Expeditions: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Point Salad, Area Control, Engine Building, Variable Player Powers, Worker Placement, Hand-Building
Player Age: 14+Player Count: 1 - 5 PlayersTime to Play: 60 - 90 Minutes
Game Designer: Jamey Stegmaier
Player Age: 14+
Game Designer: Jamey Stegmaier
Introduction:
Expeditions is a sequel to Stonemaier’s beloved Scythe. It uses the same universe and artist as the original Scythe but is unique in its gameplay. Expeditions is a hand-builder game with light exploration and a very unique implementation of worker placement that has workers being placed as cards are played. This is instead of a more traditional worker placement game with pre-determined or random worker locations. The game will continue until one player has boasted four times then each player will have one last turn before scoring.
Game Anatomy:
Player Parts:
Mech Mats:
The mech mat will help players keep track of their resouces, upgraded cards, finished quests, melded meteroites and any actions they have avaliable that turn. The mat also depicts the rule that each quest, upgrade or melded meteorite can only be achieved four times per game. Each mech mat also has their own unique player power. As an example, the 'Tatanka' ignores the above rule and extends the limit to five for each category rather than four. Additionally, all mech mats have an associated mech (player piece).
Starting Cards:
Each player will start the game with one character and their trusty animal companion. Each combination has different abilities but more on how these cards work later.
Glory Tokens:
Each player has four glory tokens that will determine when the game ends. The end game is triggered once a player places all four tokens. This also allows the players to determine which scoring conditions they are pursuing. There are seven glory objectives shown on the base camp board. By performing a boast ability and meeting the requirement you will be able to place one glory token. The requirements are to either; upgrade, meld or solve four times, gain 20 corruption or seven different corruptions, control eight cards in your hand or in play,or have seven workers/five map tokens.
Power and Guile Tokens:
Power and guile are resources used throughout the game mainly to vanquish corruption. A player can hold up to ten each of these resources. On the mech mat there is a track to show this.
Card Types:
There are four card types in the game (including starter cards) that each have different elements but all share two common principals. A core value at the top of the card and a special ability. The core value will either give one power or one guile when played. If you have one or two glory achieved already then some cards will give more resources shown by the two resources and condition preceding it below the core value.
The special ability can be activated when the card is played at the cost of a worker matching the colour.
Item Cards:
Item cards have two abilities when they have a worker played on them. The first ability found above the worker symbol is an immediate effect. The second ability is an ongoing benefit while the card is in play.
Using an upgrade action you can remove an item card you control from your hand/in play to place the item card under your mech mat. This blocks the immediate ability and core value but creates the ongoing ability as a permanent effect for the rest of the game. At the end of the game each player will gain the coin value (shown on the bottom right of the card) of each upgraded item as part of end game scoring.
Meteorite Cards:
Meteorites can be melded to your mech by using a meld action that tucks the card under the mech mat. Each previously melded meteorite, as well as the new one, will now have the meld action activated.
These meld effects focus on awarding the player coins for various reasons and they are a great way to gain points while playing. Meteorite cards also have a stronger version of their ability that is unlocked when you have two meteorites melded.
Quest Cards:
If the player uses a solve action they can resolve a quest they control, removing it from their hand and placing it under their mech mat. Each quest has a location that the players mech must be in and resources that need to be paid. Four solved quests is a glory condition. However, there is a greater benefit to completing quests at the end of the game. You will score a certain amount of coins for each glory achieved. Coins will be $5/$6/$8/$10 for amount of completed quests 0/1/2/3+.
Worker Meeples:
There are five unique worker types that will be used to activate the worker spot on the matching cards.
Location Tiles:
There are three location regions; south, central and north. Each location has a number identifier at the top of the card and one or two abilities that a player will choose from when using the gather action. All central and north locations have two gather actions; one that can be done at any time and the other action is either an upgrade, meld or boast that is automatically blocked by the corruption when the location is revealed. When using a gather action at a central location only one of these abilities can be chosen. At a northern location, as long as the corruption is removed, both actions can be gained with one gather action.
Corruption Tokens:
Corruption tokens are revealed when a tile is flipped face-up. It is based on the corruption level next to the second ability on the location. Corruption tiles will be revealed from the bag until the amount of corruption is equal to or more than this value.
These corruption tiles will be removed during the game by players using a vanquish ability and spending power for orange tiles and guile for blue tiles. When revealed location 20 will gain a special corruption token valued at 20. This requires the max resource able to be held for both the power and guile. Each of these corruption tokens will score the player two coins at the end of the game.
Coins:
Coins are the victory points at the end of the game. There are many ways to gain coins such as fighting corruption, card abilities, upgrading and solving, and boasting.
Basecamp Board:
The basecamp board, contains the vital information of location setup, end game scoring and glory scoring.
Map Tokens:
Each location will give the player that discovers it one map token. These will be used for various things through card abilities.
Setup:
Player Setup:
- Randomly select a mech map, gain the matching mech and snap a base to that mini of your chosen colour.
- Gain the four glory and one action cube of that colour. Place the action cube on the refresh spot.
- Place the power and guile tokens at the start of the track.
- Randomly select your character and gain their two starting cards (character and companion), as well as two player aid cards.
Shared Setup:
- Place the basecamp on the table and place each player mech next to it.
- Setup the locations randomly as shown on the base camp. All south locations are revealed face-up. Other locations are face-down.
- Place a map token on every face-down location.
- Shuffle the deck and draw five, reveal one of each if these cards into the empty spots around the locations.
- Place the coins, workers, leftover map tokens and corruption bag within reach of all players.
- The 20 value corruption token will also be within reach but set aside from the rest of the corruption.
- Randomly determine the first player.
How to Play:
On a players turn they have three actions avaliable to them; move, play, and harvest. On each turn players will cover one of these actions with their action cube and then perform the two visible actions in any order.
Move:
The player can move their mech 1-3 spaces. If they land on an un-revealed location they will stop their movement, take the map token and reveal the location. After resolving the corruption their movement will end.
Gather:
At your mech’s location you can activate the gather ability. All central locations have two options to chose from once it is no longer corrupted. Below is a quick summary of the icons you will come across with the gather action.
Play:
The player choses any unused card from their hand to play. This allows them to gain its core value on the top left. At this point they have an option to play a matching worker to gain the ability on the bottom of the card. If you have played most of your cards/workers, there is an option to skip your turn and refresh. This places all your cards and workers back into your hand. When doing this your next turn will allow you to do all three actions instead of only two. Once a player has boasted four times and placed their last glory each player will have one last turn. After that the final scoring commences and whoever has the most coins is the winner.
End Game Scoring:
End game is easy and as follow:
- 2 coins per each corruption.
- Each coin is their depicted value.
- Each completed glory will score coins based on your solved quests
coins $5/$6/$8/$10 for quests 0/1/2/3+.
- Coin value on each upgraded item.
Final Thoughts:
- Unique use of worker placement.
- Good use of an underused mechanic - hand-builder.
- Quick set-up and tear-down.
- Unique focus for the three card types.
- Game can turn lengthy when players take a long time to have their turn.
There are two things I really enjoyed about this game; the mechanics and the focus on the three card types.
The mechanics used in Expeditions include, largely, hand-building, which is a mechanism that I really don't see often enough and is used great in this game. The more you build your engine by completing quests, upgrading and melding, the more you actually remove cards from your hand. This results in you needing to build up a different set of cards often with can have a completely different focus. The other interesting part with the hand building is at the same time you are building your worker pool to get the most out of your hand. The more aligned your workers and cards are, the more fulfilling your turns will be. While talking about the worker placement, I have never seen a game use this mechanism in this way. Instead of a shared board of worker locations (random or fixed), you are instead creating the worker spot immediately after you play a card. In this way the focus is on creating the right opportunities for yourself and deciding when it is best to use a worker and when you simply want the card for the resource.
The game also focuses on three card types, each with unique mechanisms and engines. The items create better worker spots as they have two abilities but once upgraded will give end game points while their ability remains constant. The meteorites give points when melded for having a certain amount of things like workers played or certain types of cards. This while the meterorites in your hand get stronger by having more core value or gaining a stronger ability due to their being one or two meteorites melded. Lastly, a quest will amplify a better score for your glory as more are solved but they will also give you a great benefit at the time of completing. Additionally, all of these cards have their own unique abilities while in your hand and not a part of your mech. Not only do you choose which card types to add to your hand but you also choose when they leave your hand. The game may be long, especially when learning, but this will only speed up when players are concise on their turns. I really enjoy the mechanisms in this game and hope to play it many more times, gaining a better knowledge of the intricacies it offers. This is a longer game with a lot of depth, this is a game saved for those lomg game days or the days that you like to have the focus of the play time be on one game.
Click...feed the addiction:
Comments
Post a Comment