in Expeditions is my favourite part by a mile. To take your turn, normally you are selecting which two actions, out of a possible three, you are going to take. However, these actions can cascade through card play, board actions, bonuses and upgrades to give you a lot more than the initial two actions you selected. It’s quite brilliant. On your mech board, you have three actions available and apart from your turn after a refresh (more on that later) you can only choose two of them. You have a cube that you cover one of the three actions with, then you take the other two uncovered actions. You also have to move the cube each time, assuring you cannot take the same two actions two turns in a row.

These actions are Move, Play and Gather. Move allows you to move your mech up to its movement limit, which is normally one to three tiles. Play allows you to play a card from your hand to your action row and use its abilities and actions. Gather allows you to take the action printed on the tile your mech currently sits, which could be anything from gaining workers, upgrading your mech or even gaining new cards. You can easily see how this plethora of options, which starts at just two actions can spread to give you a wide gamut of options on your turn. Splendid.

Card-Based Bonuses

Playing a card means taking it from your hand, or the left side of the board in this case and moving it to your action line. Every card has a resource in the top left which you instantly gain. This can be either of the two main currencies of the game, power and guile. Also, each card gives you additional resources depending on your game state, whether it’s achievements you have achieved or upgrades you have built, providing some small engine-building elements. These cards also have a space for one of the five coloured workers, which if used, can give one-off bonuses or ongoing abilities too.

So you take your turn, play some cards, get some bonuses and combo stuff together to try and squeeze every last ounce of juice out of your turn. I got so much enjoyment by planning out how to achieve what I wanted by chaining different actions, cards and bonuses together. It’s extremely rewarding and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Upgrades, Meteors and Quests

Cards in Expeditions come in three varieties, all of which can be used as above when taking the ‘Play’ action. However, each of these quests can be used secondarily according to the action you take and as long as you control the card. These actions are not taken by the players initial two selected actions but they combo off cards you play, other bonuses or board action when you take the gather action. These cards are then ‘built’ and slotted under your mech board, providing boons, abilities and bonuses in the future.

The first type and probably the most important are the quest cards, for these cards have you go to a certain map tile and hand in some resources to get a bonus. You then slide it under the top of your mech board and it counts as a complete quest. This effect is two-fold as completed quests are one of the game’s achievements, if you remember, which you need four of to trigger the end game. Also, the amount of points you get at the end for your achievements gets higher the more quests you have completed, up to three anyway. So even if you are not going for quests for the achievement, of which you need four, you should at least try to complete three quests to maximise your end-game points.

Build Cards and Build Your Engine

The next type of cards are the item cards, they can be built, as long as you control them and slid under the right side of your board. Doing this works towards the upgrade achievement but also allows you to use the ongoing abilities on your built cards, which you normally need workers to activate when playing them, for free, for the rest of the game. These can be very powerful, lead to some great combos and drive you toward a certain playstyle or tactic to maximise your turns.

Lastly, there are meteorites to meld too. When taking the meld action, you tuck the card under the bottom of your board gaining the meteorite’s bonus action. These activate every time you add a new meteorite, making the meld action more and more powerful each time you take it. If you spec your build into meteorites, it can be very, very beneficial. It also leads you towards the meteorite achievement, which always helps.

Refreshing

On your turn, if you don’t want to take a combination of the actions available you can refresh. This will return all the cards from your action row to ‘your hand’ and allow them to be played again. This reminds me heavily of Century or Concordia and I love the system, it creates tempo considerations and adds a little wrinkle to your decisions. Also, when you take this action you move your cube off the three actions you choose from on your turn. On your next turn, you can take ALL THREE, yes, all three actions. So you may sort of lose a turn to get your cards and workers back but in return, you get a super powerful turn next time.

The Dreaded Corruption

Corruption is a big component of this game. Clearing it is one of the possible achievements and with each corruption token you gain, you get extra points come game end. Corruption is revealed every time to explore a new tile, when it flips over you must place random corruption tokens on it until it exceeds the value printed on the tile. These corruption tiles can be removed using the vanquish action and you must have the amount of guile or power printed on them to remove them. These tokens also cover extra actions on the board, so when the tile is completely clear, it makes the area more beneficial when you ‘gather’ from it. By-by corruption.

The Components

As with all Stonemaier games I have played, the component quality in Expeditions is superb. Not only that but the insert, rulebook and everything contained within seems to have been designed to aid setup and maximize enjoyment. I normally replace baggies in my games with little boxes but with Stonemaier I normally don’t have to. Expeditions comes with a little removable tray that holds all the cash and resources you need. No opening bags, no putting things back in bags at the end, just slide the tray out and you are good to go and I appreciate that massively.

The card stock is also brilliant, linen-finish and they look bright and feel durable. The mechs are lovingly sculpted and all the wooden resources, workers and tokens look and feel well-made. Component-wise, I have no issues at all but then again, it’s Stonemaier and I knew this before even opening the box. They even included little risers for your mech boards to make sliding cards under them easier. It’s all so well thought out and realized.

In Conclusion

I have thoroughly enjoyed my first few plays of Expeditions. The exploration, card play and action comboing bring this game to life for me. You only pick two actions but depending on the actions you pick, where you are on the board and what cards you play, you can end up combining so many things together to create these amazing, powerful and satisfying turns.

I am also elated that the achievement system for Scythe made it here too. I adore taking different routes each game and trying different things depending on my upgrades, the map layout and various other cogs that turn this great machine. Speaking of machines, the artwork and setting are amazing too. I love this stuff, Jakub Rozalski’s work with all the art and world-building is top-notch. Every card was a joy to see and reading some of the character’s backstories was enlightening.

All in all, I think I slightly prefer Scythe but that is one of my favourite games from recent memory. If I want to play a game set in a fantastical world, with amazing interlocking mechanics then Expeditions is a brilliant choice. I can’t wait to play again, to use a different mech with differing upgrades and going for a different route to victory. Right gamers, I am off to clear some evil corruption and gain the treasures within, see you next time!

Rapid Reviews Rating

4.5 out of 5

4.5

If you would like to purchase Expeditions, you can from the Stonemair store here.