BOARD GAME EXPANSIONS

After several years of classic game releases, it finally came time for many beloved games to receive new ways to rejuvenate their play experience with lots of lovely expansions.

Whilst Carcassonne had (and still continues to) release new expansions on a regular basis, 2006 brought us The Tower, a cardboard titan that would stand proud next to your game and serve as a tile dispenser capable of comfortably holding all of your previously purchased tiles, whilst also adding a tower building mechanic that would be the first time players would build vertically instead of only spreading out in 2D.

Fantasy Flight had a massive array of expansions, including Twilight Imperium: Shattered Empires, adding four entirely new races and additional components to stretch your titanic space opera to a colossal eight players; Arkham Horror gained two expansions, one introducing Egyptian themed items and threats, whilst the other letting investigators explore Dunwich and its many horrors; A Game of Thrones: Storm of Swords added non-player forces to complicate your conquest of Westeros and notably Descent had its first expansion, The Well of Darkness, adding all-new heroes and monsters to expand your array of miniatures, as well as offering new customization options for all players to ensure everyone (even the Overlord) had new ways to shake up your dark fantasy death matches.

We’ll round off our summary of notable expansions with a wander through Days of Wonder, with their first official expansion for Ticket to Ride named USA 1910, which added new game modes and a wealth of new ticket combinations, expanding the possibilities and making it even harder to second-guess your opponent’s routes, as well as their first foray in naval warfare for

Memoir ‘44 in the Pacific Theatre, which not only added Japanese forces and an entire campaign set on the eponymous military campaign, but introduced new commands and combat rules for combing land and sea combat.