RockyMountainNavy #Boardgame #Wargame Expansion of the Year for 2018

This is the third in my series of 2018 “of the Year” posts. This one covers boardgame & wargame expansions, the first looked at boardgames, the second was wargames, and the last is my Game of the Year. Candidate expansions are taken from those published and which I acquired in 2018.

My candidates for the RockyMountainNavy Boardgame/Wargame Expansion of the Year in 2018 are:

• Command & Colors Tricorne: The American Revolution – The French & More! (Compass Games) – Expansion for Command & Colors Tricorne: The American Revolution
• Kingdomino: Age of Giants (Blue Orange Games) – Expansion for Kingdomino/Queendomino
• MBT: BAOR (GMT Games) – Expansion for MBT
• MBT: FRG (GMT Games) – Expansion for MBT
• Memoir ’44: Through Jungle and Desert (Days of Wonder) – Expansion for Memoir ’44
• Terraforming Mars: Colonies (Stronghold Games) – Expansion for Terraforming Mars
• Terraforming Mars: Prelude (Stronghold Games) – Expansion for Terraforming Mars

…and the winner is…

I absolutely cannot imagine ever playing Terraforming Mars without the Prelude expansion. The Prelude Cards jumpstart your corporate engine and gets the game going faster in the early turns. It doesn’t really shorten the game, but it does make it alot more fun!

Other Games

Several of the other expansions are also great but for each the base game can be enjoyed without them, unlike Prelude which has made itself an essential part of the game. That said, The French and More! is more like a bonus box then an expansion and is practically inseparable from the base game. Both MBT: BAOR and MBT:FRG add new “factions” and optional rules that make the overall game more interesting but can easily be ignored if desired.

Kingdomino: Age of Giants occupies an interesting spot in my game collection. Although ostensibly an expansion for Kingdomino, the RockyMountainNavy Boys and myself feel that it doesn’t really fit that game because it adds a bit too much of a “take that” element that spoils the feeling. On the other hand, adding it to Queendomino, which has more “take that” mechanics than Kingdomino, feels much more organic.