Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Essential Expansions

Transcript

Essential Expansions · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:00
  Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as I step
• 0:08
  off the train and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.
• 0:11
  I'm Brendan Riley.
• 0:12
  [Music]
• 0:13
  Well, good afternoon listeners.
• 0:22
  It's a cloudy but pleasant day here in suburban Chicago.
• 0:26
  The temperature is in the low 60s.
• 0:28
  So it's very comfortable for walking home.
• 0:31
  It's a little warm for late April, but I'll take it.
• 0:34
  We've got a nice weekend with my mother visiting.
• 0:38
  Played a number of different games, including a couple games that I played expansions on.
• 0:45
  I finally got around to trying to get all three expansion boxes for Sagrada into the core
• 0:50
  box.
• 0:51
  And I figured out with a little bit of work, you can get the entire base game of Sagrada
• 0:56
  plus all four expansions into the game.
• 1:01
  I also have the three Great Facades expansions each in their own box inside the big box
• 1:08
  because you generally aren't going to want to play with more than one
• 1:11
  at a time, it would get too much.
• 1:13
  But it's nice to have all of them available because then you can mix and match as desired.
• 1:18
  So I finally got rid of the plastic insert and was able to fit everything inside the box
• 1:22
  with a little bit of careful planning.
• 1:24
  So that was fun.
• 1:25
  But I got me thinking about expansions.
• 1:27
  I did go and look at my list of expansions that I have to articulate how I'm doing because
• 1:33
  you know when I play a new expansion then I want to mark off.
• 1:36
  Yes, I played that.
• 1:37
  We also played the game Wild Serengeti, which I'll talk about later, but it came with
• 1:42
  a mini expansion, the specialists, which we did not play with because it was a new game.
• 1:47
  And, you know, there's enough going on.
• 1:49
  We didn't want to make it too complicated, but so I went and added that to my expansions
• 1:54
  list.
• 1:55
  It got me thinking about expansions when I play with them when I don't.
• 1:59
  And I was really thinking about which expansions would I consider essential?
• 2:05
  So I do have a fair amount of them.
• 2:08
  Some of them I play with sometimes or often or all the time, but it did get me thinking
• 2:12
  about when do I consider expansion essential.
• 2:16
  And I will say in my prep for this episode, I did not look at anything.
• 2:20
  I did not look through my boardgamegeek account.
• 2:23
  I did not look through my BG stats, so I may have completely forgotten some expansion that
• 2:29
  I consider essential, but such is the way of it.
• 2:32
  So I came up with five expansions that I would consider essential and I put them in order.
• 2:36
  So I'm going to do a countdown from five to one.
• 2:40
  And at number after number four, I will do a honorable mention of one more I thought of
• 2:45
  that I think is really good, but did not take my top five.
• 2:48
  And it's possible I'll remember more as we're talking that I want to add in to that
• 2:53
  mix.
• 2:54
  So let's jump right into it.
• 2:56
  Number five expansion that I really like.
• 2:59
  It's the least essential of the five, but still really good.
• 3:03
  This is Altiplano: The Traveler.
• 3:05
  And I like Altiplano a lot.
• 3:07
  It's a really interesting game.
• 3:08
  I've talked about it a number of times.
• 3:10
  I've waved back and forth on whether I like it better than Orléans or not.
• 3:14
  I like the theme better than Orléans, but I think maybe Orléans is slightly better playing
• 3:19
  in the base version.
• 3:20
  But if you mix in The Traveler, well, things get all interesting.
• 3:24
  So The Traveler is a modular expansion that you can add in to Altiplano that adds a person
• 3:29
  who's sort of conducting trading and introduces a new resource into the game.
• 3:35
  With both of these things in there, it ameliorates some the pain of not drawing the chips you
• 3:41
  like that you want.
• 3:43
  And it adds one more thing that you can do.
• 3:46
  And Altiplano, once you've got it down how it works, it gets a little bit rote.
• 3:50
  Perhaps.
• 3:51
  And the trader or The Traveler gives you that one extra little soupçon of pleasure that
• 3:58
  I think works really well.
• 4:00
  It also comes with these cool little pink gems that I like a lot.
• 4:05
  From that perspective, I would say Altiplano: The Traveler gets to the top of my list of,
• 4:11
  or the bottom of my list, makes the top five of expansions I think you should play with.
• 4:17
  And then I'll go with the expansions.
• 4:21
  Number four.
• 4:23
  Now this one is number four down on the list because I think it's a little bit better expansion
• 4:27
  than The Traveler.
• 4:29
  But I also don't think it's essential.
• 4:30
  In fact, I rarely play with it because it is so complex, but also because it's not available
• 4:35
  on board game arena.
• 4:36
  And I tend to play this game on board game arena more.
• 4:39
  This is The Bad News Bears expansion for Bärenpark.
• 4:43
  The Bärenpark is maybe my favorite tile-laying game, definitely in the top five, if I were
• 4:48
  making that list right now.
• 4:49
  It'd be competing for number one.
• 4:50
  I'm not sure off the top of my head what would be it.
• 4:54
  But as a base game, it gets a little samey.
• 4:57
  The base game you are competing for the three goals.
• 5:00
  You're competing for most points.
• 5:02
  And once everybody's played a couple times, you get to a point where you're kind of all
• 5:06
  operating at peak capacity.
• 5:08
  And then it's just sort of a matter of who found the right set of combinations to finish.
• 5:14
  I've played a number of different games at Bärenpark where everybody either finishes
• 5:20
  their board all in the same turn or is one turn away from finishing the board.
• 5:26
  So there's a tightness to it that makes it really poetic, really elegant is the word I was
• 5:32
  looking for, not poetic.
• 5:34
  But also makes it a little bit rote.
• 5:37
  It goes completely out the window when you mix in The Bad News Bears expansion.
• 5:41
  So Bad News Bears expansion is a terrible name, but it comes with two modules, either
• 5:46
  one of which makes the game quite a bit more delightful.
• 5:50
  The first module is the Grizzly Bears.
• 5:52
  Basically what that is is there are extra large tiles that you can get.
• 5:57
  And when you're using the Grizzly Bears expansion, you add in a fifth board.
• 6:00
  So the game gets 20% longer, I guess.
• 6:02
  You get to take a fifth board.
• 6:04
  And then the Grizzlies, the way that works is if you want to take a Grizzly, when you get
• 6:10
  I don't remember which thing it is, I think is when you get a orange, when you get the orange
• 6:16
  special thing, you can trade in one of your unplaced cement mixer tiles for a Grizzly Bear
• 6:24
  instead.
• 6:25
  And like I said, the Grizzly Bear tokens are, they have, they're worth more points and they're
• 6:28
  bigger and they're really cool.
• 6:31
  So one thing is just the extra board gives you a little bit more room to breathe and a little
• 6:36
  more time to play, but also the Grizzly Bear tiles are extra big and pretty neat that way.
• 6:42
  So those are fun, but the brain melting part are the monorails.
• 6:47
  So one of the things you can add, the other thing you can add is monorails.
• 6:53
  And the way those work, you have these tiny little cardboard towers and on your turn you
• 6:58
  can add the monorail tower in as one of the things you might add.
• 7:04
  I don't remember exactly, it's been a couple of while since I played it.
• 7:07
  I don't remember exactly what you do to add it in, but when you add it in, you then have
• 7:11
  a tower that the monorail is going to attach to.
• 7:15
  And then you're going to connect that monorail to other monorail towers and they have, they're
• 7:22
  always connected at a 90 degree angle.
• 7:25
  And so the monorail towers have to be placed to specific distance apart and then you add
• 7:34
  the tracks as you're going along.
• 7:37
  The tracks of course are worth extra points, but you also have to think about the path the
• 7:42
  monorail is going to take because you can't go in a circle, you can't connect the track
• 7:46
  back to the path you had been taking.
• 7:49
  It's a whole thing.
• 7:51
  So sort of layer all that together and you have this really convoluted, not convoluted
• 7:58
  is the right word, you have this really thinky extra layer that gets put on top.
• 8:04
  And if you ever are playing with somebody who's played Bärenpark a few times and I'm like,
• 8:08
  it's a little simplistic.
• 8:09
  You add in The Bad News Bears, particularly the monorails and it takes you to a whole
• 8:13
  another level.
• 8:14
  It's so crunchy.
• 8:15
  I love it.
• 8:16
  So that's my number four essential expansion.
• 8:19
  Bärenpark: The Bad News Bears.
• 8:20
  I guess why it's number four and not higher.
• 8:22
  I do play the game without it and I enjoy the game quite a bit without it.
• 8:25
  Makes the term "essential" a little confusing but whatever.
• 8:28
  All right, the next three expansions are ones that I generally don't like to play without.
• 8:32
  I will pretty much leave them in all the time.
• 8:34
  So here we go.
• 8:35
  Number three expansion, Ark Nova: Marine Worlds.
• 8:38
  Now this is pretty new.
• 8:40
  It's maybe pretty snooty to say that a game that made it in the top ten on boardgamegeek
• 8:44
  in its base form requires the expansion.
• 8:47
  But I will say the best critique of Ark Nova and the one that hits the most true with me
• 8:53
  is the fact that when you play Ark Nova you often have times where you're looking for a
• 8:58
  card and you might go a long time without seeing that kind of card and that can be really
• 9:03
  frustrating if you're trying to get a specific combo to go off.
• 9:07
  Now the argument is of course if you let yourself be beholden to that, well that was poor
• 9:11
  play.
• 9:12
  But sometimes you just, you get all the cards you need to set up a combo and then you
• 9:15
  don't get the last piece of it.
• 9:17
  And that can really stink.
• 9:18
  Now the Marine Worlds does not solve that problem per se but it goes a long way towards
• 9:23
  solving it by having these wave cards and what the wave cards are is you're mixing in
• 9:28
  a bunch of cards in the deck and they have the waves on them.
• 9:31
  There you go.
• 9:32
  But when they come out then you reset the card display.
• 9:36
  And the nice thing about that is that you just get more motion on the card display and
• 9:41
  that solves most of the problems with Ark Nova.
• 9:43
  I also like the Marine creatures and the additional habitats that are available from them and I
• 9:49
  like the player pieces that you get better.
• 9:52
  There's a little more thematic.
• 9:53
  So all around the Marine Worlds expansion is one I would consider essential and when
• 9:59
  I play Ark Nova on the table I always want to use it.
• 10:02
  And I don't think it adds much overhead in terms of players thinking about the game.
• 10:07
  So that's Ark Nova: Marine Worlds expansion.
• 10:10
  All right the number two expansion that I think is essential is Star Wars: Rebellion
• 10:17
  Rise of the Empire.
• 10:18
  Now once again I love Star Wars: Rebellion as it is.
• 10:21
  But Rise of the Empire adds some additional dice, additional type of troop, some additional
• 10:26
  cards, additional characters and it just makes the whole game function just a little bit
• 10:31
  more smoothly.
• 10:33
  The original version has a few clunky areas.
• 10:35
  The combat isn't quite as smooth as it could be.
• 10:38
  And frankly it's not as cinematic.
• 10:40
  Once you add in the Rise of the Empire expansion everything smooths out just a little bit and
• 10:45
  that little bit is what pushes the game into greatness.
• 10:48
  I have the Rise of the Empire expansion shuffled in.
• 10:50
  I wouldn't play without it.
• 10:52
  I love that very much and it's part of what keeps Star Wars: Rebellion very high on my game
• 10:57
  list even though I haven't played it in a long time.
• 11:00
  So that's to me hey neighbor I should call it my neighbor who I like to play
• 11:03
  Star Wars: Rebellion with and see if we can play.
• 11:06
  So if you get an opportunity to play Star Wars: Rebellion ask if the person who has it has
• 11:11
  the Rise of the Empire expansion. You won't regret it.
• 11:14
  Alright I wanted to mention two honorable mentions.
• 11:17
  These are expansions that I think are really good, important perhaps, strong contenders for
• 11:24
  things that you might want to play but they aren't essential for me.
• 11:27
  First of all these is Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport.
• 11:30
  This adds a bit of additional thinking to the game in a game that otherwise can get kind
• 11:36
  of straightforward.
• 11:37
  I also like the gambling of how much corruption are you going to take are you going to let
• 11:41
  that overwhelm you.
• 11:44
  I really like that but I do think it is an extra load on a game that we often use to teach
• 11:49
  new people and frankly I often don't have it myself and I often don't play with it.
• 11:55
  So I can't really argue that it is essential when I don't make much effort to use it.
• 12:00
  So that is Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport.
• 12:03
  And then the other one is the Wingspan: Oceania expansion.
• 12:07
  So the Oceania expansion of course has a whole bunch of cool birds.
• 12:10
  The more I am going to introduce is new player boards and a new mechanism, the Nectar.
• 12:15
  So the Nectar and the different player boards adds a really important consideration for
• 12:20
  higher level Wingspan players because it kneecaps the taking eggs strategy which can make
• 12:27
  regular Wingspan kind of boring.
• 12:29
  Players who are really good will often in the fourth round just take eggs the whole time
• 12:33
  because there is not a move that they can make that is more efficient point wise than
• 12:36
  just taking eggs especially if they have built a good egg generation engine.
• 12:40
  That said, I almost never play that way, I don't like it, it is not fun.
• 12:44
  I would rather get a lower score and have fun.
• 12:46
  But Oceania balances that out, it gives us another place to score using the Oceania or using
• 12:52
  the Nectar tiles and I think it just makes the game better.
• 12:55
  So that is Wingspan: Oceania.
• 12:59
  Alright, my number one expansion, the one I really think is essential, I think you should
• 13:03
  play with all the time if you have the opportunity.
• 13:05
  That is Upstairs, Downstairs expansion for Obsession.
• 13:10
  Obsession is one of my favorite games, it is a really good game about running a house in Victorian
• 13:18
  times or Edwardian times even, it feels like you are in a Jane Austen novel.
• 13:23
  I like Obsession a lot, there is lots of really interesting stuff happening in the game and
• 13:29
  the different servants that you can get and player pieces that you can get work really
• 13:34
  well to provide a variety of different things you can do.
• 13:38
  But said, there are limitations and sometimes there is stuff that you would like to be able
• 13:42
  to do but you just can't because the game isn't flexible enough.
• 13:46
  If you have the Upstairs, Downstairs expansion you get this whole other raft of employees
• 13:50
  that you can get who give you just that extra angle that you can use to try to tweak the
• 13:56
  best experience and I love the wide variety of things you can do when you are making those
• 14:02
  choices.
• 14:03
  Upstairs, Downstairs gives you an essential mix of things that you can add to your otherwise
• 14:09
  already amazing game to make it fantastic.
• 14:12
  Already fantastic game to make it amazing, I am not sure which of those different ideas
• 14:17
  is better but whatever one is better that is the one that uses Upstairs, Downstairs.
• 14:22
  So if you get a chance to play Obsession go ahead and take the extra plunge, get
• 14:26
  Upstairs, Downstairs in there as well, you won't regret it.
• 14:29
  So that brings me to the end of my discussion of expansions and essential expansions which
• 14:34
  ones that I leave out which ones would you put in this list if you are making it.
• 14:38
  Head over to boardgamegeek guild 3269 and share your thoughts there.
• 14:41
  I'd love to hear them.
• 14:43
  In the meantime you can send me a message on boardgamegeek at Wombat929 or by email Brendan@Rattleboxgames.com.
• 14:50
  Thanks for joining me on my walk today, I hope that your next walk is as pleasant
• 14:53
  as mine was.
• 14:54
  Bye bye.
• 14:55
  (upbeat music)
• 14:57
  (upbeat music)
• 15:25
  - Brought to you by Rattlebox Games.
• 15:28
  (upbeat music)
• 15:31
  [BLANK_AUDIO]