Expeditions: Gears of Corruption Review - Recommended...But Not Why You'd Think

hey I'm Alex R from board Gameco and today I'm reviewing the new expansion for expeditions Gears of corruption Expeditions was one of my favorite games of 2023 and gears of corruption is adding a few new things to the game and we're first going to talk about all those things that are added and then tell you my thoughts and opinions on those things but as a general idea before we get into that just a quick 30 60 seconds on what Expeditions is Expeditions is an efficiency game it's a game which you are trying to move your mechs around the map slowly move around the board in order to uncover various areas and slowly basically get these goals over here these goals are going to be one of the things that contribute to your score at the end of the game game end is going to be triggered by a player getting four of these goals any player want getting four of these different goals and you're going to be using your actions to move play and gather cars so to move around the board to play cars and to gather from those locations trying to find the right combinations of how to build up your card engine as you gather various items you upgrade some items you're going to be meld some meteorites and you're going to be going on quests and solving some quests you're going to be doing all of that trying to get to as many points as possible more efficiently better and faster than the other players that's a very very high level you can watch my full review you can watch a gameplay on the channel you can go to a variety of other channels and see more information but let's talk about what Gears of corruption does for the game and it basically adds a few new things the first thing it adds is a six player now I will note first of all I say off the bat that and I guess you know let's do opinions after let's just talk about what it adds right now and let's do opinions after so it adds a six player that's going to be one of the things that adds you have a new green color over here speaking of which you have some upgraded components over here you're going to have these silicone little melds instead of the original base game had these plastic melds these ones over here that you know clink together whatnot over there these are going to be silicone melds that slightly better adhere to the various mechs uh it's a small quality of life upgrade but nothing particularly crazy I'm diving into opinions again we're going to have silicon melds over here as an upgraded component you're going to have dual layer player boards all the player boards for the mech from the base game have all been upgraded to these dual layer ones you have these Originals over here you can see the difference as far as those little divots and the way these are structured so hold on to everything there has dual layers over there so just enhanced component upgrades on both of those you're going to have some new content as well you're going to have new cards for the various uh factions you're going to start off you going to be selecting different cars that give you your assigned Mech faction you can go ahead and gather that way and it gives you variable starting resources as well part of that's just in general to start your off with resources and part of that is if you're playing at higher player accounts it'll give you a little bit of a head start so you're not spending as much time Gathering everything you start off with a few basic resources to to begin the game you're also going to have new content in the shape of two new mechs to deal with we're going to have These two factions over here the Scarecrow and the mole as two different new mechs I will note over here I should have not this at the beginning but right now over here on the table I do have the Ironclad edition of expeditions both for the base game and the expansion which primarily means these metal mechs over here so uh if you are someone who's looking at Expeditions please note that there are two versions of the game both with and without metal mechs just make sure you're buying the right one the one that you're looking for the Ironclad will obviously cost more but will come with premium upgrades from metal Mech from coins things like that I think I think it comes with the coins I'm not entirely sure if they're bought separately but I believe it comes with the coins anyways uh pass that over here so we have these new mechs so we have the mech this going to be the mole the mole's ability is whenever you gather you may trash a map to act as if corruption is not covering a benefit a core Concept in Expeditions is going to be is corruption covering locations you can go ahead and trash a map to ignore those limitations which gives you less of a rush to try to try to solve it all the to try to um not solve Vanquish all the corruption but rather you go have you can dance around it with those Maps instead and then we have the Scarecrow over here the Scarecrow is going to whenever you finish a refresh turn you may trash a map to perform an extra action move play or gather basically meaning that assuming you have the maps for it your refresh turns cost you nothing because normally a refresh turn costs you one action because it costs you your turn but your next turn you get a full action back with the Scarecrow your refresh turns cost you nothing giving you more flexibility over how and where you go ahead and deal with those refresh turns throughout the game utilizing your right the best combination of cards because you're not really losing anything unless of course you have another way to trade in maps in which case that's a different story you're also going to have a new wild worker basically the game starts off with giving you a uh little metal work a little gold worker is going to be a wild worker for each faction so that gives you just a little bit again a little bit of a head start going on you're not completely restricted as far as needing to get a worker round one to maximize your card play we'll talk more about this in my thoughts but I like that one a lot and then you're also going to have new new map tokens basically these map tokens in the original game were tokens that you just got the map token they were helpful for achieving five map tokens for one of these goals and then sometimes you had ways of trading them in but now when you flip over a map token you also get a benefit so in this case you're going to get one of the cards on the table that has a quest and if that wasn't there you wouldn't get anything unfortunately but you have all these Quest tokens that these map tokens that as you explore there's more of an incentive to wander around the board to open things up because you're going to be getting all these tokens that as an extra benefit so whatever incentive there was to explore or not there's just that much more so now and then lastly because these have all been the small little peripheral things we have new upgrad components you have a six player we have small modifications to the game playay but the biggest thing is going to be biggest thing well I say biggest thing but the biggest change so to speak is going to be the concept of an automated Mech this is going to be a AI opponent against you in the game the basic idea is that once a player gets their first star it gets their first star in the game they've accomplished one of these goals you're going to go ahead and gather these cards over here these automated Mech things you're going to choose a random unselected Mech it doesn't really matter which sculpt you take although that could be a fun variation but right now it's just any any sculpt any Mech that you have you put it on the board and you're going to go ahead and put five Cards into play representing let me let me lay this out properly representing the mech's strength and then slowly but surely here let's go and put five cards out when it comes right back to the player right before the player who activated the mech for the first turn that Mech is going to start taking its own turn the way it works let's grab a Mech and start putting on the board we have this new Mech over here it's going to go on the board and on the mech's turn right before the player who brought it into play for the first time you're going to put out a new card and that tells you where the mech goes in this case it's going Northeast where it can't go so it's slowly going to wander until it finds a side that it can go and then wander that way and additionally well let's go ahead and play another card let's pretend we have this Mech over here and this Mech over here because on the mech's next turn it's going to try to go northeast where it can't go but it hits this guy causing them to lose one strength you're going to look at the card and the card will tell you what consequence it has when it goes it can't go but it still will continue trying to go until it can go over here but its next move wants it to go there it could continue trying to go and then it'll go over here so basically whenever the mech hits another player it will still try to move but it'll cause an impact to that player now the players on their turn can start using Vanquish actions to get rid of the mech a Vanquish action if you're adjacent to the mech to the AI Mech you can use a Vanquish action to go through the cards working your way from bottom to top trying to basically take it out and these cards will count as Vanquish tokens for the sake of well getting being worth two points each and this me this requirement over here that has seven Vanquish tokens and so that's basically what the expansion adds as a bunch of new modules and things and small tweaks and fixes and component upgrades and then it adds this automated Mech to fight against as well that will both hurt the other players and give you a way to use your Vanquish action against that Mech which means it's time to dive into thoughts and opinions of what the expansion does what it adds to Expeditions and all of those things and so let's tackle those things one at a time first of all going through the six player expansion I find that for me Expeditions is a game that I love at two three and four players four players base game already have the slight limitation that you can get a work on your first turn asly honestly even three players depending on the the configuration of the starting tiles and five players was easily my least favorite way to play Expeditions so for me six players frankly I haven't played as six I don't plan on playing at six for me five players is already pushing it I appreciate the flexibility that it provides but for me it's not something that I'll benefit from because I already think five players is the worst now again full clarity and whatnot they are adding new new starting components from a new worker as well as new resources so there is that aspect to take into account but I I just don't anticipate a six players as being something I am going to use or benefit from although having green as a player color that's something you can use and benefit from past that as far as the upgraded components uh these silicone little moldes that just rolled off the table over there these silicone little molds over here they are uh nice but I never had a problem with the old ones so no real complaints on my end I I like these but again no personal complaints on the original ones for me I assumed these were to address some degree of complaints but I just didn't have those so I can't really comment on what these are adding for me the new dual layer player boards on the hand that's a nice quality life upgrade they took all the original player boards from the base game they made them all dual air they add the new ones that is just a strong quality of life upgrade although it does make it interesting if they ever plan on releasing new mechs I wonder how they'll approach that because unless you want to reprint them all again you might force a player to have new boards somewhere either way that's a future problem I won't worry about that for now but I will say I do like the Dual a player boards it's a nice nice benefit it's not I never had huge problems with the old one but certainly did knock pieces here and there and this is just better in that sense I will say that the two biggest things that I really like is I like the map tokens and the new wild worker the the map tokens give you more incentive to explore in a game where I found that I personally rarely bothered exploring I let other players explore while I worked on building up my engine Gathering cards things like that all things you can do on these basic starting cards I never needed to explore and I kind of unless there's one Mech that benefits from having map tokens if I wasn't playing that Mech I personally left exploring to other players and this gives you an additional incentive to explore which I appreciate it looks like they are addressing the fact that there's less reward otherwise you go ahead and just get the guaranteed thing instead of the unknown and so I really like the map tokens I think those are very solid addition to the game and more importantly the new wild worker where every faction starts with a worker I think that is huge the biggest complaint I've had against Expeditions and I love it despite it but the biggest complaint I have had is that in a three or four player game and again three depends four for sure and five for sure you you have at least some players who will not get a worker on their first turn and as much as stor m games has commented that they've balanced it around this and it must I've won as the last player I've won four player games as the fourth player it's definitely happened nonetheless I do find that not getting a worker early on can be incredibly frustrating and can feel like it's limiting your engine a lot and so I appreciate having that new wild worker in play I think I left that one thing as far as the new content there's also I left that one thing we'll talk about let's talk about the new content to that end new content we have two new mechs and we have four new pairs of faction leaders so the two new mechs over here four new pack sets of uh leaders over here generally when you start the game you're going to pick a uh companion and a character and over here we have all the ones in the base game and over here we have new ones over here they just add more variability so going to my I guess now that we've told you those exist let's talk about my thoughts on the new content as far as that I think the two new mechs are fun both them give you a way to trade in map tokens for different things uh they're not necess my favorites my personal favorite mechs and Expeditions if you've played it are going to be the one that lets you get cards straight into your hand so you can start using those cards right away love that Mech and then the mech that lets you uh have five of everything getting five meteorites melded you can get so many points it's so satisfying the new Mech give you ways to get avoid certain things you get an extra action back when you refresh but I don't find it refresh a lot cuz I usually like getting a lot of cards or you have a new is discarding map token to ignore a benefit to ignore a restriction and bypass a limitation that can get you a a lot of return at different points in the game depending how you utilize it not my favorite ability I like having more abilities I like having more mechs I like the variety ads but I guess I'm not like overly infused with the abilities of the new one so take it or leave it not again it's not too harsh it's more content I'm happy for it but they don't replace my favorite mechs but then we have the new character the new character combinations and those are pretty nice with the caveat that they're not necessarily game-breaking or completely changing of the game what they do is they offer four new characters four new ways of combining starting abilities some of them are more different than others all of them represent a nice shift from the base ones of the the the base game characters so you have a little bit more variability in what they do some of them let you sweep cards uh this Ali one over here where we have balion and zephon over here they completely change the way you interact with the game you're no longer really solving quests or or vanquishing the way you typically do they completely adjust they're kind of just placing quests instead but you have to give up a a corruption to do so or alternatively you can go ahead and just take corruption off locations so they totally change the way you play the game in very different ways so I will say these new characters do represent a nice shift from the base game while at the same time again I don't know if it's gamebreaking anyway they're just nice to have and then lastly the automated Mech the automated AI Mech that you're fighting against uh it's fine I think it's okay uh for me I found that it probably added more maintenance to the game than actually having a rewarding experience I think it is more helpful at higher player counts especially just to have more vanquishing on the board if you're playing a five player game or now a six player game you're going to run out of those Vanquish tokens pretty quickly and so having a bunch of uh extra things to Vanquish that's certainly a good thing to do I would say that in general even though boards do clear up as you go through it I don't know if I felt that need and a threat the threat wasn't as present or as damaging as all that and so for me the new Mech kind of felt more like maintenance than anything else I don't mind it I'd happily play with it I'd happily play without it it was kind of neutral for me so so where are we on this expansion on my ratings for this on Final thoughts and all that because and I want to be very clear here there something new that I've been doing uh which is now when I review expansions I try to review the expansion in terms of not just how I feel with the game because to me Expeditions is a five out of five I love Expeditions and the expansion doesn't make any of that worse so historically I would have been like I don't know five out of five I guess because it's makes the expansion it makes the game just as good if not better and it and it does make the game better but now I'm rating expansions more on how I feel they add to the the base game so even though Expeditions is a five out of five game for me and even though the expansion does make some elements better the expansion to me is not a five out of five the expansion to me is a 3.5 out of five it does some really nice things that I do recommend I think that having an extra worker to start the game off that's huge I love that difference although frankly you can house r that in your original Expeditions game and just give everyone a worker color of their choice it basically will do the same thing so I highly recommend taking that approach if you want to if you don't want to get the expansion to fix that problem just go ahead and do that the map tokens not much you can do there unless you get creative the map tokens here you'll want to get those map tokens I think that's a nice quality of life as far as exploration and I think the new characters the new mechs the new the new cars all of those things are nice the automated Mech kind of like the main difference that's the biggest mechanical change to Expeditions and for me the the automated Mech is just okay it's not bad it's not whatever I assume I will play with it in the future and I assume there'll be plenty of games where I don't bother playing with it and so for me Expedition Gears of corruption is a 3.5 I think there some nice solid changes are quality of life improvements on Expeditions but it almost feels more like a update pack with a few extra things thrown in than an actual fully blown expansion I think it's I think it's good I do recommend getting it if you like Expeditions but I also think if you like Expeditions the way it is I don't think it's an essential expansion I think it's a nice quality of life upgrade with a central mechanic that is kind of take it or leave it and a bunch of other things that do enhance your overall gameplay experience from components to small rules adjustments or tweaks in the game anyways that's my review of Expedition Gears of corruption a pretty decent expansion to a really great game that does make the really great game better but not necessarily as much as I would have hoped in any case and until next time I'm Alex radal from board game Co I hope you enjoyed this video and as always I hope you have a good one

Channel: BoardGameCo

Views: 4,758

Keywords: review

Id: 2M5D9jOnrHA

Length: 15min 13sec (913 seconds)

Published: Thu May 30 2024