Saturday afternoon I got some gaming in with Charlene and her daughter Annabelle.

We started off with playing Expeditions with the newly released expansion Gears of Corruption.

Neither Charlene or Annabelle had played before.

We used the new leaders from the expansion. I was going to use one of the new mechs, which was a choice Charlene also made. Annabelle went with a mech she thought looked cool. Which is as good a way as any when you have never played before.

Below are our choices.

• Freya/Mole – me
• Zehra/Scarecrow – Charlene
• Bjorn/Lumberjack – Annabelle

Without using the corrupted mech rules there is nothing else within the expansion that can’t be used with new players.

The expansion comes with two new mechs, four new leaders and their companions, pieces for a sixth player, seven mech cards (used to help select mechs, starting resources, and reminder of mech ability), cards for corrupt mech mode, automa cards, replacement tile and card, seven hero worker meeples, new map tokens, and a handful of new cards.

I liked the new hero worker. It does get round an issue some players had for the start of the game. Having a worker that acts as a wild does take the pressure off getting a specific worker early on to be able to trigger a cards ability.

In fact the new hero worker probably makes the game for a new player a better experience.

I also liked the new map tokens. They are larger and have an icon on one side. This icon is a bonus you get when you explore a tile with a map token on. But be warned if you go to collect the bonus and there are none available then you don’t get that bonus.

The two new mechs really push the use of map tokens. Which in turn encourages you explore tiles to collect them.

In this game I didn’t take a single refresh action. Whilst naturally Charlene did a few.

Although I dashed the hopes of Annabelle and Charlene by grabbing the 20 corruption token. Annabelle was particularly thrown by it as she was working towards it and using her mech ability to make it cheaper.

Two more turns was all I needed to place my last glory token but alas Charlene triggered the end of the game. Getting revenge for the 20 corruption token.

Charlene easily won this game.

Our second game was a learning game of Pioneer Rails.

This was a read the rules as we learned to play the game. None of us had played it before.

The rules as you read them make the game seem more complicated than it is. But in reality it’s a light ish flip and write.

I like the poker element and as a three player game having the dealer take the card only they could use. You could really screw up another players poker hand this way, turning a potential four of a kind or straight into a lower scoring hand.

I wasn’t wow’d by the game. But it was fun.

We finished off with a game of Marvel: Remix.

I’ve explained why I bought this game previously. It’s quick it’s fun and a great game to finish an evening or afternoon of gaming off with.

A great afternoon of gaming. A big thanks to Charlene and Annabelle for joining me.