We featured Expeditions (Stonemaier Games) last year on Board's Eye View. It's a 'sequel' to Scythe (Stonemaier Games) in that it's a standalone game set in the same alternative reality universe as Scythe. Expeditions came in a big box that left ample room for expansions so we were expecting Gears of Corruption to come along. It hasn't disappointed.
Jamey Stegmaier's Gears of Corruption, with more evocative art from Jakub Rozalski, is just the sort of expansion we like. It provides improved (dual-layer) player boards and some replacement components (a hex tile and card) to correct some minor misprints in the original game and, crucially, the extras it brings to the table are modular in that you can pick and choose which you want to incorporate into your game.
You'll almost certainly want to play with the new starting set up introduced by Gears of Corruption. Some players criticised the early stages of Expeditions as being slow. It wasn't a gripe we shared because the game has a distinct accelerating arc but nonetheless we still recognise the merits of a starting set up that means all players can hit the ground running with a golden universal worker and some basic resources for use in tackling corruption. With this flying start, you can at least consider making use of the additional components in Gears of Corruption to increase the player count to six (it was five in the original game). When additional factions came out in expansions to Scythe we welcomed the variety but we never accepted the sense of stretching the player count beyond the original five. There may be similar reservations about increasing the player count in Expeditions - particularly overcrowding on the board and the chaotic effect of all-the-more-frequent card wipes. Still, the new mechs and new character and companion cards add more options and interesting potential asymmetry, so adding to the game's replayability at all player counts. Gears of Corruption also incorporates map tokens that you can substitute for those in the basic game to add an additional randomised immediate bonus.
In addition to the two further mechs that are introduced as part of the new sixth player option, Gears of Corruption comes with the option to play using a mech in a way that gives the expansion its title. This 'corrupted mech' is wholly outside the players' control. It moves randomly around the board, threatening adjacent hexes because it penalises players on hexes that it moves to. For us, the corrupted mech spiced up solitaire, two- and three-player games but we'd probably want to leave it out in games with more than three players and so with an already busy board.
If you have Expeditions this is an expansion that's certainly worth incorporating. And with the added bonus that the components all fit comfortably in the core game box!
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