Game summary
A game for 1 – 5 players
Play time around 60 -90 minutes
Publisher: Stonemaier Games
Introduction
Who wants to go to Siberia? In this standalone sequel to Scythe, the players will need to go on an expedition. A meteorite crashed near the Tunguska River. Time to set up an expedition to Siberia because many went before you and did not come back. But in the end, what will you find? Artifacts, overcome challenges, and do you end up with the most VP?
Grab your gear and let’s start this Expedition.
Let’s get it on the table
Each player chooses a mech mat, color, and mech. Gain a character card at random and its matching companion. Place these in your hand of cards, kept face up to the left of your mech mat. On your mech mat, place 4 glory tokens (stars), the action token on the Refresh spot. Also, the power token and guile token on the 0 spot of the track.
Now let’s set up the main board. Place the Basecamp board on the table.
Separate the location tiles into three groups by their region (South, Central, and North). Shuffle the region tiles and place them as shown on the diagram at the top right of the basecamp board. The South locations face up in their marked spots. Repeat this process for the 7 Central and then the 7 North locations, but place them all face down instead. Then place 1 map token on each of the face-down Central and North locations.
Shuffle the meteorite, item, and quest cards into a single deck. Place a card face up in each of the 5 spots marked on the Basecamp’s layout diagram and place the deck face down to the side.
Place within reach in a general supply the coins, workers, and extra map tokens.
Fill the bag with all corruption tokens except the 20-value corruption because this 20-value corruption token will be placed on a location during the game.
Randomly determine the first player and let’s start this expedition.
In expeditions, each player begins their turn by shifting the action token at the upper right of their mech mat. You must either take actions or Refresh. If you choose to take actions, you must perform all available actions, which will be a combination of Move, Play, or Gather.
MOVE: Move your mech to another unoccupied location within a range of 1 to 3 locations (unless your character has a different ability).
PLAY: Play 1 card from your hand to gain the core value at the upper left of the card; you may place a specific worker on the bottom left to activate the card’s special ability.
GATHER: Gain the benefits exposed at your mech’s location.
When you decide to take a Refresh turn, move all workers placed on active cards to your mech mat. Then, return all active cards to your hand. This Refresh turn can only be done if your action token was covering Move, Play, or Gather at the beginning of this turn.
The final round is triggered when a player places their 4th glory token. Now each player takes one final turn.
There are a total of 8 options to achieve these glory tokens:
- Solve 4 quests
- Meld 4 meteorites
- Upgrade 4 items
- Vanquish the corruption from location 20
- Have at least 7 corruption tokens
- Have at least 8 cards in your control
- Have at least 7 workers
- Have at least 5 map tokens
The final scoring will be a total based on the following:
- The total value of all coins you gained during the game.
- Each glory token scores based on the quantity of quests you solved.
- Each upgraded item scores the coin amount printed on the item’s bottom right corner.
- Each corruption token scores $2; this includes the 20-value corruption.
The Game ends
The final scoring will be a total based on the following:
- The total value of all coins you gained during the game.
- Each glory token scores based on the quantity of quests you solved.
- Each upgraded item scores the coin amount printed on the item’s bottom right corner.
- Each corruption token scores $2; this includes the 20-value corruption.
Final Conclusion & rating
Difficulty: 3.05/5
Re-playability: 8
My score: 7 out of 10 dice
Up to now, all Scythe-related games are in this beautiful era. The artwork is perfect, and each time something small is added to make this world even bigger. In Expedition, this is again nicely done. The gameplay gives a real twist and makes it easier than Scythe. You do see that with each game Stonemaier publishes, the inlays are getting better. Still, there are things to improve, like when you add the base snaps on the mechs, they don’t fit in the inlay.
But all components are again made of very good quality. The location tiles are nicely done and give diversity each play. Although you will know them all after one game, it still provides enough game fun.
Luckily, the cards are enough and give each play the twist it needs. Also, the characters and matching companions are a nice translation when you compare this with Scythe. And still, it’s completely different and yes they are really large characters.
For Scythe fans, this is a must-have, and for new players, it’s a good way to get familiar with the world of Scythe and maybe this is the first step into the world of Scythe.
Do have a feeling that this is only the start and that many new expeditions will follow.
We want to thank Stonemaier Games for this review copy and the opportunity to write about this game.
