Best Board Game Expansions Coming to Retail in April, 2026

0:07 Hey, I'm Grant with Grant's Game Rex. This is my monthly video on the best expansions for board games coming to retail, coming to friendly local game stores or online marketplaces, publishers websites, things like that. Um, before I jump into the games, uh, I want to let you know that I'm doing a tour for my board game comedy hour show. I've I've told you about it in past videos, but I have a lot of the dates up on my website now for the West Coast tour for the in June I will be going up California, Oregon, and Washington. So, if you are in any of those states or you know board gamers in those three states, please check out my website cuz there's a lot of, uh, dates and shows that are up there now. So, this is the first leg of my board game comedy tour and I'm really excited to bring that to, uh, board gamers everywhere. Uh, this is a big month for expansions. We have more expansions than normal here in the month of April. I'm actually going to jump into 16 expansions coming to retail this month. So, yeah, big it's a big month in the world of more. Thanks so much for being here.

1:19 Ares Games is releasing Altaic Seafarers expansion. Uh, this plays two to four players in about 45 minutes and it is a medium weight game. Altaic Dawn of Civilization is a game that came out a couple of years ago, 2024, and it is a deck-building area control game. You will be, you know, engaging in deck-building, buying new cards, making your deck of cards stronger, but then fighting for control of space on the board and there is some combat in the game and you want to control different sort of locations on the board. Well, this expansion adds three major additions to the base game. Uh, first there's a brand new game board, The Forgotten Sea. Uh, it allows players to establish harbors and expand their civilizations through maritime routes.

2:17 Uh, so that's a big deal, you know, the the the base game is just sort of terrestrial routes and now we have a maritime route. Uh, second, there are new rules for ship-building, sailing, and naval combat supported by fresh action cards and technologies. So, a way to, you know, build your deck so that you can do some of this, uh, maritime stuff more effectively. And then, uh, finally, the last thing that this expansion adds is a completely new playable faction, the water folk. So, I didn't mention that before, but each player, uh, starts with a somewhat asymmetric deck of cards. You play as a faction and different factions are going to be better at doing specific things.

3:04 And this one adds another faction you can play as the water folk. Um, and they can travel the seas without without ships and with their cards they offer an entirely new different play style combining flexibility, resource control, and manipulation of discarded actions. So, yeah, a lot of different, uh, variability to the game Altaic Dawn of Civilization. If you like civilization type of building games, you like area control, you like deck-building, all those are reason to check out the game. Asmodee, in association with Libellud, is releasing Mysterium: Secrets and Lies Refresh expansion. So, this is both an expansion and a new edition. It is in fact a new edition of a previous previously released expansion. So, Mysterium is a wildly popular game at this point. Um, the second of expansion, I believe, uh, for Mysterium was called Secrets and Lies. It originally came out in 2017.

4:16 The original game Mysterium came out in 2015, so over 10 years ago now. Secrets and Lies originally came out in 2017 and then, I think last year they did a big refresh of the Mysterium base game, you know, new artwork, graphic design, just a kind of a new updated look of the game. And now they're doing an updated look for this expansion as well. Uh, plays two to seven players in 45 minutes and it is a lighter weight game. Uh, this does actually change a few things. So, what is Secrets and Lies in general do? Uh, it adds a uh eight it adds new suspects to the game. It adds, uh, new locations and objects to the game. It adds a bunch of additional vision cards.

5:09 You know, you are in in Mysterium you're sort of giving clues with these esoteric artwork cards and doing a bit of clue type stuff where you're trying to figure out the the suspect and the location with the object. Um, so this adds new suspects, new locations, new objects. Where the original version of Secrets and Lies added six, uh, new suspects and and objects and stuff, this version actually adds eight new suspects and locations. It also adds something called strange events, which replace the objects in the card. And the strange events are sort of um, a story cards that you have to follow. They they they're you're trying to figure out sort of what went bump in the night here. There's strange events happening and stuff. So, you can add those story cards that you kind of have to figure out instead of the object cards. So, that's Mysterium: Secrets and Lies Refresh.

6:13 Asmodee, in association with Matagot, is releasing Inis: Seasons of Inis expansion. Um, this is an expansion for the very popular and well-loved game Inis. Uh, it plays two to five players in 60 to 90 minutes and it is a medium plus weight game. Maybe some would call it like the low end of heavyweight, but I'd say like a medium plus weight game in complexity. Um, Inis is a very popular area control game. One of the things that was interesting about Inis is there are three different win conditions. You can either win by having influence in a bunch of different regions. You can win by having some influence in a region where there be sanctuaries. You can win There's a there's multiple win conditions, which keeps the game interesting cuz you your strategy is going to be different every time you play it. And the other thing that's kind of interesting is it's like an area control game where you can sort of fight, you can have combat, but you don't always want to eliminate the other player from a region because you sometimes want to have influence. You want to have control of a region where other people still have troops in it.

7:27 And so, you kind of are trying to eliminate some of their troops, but not all of them, which makes it feel a little bit different. Um, this Nemed is the second expansion to Inis. Um, and it does three It has three different modules in the game. And with, you know, when you have an expansion that comes with different modules, you can oftentimes mix and match them. You can play with one, you can play with all three, it's up to you. Uh, there's a Nemetons module where you will try to gain influence on sacred sites and those sacred sites will award you award you deeds based on various conditions and adjacency. Uh, there's also Hallowed Sanctuaries module. Um, you can dedicate your sanctuaries to legendary heroes, give offerings to these particular sanctuaries, and receive special favors based on the hero you honored. And lastly, there are uh, there's a Territories and Epic Tales module that will bring more variety to various different elements of the game.

8:32 There there'll be 10 new epic tale cards, five new territory tiles, new new advantage uh, cards, just, you know, variability and replayability added into the game here. Capstone Games is releasing two games for or two expansions, I should say, for their game Wandering Towers. And I do want to mention that these are currently available through Capstone's website, but they will be available in a wider release in friendly local game stores and places like that in June. So, if you're in a rush to get them now, you can get them through Capstone's website, but they will also be more widely available in June. Um, first of all, I'll talk about, uh, the first expansion I'm going to mention is Wandering Towers Spell Pack. This plays one to six players in 30 minutes and it is a lightweight game. Over the past years, Wandering Towers, I should also say, is a game I love. It was in my top 10 of the year the the year it came out. Came out in 2022, uh, 23, something like that. And, uh, it's a game where you are sort of racing your wizards around the board and trying to drop them into, uh, this castle, but you can move towers and you can move them with wizards on top of them. You can cover up other wizards, so there's this really silly aspect of the game where you're like, "Oh no, where'd mine

10:02 go? I can't remember." And it always makes me laugh. It's It's like a family strategy game, but it has some of those big emotional moments, laughter, and stuff. Uh over the past few years, they've released a few mini expansions for it. Um different spell cards. They like release these spell packs, and each of the spell packs had two new spells that you could play in the game that you could use in the game. And the spells will let you kind of have a special ability once in a while where you can do something that breaks the game and gives you an advantage. Um this this uh expansion I'm talking about, this spell pack expansion, takes all of the uh spells that were included in those little mini packs and puts them into a box together. So, if you missed those little mini pack expansions, you can still get them here. This is um can contains all six spells from the mini spell expansion packs into one box. Uh there's no new content here, so if you have those little mini spell expansions, you already have what you need for this, but if you want them all in one place or you haven't done it before, you can get some more spells for the game. And then also, they're releasing Wandering Towers: The Magic Tower. Plays two to six players in about 30 minutes, and it is a lighter weight game. Um this adds five new modules for the game. So, this adds a lot more than the spell pack does. So, if you if you're only going

11:34 for one and you want a lot of different stuff, this would be the one to look at. Um they're and like I said, with these modules, you can mix and match them. You can play with one. You can play with all of them. The five mod modules are the elixir fountain. There are now these spots with a fountain, and if you land your wizard in there, you can fill up one of your potions without trapping another wizard. It's just another spot to fill up your flasks. Uh there is a spiderweb that kind of is like a trampoline. If you end your movement on a spiderweb, you essentially double your movement. If you moved three and then landed on a spiderweb, you move three more. And so, it's just a fat you know, fun way to increase movement in the game. There is a hag. When the hag lands on a space occupied by a wizard, they essentially steal your potions. They like empty your flasks. Um there is the raven. Uh if the raven moves to a space with wizards, each player that has a wizard on the space gets a raven feather, a little token, a raven feather token, and that will let you execute one of the three main actions. So, you can do extra stuff on your turn if if you have that. And then lastly, there's a new magic tower. And if a wizard moves to the magic tower, it may use one magic spell without emptying their flask. Because you need to fill your flask to try to win the game, but

13:05 you you empty them to use those magic spells. This allows you to use a magic spell without using one of your flasks, which is really powerful. So, all of that stuff is added into the game of Wandering Towers now. Czech Games Edition, also known as CGE, is releasing a number of expansion packs for Codenames. Uh the first I'll mention is the Sci-Fi Expansion Pack. Plays four to eight players in about 15 minutes, and it is a lightweight game. Uh this includes 50 word cards, all Sci-Fi themed. You know, think of something like force field or stuff like words like that. Um this this content can be mixed into your game of Codenames or Codenames Duet. So, it's 50 different word cards. You could also buy this little mini rip pack and have a couple of games of Codenames playing just with these cards. Uh with 50 cards, you can essentially play two full games without seeing the same cards again. Um there's also three new agent tiles and a and four Sci-Fi themed picture cards that you can add into Codenames Pictures. So, just really you know, it's a little small, you know, rip pack, but you can add a bunch of Sci-Fi themed words and content into your Codenames experience.

14:36 Also, CGE is releasing Codenames Fairy Tales Expansion Pack. This plays four to eight players in about 15 minutes, and it is a lightweight game. Whereas the last one added Sci-Fi words, this adds fairy tale type of words. You know, things like magic wand, stuff like that. This also comes with 50 word cards that you can add into Codenames or Codenames Duet. It also includes three new agent tiles and four fairy themed cards that you can add into Codenames Pictures. And lastly, CGE is releasing Codenames Cute Critters Expansion Pack. Uh this plays four to eight players in 15 to 30 minutes, and it is a lightweight game. Uh this is only for content for both of them, this includes 40 adorable animal themed images that you can use for Codenames Pictures. So, this one is just for Codenames Pictures, but it adds, you know, cute panda bears and swans and things like that. So, a bunch of content for Codenames. Crowd Games is releasing Barrage: The Far Companies. This plays one to four players in 60 to 120 minutes, and it is a heavyweight game. Barrage is a fairly popular top 50 of all time on BoardGameGeek heavyweight game. Um and in Barrage, you are using water flowing

16:09 through um a network of dams and power plants and things like that, and you're trying to create stuff to fulfill contracts. But, you know, you're using this water, and you're trying to build your own colored dams and your own colored generators and things like that. Uh and you play it as um a company. You play as one of four companies in the base game. Well, the Far Companies Expansion includes two new companies to be used in addition to the four base ones and the fifth one already included in the Leeuw water project expansion. Uh these two companies have unique characteristics that significantly distinguish them from the standard companies both in terms of game mechanics and components. So, if you want more companies to explore, more asymmetry to the game, uh both companies unlock a special company ability when the third powerhouse is built. If you're a fan of heavyweight Eurogames, you've probably already played Barrage, and here's another expansion for it.

17:19 Floodgate Games is releasing Sagrada Panorama. This plays one to six players uh in about 30 minutes, and it is a lighter weight strategy game. Uh this is an expansion specifically for the refreshed version of Sagrada. They just released a refreshed version a couple of months ago. This is This is an expansion for that refreshed version. However, all of the content can be used in the previous version of Sagrada. You don't have to have the new refreshed version. And in fact, some of the modules in this new panorama expansion are the same as um previous expansions. They're just the refreshed art and graphic design. And then some content in this one is brand new to Sagrada. The thing that is brand new to Sagrada is there are these shared objective cards, which adds a cooperative element to the game. Rather than having some public objectives, you will put a shared objective between your neighbor, and you can only accomplish this if you both do this thing.

18:28 Basically, this objective cannot be um met alone. You have to work with the person to your right and your left to accomplish this objective. And so, you know, there's never been any cooperative stuff in Sagrada before, so that's kind of an interesting twist on the game. Um and then the other things that are in this expansion have been seen in Sagrada before. There's components for a fifth and sixth player. So, instead of capping the game at four players, now it goes to five or six. There are light boards, and every you at the beginning of the game, you'll roll 10 dice and add them to your light board. And then every round, rather than drawing two dice from the sort of general supply that gets rolled, you'll add one dice from the general supply and one dice from your light board. So, there's a little bit more planning ahead. You can You know what numbers and what colors you have on your light board, and so you can predetermine your future turns a little bit. And then there's also these uh focal point private objectives. So, rather than just being like score three points for every yellow dice you have, it will tell you you're scoring points for the pip value of dice in these specific spots. And so, you are It's just adding to the puzzle of how you put out the dice into your window and your grid. So, uh lots of different stuff for Sagrada.

20:00 Hachette, uh in association with Gigamic, is releasing Acropolis: Pantheon. This plays one to four players in about 25 minutes, and it is a lighter weight strategy game. Uh this also turns Acropolis, which is a game I love, which is a game that was in my top 10 of the year the year it came out. It turns Acropolis into a cooperative game. So, Acropolis is very much of a competitive game where we are drafting tiles, we're building out our little area, we're building up levels, we're scoring points for regions of same colored tiles. Well, this is turning it cooperative. So, now we have this city um structure, this city area that we are building in the middle of the table. So, we will each be building our own private area, but then also building this shared central area.

20:54 And we only score for that shared central area. The reason you will do this private area is because then you will get these um their objective cards, and you need to like get two green tiles next to each other. And then I accomplished that objective tile. Well, that's going to give me a little token that I can add to a scoring spot on the central city tile, and only those scoring spots that have tokens on them are actually going to score for us. So, we need to both work on our own player area and that central area, which is kind of an interesting switch to the game, and also an interesting way to do cooperative stuff where you can't just ignore what you're building, but you also don't score any points for what you're building. You only score points for what's in the center that we all share.

21:42 Uh so, yeah, just a interesting way to switch Acropolis into a uh into a cooperative game. So, yeah, if you're looking for if you like cooperative stuff, then check out Acropolis: Pantheon. Hachette is also releasing Cyclades: Maëlstrom. Uh this plays two to five players in 60 to 120 minutes, and it is a medium weight game. Uh this is an expansion specifically for Cyclades: Legendary Edition. Uh last year, two years ago, uh not that long ago, Hachette released Cyclades: Legendary Edition, which was a tweak and a refresh of an older game named Cyclades. Uh and you know, they did they sort of reworked the base game and added some of the best stuff from the expansions into the base game, uh and made it all just a little smoother, a little bit more dynamic.

22:45 Uh well, this expansion is specifically for that legendary edition. Uh and it does it it adds seven new heroes and 13 new monsters to Cyclades. I don't actually know how everything plays cuz I haven't found any videos on this, but I can tell you that it adds seven new heroes and 13 new monsters. And I don't I've never played Cyclades, so I don't know exactly what that means, but if you love Cyclades, I bet you know what that means. And so, I I still wanted to give you this information that this is out if you're looking for it. Uh the Maëlstrom expansion. Kids Table Board Games is releasing Layers: Adventures Pack. Plays two players in 30 to 60 minutes, and it is a lighter weight strategy game. No, maybe I'd call it medium weight. I'd actually call it medium weight with this this uh I think maybe the base game alone is lighter weight, but then you add in this extra content and it pushes it up into like a medium weight game, but maybe on the lower end of medium weight.

23:56 Um if you got the Kickstarter version of Layers, then all of this expansion content was included in your Kickstarter box. But if not, if you bought the retail version of Layers, then you can also buy this separate Layers: Adventure Pack and get a lot more content for the game. Uh Layers is a great game. It almost feels like a dungeon crawl battleship. I am going to build a dungeon for you, you are going to build a dungeon for me, and then we are kind of moving our characters along in the dungeon, trying to find treasure, trying to find the exit, and trying to avoid or fight monsters and traps. And it's a really fun little sort of uh you know, hidden information game. Uh the base game of Layers is fairly simple. Um you know, great game for families or for newer gamers. And still I've had fun with it, too. Um but you know, it is fairly basic. The all of the monsters are the same. All of the traps are unspectacular.

25:04 Well, this Layers: Adventure Pack basically adds some envelopes and some boxes of content that will give the game some more variability. Now, there are various different monsters that have different strengths and special abilities. There are different types of traps that you have to deal with. There are also different cubes in the game of Layers. You will be using cubes to take actions. You'll be sort of moving them into your spent pile from your fresh pile in order to take some actions. And the base game comes with mostly white cubes and then a two like special ability cubes. Well, now this adds in a bunch of new colors, which all come with their own abilities and actions. So, there's a lot more sort of special abilities in the game, and and you can even sort of gain new colors throughout the game as you play. So, you know, just a lot more content for the game of Layers. And you know, just makes it uh more variable, right? Instead of all having the same monster, you're going to have various different monsters, stuff like that.

26:12 So, that is Layers: Adventure Pack. Pandasaurus Games is releasing Shackleton Base: Below, Within, Above. This is a This plays one to four players in 60 to 120 minutes, and it is a medium plus weight game or a heavy weight game. I would actually say it's probably closer to heavy weight Shackleton Base. Uh this is the first expansion to Shackleton Base, which is a a game that's been pretty popular. Um and in Shackleton Base, you are sort of building up uh these structures on the moon, and you'll score for things in rows, and and you want them to line up. But one of the the things that makes the game a little more complex, and the thing that makes the game have a lot of replayability, is there are various different corporations. And all of those corporations are going to score you points in different ways, they're going to allow you to do different actions on the board, they're going to allow you they're going to add a lot of variety to the game. This expansion, mostly what it does, is it adds three new corporations to the game, which again all play very differently. So, they change the the the sort of rules of the game, and you can mix and match corporations, and you'll always have a different game of Shackleton Base.

27:35 Um there's the Lunar City that focuses on attracting civilian settlers. There is the Under Moon, which introduces a new advanced excavation system. You'll kind of be moving down this track and gaining benefits along the way. And then there's Zenith Works, and players can collaborate with powerful construction conglomerates to build shared infrastructure. You literally build some infrastructure on top of other infrastructure out on the board. Uh there's also a new space agency India in this new expansion. So, if you're a big fan of Shackleton Base, there is more for you here. Pandasaurus Games is also releasing an expansion to Far Away called Far Away: Under Starry Skies.

28:23 Uh this plays two to six players in 15 to 30 minutes, and it is a lighter weight strategy game. I have made a lot of videos about Far Away. I love Far Away. It's one of my favorite games of all time. Uh it was my number one game of the year it came out, and it's still a game I play regularly, and a game that I love. Uh I find Far Away to be one of the best ratios of strategy to short playing time. Like it packs in a lot of strategy into a game that you can play in 20 minutes, and I love the various different player interaction, and I love the puzzle of what you're doing in Far Away. Uh this is a small sort of rip pack uh of cards. It adds 15 new meteor cards into the game. Those 15 meteor cards will get have, you know, different scoring abilities and requirements that you haven't seen before in Far Away. One of the nice things, too, is that any card from this expansion that you get remains face up. At the end of the game, you'll sort of turn most of your cards face down, and then reveal them from right to left, and score them as you reveal them. And one of the interesting things of the game is that you need you need symbols and requirements to the right of a card in order for that card to score. But every card from this expansion pack always remains face up.

29:48 So, you get to count whatever symbols it has on it for a card that is to the right of it in your row, which is Man, that makes it so much easier. Like, it makes it so much more beneficial when you can be like, "Oh my god, I still have that map or I still have this thing." Like, what a cool What a cool switch to the game. Makes it a little less punishing, for sure. So, if you like uh Far Away, then check out Under a Story Skies. And the last, the 16th expansion I'm bringing to you this month, Rock Manor Games is releasing Star Driven Gateway Invasion expansion. Uh Star Driven Gateway is a game that I talked about in my best new games coming to retail. Also came to retail here in the month of April, the base game did, and it also is releasing an expansion at the same time.

30:39 So, uh this This expansion adds uh three new cooperative scenarios to the game. Uh so, one of the interesting things about Star Driven Gateway is that you can play it both cooperatively, competitively. There's a lot of different game modes. There was even a a solo mode to it. Uh and then this expansion really focuses on the cooperative aspect of the game. Adds three distinct cooperative scenarios where you are essentially having to work together to uh defeat and to block the war bound faction. You need to band together to defend and placate the council worlds so they don't fall into chaos. Uh I don't think I mentioned this plays one to four players in 60 to 90 minutes, and it is a medium weight game.

31:30 So, if you like space exploration, you'll be flipping over tiles, you'll be revealing stuff, you know, and you want a cooperative. We've got a few of these uh expansions this month that sort of turn a game into a cooperative experience. So, if you're looking for cooperative stuff, this is a good month for you. So, that is Star Driven Gateway Invasion expansion. Thanks so much for being here. As always, I hope you found something that you're excited about, that you're looking forward to, that you want to check out, that you'll get to the table sometime soon. Thanks so much for liking, subscribing, and all that, as well. I appreciate it. Helps the channel grow, for sure. All right, I'm Grant with Grant's Game Rex. Thanks, everybody.