Five Tribes: The Thieves of Naqala is an expansion to the
2014 Days of Wonder hit, Five Tribes by designer Bruno Cathala. The Thieves of Naqala is designed by Cathala
and is slated to release at this year’s Gen Con. Five Tribes is an area control style game
with set collection and a heavy Mancala influence where you use your meeples to
jump ahead three spaces and then use the actions at the end. It was released in 2014 to great acclaim and
was another hit in Days of Wonder’s collection of games. This mini-expansion simply adds six new thief
cards and one new djinn card. These
thief cards add a new mechanism where one can buy them instead of a djinn card
and use them to force the other players to give up something that they control,
whether it is a tile, resource, palce, or djinn. This gives the players even more interaction
in this already heavily tactical game. I
don’t have Five Tribes yet but it is a game that is pretty high on my acquire
list and thus this is an honorable mention.
Simurgh: Call of the Dragonlord is an expansion for the
2015 NSKN Games’ release, Simurgh by designer Pierluca Zizzi. Call of the Dragonlord is designed by Zizzi
as well as NSKN Games’ regulars, Błażej Kubacki and Andrei Novak. Simurgh is a worker placement game and tile
placement game where you take control of soldiers and dragons and place them on
tiles that you’ve placed on the board in order to create the most powerful clan
of dragon riders in the land. This
expansion adds in a new worker (the Wizard) who can be added into the game as
well as some other modules including the Forgotten City board. This game has been on my radar since last
year’s Essen Spiel and I hope to add it to my collection. If I am able to get this game I’ll definitely
get the expansion in order to give even more options to what appears to be a
really fun game!
Tesla vs. Edison: Powering Up! is an expansion for the
2015 Artana release, Tesla vs. Edison: War of Currents by designer Dirk
Knemeyer. Powering Up! is also designed
by Knemeyer and was Kickstarted earlier this year and is supposed to be coming
out at Gen Con. Tesla vs. Edison: War ofCurrents is an economic, stock holding, route building game where you play
inventors during the evolution of the electricity era trying to build up their
companies and/or stocks. This expansion
adds in quite a bit to the mix from what I’ve researched. First of all it adds in a new female inventor
into the previously male’s only club. I
love Dirk’s decision to add in Madam C.J. Walker in this particular
expansion. It does my heart good to see
designers and developers add in some gender and/or race equality into their
game designs. Bravo Dirk, bravo! This expansion also adds in a cool “bot”
mechanism that allows players to add in card controlled characters so they can
play with as many characters as they want, even playing solitaire if they want! I don’t have this game, but this is one of
those expansions that makes me want to actually go out and buy it simply to
play with the expansion! This would
probably be the first I’d say is integral to me wanting to play the game.
Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot: Angry Ocean is an
expansion to 2015 Portal Games release, Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot designed
by owner/CEO Ignacy Trzewiczek. Angry
Ocean is also designed by Trzewiczek and will be released at Gen Con along with
some other Portal Games releases.
Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot is a dice rolling, pirate game that uses
the box as the “battlefield” for the dropped dice. You then use these dice as ships and battle
other ships in order to get loot and be the best buccaneer after your
adventures. This expansion is a scenario
pack that gives you two new dice with character cards. Along with the dice it gives you two new
scenarios to play. The first, “Angry
Ocean”, pits you against different obstacles like krakens, rocks, whirlpools
and shipwrecks. The second one, “Old
Dogs”, sets you up as a veteran pirate who is ready to retire. This scenario gives you an already fully
equipped ship that can’t be modified during that particular adventure. My wife and I have really enjoyed this game
and are looking forward to the new scenarios to add in more replayability!
Mysterium: Hidden Signs is an expansion to the 2015
(original, Polish edition was in 2013 by Portal Games) Libellud/Asmodee hit,
Mysterium designed by Oleksandr Nevskiy and Oleg Sidorenko. Hidden Signs is also designed by the
Nevskiy/Sidorenko pair and will debut at Gen Con. Mysterium is a co-operative deduction,
murder/mystery where one player plays as the ghost (the clue-giver) and all of
the other players are mediums (the clue-guessers) as they are trying to figure
out how, where, and who killed the ghost.
This expansion just simply adds more cards into the mix which I think is
fantastic! This game is already great as
is and I didn’t really want any more mechanisms, but the added replayability is
always welcome. This adds in more
suspects, places, and possible murder weapons to an already fairly large
selection. Along with these it adds in
more cards for the ghost to use while giving his/her vision. This is a must buy for us!
Ashes: The Duchess of Deception and Ashes: The Roaring
Rose are two new expansion decks to the 2015 Plaid Hat Games release, Ashes:
Rise of the Phoenixborn by designer Isaac Vega.
The Duchess of Deception and The Roaring Rose are both designed by
original creator, Isaac Vega and will debut at Gen Con. Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn is a
(primarily) two-player, dice rolling, battle card game where each player takes
control of a Phoenixborn and attempts to defeat the other player with a mixture
of card-play and dice rolling for mana.
Think Magic: The Gathering with a dice-as-mana mechanism and you are
getting close to what Ashes is. This
expansion adds to more “mono-decks” into the mix as Victoria Glassfire (The
Duchess of Deception) and Leo Sunshadow (The Roaring Rose). Victoria is a mono-illusion deck that focuses
on a lot of tricks while Leo is a mono-charm deck that focuses on deck
milling. We can’t wait for these
decks! This game has become one of mine
and Em’s favorite games and I love everything they’ve released for it so far! This is an insta-buy that will probably be in
a pre-order cart very soon!
And there it is! I
think this is a pretty solid list of five (plus one) expansions that are coming
out at Gen Con 2015 and are completely on my radar. Three of them, Angry Ocean, Hidden Signs, and
The Duchess of Deception/The Roaring Rose will probably be in my hands at some
point soon. The other one really depend
on how much the base game is really added to by the expansion. Stay tuned as my next post will focus on
reprints/reimplementations that are coming out at Gen Con. Thanks so much for reading and as always, if
you have any questions/comments feel free to post below. Until next time, game on!
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