Woot! Gen Con 2018
is literally a couple of days away and I’m getting very excited to see what is
in store this year! This will be my
second year at the Con and I’m just as excited to see the spectacle that is one
of the largest boardgame conventions in the world. This year I’ll only be doing two posts for
Gen Con anticipations as I’ve been fairly busy this month and also because
there aren’t a top of anticipated games for me.
This year’s list isn’t quite as impressive as last year’s but I’m still
pumped to just hop on the floor and see all the things to see! I may end up doing a post-Gen Con post but
we’ll see what comes of that. Check out
the list of games over on BoardGameGeek’s website (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geekpreview/7/gen-con-2018-preview)
if you’re curious to see what is releasing at the convention. This post will take a look at the five
boardgame expansions that I’m most interested in picking up or trying out
during the convention. I think that’s
enough housekeeping, let’s move on to meat of the post.
Honorable Mention – Paper Tales: Beyond the Gates (Stronghold Games/Catch Up Games)
Beyond the Gates is a new expansion for the 2017 Catch Up
Games/Stronghold Games card game, Paper Tales by designer Masato Uesugi. Beyond the Gates is also designed by Uesugi
and will see its release at Gen Con 2018.
Paper Tales is a card-drafting and hand-management game where you are
creating a kingdom to fight against your rivals and shape the realm to your
liking. It uses some of my favorite
mechanisms in hand-management and card-drafting and uses some beautiful and
interesting art to get its theme across.
This expansion adds in some more cards to the base game, adds in more
players and also adds in a solo mode just for kicks! I haven’t actually played the base game yet
but it is on my list to possibly buy this year and I’m really looking forward
to trying it out and it I like it adding in this expansion!
Rocky Mountains is a new
expansions for the 2017 Bézier Games hit, Whistle Stop by designer Scott Caputo. Rocky Mountains is also designed by Caputo
and will see its release at this year’s Gen Con. Whistle Stop is a tile-laying, set-collection
and pick-up-and-deliver where you are building up an area in order to bring
your trains from coast-to-coast and drop off resources for points. It is a game that we own and have had a ton
of fun in the plays that we’ve gotten out of it so far. This expansion adds in a new almost 3D
element where there will be more tiles on the board to create the Rocky
Mountains as a barrier in between your railroad companies and the west
coast. While they will create a barrier,
the Rocky Mountains will also give the players more ways to score points by
going through the passes and over the range.
There are new tiles, upgrades and shares in added to the game and I’m
really looking forward to what they add.
Executives is the first large expansion to the 2016
Formal Ferret Games hit, The Networks by designer Gil Hova. Executives is also designed by Hova and will
see its release at Gen Con 2018. The
Networks is a card-drafting and set-collection game where the players take on
the role of a network television company who are trying to create the best
station after starting with terrible cable-access programming. The card-drafting and set-collection in this
game is absolutely awesome and I love every play that we get in. This expansion adds some things that I think
will not just make this a good game, but a great one! This expansion adds in executives which will
give each player a different (assymetrical) start to each game. These executives will give specific powers and
weaknesses in the start of the game. It
also adds in some new show cards and a beginning draft to make the start of the
game even more interest than the original.
I have this game on pre-order and will be picking it up at the
convention and I can’t wait!
Amazons is another large
faction expansion to the 2014 Portal Games hit, Imperial Settlers by designer
Ignacy Trzewiczek. Amazons is also
designed by Trzewiczek and will see its initial release at Gen Con this
year. Imperial Settlers is a hand
management, card-drafting and civilization building game where the players take
on the role of a faction attempting to make expand their boundaries and build
their empire into the greatest around.
This is one of my favorite games so anything added to it is something
that I am automatically interested in.
This expansion will add in a brand new faction, the Amazons. This one will add in a deck-building idea
where the faction will be able to discard some reconstructed faction cards from
their deck and modify it during the play.
They also benefit from building cheap faction cards. I’m very excited to try this faction out and
see how much they differ from the previous six.
The Spirits of Memoria and The
Demons of Darmas are two new expansion decks to the 2015 Plaid Hat Games hit,
Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn by designer Isaac Vega. The Spirits of Memoria and The Demons of
Darmas are also designed by Vega and will see their primary release at Gen Con
2018. Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn is
a hand-management and dice-rolling battle card game where the players will
build a deck (or use pre-constructed player decks) focused around of the
powerful Phoenixborn who are in the game.
This game uses some great card mechanisms and dice-rolling as mana to
create one of my favorite games of all times!
These expansions will add in two new Phoenixborn to the already large
roster and they will in turn bring in their own different key-words and game
mechanisms. I love how different each
character is from the next and can’t wait to get my hands on these decks to
really sink my teeth into them!
The Rise of Fenris is a new
large expansion to the 2016 Stonemaier Games hit, Scythe by designer Jamey Stegmaier. The Rise of Fenris is also
designed by Stegmaier with help from Ryan Lopez DeVinaspre and will see its
release at this year’s Gen Con. Scythe
is an economic, area-control and simultaneous action selection game where the
players will each take the role of one of the factions of the game who are
trying to make it to The Factory first in order to gain an upper hand and take
control of the area from the others.
This is a really good game which was already highly improved by some of
the expansions. This expansion has been
a bit of a secret but we know that it will add in a campaign to the game that
is 8 specific games long. It will also
add in a bunch of modules which will really add to the replayability of this
already great game. I am really looking
forward to this expansion and can’t wait to see how good it really is.
There you have it folks, my
top 5 (plus 1 honorable mention!) expansion anticipations coming out at this
year’s Gen Con. I will definitely pick
some of these up and hope to have the played shortly after the convention as
they all seem to add flavor and replayability to their respective base games
but don’t seem to add that much in the way of new rules. Let me know what expansions I may have
missed! My next post will take a look at
my top 5 anticipated releases from the convention (that aren’t expansions…mostly)
and I’m looking forward to writing it up.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read and I hope you enjoyed. Until next time, game on!
