• Designer:  Jamey Stegmaier
• Solo Designer:  Morten Pedersen
• Artist:  Jakub Rozalski
• Publisher:  Stonemaier Games
• Players:  1-5
• Age:  12+
• Duration:  90 minutes
• Times Played:  1

My experience with Stonemaier games has been pretty uneven over the years.  A number of their designs have had some severe balance issues, at least when they were first released.  I’ve heard reports that some of those problems were resolved through newer editions and official rulings, but that doesn’t particularly sway me—I have the quaint notion that games should work from the very beginning.  However, that was never a problem with Jamey Stegmaier’s most successful game, Scythe.  While I don’t love it quite as much as others in my group, it’s a genuinely good and well designed title and one that I’m happy to play anytime.  So I had some hope for the game that was billed as Scythe’s sequel, Expeditions.  Even though I was aware that, mechanically, it was quite different from Scythe, I thought that maybe Jamey would be inspired by working in the same setting as his best game.

And, somewhat to my surprise, that’s exactly what I found.  I’ve only played the game once, but right now, I’d say that Expeditions is easily my second favorite Stonemaier title.  I’d even venture to say that it accomplishes what it sets out to do just as well as Scythe does, which is fairly high praise.

Expeditions has the same dieselpunk setting that Scythe does, this time in Siberia.  A massive meteorite has crashed there, “awakening ancient corruption”.  Naturally, this is great news for the players, who immediately flock to the area, hoping to find monsters, gadgets, and, most importantly, victory points!

The play area is randomly determined each game.  It consists of 20 large hex tiles, laid out in three rows, with the bottom row face up.  They are arranged so that there are five hex-sized gaps and each one gets a face-up card from the deck.  Each player gets a mat, to track their progress, and their first two cards:  their character and their loyal companion.  Each character and companion have unique abilities (although they have to be played to be used), and each mat is associated with a mech miniature, which also has a rules-altering power.  The players mechs all start adjacent to the bottom row.  There are essentially two “currencies” in the game—Power and Guile—with a track for each on your player mat, and each player begins with none of them.

The turns work in a manner that is kind of the reverse of how things go in Scythe.  There are three possible actions available and each player begins their turn by moving their action token to one of them.  However, that is the action that they can’t take.  So essentially, you take two of the three actions each turn, but the pairing won’t be the same as on your previous turn (since you have to move your token).  You must take all of the actions available to you.  It’s a simple system, but it feels innovative and works quite well.

The three actions are:

• Move
• Play
• Gather

During a Move action, you move your mech from 1-3 spaces to an unoccupied location.  Other mechs don’t stop you from moving through their spaces, but you can’t end your movement on the hex they occupy.  If you enter an unexposed hex, you must end your movement there.

If the hex you end your movement on is face-up, that ends your turn.  However, if the hex is face-down, you reveal it and check the minimum corruption level of the bad guy who resides there, which is printed on the tile.  To determine how tough a challenge this nameless dread is, you draw corruption tokens from a bag.  These come in two colors (which represent the Power or Guile required to take it down) and the values of 3, 4, or 5.  Draw tokens until the total is at least the shown minimum level and stack them, in the order you drew them, on the hex.  Then end your turn.

On a Play action, you take a card from your hand and play it to your active row.  This feels a little different than in most games, because all of your cards are face up.  At the beginning of the game, your two cards (your character and companion cards) are placed face up to the left of your mat—this represents your hand.  To play a card, you just move it to the area to the right of your mat.

Every card can help you in up to two ways.  First, each card shows either a Power or a Guile symbol.  When you play the card, you raise the level of that parameter by 1.  The second way requires you to place a worker on the card.  Workers come in five different colors and every card requires a specific color worker.  If you have one of that color in your supply, you can play it on the played card and trigger its ability.  You don’t begin the game with any workers, but certain cards and hexes allow you to gain them.  Once a worker is placed on a card, that worker can’t be used again until you take a Refresh turn (more on that later).

Here are some of the abilities shown on the cards:

•  Increase your Power or Guile.
• Add a worker to your supply, either of a specific color or the color of your choice.
• Add a card to your active row at no cost.  These come from one of the five gaps in the play area that have face-up cards.  Depending on the details of the ability, you can either choose from any area or one that is adjacent to your current location.  You don’t do anything on the card at this time, but it is now under your control and you’ll be able to play it following a Refresh action.
• Some cards have ongoing benefits that continue as long as you have the card in your active row with a worker on it.
• Return a card from your active row to your hand and put the worker on it (if any) back in your supply.  Both are now eligible to be played, starting with your next turn.
• Activate the ability of another card in your active row (this doesn’t require you to place a worker on that other card).
• Solve.  Some of the cards you can acquire are called Quest cards.  These function like any other card, but they also include the word “Quest” and one specific hex tile.  If you own a Quest card and your mech is on the specified hex, you can play a card with the Solve ability to carry out the quest.  Pay the cost indicated on the Quest card (it will cost you either Power or Guile), gain the benefit indicated on the card, and then tuck the Quest card under your mat to show that it has been solved.  Solving quests adds to your end-game scoring.
• Vanquish.  The Vanquish ability allows you to take on the monsters hanging out on the hexes of Siberia.  You can do this if your mech occupies a hex with at least one corruption token on it.  Look at the number and color of the top token.  The color tells you if you have to pay Power or Guile and the number is the amount you’ll need to pay.  Subtract that amount of Power or Guile from the appropriate track on your mat and add the corruption token to your supply.  If there are still more tokens on the hex and you have enough remaining Power or Guile, you can continue taking tokens.  When the last corruption token is removed from a hex, it will reveal a new benefit that can be gained through the Gather action.  The corruption tokens you’ve vanquished add to your end-game scoring.

Finally, the Gather action allows you to use the visible benefits at your mech’s location.  Some of these benefits are visible from the moment the hex is revealed, but others only become visible once the hex’s last corruption token is vanquished.  There are benefits similar to the ones found on the cards, such as gaining cards and workers, but the following are unique to the hexes:

• Upgrade.  One of the card types is Items.  In addition to their normal function, they each have an ongoing effect which is only activated once they are upgraded.  The Upgrade benefit allows you to take the card and tuck it under your mat.  From now on, the card can’t be played, but its ongoing effect is activated.  Upgraded items also are worth VPs at the end of the game.
• Meld.  Another type of card is called Meteorites.  These presumably are fragments of the big meteor that led to the ancient corruption, yadda, yadda, yadda.  In addition to their normal function, they have a bonus which can only be acquired if they are melded.  (Why do you meld meteorites?  I have no idea; I guess I’m not corrupt enough.)  The Meld benefit allows you to tuck a Meteorite under your board, taking it out of play, but allowing you to earn its bonus.  You also earn the bonus of every other Meteorite you had melded earlier.  Meld enough Meteorites and it will increase your end-game score.
• Boast.  Just as in Scythe, you get to place Star tokens (which are called Glory tokens in Expeditions) if you achieve certain things.  Unlike Scythe, these tokens aren’t placed automatically—you need to do the Boast benefit in order to place them on the central board.  If, during a Gather action, your hex contains a Boast benefit, you may place a Glory token as long as you meet the requirements of a category.  You can only place one star per Boast benefit.  If an opponent has placed a star in that category earlier, it doesn’t stop you from placing one there, but once you’ve placed a star there, you can’t place a second one.  There are seven Glory categories in all, including things like Solving 4 quests, Melding 4 meteorites, Upgrading 4 items, having at least 7 corruption tokens, and so on.  When a player places their fourth Glory token, it triggers the end of the game.  In addition, your Glory tokens usually represent a big chunk of your VP total.

So those are the three actions and each turn, you’ll carry out two of them.  Eventually, you’ll find yourself looking longingly at the cards you played and the workers sitting on them, wishing that a bunch of them were available to you again.  That’s when it’s time to take a Refresh turn.  When you do that, return all your played workers to your supply and put all the cards in your Active row back into your hand (face up, remember).  Keep your mech where it is, but that’s your whole turn.  On the turn following a Refresh turn, you’ll get to do all three of the possible actions, as a reward for being so patient.  After that, take normal two-action turns until your next Refresh turn.

When one player plays their fourth Glory token, each player takes one last turn.  Each player adds up the VPs they accumulated during the game, VPs for their Upgraded items, VPs for the Corruption tokens they vanquished, and VPs for the Glory tokens they placed.  The latter is interesting, because the number of VPs each star is worth is determined by the number of quests you’ve Solved.  Highest VP total wins.

I’ve only managed to play Expeditions once, but I was quite impressed with it.  Why is that?  Well, to start off with, turns are quite fast.  You’re only doing two things per turn and, particularly early on, that doesn’t take much time at all, as you’re grabbing cards and workers to set up your strategy.  Turns race along, and yet there’s the satisfying feeling that you’re accomplishing something.

Even though the basic decision each turn is only which one of two actions to cover up, there’s still a reasonable amount to think about, including which hexes to head towards and how to manage your cards and workers.  Getting Glory tokens played is the usual focus and this leads to specialization by the players for which cards they want to collect and which hexes to land on.  This automatically leads to multiple paths towards victory.

The game isn’t stunningly innovative, but there are many nice touches in the design, all of which seem to work.  The action selection system is one, as is the idea of enhancing cards with workers; the latter means you have to work with two different pools of items in order to implement your strategy, which adds to the challenge.  Two other elements you need to consider are the mix of abilities on the cards you acquire (you’ll want some variety, as well as some emphasis in the area you’re focusing on) and planning on how to wend your way through the hexes in order to gather the hex benefits you need.  You also have to time all this correctly, so that you’re where you need to be, with the resources you require, at the time that you can trigger the correct two actions.  It’s by no means rocket science, but it does require some planning and forethought.

Allowing players to use all three actions following a Refresh turn is another nice idea.  Essentially, it reduces the penalty for taking a Refresh to only half of a turn and could conceivably be used strategically.  I quite like the geographical nature of the display, where the location of the face-up card can be important.  Like the worker mechanism, it wouldn’t surprise me if this had been used in a game before, but it’s new to me and I like it.  Finally, the way you retire cards such as Quests, Items, and Meteorites gives the players an interesting decision.  The benefits you gain from tucking those cards are nice and, of course, you can place a Glory token if you focus on one type of card.  But this also takes cards out of play and can leave you with fewer choices and abilities unless you’re careful.  Again, a small design decision which feels different and works really well.

There’s some player interaction, but not a great deal.  You can’t move to an occupied hex, so other players’ mechs can get in the way.  Parking on a valuable hex is a viable strategy, although you can only do so for a limited time.  There can also be a race to grab the cards in the display you want.  Finally, you need to be aware if an opponent is close to placing their fourth star, as that will trigger the end of the game.  So like most Euros, you can’t afford to ignore your opponents, but there’s not much you can do to directly interact with them.  Given the speed and weight of the title, I think this works just fine.

I think a few words about how the game embraces the theme are in order.  Stonemaier positions Expeditions as the “sequel” to Scythe and the rules talk about exploration, adventure, and battling “ancient corruption”.  However, outside of Jakub Rozalski’s fine, atmospheric artwork, very little of that trickles down into the gameplay.  Yes, you can explore new hexes, but other than flipping the hex (an action which can help you place a Glory token), there’s little other benefit.  Moreover, nothing bad can happen through exploration, either.  You’re constantly improving your character’s capabilities, but it doesn’t particularly feel like character growth—it’s more like carrying out the abstract actions of adding cards, workers, and modifying Power and Guile.  I like how the worker mechanic works, but I don’t really know what it represents thematically.  Similarly, since Power and Guile constantly creep up and down, it doesn’t feel like I’m getting smarter or stronger; they’re just a pair of commodities.  Most significantly, combat is deterministic, bloodless, and risk-free.  I like deterministic combat, so I think it works well, but it really doesn’t fit the theme.  Just as with exploration, nothing bad can happen when you fight—you incur no wounds or mutations from the horrors you encounter.  The monsters themselves hardly even register with the players; they’re just a couple of tiles you get to vanquish.  None of this bothers me in the least, but I’m a mechanics-first player—if a game has sound and innovative mechanisms and a few thematic trappings, I’m happy.  However, people who do care about theme, and particularly those who were hoping for a game more fully enmeshed with the Scythe universe, will probably be disappointed.

My one game was with three players and we all employed different approaches and finished fairly close together, which is a good sign.  The game played quickly and all three of us enjoyed it.  Best of all, the planning and card/worker management led to fun turns.  One game isn’t much of a data point, though, so there are still three outstanding questions I have about the design.  The first is how well it plays with different numbers of players.  Three felt ideal.  Based on that, I’d be happy to try it with 2 or 4, although the downtime could conceivably be an issue in a 4-player game.  But I’d be worried about playing this with 5.  There are no adjustments in the rules for player count, so I’d be concerned that the board would get pretty crowded and that it might be much harder to get to the hexes you want.  And even though the early turns are very fast, you can have some more involved turns later in the game, so I could see downtime being a real issue with 5.  Obviously, I’d have to play it with that number before I could say one way or the other, but I can’t recommend this game with 5, based on what I know about it.  (By the way, the solitaire game uses an automaton that the player competes with.  Given the puzzly nature of the multiplayer game, I’d think it would make an enjoyable solo experience, assuming that it’s implemented well.)

The second question is how replayable Expeditions is.  Again, it’s just a guess, but I can see individual games playing out fairly differently.  There are 6 different character/companion pairs and 5 different mech powers, so that gives you some variety from the start.  All the hexes are used every game, but the order changes and that alters things a bit.  The biggest factor is the cards.  I’d estimate we saw about half of the cards in our game and the order in which they come out obviously matters a lot, so that should provide a different experience each game.  So at this point, I’m not concerned about replayability.  Now, will the game still feel fresh after 50 plays?  That’s impossible to say right now.  But I don’t see this being a problem for the foreseeable future.

The final question is the biggest one, given Stonemaier’s history:  game balance.  I’ve played some games from this publisher which were severely unbalanced, with the original version of Tapestry being one of the biggest offenders.  So it’s always a concern of mine whenever I play one of their games.  I’m pleased to report that after all of one game that I saw no issues in this area.  The abilities of the different characters and mech powers all seemed pretty evenly matched.  The cards are the main focus of the game, but none of them seemed overpowered to us.  Our scores were quite close, despite us all pursuing different paths, so that’s another positive.  So at this early stage I have to give kudos to the design team for working to improve what had been a major failing in the past.  It’s very nice to enjoy a Stonemaier game fresh out of the box and not have to wait for future editions or expansions for them to get it right.

The components live up to Stonemaier’s usual high standard.  The mechs are very nicely carved and are fun to look at, but they’re not so big that they block your view, which in this age of oversized pieces is something I appreciate.  The hexes are large, which means you’ll need a decently sized table, but the game isn’t nearly as much of a table hog as many other titles; I think they chose the right size.  The iconography on the cards is clear and consistent.  The text is a bit small, but not nearly as microscopic as I’ve seen in other games.  I didn’t have a problem with it and my vision isn’t the best.  My one gripe is with the cardboard coins, which are the Victory Point markers.  Only one side clearly shows the value; the number is pretty tiny on the other side and I was constantly squinting at what I had and what I was trying to get from the supply.  I think they could have done a better job with these, but that’s a pretty mild complaint.  Overall, the components add to the enjoyment level of the game.

So if you’re looking for a fast-playing medium weight game with some fresh mechanisms, I can recommend Expeditions.  It blends hand building and worker management with a little bit of exploration and the resulting combination is a very nice mix.  Because of the goodly number of small innovations, the game doesn’t feel like anything else out there.  I don’t think the theme comes through and it’s a Scythe sequel in name only, so be aware that this isn’t a monster bashing exercise.  Instead, it’s a well designed and attractive looking Euro.  I’m pleased to report that Stonemaier’s latest is by no means an expedition to nowhere, but rather a trip I’ll be happy to take many times in the future.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Jonathan – It felt like a game of two parts, the first part is a fun exploration game with a fixed set of tiles. The second part is a classic efficiency Euro that feels similar to many others. I wish there were a way to capture the fun of the first part through the arc of the whole game. Would be happy to play again.

Patrick Brennan – This game is perfectly fine. It’s in the mold of Scythe in that there are 7 different scoring objectives and you try to focus on 4. It’s all about balancing moves, board effects, and card plays equally, making sure you’ve always got something progressive in each aspect each turn. And then finding effects that complement each other and hammering them as much as the forced action balance allows. There’s lots of little font though which makes card-reading around the board time-consuming and leads to “let’s focus on something else” which leads to a portion of dis-engagement when you know you’re not optimising. The exploration component is simply revealing known worker action spaces in a random order. Having tried to explain why it didn’t excite me, there’s still lots of enjoyable challenge and replay in the game. While I wouldn’t hunt for it, I’d happily explore it if friends were excited to.

Alan How – I’ve played it a few times with different groups and each time it has gone down well. Not so exciting that everyone wants to play again soon, but the game was well received. The efficiency puzzle was resolved in one game very well by a player which makes me realise that if you concentrate sufficiently you can play so much better. The game has good replay value and I’m happy to play again. As usual in most Stonemaier games, the production values are good and the company is thinking about how to improve learning a game as well as playing a game, which I appreciate.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

I love it:
I like it:  Larry, Jonathan, Patrick, Alan, Steph
Neutral:
Not for me: