So, just got a chance to play through a number of recent expansions, and I thought it would be nice to package up the previews/reviews in one piece. I’ll include the link to our review of each base game – if you’re unfamiliar with the base games, go read that first and then come back to learn of the additions included in each of these expansions!
Heat: Rocky Roads
- Designers: Asger Harding Granerud, Daniel Skjold Pedersen
- Publisher: Days of Wonder
- Players: 1+
- Age: 10+
- Time: 60 minutes
- Played with review copy provided by publisher
The desert heat is relentless but so are you… Gravel sprays out from under your tires and your car gives a sickening lurch as it begins to spin out. Clutch. Shift. Gas! Your engine roars and your car leaps into the next turn on a perfect line; you’re still in the race but you’ll have to watch for loose gravel on the track.
Heat: Rocky Roads introduces two new racing tracks. In the South Africa Grand Prix you will face treacherous gravel on the track, requiring careful management of your car and nerves of steel. Victory on the Germany track will hinge on how you deal with the fast pace of the newly built chicanes along the long straight away. Take part in the 1966 Championship season and take advantage of a new innovation, the sliding Skirt, to surprise your opponents and slipstream to victory!
Heat is one of those games that I have enjoyed every time that I’ve played, but interestingly, it’s still not one that I request on my own. As I have many gaming friends that love the game, they often do the requesting. Rocky Roads was quickly requested as soon as it arrived here. Thus far, I’ve played one race on each of the two new tracks – and as with all of the other boards, each brings its own set of unique rules to the game.
On the South Africa track, there are new rules to deal with the gravel filled track spaces. When you end your turn on gravel, you must pay one Heat if you have Heat cards in your Engine. This can really accelerate how this affects your game. Trying to decide whether you’re going to avoid stopping on gravel versus dealing with the extra Heat is a big part of the strategy for this track. We found that this also provides an interesting possible catch-up mechanism to the track – players that are behind often have less Heat, and as a result, they will often not be bothered by ending their turn on gravel. The Germany board feels pretty straightforward with lots of high speeds, and the big decision each lap made around how each driver wants to deal with the chicane.
I will note that there are cards included to add a new season onto a Championship campaign, but as I’ve never played though that way, those cards are lost on me. There is also a new rule for what looks to be super-slipstreaming; but again, for someone who just plays essentially vanilla one-off Heat races, it’s more than I want to know.
As has been the hallmark of the whole franchise, Heat provides gamers with all the components they need to customize the game to their liking. I’ll pretty much stick with one-off races, and I do appreciate the variety provided by each different race course board. You can play with the Legends to add more cards to the race. You can play in a series of games in the Championship series. You can add in weather and track conditions, etc. It’s rare to find a racing game which is this versatile – and this expansion simply adds more to what’s already in the system.
Is it essential? That’s unclear. None of the new rules are groundbreaking from my standpoint; though again, the added variety is nice. If you’re still playing Heat 4 years after the initial release, I’m guessing that you have some or all of the expansions, and you’ll assuredly want to add this to your collection.
Luna Expansion for Galileo Galilei
- Designer: Tomas Holek
- Publisher: Capstone Games / Pink Troubadour
- Players: 1-4
- Age: 14+
- Time: 60 minutes
- Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4kElBfo
- Played with review copy provided by publisher
In the 16th century, astronomers like Tycho Brahe studied the Moon’s movements and phases using precise measurements and simple instruments. Galileo Galilei’s telescope revealed craters and mountains on the Moon, thereby disproving the ancient hypothesis of its perfect smoothness. These observations changed our understanding of the Moon and of the entire universe. Map the Moon together and enhance your strategic possibilities!
This expansion for Galileo Galilei introduces the Moon as a new object of observation, adding a new scoring mechanic to explore. Now, you can also observe the Moon itself, though it will always require you to use all three colors. When you make a Moon observation, you will get both the basic scoring as well as a nice bonus. Interestingly, all other players get the basic scoring as well. Just like in real life, the Moon reveals itself in phases, and you’ll get to see more of the Moon each time that you hit a Dividing tile in the Discovery Deck.
Additionally, Grand Inquisitors enter the game each time you observe the Moon, offering great rewards to those who can successfully persuade them. If you’re able to fully persuade one of the Grand Inquisitors, you can take and open Bonus space – and let me tell you, these are quite good!
Finally, you will discover four new playable characters, each bringing unique abilities. Elizabeth Hevelius has a set of 16 Constellation tiles that you will use to form star pattens, getting increasing better bonuses for the more stars in the formation. Isaac Newton comes with a unique set of 6 action tiles that you use instead of the base tiles. Each of the new characters brings a nice asymmetrical ability to the game and each will cause you to play differently to maximize the benefit of your chosen scientist.
There is also an expansion for the solo game in the rules, but as I’ve never played this game solo, I didn’t do much more than read the heading in the book.
The variety added to the game is nice, and you can add in the extra characters and the whole Moon observation bit in piecemeal or use them all. It will be interesting to see in my future plays how all of the different characters work against each other – or if nothing else, the variety in learning how to play with each of them.
Terra Mystica: Fan Factions
- Designers: multiple TM fans
- Publisher: Feuerland / Capstone
- Players: 2-5
- Age: 14+
- Time: 30 minutes
- Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4amPWu0
- Played with review copy provided by publisher
In February 2021, Feuerland Spiele started a competition to collect the most interesting of these ideas and publish them for all fans of Terra Mystica to play. We would like to thank everyone who took part in this competition, regardless of whether their entry was chosen or not. The new factions have since been tested, illustrated by Dennis Lohausen, tested even more on BoardGameArena.com and tweaked accordingly.
In this heavy box, you’ll find a collection of 20 new factions for Terra Mystica, 2 each for the 7 colors of the game and 2 multi-color, ice and fire factions, respectively. Each one brings its own twist to how you approach the game.
As with any fan-made expansion, I would have some concerns about balancing issues – but after discussing with the folks at Capstone, I learned that all of these factions were tweaked and balanced through heavy play on Boardgamearena. In fact, it’s likely that these factions have received much more playtesting because of that wide exposure online.
A few examples:
Djinn – You get 3 Magic Lamp tokens. During the game, you can discard a Magic Lamp to have 2 of your markers on the Cult board switch Cults with each other (keeping the same levels)
Goblins – You gain Treasure tokens each time you build a Temple or Sanctuary. On your turn, you can spend a Treasure token to get a reward based on the number of a particular Structure type you have built: Dwellings = power, Trading Posts = 2 coins, Temples = Worker, etc
The Enlightened – Use Power instead of Workers to transform terrain. Additionally, you can spend a coin to gain 1 Power token in Bowl I.
I am still working my way through all the different factions (though I have probably played some of them online in the past). This expansion is a great way to add lots of variety to your Terra Mystica games as it vastly increases the number of factions to choose from. It’s likely that this box represents a lifetime supply of variety for my Terra Mystica games…
Cities: Achievement Boards and Theaters
- Designers: Phil Walker Harding and Steve Finn
- Publisher: Devir
- Players: 2-4
- Age: 10+
- Time: 45 minutes
- Played with review copy provided by publisher
Design new neighborhoods with the first expansion for Cities! It includes 11 new city achievement tiles and the mini-expansion Theaters. The 11 City achievement tiles show two different cities on both sides from Hungary (Budapest, Kecskemét), Germany (Hamburg, Berlin), France (Paris, Nancy), Czech Republic (Brno, Prague), Netherlands (Antwerp, Amsterdam), Russia (Moscow, Saint Petersburg), South Korea (Busan, Seoul), Poland (Warsaw, Kraków), China (Peking, Shanghai), Chile (Santiago), Italy (Rome), and Japan (Tokyo, Osaka).
I have yet to play with all of the boards, but I do like the way that each new one thus far has given a different feel to the game. I also appreciate the fact that each new city uses actual landmarks and buildings from the city; thus bringing a real sense of travel and adventure to the game. The fact that the actual bonus criteria reflect the real locations also is a big plus for me.
The mini-expansion Theaters includes 4 theater tokens. At the time of taking tiles from the Feature tile row, a player may discard one of the Monument or Special feature tiles just taken to take a Theater tile from the supply instead (a player may take only 1 theater token per game). Then they can place it on a city space in their city. At game end, you score 1 point for each building in the same row and/or column as the theater token that matches the theater’s color.
This expansion is a nice plus and it helps players have a bit more agency when picking the feature tiles. Sure, you can only do it once per game, but it will always be a good choice when you’re left to take a tile that you have no use for. There can be a bit of a race for the specific color theatre – as there is only one for each color; so if you’ve set yourself up for a big bonus, you might have to take it early to guarantee that you get the color you need.
This has been a great addition to the game for me, though it is admittedly a tight fit now in the original box. You will definitely need all your gamebox tetris-fu to get the lid to fit snugly!
Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor
