Finspan: Sharks & Reefs - Expansion Review
Transcript
Welcome to Allies Arene Enemies. I'm Jess
and I am Sean and I'm wearing my most coral colored shirt because we are talking about Finn Span Sharks and Reefs. And our copy was provided, but the thoughts are all our own.
This expansion is designed by Michael O'Connell. And let's get right to it. So, let's start off with the coral because that is really the big thing in this expansion.
Yeah. So, it's an overlay board that now goes on top of your player board and it means every time you dive when you get to that coral section, you've got a choice to make where you have to get rid of something to add a coral. And it is optional, but the coral is pretty valuable. Yeah, the coral is worth a lot because at the end of the game, you're going to get one point per coral that you have there. Plus, you're going to get a bonus amount of points and that's like 6, 8, 7, I think, depending on which section you have. So, if you get that middle section full, that's 14 possible points.
Yeah, but getting rid of stuff can feel tough. Like, for that first section in the column where you're gaining cards, you've got to get rid of an egg to be able to add a coral. In the middle section, you've got to get rid of one of like the young fish to be able to add a coral. And in the last section, you've got to get rid of a card to add a coral. So, none of those like correspond to the column of things that you're gaining either.
Yeah. Which which makes a lot of sense. You wouldn't just get rid of a card. That would kind of be a freebie. But that middle one is where that cost feels the toughest because I do find that I often have quite a few eggs. I often have quite a few cards. I don't often have quite a few young fish. And the young fish, you really want to get into those groups because that can score a lot. But now you're gobbling those up because I find I play with that egg column probably more than the other two columns. So I find I'm in that section a lot. That one is also the one that's worth the most. So that it does kind of even out. But I cannot pass up the opportunity to buy the coral. I do it every single time. I think you do it a little bit more tenuously.
Yeah, it does cuz it does feel like a heavy cost sometimes. But I have also found myself doing dives just to be able to get eggs or just be to be able to get cards for the my next action to be able to add coral. So I still very much factor it in.
And that coral is also important because it ties to the cards a lot as well. It's a cost for a lot of the cards. It's a benefit for a lot of cards. There's some interesting new cards that give you extra things if you have a certain amount of coral. So, it's something you're really thinking about, but it also makes kind of this different pace in the game as well because early on you're not going to have much. So, you're going to have quite a few cards that maybe you can't play because you don't fill their cost yet or maybe you don't want to play yet because you're not going to get that benefit. And we're going to go through the cards in a sec. But later in the game, all of a sudden, all those cards become a much bigger deal. And it kind of makes this interesting pace where maybe things are a little slower early and then they speed up a little bit more late later in the game.
Yeah. And I think that makes it really valuable that whenever you're able to get cards back from your discard pile, because what I found myself doing is putting a lot of those ones that I can't play early on into my discard, but then remembering that I have those there and then being able to pull those back out later. So, I I like that you can do that. So, let's talk about the cards because it's hard to talk about the coral without talking about how it interacts with all of the cards in this expansion. So, there's 75 cards in this expansion. Probably 23 of those kind of intrinsically use the card either as a requirement or as a benefit and then the other third use some of the other mechanics which we'll talk about in a sec too. But that coral really is it really is the focus of this.
Yeah. And what's interesting about having the coral as a requirement is you won't be able to play that card right away, but you'll probably start working towards getting that type of coral to make sure that you can play it. And there's also a new type of power which is an also if power. So some of the cards will give you an activation ability and you'll you'll always have that, but you'll get an additional ability if you have three of that type of coral in that column. So again, you're going to be working towards getting those three corals so that you can have an additional ability.
Yeah, those are and it's usually a pretty big ability and just having a fish that gives you two abilities. If you've got a few of those in a row that or in a column, that column can be super super powerful, but it probably is only going to be super powerful late in the game. So you're probably not going to use it a ton because right away I thought, "Oh, this could be broken." And then we played and I thought it's it's broken for like two turns so it's not that broken but it is interesting and it really make because you don't just want the one ability and it's still you know they're generally not that high cost fish. That ability is still useful but you really want to get everything you can out of that card. So you're definitely going to try and do that. There are also some other interesting new powers in this as well. So there are a few cards that do kind of a reverse of what was already in the game. So already in the game was eating a fish. So putting a fish on top of a fish to eat it. But now you can do the reverse where you can feed a fish one of the cards from your hand. So you're kind of tucking that under the larger fish.
Yeah. And then another new ability is just having like a no cost. So there's a no cost symbol, meaning that obviously you can play something for no cost, which is great. And a really interesting one is one that breaks up a school of fish. So, if you get that, you take one of your schools of fish that you already have to have out, but you get to put four young fish out anywhere on the board.
Yeah. And it doesn't even cuz initially I thought I had to put those like adjacent in some way. I think because of the symbol, but it doesn't need to be You can put them absolutely anywhere. And that is I think the part that really changes things. Like the coral changes things obviously the most, but this part as well, it really makes it a lot more strategic because I I definitely see myself thinking like, oh, if I have a bunch of little groups of two and then I blow up this is we call it a fish explosion. If I have a fish explosion, I can now make four groups possibly. Like I said earlier though, I find myself spending more young fish because I really like doing that middle column. But when I've got this and I can blow that up, that's really interesting. The downside though is that you're going from six points to four points cuz a school of fish is worth six. All the fish are worth one on their own. But you have the potential getting a lot of points out of that.
There's also, I think, one of the cards that blows up two schools of fish. So that can really cause some fish explosions.
Yes, you can really make some combos. But also obviously for people who are really into the theme, there are the sharks and people, you know, people like sharks. There's there's a reason that there is a shark week and that that is so popular. And you got oodles of sharks in here. All sorts of different sharks. Some that are terrifying. That goblin shark. That goblin. I do not like the look of that guy at all.
And some like really cool, I think, like deeper dwelling fish that look really neat. And then of course like some more like reef fish. So, if you like fish, you're just getting a more variety of fish.
So, then there's a few other little minor things in here. So, it comes with three of the end round tiles, and those are all pretty simple.
Yeah, there's one that has to do with coral, and there's another one that has to do with whether your fish are less than or greater than four points. There's another one for the fish that are in your sunlight zones and another one for your fish in your discard pile.
And then there is also one last one and that is going to give you two points for every unique tag that you have out.
And the other small thing it adds as well is a tray. I guess it's not quite small cuz it's a big
It's literally the biggest thing. Yeah,
it's a bigger tray than the original tray. And it actually still does fit in the box with the other tray, too.
Yeah. And at first I saw that and I thought, why didn't they just have this originally? I still kind of think that. But the nice thing about this is you can use the smaller tray from the original box to put all of the stuff you need out in the game. So, we've got the coral in that, the young fish, and the schools of fish. And then the bigger box fits all of the different cards as well as the uh the divers. I wanted to call them aquinauts. um which I do think is a word, but it also fits those divers. So, that is kind of the stuff you're not necessarily going to need out all the time in the game because you're just going to take out your piles of cards. So, it's nice and it's nice that everything does fit in that original box. I always like that with an expansion. So, I already felt like Finn Span seemed like the most unique in the Span series.
This one feels at least a bit different than the other two games, but this makes it feel even more different because now you've got that thing in the middle of your tableau that kind of stops and makes you think a little bit. And I don't think that there's an analogous mechanism in the other two games.
No, it feels like a new mechanism. And I like that the addition of the coral makes resources tighter. I found before the expansion, they weren't like super tight. I generally had the things I needed, but now I'm getting rid of cards and eggs and young and it means that I've got to plan ahead a little bit more.
Yeah, there is there's a little bit more strategy in this for sure. Both for that and also for those those fish explosions that we're talking about and also for just how some of the different cards interact. I feel like I'm thinking a little bit more. But importantly, this is still easily the lightest of all of the span games. Even with the new mechanics, even with the new stuff, I don't think it adds that much weight. This is still probably the only Span game I would play with more than two players.
Yeah. And so for for us, I think we'll keep this expansion in now that it it's mixed in when we play. Although, if we were to play with more than two players and play with new players, I would probably take it out.
Yeah, I think so. I think because that's really the beauty of Finsspan is that this is th this is really the entrylevel span game. And this maybe if I'm playing with someone that I'm really trying to win over to these sorts of games, I would put this in their second or maybe third game. But for us, we'll always have it in there. It's also a little bit tricky to take out because you have to take out the cards if you take out the coral because so many of them have to deal with that coral. So, it's a tiny bit of a pain to take it out and put it in. But, I think we're just going to leave it in forever. And that is it. That is Finn Span Sharks and Reefs. And what are you hoping for in the other I assume there's going to be two more expansions. There's got to be a deep sea and then there's got to be something that uses those stream icons that are up in the daylight zone. So, I assume there's going to be at least two more.
Thank you so much for watching. As usual, please like, subscribe, and hopefully we'll see you next time for another game.