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Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as I step

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off the train and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.

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I'm Brendan Riley.

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[Music]

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Well, good afternoon listeners.

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It's a cloudy but pleasant day here in suburban Chicago.

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The temperature is in the low 60s.

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So it's very comfortable for walking home.

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It's a little warm for late April, but I'll take it.

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We've got a nice weekend with my mother visiting.

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Played a number of different games, including a couple games that I played expansions on.

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I finally got around to trying to get all three expansion boxes for Sagrada into the core

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box.

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And I figured out with a little bit of work, you can get the entire base game of Sagrada

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plus all four expansions into the game.

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I also have the three Great Facades expansions each in their own box inside the big box

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because you generally aren't going to want to play with more than one 

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at a time, it would get too much.

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But it's nice to have all of them available because then you can mix and match as desired.

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So I finally got rid of the plastic insert and was able to fit everything inside the box

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with a little bit of careful planning.

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So that was fun.

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But I got me thinking about expansions.

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I did go and look at my list of expansions that I have to articulate how I'm doing because

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you know when I play a new expansion then I want to mark off.

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Yes, I played that.

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We also played the game Wild Serengeti, which I'll talk about later, but it came with

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a mini expansion, the specialists, which we did not play with because it was a new game.

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And, you know, there's enough going on.

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We didn't want to make it too complicated, but so I went and added that to my expansions

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list.

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It got me thinking about expansions when I play with them when I don't.

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And I was really thinking about which expansions would I consider essential?

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So I do have a fair amount of them.

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Some of them I play with sometimes or often or all the time, but it did get me thinking

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about when do I consider expansion essential.

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And I will say in my prep for this episode, I did not look at anything.

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I did not look through my boardgamegeek account.

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I did not look through my BG stats, so I may have completely forgotten some expansion that

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I consider essential, but such is the way of it.

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So I came up with five expansions that I would consider essential and I put them in order.

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So I'm going to do a countdown from five to one.

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And at number after number four, I will do a honorable mention of one more I thought of

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that I think is really good, but did not take my top five.

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And it's possible I'll remember more as we're talking that I want to add in to that

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mix.

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So let's jump right into it.

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Number five expansion that I really like.

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It's the least essential of the five, but still really good.

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This is Altiplano: The Traveler.

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And I like Altiplano a lot.

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It's a really interesting game.

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I've talked about it a number of times.

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I've waved back and forth on whether I like it better than Orléans or not.

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I like the theme better than Orléans, but I think maybe Orléans is slightly better playing

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in the base version.

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But if you mix in The Traveler, well, things get all interesting.

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So The Traveler is a modular expansion that you can add in to Altiplano that adds a person

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who's sort of conducting trading and introduces a new resource into the game.

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With both of these things in there, it ameliorates some the pain of not drawing the chips you

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like that you want.

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And it adds one more thing that you can do.

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And Altiplano, once you've got it down how it works, it gets a little bit rote.

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Perhaps.

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And the trader or The Traveler gives you that one extra little soupçon of pleasure that

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I think works really well.

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It also comes with these cool little pink gems that I like a lot.

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From that perspective, I would say Altiplano: The Traveler gets to the top of my list of,

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or the bottom of my list, makes the top five of expansions I think you should play with.

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And then I'll go with the expansions.

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Number four.

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Now this one is number four down on the list because I think it's a little bit better expansion

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than The Traveler.

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But I also don't think it's essential.

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In fact, I rarely play with it because it is so complex, but also because it's not available

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on board game arena.

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And I tend to play this game on board game arena more.

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This is The Bad News Bears expansion for Bärenpark.

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The Bärenpark is maybe my favorite tile-laying game, definitely in the top five, if I were

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making that list right now.

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It'd be competing for number one.

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I'm not sure off the top of my head what would be it.

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But as a base game, it gets a little samey.

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The base game you are competing for the three goals.

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You're competing for most points.

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And once everybody's played a couple times, you get to a point where you're kind of all

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operating at peak capacity.

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And then it's just sort of a matter of who found the right set of combinations to finish.

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I've played a number of different games at Bärenpark where everybody either finishes

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their board all in the same turn or is one turn away from finishing the board.

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So there's a tightness to it that makes it really poetic, really elegant is the word I was

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looking for, not poetic.

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But also makes it a little bit rote.

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It goes completely out the window when you mix in The Bad News Bears expansion.

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So Bad News Bears expansion is a terrible name, but it comes with two modules, either

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one of which makes the game quite a bit more delightful.

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The first module is the Grizzly Bears.

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Basically what that is is there are extra large tiles that you can get.

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And when you're using the Grizzly Bears expansion, you add in a fifth board.

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So the game gets 20% longer, I guess.

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You get to take a fifth board.

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And then the Grizzlies, the way that works is if you want to take a Grizzly, when you get

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I don't remember which thing it is, I think is when you get a orange, when you get the orange

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special thing, you can trade in one of your unplaced cement mixer tiles for a Grizzly Bear

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instead.

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And like I said, the Grizzly Bear tokens are, they have, they're worth more points and they're

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bigger and they're really cool.

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So one thing is just the extra board gives you a little bit more room to breathe and a little

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more time to play, but also the Grizzly Bear tiles are extra big and pretty neat that way.

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So those are fun, but the brain melting part are the monorails.

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So one of the things you can add, the other thing you can add is monorails.

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And the way those work, you have these tiny little cardboard towers and on your turn you

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can add the monorail tower in as one of the things you might add.

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I don't remember exactly, it's been a couple of while since I played it.

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I don't remember exactly what you do to add it in, but when you add it in, you then have

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a tower that the monorail is going to attach to.

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And then you're going to connect that monorail to other monorail towers and they have, they're

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always connected at a 90 degree angle.

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And so the monorail towers have to be placed to specific distance apart and then you add

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the tracks as you're going along.

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The tracks of course are worth extra points, but you also have to think about the path the

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monorail is going to take because you can't go in a circle, you can't connect the track

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back to the path you had been taking.

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It's a whole thing.

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So sort of layer all that together and you have this really convoluted, not convoluted

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is the right word, you have this really thinky extra layer that gets put on top.

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And if you ever are playing with somebody who's played Bärenpark a few times and I'm like,

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it's a little simplistic.

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You add in The Bad News Bears, particularly the monorails and it takes you to a whole

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another level.

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It's so crunchy.

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I love it.

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So that's my number four essential expansion.

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Bärenpark: The Bad News Bears.

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I guess why it's number four and not higher.

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I do play the game without it and I enjoy the game quite a bit without it.

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Makes the term "essential" a little confusing but whatever.

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All right, the next three expansions are ones that I generally don't like to play without.

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I will pretty much leave them in all the time.

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So here we go.

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Number three expansion, Ark Nova: Marine Worlds.

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Now this is pretty new.

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It's maybe pretty snooty to say that a game that made it in the top ten on boardgamegeek

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in its base form requires the expansion.

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But I will say the best critique of Ark Nova and the one that hits the most true with me

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is the fact that when you play Ark Nova you often have times where you're looking for a

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card and you might go a long time without seeing that kind of card and that can be really

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frustrating if you're trying to get a specific combo to go off.

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Now the argument is of course if you let yourself be beholden to that, well that was poor

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play.

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But sometimes you just, you get all the cards you need to set up a combo and then you

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don't get the last piece of it.

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And that can really stink.

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Now the Marine Worlds does not solve that problem per se but it goes a long way towards

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solving it by having these wave cards and what the wave cards are is you're mixing in

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a bunch of cards in the deck and they have the waves on them.

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There you go.

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But when they come out then you reset the card display.

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And the nice thing about that is that you just get more motion on the card display and

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that solves most of the problems with Ark Nova.

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I also like the Marine creatures and the additional habitats that are available from them and I

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like the player pieces that you get better.

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There's a little more thematic.

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So all around the Marine Worlds expansion is one I would consider essential and when

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I play Ark Nova on the table I always want to use it.

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And I don't think it adds much overhead in terms of players thinking about the game.

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So that's Ark Nova: Marine Worlds expansion.

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All right the number two expansion that I think is essential is Star Wars: Rebellion

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Rise of the Empire.

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Now once again I love Star Wars: Rebellion as it is.

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But Rise of the Empire adds some additional dice, additional type of troop, some additional

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cards, additional characters and it just makes the whole game function just a little bit

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more smoothly.

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The original version has a few clunky areas.

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The combat isn't quite as smooth as it could be.

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And frankly it's not as cinematic.

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Once you add in the Rise of the Empire expansion everything smooths out just a little bit and

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that little bit is what pushes the game into greatness.

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I have the Rise of the Empire expansion shuffled in.

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I wouldn't play without it.

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I love that very much and it's part of what keeps Star Wars: Rebellion very high on my game

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list even though I haven't played it in a long time.

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So that's to me hey neighbor I should call it my neighbor who I like to play

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Star Wars: Rebellion with and see if we can play.

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So if you get an opportunity to play Star Wars: Rebellion ask if the person who has it has

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the Rise of the Empire expansion. You won't regret it.

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Alright I wanted to mention two honorable mentions.

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These are expansions that I think are really good, important perhaps, strong contenders for

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things that you might want to play but they aren't essential for me.

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First of all these is Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport.

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This adds a bit of additional thinking to the game in a game that otherwise can get kind

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of straightforward.

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I also like the gambling of how much corruption are you going to take are you going to let

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that overwhelm you.

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I really like that but I do think it is an extra load on a game that we often use to teach

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new people and frankly I often don't have it myself and I often don't play with it.

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So I can't really argue that it is essential when I don't make much effort to use it.

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So that is Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport.

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And then the other one is the Wingspan: Oceania expansion.

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So the Oceania expansion of course has a whole bunch of cool birds.

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The more I am going to introduce is new player boards and a new mechanism, the Nectar.

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So the Nectar and the different player boards adds a really important consideration for

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higher level Wingspan players because it kneecaps the taking eggs strategy which can make

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regular Wingspan kind of boring.

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Players who are really good will often in the fourth round just take eggs the whole time

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because there is not a move that they can make that is more efficient point wise than

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just taking eggs especially if they have built a good egg generation engine.

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That said, I almost never play that way, I don't like it, it is not fun.

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I would rather get a lower score and have fun.

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But Oceania balances that out, it gives us another place to score using the Oceania or using

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the Nectar tiles and I think it just makes the game better.

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So that is Wingspan: Oceania.

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Alright, my number one expansion, the one I really think is essential, I think you should

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play with all the time if you have the opportunity.

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That is Upstairs, Downstairs expansion for Obsession.

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Obsession is one of my favorite games, it is a really good game about running a house in Victorian

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times or Edwardian times even, it feels like you are in a Jane Austen novel.

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I like Obsession a lot, there is lots of really interesting stuff happening in the game and

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the different servants that you can get and player pieces that you can get work really

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well to provide a variety of different things you can do.

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But said, there are limitations and sometimes there is stuff that you would like to be able

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to do but you just can't because the game isn't flexible enough.

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If you have the Upstairs, Downstairs expansion you get this whole other raft of employees

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that you can get who give you just that extra angle that you can use to try to tweak the

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best experience and I love the wide variety of things you can do when you are making those

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choices.

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Upstairs, Downstairs gives you an essential mix of things that you can add to your otherwise

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already amazing game to make it fantastic.

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Already fantastic game to make it amazing, I am not sure which of those different ideas

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is better but whatever one is better that is the one that uses Upstairs, Downstairs.

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So if you get a chance to play Obsession go ahead and take the extra plunge, get

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Upstairs, Downstairs in there as well, you won't regret it.

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So that brings me to the end of my discussion of expansions and essential expansions which

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ones that I leave out which ones would you put in this list if you are making it.

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Head over to boardgamegeek guild 3269 and share your thoughts there.

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I'd love to hear them.

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In the meantime you can send me a message on boardgamegeek at Wombat929 or by email Brendan@Rattleboxgames.com.

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Thanks for joining me on my walk today, I hope that your next walk is as pleasant

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as mine was.

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Bye bye.

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(upbeat music)

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(upbeat music)

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- Brought to you by Rattlebox Games.

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(upbeat music)

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[BLANK_AUDIO]