Category Archives: expansions

expansions

Meet the maker!

expansions, Game day

Another Friday write off.

However thanks to Dave Saturday was saved.

We met up at the community centre to play Dune Imperium Uprising.

Yes it was a two player game. So we used the Dire Wolf app to act as the second player. It’s a quicker and easier to run version of the House Hagal deck. And also why there are no photos in this post.

Naturally we played with the optional CHOAM module. I can’t see why you wouldn’t. It adds no overhead to the game play. Just a little to the setup. Which is shuffling the contract tiles, and adding four cards to the Imperium deck.

We also carried over the house atomics token as a house rule.

Usually I like to make a note of our leaders and share them here. But I forgot to do that yesterday.

Our rival that the House Hagal deck was driving was Rabban Harkonnen. He was one of the recommended streamlined leaders. Which means in a two player game the players have less to do running the rival. Something I thought was ideal for our first play.

This was only the second time I’ve played a two player game of Dune Imperium. It’s fine with the House Hagal “third player”. But I’d much prefer real players.

Also during setup each player gets a random objective card (a new addition to the game which I’ll talk about later).

Playing Uprising had a feeling of both being familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

The flow of the game, of a turn, were the familiar bits. That hasn’t changed at all.

The game board had that dual feeling of looking familiar but not. The board spaces have had a major overhaul. Water is even harder to get. There are more spaces on the board that require two influence in a particular faction before they can be used. Plus the cost of using one or two of the spaces has gone up or been added. Naturally the benefits have been adjusted/tweaked on some, or even changed totally to support some of the additions to the game. We also have

The mentat has gone. It has been replaced by being able to recall an agent from one of your other spaces on the board.

Other board changes I like are the space for buying the swordsman (aka third agent) once a player has bought a swordsman it then becomes slightly cheaper for all the other players. I think of this as a little catch up mechanism. They also tweaked the high council space. Once you have claimed your seat at the table you can now revisit the space on subsequent turns and get a benefit instead (I forget what it is exactly). I like this as it’s turned a space that once visited is then dead on the board to one that can be useful later on.

I like the addition of the makers/worms, and the shield wall. Having a worm (in your forces) in a combat that you win gains you double benefits. I also like that the shield wall negates their use in combat until it has been destroyed.

I also felt it was harder to gain influence with the various factions because there were less cards with their icons on. Those cards were a premium and ones I tried to but to increase my chances of using those spaces.

The spies are an interesting new addition. They also seem very powerful allowing you to use a space regardless of if an opponents agent is on it. Or you can draw a card.

Although I didn’t get or complete any CHOAM contracts (Dave did) which cost me a victory point at the end for an end game scoring on an intrigue card. I did like their addition.

The objectives and completing them by matching symbols on combat cards you win gains you a victory point is a nice new source of rare victory points. Well the first time. But after that pairs of combat cards with matching symbols gain you a victory point. So combat becomes a way to gain additional victory points, and a way to deny opponents. Obviously knowing that you need to win a combat to deny an opponent that cards symbol adds new tension to combat.

Overall I loved the new bits that Uprising adds to the game.

I want to play the game a few more times before adding in the expansions or using some of the base game cards. That’s a nice thing about Uprising that the expansions can be used with it.

Sadly Dave beat me by a point in the end.

It looks like my only gaming for December was this session with Dave. A big thank you to Dave.

How I’m choosing expansions for the two lcgs in my life

Champions, expansions, LCG, Lord of the Rings, LoTR, Marvel Champions

Yesterday DHL delivered the Lord of the Rings the Card Game Revised Edition (that’s a bit of a mouthful so let’s shorten it to LoTR the card game) along with the two starter decks and scenario pack for it. Plus the final scenario pack I was missing for Marvel Champions and two more hero packs.

So how did I decide what I was going to order for LoTR the card game for my initial dive into it?

Unlike the majority of content creators that are really into these games my advice will differ. Where as they usually go with how they rate each expansion, and recommend based on that and/or difficulty. My decision process is slightly different.

Let’s face it LoTR the card game has been around for a long time now. There are a lot of expansions for it.

Luckily FFG simplified things for new players or those wanting to get into the game a couple of years back when they updated the core set with a revised edition. Plus they announced their plans going forward for the game.

A lot of the expansion packs were hard to get (mainly as they were out of print), miss one in a series for whatever reason and that buggers up that series.

So in this iteration of LoTR the card game they were going to gather the expansions that make up a series into two boxes. One with just the hero decks, and the other just the campaign cards. Players could then just buy the part they were interested in.

But even with the reprints and new way of getting them you still have to decide what to buy.

Obviously a big impact on the decisions I made were decided by budget. In an ideal world where money is no problem you’d just buy everything there is. But we don’t live in that world sadly. And last time I looked at my bank account I hadn’t had a big lottery win either.

So I was trying to maximise my bang per buck that fitted within my budget.

The first thing you have to buy obviously is the revised core set.

I went with the mini expansion The Dark of Mirkwood. Which apparently follows on from the campaign in the core set. This mini expansion is the two adventures The Oath and The Caves of Nibindûm from the deluxe box set that FFG did. This is the first time they have been available since the out of print deluxe box came out.

This seemed a natural choice to make because it did follow on from the campaign I would initially be playing in the core set.

After that my budget dictated that the saga and campaign box sets were not an option. However looking at the starter decks also available I could possibly get all four. But in reality I could only justify two. But which two? I went with theme as the decider. I like dwarves and elves. So those are the two I went with. The remaining two I can pick up in the future sometime.

And theme is something I’ll becoming back to. As that’s an important factor in deciding my purchases with LoTR the card game and also Marvel Champions.

Being a fan of the books/movies/radio play my next purchase for the game to play with Nathan (assuming he enjoys his experience of it next week when he tries it) will be the start of the sagas that cover them, The Fellowship of the Ring. But I’ll get that just before my next visit to him.

In the meantime I’m hoping I can get a regular session set up with interested friends at Fenland Gamers both for LoTR and Marvel Champions. For that I’m going to go down the campaign path starting with Angmar Awakened once we have done the core set campaign and The Dark of Mirkwood. Budget at the time will decide if I get both the campaign and hero boxes. However the priority will be the campaign first followed by the hero box when budget allows.

For me this approach ticks all the boxes. With Nathan I get to experience the source material events that we both love. Then with my friends I get to explore more of the lore and Middle Earth with the campaigns.

But that’s the crux of the decision you have to make after the core set. Do I want to follow the books or explore more of the lore/Middle Earth?

When it comes to Marvel Champions and what to purchase after you get a core set my decisions are a bit easier.

Although my initial buy in to the game was purchasing my friend Gavin’s collection. Which was the core game, two or three of the campaigns, a few heroes, and a couple of the scenario packs.

My decisions are based on theme. Who do I want to play or go up against?

So when it came to filling the gaps in the collection I’ve bought based on my personal preferences. If I’ve been a big fan of a particular hero then obviously they are top of the list. With heroes I’m not fussed about dropping to the back of the queue. Or if I know a particular hero I don’t have is a favourite of Nathan’s then they also get priority.

How many gaps I fill at a time are just like LoTR determined by budget. I think at the moment I have six heroes from the current hero waves that I don’t have. However shopping around does allow that budget go a little further.

Eventually I’ll have everything.

But I want to be able with Champions to grab one of my favourite heroes, choose a villain I like and have them go head to head against each other.

My thematic root allows me to do that. Whether it’s a good match up or not is almost secondary. Which seems at odds with the advice all the more experienced content creators who live and breathe these games go with.

It’s like when they do their videos on which FFG lcg to buy. There is only one way to choose and that’s which theme do you like the most. No point buying one of the others, even if the game may be mechanically slightly better, if you don’t like the theme.

Now all I have to do is decide how my limited budget for this area of gaming gets split between these two lcgs in future.

X-Men vs The Snap!

expansions, first look, LCG, Marvel Champions

We all know that eventually I will have all the expansions for Marvel Champions.

The plan is to pick up a couple of heroes a month and a campaign/scenario.

That plan started this month with the arrival of Nebula, Phoenix, and Wolverine, along with The Mad Titans Shadow campaign.

Obviously this is a first look/impressions of these new arrivals so they haven’t been to the table yet.

I think you should also bare in mind that I only play Marvel Champions multiplayer, and currently only use the prebuilt decks. So no solo play, and currently no deckbuilding.

It should also be noted that I don’t have everything. Hence the opening couple of sentences to this post.

Also that I’ve picked these heroes and the campaign not based on any rankings, that these are the best to get, etc. But because these are heroes that I think are cool, and enjoy in the comics. The campaign was chosen because I thought it would be cool to go toe to toe with the main villain.

That should be enough ammunition to dismiss anything I write in the rest of the post. So let’s get on with it…

Wolverine

If this Wolverine deck wasn’t an aggression deck then I think myself and others would be complaining it’s not thematic and true to the character.

Wolverine is all about dealing damage and lots of it in one go by the looks of it. But in doing so Wolverine also takes a bit of damage. Luckily he is able to heal not only in his alter ego form but also in his hero form. This is very on the nose theme wise.

Phoenix

Phoenix as it comes out of the box is a justice deck. Justice decks are usually about dealing with the villians scheme by removing the threat tokens.

I’m not sure why they took Phoenix in the justice direction. The fifteen Phoenix cards don’t scream justice, unlike the Wolverine cards that scream clobberin’ time (I know its a Thing thing!)

If I was into the deckbuilding side of the game (which I’ll get into further down the line in my journey with Marvel Champions) then I’d definitely be trying Phoenix as an aggression deck.

Nebula

Nebula like Phoenix is a justice deck.

The Nebula deck does feel more justice than the Phoenix deck.

I like the look of the technique upgrade cards, and how they boost Nebula. Very thematic. It does look like cycling through the deck and discard pile to get to and play these cards is key.

The Mad Titans Shadow

This campaign expansion pitches you against Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight (with Corvus Glaive), Thanos, Hela, and Loki.

The villain and scheme really decide which hero or type of deck you should be playing.

For instance the Ultron game I played with Diego was super tuff for us as we had no way to combat the minion spamming that happened. We needed a hero that could take out the minions. Which neither of us were playing.

I’m avoiding reading anything about the schemes so that when I play them I get the twists and turns.

But as villians selected for this expansion we have the ones you’d expect plus two you wouldn’t.

I can’t wait to see how Loki and Hela are worked into the campaign story. Obviously Thanos and his minions are telling the Infinity Gauntlet story to some degree.

We also get two new heroes to add to the roster to choose from.

Spectrum

Spectrum comes as a leadership deck. I’m not sure why looking at her fifteen cards. I don’t see anything here that supports helping other heroes in the team.

Spectrum is all about swapping between the three energy forms that boost one of the three hero stats when face up.

That alone interests me enough to try the character out, because Spectrum isn’t a hero I’d naturally choose to play.

I see Spectrum as one of those characters that could be any of the four aspects.

Adam Warlock

Adam Warlock although not a hero I’d go for when choosing a hero to play. I have to admit the fact he has all four aspects in his deck and uses this to power his ability does look like an interesting mechanic I’d like to try at least once.

So two very interesting heroes mechanics wise.

I can’t wait to play the following team-up with Nathan when I visit him next week.

Hopefully going up against Thanos will not be another Ultron experience!

Which Wingspan Expansion Should I get?

expansions, Stonemaier Games, Wingspan

With the imminent release of the third expansion Wingspan Asia for Wingspan I thought I’d give my ill informed opinion on which of the expansions to get.

Please remember I’m not a reviewer, I don’t get early access. So I’m basically saying I haven’t played Wingspan Asia yet. So my opinion on that at the moment is based on currently released information such as the rulebook.

Also please remember I do not play games solo. So I won’t be making any comment about the Automata. Besides with the app why would I play it solo with the Automata with all that setup?

I’m also not going to mention the Swift expansion as that is included in every copy of Wingspan now. It was only released as a separate expansion for those of us that had an early printing of the game.

My final disclaimer these are not in-depth looks at each expansion, they are brief summaries hopefully justifying why I selected that particular expansion for that particular thing you are looking to add to Wingspan.

I want a great engine builder…

Wingspan the million plus selling hit board game.

Ok technically not an expansion.

I really like this game. I think it’s still Jonathan’s all time favourite game (it’s not it’s in his top two!). I haven’t done my paired comparisons for a while to determine my top ten list, but I’d be surprised if this was outside my top five.

I’ve played the game with all player counts (except solo – see previous comment above about this). I’ll never ever play Wingspan at five players again. There is too much downtime, it takes forever to play. It’s just not an enjoyable experience. The sweet spot is three or four players.

I love how your actions get more powerful but you get less of them as the game progresses.

Great theme, beautiful looking game, easy to teach. Ticks all the boxes.

I just want more of the same…

You have Wingspan and just want more. The European expansion gives you just that.

It adds more birds to the game. European birds naturally, an extra card tray for storage, purple eggs, bonus cards, goal tiles, food tokens, etc.

There are a “variety of new powers, including “round end” powers, powers that increase interaction between players, birds that can cover multiple spaces to make future actions more profitable, and birds that benefit from excess cards/food.” I consider these minor changes to the game. And not nearly as big game changer as my answer to the next bit.

I want to shake things up a little…

With the introduction of the Oceania expansion the core game play hasn’t changed. But we get a new food type nectar, new player boards, new dice, plus the usual more eggs, cards, etc.

This expansion is a much bigger impact on game play, although in my opinion not a massive one, with the nectar.

It changes things up, adds new end gaming scoring opportunities, makes it “easier” to get birds out.

If you had to get only one expansion…

This was a hard one to answer, but in the end I think it has to be the Oceania expansion for the same reasons I gave above.

I only play two player…

You can play Wingspan as a two player game. And it’s perfectly fine as a two player game.

However the new Asia expansion “is a stand-alone game for 1 player or 2 players (Duet mode).” That comes with everything (“1 duet map, 6 goal tiles, 30 duet tokens”, tokens, dice, player mats, etc) for two players.

Obviously I’ve not played it two player yet. But if I only played two player, or the majority of my gaming was two player, then this is the version I’d get. In fact I will be buying this as Nathan’s Christmas present.

I want to play with more than 5 players! Why?

I think we know from previous comments in this post where I stand on playing five player Wingspan.

So imagine my horror to see “A new Flock mode is also included to expand the base game of Wingspan up to 6 or 7 players”.

To support this new mode of play the expansion includes a “1 turn-order dial, 1 round-end goal board”.

Be warned “Plan for a Flock mode game to last about 2 hours on your first try—longer if there are inexperienced players in your group.”

I obviously don’t know how long a “normal” game with experienced players takes in Flock mode, but it does “require 2 simultaneous active players to speed up gameplay…” But I’m guessing it won’t be much under two hours.

I don’t know how this plays naturally. You know I’ll try this once. I’m a sucker for punishment.

However if you want to play Wingspan at the higher player counts this is the way to go.

Or you can…

Just do as I do get them all (obviously not the Asia expansion but it will be added), shuffle all the cards together and play with everything.

Ok the draw decks are massive (especially sleeved)! So I normally select one of the card trays (until the storage box comes out the current available expansions just about fit in the trays sleeved) and that is the one we play with that game.

The big advantage is that with (currently) 356 cards the likely hood of the ravens being a problem is greatly reduced.

For a new expansion I’d get a random 180 cards and mix in the new cards so I get to play with the new cards. I’d only do this once I’ve played a new expansion a couple of times.

I suppose this everything in, including the kitchen sink approach should be given a name. Let’s call it Ultimate Wingspan. Although cluster mode might be appropriate.

Well I hope the above has helped.

Through the letter box

Cyberpunk Red, expansions, new arrivals, Rivals, Scythe, Vampire the Masquerade Rivals, vampire the masquerade: rivals

Life has changed a bit since Nan left us. I have a part time job now that sees me start work at 5am. But finishes midday (at the moment) which leaves me the rest of the day to be there for Mum. So you can imagine I’m pretty tired by the evening and usually asleep by 7pm!

This week has been particularly tiring as I worked what I dubbed the long week so that I could be around today when a second stair rail is fitted to Mums stairs to help her get up them.

So I’m pretty knackered. And it might be understandable why there has been no posts during the week.

Gaming wise obviously I’ve not played anything since last Friday. However there have been some arrivals.

Last weekend saw the arrival of the latest and second expansion, The Wolf and The Rat for Vampire the Masquerade (VtM) Rivals.

It’s arrival bought a new dilemma on how to store the game and both of its expansions. The core game box is no longer large enough to hold everything. So I started thinking about alternative storage solutions. High up on the possible solutions were the MtG storage boxes for cubes or lots of Commander decks. And that is an option I may eventually go for. However I decided to repurpose my quiver that was currently home to various rpg decks for the new home of my VtM Rivals cards.

There’s room for the third expansion (currently in production) so it’s bought me a little time before I have to get a second or alternative solution.

Naturally tokens for the game are kept separately now, and I need a folder to store the rulebooks. But that’s just how things are. Although I should look into some stickers to decorate the folder.

There was one hiccup with this preorder of the expansion. The promo Tamaska & General Flint Alt Art Cards were included. But the Victor Temple Promo card wasn’t. Apparently it hadn’t arrived in time to be sent out with the preorders. Which I’d argue that Renegade Studios knew and should have been proactive in letting customers know before shipping started. The promo will be sent out at a later date. So we will get it. But when, who knows? I’m more concerned that it will be packaged properly and not destroyed in the post. Plus this is extra expense for Renegade.

On Monday the first three organised play kits for VtM Rivals Season 1 arrived. I’ve not even opened the box for those yet. I suppose I should do just to check over the contents. Depending on how next weekends learning games go, I might be able to start to organise some events!

The start of the week saw the launch of an EU specific web store for Stonemaier Games. Which meant my Champion account was moved over to that web store, and all my orders will be through there now. And to celebrate its launch Jamey gave EU customers an extra 10% off if they used the provided promo code he emailed out.

Champion discount and a further 10% off! Ok the temptation was too great. Before I knew it the spiral bound version of the Scythe Complete Rulebook, some of the plastic token storage containers, and four of the double sided neoprene Wingspan player mats were in my shopping basket.

Why four mats and not five? I don’t intend to play Wingspan at five players ever ever again! Famous last words I know. But if I only have four player mats it’ll be hard to play at the higher count.

Yesterday also saw the arrival of another preorder. This one was for the Cyberpunk Red rpg.

Inside the package was the Cyberpunk Red Data Pack and Netrunning Deck. I’ll look at these in more depth in another post (possibly if I remember).

So that’s all the stuff that landed this week. Thanks to the randomness of the whole shipping crisis currently going on who knows when my preorders for the Arnak or Imperium expansions will appear. Potentially The One Ring second edition Kickstarter might arrive before Christmas too.

Anyway it’s a Commander session this evening that I’m very much looking forward too.

My 2020 Has Been Mainly Expansions

expansions, new arrivals

With the arrival of Twilight Imperium: Prophecy of Kings yesterday that is the last of the expansions and the focus of my purchases for 2020.

I have bought games published this year. Well one for sure. That was the new Marvel themed Love Letter.

And I have bought one or two other games such as Smash Up, the new edition of Love Letter, Dungeon Mayhem and Star Wars Outer Rim.

There have been no games released in 2020 that have grabbed me as must buys. It has been the expansions that have stolen that place.

Although there has been one recent game that has got my attention, and has been preordered. That’s Dune Imperium. It’s due out in December. I’ve seen late December. So it looks like it could be hit or miss whether it makes 2020.

But I have to admit I am happy with just the expansions for games I have. New content gives an excuse to get them back to the table (eventually).

Three of the expansions were pleasant surprises when they were announced or I found out they had come out. I wasn’t expecting expansions for TI4, Targi or Civilisation: A New Dawn. But I was going to make sure I got them. I really like those games and especially for TI4 and New Dawn must haves.

Not shown in the photo above because I have thrown the packaging away (it was very thin cardboard and not of any use) is the expansion for Civilisation: A New Dawn, Terra Incognita.

I have to admit when I talked about the expansions I was looking forward to in a post a while back now. I didn’t include the Wingspan expansion (as was pointed out to me by Jonathan in a comment on the post). I was sceptical that it would make 2020 with all that was going on. Or that is the excuse I used to justify that I had forgotten to include it.

There is one expansion I will get, but it can wait until next year. I’m not in a hurry. And that is the new expansion for 7 Wonders Duel, Agora. I need two copies of this any way. I buy myself a copy and also Nathan one. He loves the game too and has his own copy. which I also pimped out with the same promos etc.

Despite knowing I won’t be playing the games with the expansions until sometime next year (which I am very much looking forward to doing). The way the board game hobby is. If you don’t get the expansion/game when it comes out, the likely hood that it is between printings, out of print when you want to get it, is pretty high. And that route only leads to resentment and rants about paying stupid money for plastic and cardboard to a stranger on the internet.

What expansions did you buy this year? Is there a game I should have got excited about?

New Gaming Wing Additions 24Apr16

expansions, love letter, netrunner, new arrivals

First up the mid point in the Mumbad Cycle cycle arrived. Nothing in this data pack really grabbed me as “this has to go in my deck”. So for the time being this is a bought to just keep my card pool upto date. I felt dirty typing that, and even dirtier reading it back.

The first expansions for Ashes that I pre-ordered arrived. It should be hitting the stores real soon. Like the art work the packaging for these expansions is beautiful.
Because I pre-ordered it from PlaidHat themselves I got two promo Phoenixborn. I already had Dimona so not much point putting another photo of her up here. However it is worth putting up the new promo Phoenixborn Lulu Firststone. I also got extra dice that PlaidHat are now selling. And were also up for pre-order at the same time as the expansions. Which technically means I could run a mono dice Phoenixborn!
Dimona will be used most likely as a prize in any Ashes event I organise. If I'm lucky I can get one of the OP kits PlaidHat do that are currently only available to stores and organise something.

 

Can you believe that the UK Games Expo wasn't one of the promo game tiles made for Suburbia by Bezier Games when they did the Game Con Bonus Tiles promos? I know shocking!

The replacement die for Dead of Winter arrived. Which means I'm a happy bunny. But it still eats away what happened to the previous one.
Finally some new additions to the minifig collection.

This time I do really mean finally a replacement Batman Love Letter. I will manage to keep one of these one day.

So that's all the new additions to the new gaming wing being built.

Future Stuff To Look For

expansions, news

Thought I'd do a little post about a couple of things to look out for coming out in the future, instead of next week.

First up we look at a game that first came out in 2004, got a second edition in 2010, and that is…

Avalon Hill(Hasbro)/Wizards of the Coast last week announced that this fall (whose betting it turns out to be Halloween?) are releasing the very first expansion for the game, Widow's Walk.

The expansion will be adding twenty new room tiles that expand the house up onto the roof! An amazing fifty new haunts, new monsters, items and events.

I think this announcement took everyone by surprise, and also got a lot of people excited at the same time. Does this allow Betrayal to get some sort of award for longest time between game coming out and it's first expansion arriving?

The other thing to look out for happened on Kickstarter this week, unsurprisingly smashing through its funding target in less than a day, and that's Darksouls the boardgame.

A dungeon crawl based on the popular video game franchise it was a sure thing to get funded. There is a backing level aimed at your FLGS. Which is cool. However it does put people in a quandary if their FLGS is a backer. Do you support your FLGS and buy from them, or back yourself and get the game with the stretch goals (extra stuff) that don't come with the version that FLGS get? It's this decision I don't find cool.

Anyway this project isn't due to hit until at least April 2017 so a year basically if they hit their deadlines.

Anyway that's it for this post, hope you found it useful.

 

X for expand 17Apr16

expansions, new arrivals
The weeks new arrivals started off with the arrival of the two player micro experience of Eminent Domain, in the form of Eminent Domain Microcosm. To take up some of the empty space in the small box there were promos for the big brother and also Battlecruisers. It will interesting to see what Nath makes of this.
With the new edition of Viticulture some of the expansions that make up Tuscany are in it. However Tuscany will never be reprinted, so if you want to play with the extended game board this is the only way of going about it. Already this goes for more than the retail cost and is hard to get. So being able to get a copy for its rrp is good going. At the time of pre-ordering the Tuscany expansion I also pre-ordered the new Moor Visitors expansion.

All these fancy words are saying is I have two expansions for a game I don't have yet! At least it's an investment!

After seeing the Anonymous sleeves below on a TeamWorkCast video I thought I've got to have them for my Noise anarch deck. Also while shopping for them came across the card dividers. Which are going to be used to organise Marvel Legendary and all the expansions. Forty mad a small dent, but I'm going to need a lot lot more.

Also I thought it would be an idea to be able to mark which tiles had been used when playing Suburbia. Getting the official licenced 3D tokens is soooo expensive. So these are the my alternative.

After being bitterly disappointed and rage posting on the Kickstarter page because the publisher of Kodama wanted those outside the US to pay postage on replacements, and an email exchange with the publisher, I now have the replacement card for the miss cut card that was in my deluxe Kickstarter copy I got last week.

So I'm a happy bunny…

Expanding the collection Weekending 2Apr16

elder sign, expansions, marvel legendary, new arrivals

I don't know why it took me so long to get this expansion in for Legendary. Especially considering it has Captain Britain in it. My main problem now is storage, and I want to sleeve the cards. There must be over two thousand cards to sleeve now, yep that's a lot. I'd love to use the official sleeves with the cool Legendary logo on them. But that would cost an arm and a leg, and probably a major organ. The official sleeves are so expensive in the UK. So clear penny sleeves are my preferred option, I just need to find the ones that are correct size and fit snugly. The other problem is the official card dividers. I've run out and they are not that easy to get in the UK. That seems a common problem, and theme with the industry.

Now I'm just waiting for the Captain America 75th Anniversary expansion to come out. Can you guess what that is all about? Then finally and I'm not holding my breathe for these, despite Upper Deck saying they will release them, the 3D Legendary cards that came out as promos in the 3D card packs (sold in the US) last year. I so want Howard the Duck, but not enough to pay eBay scalper prices.
The new expansion for Elder Sign Omens of Ice arrived. Its origins seemed a little unusual to me, where the app version of the game is influencing the original physical game. I'm not sure I've seen this before. This expansion is based/inspired by an expansion in the app. Plus the Atlanteans expansion for Imperial Settlers arrived. This adds a new fifth race to the game, plus more cards for the existing races.
It's funny really with a mini expansion, plus this one, there are more deck building options in this game than there is squad building in Arena of the Planeswalkers, where that is a main focus of the game!
I also received the final delayed (was originally targeted for Christmas) expansions for the Thunderbirds boardgame that came as part of my Kickstarter pledge.
In the box was a nice card holder, the three expansions (no expansion boxes), plus the role playing game! Yep there is a set of light rules and cards for setting up a scenario that uses the game board and pieces. Which I think is cool, and offers more game play.
So having just got the following awesome playmat for Star Realms, my very good friend and the Scottish version of me as he is known as, Duncan stumbled upon the fact that Gameslore now have in two Star Realms playmats plus two Epic playmats. Mental note must get the Epic ones for Nath.
The Colony Wars expansion/stand alone game for Star Realms also arrived. Every card is sleeved and shuffled in to make one MASSIVE deck to play with. This gives me enough starting cards to have four people play at once without proxying cards now.
 

I can't see how much more Star Realms can be expanded, and once the year ones promos come out (sooner than later I hope) surely that must be it for Star Realms. Which would explain why they announced Hero Realms the fantasy themed version of Star Realms. On a side note it's basically what Cool Mini Or Not did with Zombicide, couldn't take the modern theme any further after the third season, so reboot with a different theme. Oh which was fantasy also!!!