Best Board Game Expansions Coming to Retail in September, 2025

0:07 Hey, I'm Grant with Grant's GameRex. Welcome to my monthly video on the best expansions for board games coming to retail. Um, there are essentially two reasons that expansions come out. One, a game is like, I'm sad nobody's thought of me for a while and then boom, expansion now people think of you again. or uh two is there, you know, the publishers like there's way too much in this game. We're going to split some content into an expansion box and then we're going to launch it at the same time as the base game because we don't trust you to learn all of this at one time. So now you've got two boxes and it feels like you can do it at separate times. And so, you know, there's uh we don't have a lot of expansions coming to retail this month. I only have eight of them I'm going to talk about right now.

0:53 But, you know, they what they lack in uh in uh number, they make up for in quality. I think there are some here that people are going to be excited about. So, uh these are the best expansions coming to retail in September. Hey folks, uh this is now the fifth time I am trying to record this video and as you can hear, I do not have a microphone on. Uh, unfortunately my mic keeps failing and uh I'm still traveling so I have no way to fix this or deal with this right now and I have tried to record this video a bunch of times and I cannot get the microphones to work and I do not know what's going on and I'm very frustrated. But you know I'll still bring you can make the decision yourself. You can I I'm giving I'm giving you the information right now. So, if you want the information on expansions coming out, great. And if not, you know, feel free to skip this video this month and come back next month when I have my microphone stuff figured out. So, Aspy is releasing Katan Explorers and Pirates. Uh, plays two to four players in 90 to 120 minutes, and it is a mediumweight game. This is both an expansion for Katan and a new edition of a previous expansion for Katan. Um, Katan Explorers and Pirates originally came out in 2013. So, this is an updated

2:23 version of that expansion. Uh, the reason, you know, this is the 30th anniversary of Katan coming out. And so, Asia has been putting out u sixth edition boxes of katan all year this year. Base game and every expansion that has been released. It has updated artwork and graphic design, things like that. So, uh if you want that, then you know, then you have it. Uh Explorers and Pirates changes the game of Katan pretty significantly. In the base game, there was a uh island that you built stuff on, one island. Now, there is a starting island that's revealed, but then there are two other islands you can sail to and flip over tiles and explore stuff along the way. So, you don't know where various resources are going to be. You don't know what number for the dice roll is going to be there uh until you go explore those places. Some of those tiles are going to be pirates layers and so you can, you know, there's a place where you can put guys down and they can get you gold coins. Um, there's going to be fish you can add to the game. You can collect fish and sail them back to another spot where it will help you go up on a fish trap. There's spice that you can find that will help you go up on a spice track. And those tracks are various ways to score points, additional ways to score points in the game. And you know, one thing to note is all this stuff I'm talking about, the pirates layers and the fish and the spice, those are all different scenarios. And you can combine all of those scenarios into one

3:55 game or you can play with each one individually. The other thing that's nice is that if a player receives no resources during the production role, you get a gold coin in compensation and every two gold is a wild and can be any resource you want. So if you're getting screwed by the dice in katan, there's a little bit of mitigation for that which is nice. Aspy is also releasing katan explorers and pirates five to six player expansion. Uh, so that's exactly what it sounds like. The regular game plays two to four players. Now there's components for five to six players. So if you want to add more people to your game, then uh then get a you need another box. It's an expansion for expansion. That's wild.

4:44 CGE is releasing Galaxy Trucker Do what plays two to four players in 30 to 60 minutes and it is on the edge of lightweight to mediumweight game. Uh, Galaxy Trucker is a, you know, tile laying building game, but it happens in real time and it's very chaotic and stressful and you're going to build up a spaceship and then all of your spaceships are going to get destroyed and broken apart and you're trying to hang on for as long as you can. This adds this expansion. I should also mention this is an expansion for the Galaxy Trucker second edition which came out um only a few years ago, not for the original Galaxy Trucker. Uh it adds two big modules to the game. There are VIP astronauts. If you build your uh spaceship in a certain way, if you configure it in a certain way, you can attract VIP astronauts that will help you, you know, get benefits and points.

5:40 Uh and there's also missions in the game. If you build your spaceship in certain ways, you can accomplish these objectives, these mission cards, and those are going to help you and potentially hurt other people. Uh, the other thing I want to mention about this one is it also adds a turnbased mode for the game. So, if you know people that you think would like the the puzzly aspect of Galaxy Trucker but would be too stressed out by the chaotic realtimeness of it, then there's a turnbased mode you can play with here uh, as well. So, you know, kind of just makes it a more chill experience. Hashet in association with unfriendly games is releasing Necoima Tory pack.

6:26 Plays one to five players in 20 to 30 minutes and it is a lightweight game. Uh Necoima came out last year dexterity game where you are putting these poles out on this central circular board and the poles have electrical lines represented by sort of strings. uh and you can't have the different strings touching each other and you also don't want to knock everything over. That's a way to lose the game. Well, this expansion adds a Tory, a big structure that you are going to place onto the central board and just adds a big obstacle for you, adds some more restrictions as to where you can place stuff. So, you need to place these poles with greater caution. It also adds a famous fortunebringing cat, the mani neco, which roams from district to district. It's going to and it's going to change the game a little bit for you.

7:20 So, if you like dexterity games, then check out Necoima and the Tory pack adds a bunch of obstacle. Uh, Key Master Games is releasing Harvest Fall Festival. Uh, this plays 1 to four players in 30 to 60 minutes and it is a mediumweight game. Uh, Harvest is a worker placement game that I liked uh, a good amount partly because it was a very strategic worker placement game that played in only like 60 minutes and I feel like most worker placement games are longer affairs than that. So, I like that this was like a pretty quick playing worker placement game. It was also very tight though. You know, you didn't have that many turns, that many actions. You don't have that many workers. And so there's a lot of different paths to victory and a lot of, you know, sort of debating on which way you want to go with how you're going to plant crops and harvest crops and get upgrade cards and things like that.

8:14 Well, this expansion brings an allnew location to the town. There is a side board you're going to add to the main board and a you'll get a basket, a new worker uh that will um you can place on that fall festival board and that can get you things like extra coins or allow you to harvest your field or get fall festival favorites for new actions, benefits, ways to score. So, you know, just uh maybe makes the game a little bit less tight and that you have new action spots to go and it also adds a set collection aspect to the game. Uh there um are pies now in the game and so um you uh you can get blueberry pies, pecan pies, pumpkin pies, and the world famous sugar cream pie. And uh you know, I'll tell you, I was pretty excited about the idea of a sugar cream pie the first two times that I recorded this video. And uh I'm still excited about it, but I'm not bringing the level of excitement that I had uh you know, when I first heard about that. Sugar cream pies sound cool. I don't know how to bake. I hope they have them in a uh grocery store. Rollit is releasing Heroes of Barcadia, Heroes for Hire.

9:34 This is an expansion to the party dungeon crawling game Heroes of Barcadia. In Heroes of Arcadia, you're moving around a dungeon, flipping tiles, fighting bad guys, finding level ups for your character, rolling a d20. Uh, and you know, the sort of central conceit of the game though is that there is a your health is represented by liquid in a pint glass. And so as you're moving around and taking damage, you are having to drink some of your drink and lose some of your health. And you know, uh, the game, I imagine, was originally intended for having beer in those glasses, but you can certainly play the game with any type of liquid. You can play it with, uh, water or juice or soda or something like that if you're not an alcohol drinker. Um, this uh, Heroes for Higher expansion adds four new characters to the game. So, you can mix and match characters from the base game and uh, though, you know, it will have new powerups and loot cards and things like that as well. So, you can uh, you can play with new heroes in the game.

10:47 Um, Rollit is also releasing Heroes of Barcadia Die of Barcane Chaos. plays two to eight players in 30 to 90 minutes and it is a lightweight game. This adds a big chunky d20 to the game of Heroes of Barcadia. Uh the you're going to roll that die at specific times and it will give you a different Barcadian effect and some of those are going to help you, some of them might hurt you, some of them are going to screw other people over. you know, it's uh it's unpredictable, it's unfair, and it's exactly the kind of spicy nonsense you need in your dungeon. And then lastly here this month, uh Stonemer Games is releasing Wormspan Dragon Academy. Plays one to five players in 90 minutes, and it is a mediumweight game. There are some expansions that add twist to the games, change how a game is played, and some expansions that just add more content to the game so you can have more stuff to explore. And Dragon Academy is a more content expansion. There is new dragons, there's new caves, there's new objective tiles, there's new dragon guilds, and a new round tracker that presents you with an income choice when you pass for the round. And so, you know, it's not really changing the game, but it's adding a lot more cards and a lot more content to explore. So, if you are a fan of the sort of engine building aspect of Worms,

12:20 you've got new cards that you can combo together here. So, those are eight expansions coming to retail here in September. As always, I hope you found something that you like. Uh, thank you so much for being here. Sorry for the technical difficulties. I'm annoyed by it. Uh, but you know, I I've already recorded this video so many times and I got other things I got to do. So, uh, here we there's the information for you. Thanks so much for being here. I'm Grant with Grant's Game Rex.