Top 5 EXPANSIONS at Essen!
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Transcript
We are back with more most anticipated for Essen. Uh last minute we know, but this is a list that we thought was going to sort of like overlap with our main list. This is expansions. There's so many expansions that we thought, let's just cover them in a separate little video. So, this one's going to be definitely shorter than our other video for our most anticipated overall. Uh but there are some pretty big expansions coming Yeah, I mean most of these were on my list originally and I took them off because you know we like to talk about the big new releases, not necessarily like all of these games could have been on that list. They would have taken up half the list. So we thought it was better if you're interested in expansions. This is the video for that.
And a lot of these are for games that have been on prior Essen the most anticipated list.
Huge. And you'll find some things in common with some of these games too.
Indeed. The first one is Galileo Galilee Luna. This is an expansion to a game that came out at Essen last year from Thomas Holic who's done I I mean he's probably he's probably done eight more expansions by the time we're saying this. Um this one it adds a number of different things to Galileo Galilee. One it adds um new player powers which the game already had.
I think it's three new player powers.
Yeah. And which which they were awesome in the first game. So I'm really interested to see this. The big thing and by big I do mean big is the moon board. the board that is the the Luna, if you will. It starts with all these tiles over it, so you don't even see the moon, but as you're discovering the moon because it's another thing that you can kind of like observe in the game. You're going to be taking these tiles off and uncovering pieces of the moon. I don't know if you'll ultimately uncover the entire moon.
It depends. It depends on how much people
I guess I guess how much people observe it. And it also comes with uh new Grand Inquisitors, which are like these big like big evil inquisitor dudes.
Hate those guys.
Uh they're like special inquisitors. they're bigger and they have this like they're harder uh to move or they give you more negative points or whatever, but if you do manage to convert them, then they actually give you some bigger benefits as well. So, it's like a higher risk, higher reward when you're bringing in the grand inquisitors.
Yeah, that's an interesting aspect to the original game. No, the Inquisitors, it's like in a Stefon Feld game where you have to like suffer the penalties or an UVA game where you have to pay pay for
going the Inquisitor strategy is hard, but this uh with Luna, you have a whole new way of scoring points, too. So, not only I think I said three, it might be four. It's three or four new player powers. Yeah.
And then the moon board itself is huge. And then, of course, like new cards and everything, too. So, it's quite a big expansion for Galileo Galile. Yeah,
it is. The next one, I don't know if it's as big, but this one is for a game that is near and dear to Ryan's heart. It's Nucleium. And what's this expansion?
This is the Energy Research Institute. So, uh, we've had a few expansions for Nucleium. This game cons continues to be one of my top games and continues to be kind of just an a game that people are enjoying still, which is great. There's a lot.
It is a lot of game. Uh, this one brings in eight new experiments. So, if you've never played Nucleium, the twist of the game is that every experiment board gives you just drastically different starting tiles, different powers that you can unlock, and even different scoring conditions, and there were four of them in the game, and every time you play, you use a different one. It kind of changes things up for you. We give eight more. That's that's crazy.
Has do you know have the other expansions included any of those?
No. Australia and Quarter Progress, they didn't have any new experiments. Yeah. No, this this is so we have what 12 now?
Wow.
12 total experiment boards. Plus, this is introduces something called patrons which you're going to be able to like gain benefits from. But people are coming to this for the experiments. And some of them are wild. Like these are these are really really cool.
Well, you'll have to tell me all about it when you play.
Maybe someday we'll get you to play Nucleium.
I don't want to hate on the game. It's just a lot of games.
It is a lot of games.
And with all these expansions, it seems like an insane amount.
Yeah. But they all mix and match, which is interesting, too. So like the first expansion, the Australia expansion is just like a board
and you can mix and match these. You can use Quarter Progress or Energy Research Institute together with either board. So you can just you can't use all of them.
Yeah,
because you can't use both side by side. I don't know. No, but really you pick and choose between the boards.
All right. Well, the next one is something I've played. It's something I will play with this expansion. And again, if we're talking, we're talking Thomas Holic these days.
That's crazy.
This is an expansion for SETI. It's called Space Agencies. This adds a lot of different things to SETI. First of all, the obvious. Everyone who played SEI was like, "Oh, I wonder if they'll do new aliens." Yes, they did. There, I think, three new ones. I think there were five in the original. I'm not 100% sure, but it there's three new aliens. One of which incorporates another new mechanic or new token, if you will, these signal tokens. So that when you're scanning uh you if you have these tokens, which you can collect in a few different ways, you're able to discard one of those tokens to send out another signal out there. So you can actually get more of those out on the board. So it kind of pushes things forward. Also kind of like brings more cards out of the main row, if you will, and sort of cycle those cards. It does sound like because Thomas has worked on a few expansions lately and the ones I've looked at, it sounds like he they've really taken the game and thought, "Okay, where could I have done things a little bit better? Where where are some things I can address?" And I know that's how a lot of people approach expansions.
But these really seem to like not fix, but enhance or make a few things better. Not to mention, this one really pushes things forward in a terraforming Mars prelude sort of way. It kickstarts the game. People get these cards that give them things at the beginning game up to and including like putting things out on the main board to begin with.
Variable space agencies.
Yeah. You don't get those bonuses. Oh, yeah. Well, and the space agencies themselves are variable player powers.
Yeah, that's you can't hide that. That's why that's what I'm coming in. No, you know what? Actually, this is the first time I'll say it's maybe not the variable player powers. I'm maybe more excited about the three new aliens.
Well, that's the bit that was the moment in study that made me fall in love with that game. Sure is the first time you flip over the alien. Now I've seen them all. So the fact that I can do see and I'm not going to read about him
more.
I'm not going to read about them beforehand, you know, just like you didn't do in said like I had no idea what we were flipping over. I like that reveal of flipping over the new the new alien race.
Well, I will say that is exciting, but the new the space agencies are
think corporations and terraforming Mars. they have that level of impact. They're definitely going to kind of push players in certain directions. Not to mention, they give you variable starting resources and they really push things forward. The game is only four rounds now. So, they've actually eliminated one of the five rounds. So, it really kind of like moves the game along.
Well, yeah, considering the fact that the first round was generally considered being the most boring round anyway because your your hands are mostly tied. So giving that preludeesque boost which by the way let's talk about the fact that terraforming Mars has made that so synonymous that everyone calls it a prelude
yes
style like that's just what
I can't imagine that that terraforming Mars was the first to do that but it is definitely the most significant because so many people had been playing it and it was like a very welcome addition.
Yeah, I'm excited to see that in SETI too.
Yeah, it's really good. The next one we want to talk about is Windmill Valley Blooming Sails. This is for if you're not familiar with Windmill Valley. It was a game what a year ago little over a year ago.
Bordon Dice had a lot of games come out. So
yeah, board and dice slow down. You're putting out too many euros all at one time. You can pace yourselves a little bit more. Uh but Windmill Valley is one you may have overlooked. It's definitely a mediumweight euro. Um definitely lighter than a lot of their more recent games that they've put out for sure. I think
it Well, it was on the
It was. But Bloom and Sales adds quite a bit. There's this whole sail board, a pretty significant board where you're going to be moving ships around. And all the different locations you can go to are also variable because they're made up of two tiles. There's like a big tile and then a little tile that fits into it. So every time you play that combination is going to be different, but it it just blows the game up to a medium plus for sure.
Well, it it expands like what was considered like the weakest thing, which was just like turning in the contracts. It's just like get the the tulips, turn in the contracts, you're done. Now you're sailing to all these different ports and based on the tulips you have, you're trying to get take them to different ports. Now, it's not as simple as just turning them in.
You're manipulating your ship and you're kind of having to weigh uh some multiple benefits because based on which port you're in, you're going to get some additional bonuses on the calendar as well. So, you're kind of wanting to maybe time your deliveries to where you want your ship to be to get the right bonuses that you want, but also you want to be able to to maximize your deliveries. So, I think this does add quite a bit of thought to the game.
Yeah. Oh, and it's not just that either. There's all sorts of new components. They have a lot of more of all the stuff, uh, including even a new calendar. They have a calendar that actually makes the game a little bit more of an advanced game. Uh, so they've definitely taken this game and thought, "Okay, let's let's ratchet up the weight. for our hardcore fans, of which they have a lot.
They I mean, yeah, the game sold well. I mean, it sold well enough to support an expansion, so I'm excited to play it.
So, the last one we want to talk about, uh, and this list was in no particular order, but this is definitely my most anticipated. This is the Veil of Eternity Curse. This is the second expansion to Veil of Eternity and the last expansion, so we're told. and it makes a nice sort of picturesque uh panorama if you put all three boxes side by side.
This one too adds variable player powers which is probably the big star of the show. It's not associated with the name curse. Curse are these curse tokens that you're going to get and it's kind of this mechanism where you've got bad stuff and I think everyone starts for the most part with bad stuff and then you have to get rid of it. A lot of the variable well I think all the variable player powers at least most of them interact with the curses in some way too. So you might not necessarily like be cursed characters but I think you need to use curses if you want to use the variable player powers. I don't think you can just use
yeah you can use by the way you could can use curse without the first expansion but you can combine both. And I'm going to tell you, uh, I don't think even with both. I don't know that I would teach the game to new players right off the bat with both, but maybe with one of them and probably Artifacts. I'm not sure, but this expansion, we've played it a number of times already. This might solidify Veil of Eternity as my number one.
As if it wasn't. This is what it took to I think it solidified the first time you ever played it.
I'm I'm just going to say right now, I'm the world's biggest fan of Veil of Eternity. If you think you like it better than me, let me know in the comments below.
David's the the president of the fan club, so to speak.
If there is an unofficial fan club, and if there isn't, I'm starting it right now. Join down in the comments.
I am the president of It's a great game. Like, there's no I I I don't think I enjoy it as much as you do. I don't I don't think anybody enjoys do, but I do I do really like it.
Um
and I'm excited for Curse to come out to the G. We We've gotten to play this one. Yeah, we we got it a little early. I think because I'm the president of the fan club, they sent us a copy early, but it's coming out at Essen and then I think it'll be available very quickly afterwards. Renegades bringing it out here to the States. We do have a few more honorable mentions. Uh in fact, these could have been on the list as well. These aren't like not quite as good.
They're just like smaller in scale.
Yeah, a couple of them are smaller in scale. One of them is Lord of the Rings dual uh alliances or allies. And we had actually thought that this was, you know, Pantheon level type expansion for a full box. This looks to be a uh significant addition, but it is just like I think a pack of cards. So there's these allies cards.
Uh both sides get some ally cards at the beginning of the game. You shuffle those up, you take three, you put the rest away. So you're only going to have three ally cards in your hand. The other player doesn't know what they are. And then out on the sort of display of cards each round there is going to be some of these tokens. I think it's maybe two or three per round, something like that. When you take a card that has a token on it, or I think I think that's how it works. You get the token and these tokens are going to be once you have them, you can use them to play one of those cards anytime on your turn. Anytime on your turn. And the interesting thing about the cards, they all have two powers. One is an entrance power. So when you play it, that's the one you have to play first. And you have to play the entrance power before you can play the exit power, which is once you play that, then the card goes away and you've kind of tapped the ally as they've kind of come in
and done their thing and then left. It is like a I mean it's a little bit of Pantheon vibes
a little bit
a little bit the way that the way that you're taking the the tokens and using them to buy this to to bring the gods up but simplified which I think this game did a lot of simplification to
to Lord of the Rings to uh sorry seven wonders will to make it Lord of the Rings themed and I like it better and I think allies I mean this is an easy expansion to add in. It is. I would just say it's somewhere between promo and expansion,
right? I think that's some of these other ones, too. Like, like Far Away is getting a new expansion, but again, it's just like a small little blister pack. It's like 12 cards.
It's really cool, though. It I for We don't know what the English name is. It's something among the stars or something like that.
The translation is like under a sky of stars.
Yeah. And I don't know what it'll be. meteor cards that allow you to I won't go into details, but allows you to keep some of your cards face up during scoring that you wouldn't otherwise keep face up and introduces I think some new scoring possibilities. They're just mixed in with the region cards, which is really cool and it's a great game.
And I don't know, I think I might be more excited about this than you, but evolution is getting a small box expansion. You are.
Uh, and this is again like maybe more of a promo. I I don't know. This is Well, they just they blur the lines, right? It's not a big box expansion. It's just like there's like monsters that come out. There's like uh some new tiles, some new some new tiles you can take to get some powers. Like it's not a huge expansion. It does seem like it adds quite a bit to the game, but again, it's not a big box uh expansion. It's called Acceptance Letter. And I mean, I'll add it in, but you know, again, like
it only adds three more hours to the game. I from what I understand. I'm kidding.
Could it add That's three modules I guess if you use all three modules.
The game is the game is a big one. If you haven't played I haven't played Collution, but
it's my favorite. It's my favorite filt. I'll say it. It's my favorite.
Blasphemous.
I love it.
Uh, all right. The last one we wanted to talk about is Oh, yeah. Tea Garden. You know what? How
why not finish off with another one from Thomas Hollik? Uh, Tea Garden. It's Pura, I think is how it's pronounced, is an expansion. Uh, the big thing that this does, and I haven't played Tea Garden. Ryan has played it. Yep. It's good.
But Tea Garden has like five main actions you can take. On your turn, you take one of these five actions. This is a pretty significant expansion in that it adds two whole new main actions that you could take. So you have seven total actions to choose from on your turn.
Yeah. And this made it honorable mentions because we didn't want three Thomas Holic games
out of It's crazy.
Take a vacation Thomas for God's sake.
He had three great games come out last year and all three of them have gotten expansions. That's pretty crazy.
Yeah. And he's got Yeah. Well, and then not to mention if you watch our other video, spoiler alert, his name pops up a couple times in that video as
well. He's taking over. He's taking over, Tom. He really is.
But that is all of the games we wanted to talk about or expansions rather that we're looking forward to at S. And if there are any expansions that we forgot or that you've heard of or you're anticipating, let us know in the comments below. Until next time, make sure everyone has fun at the table and we'll see you then.