It may see a bit soon to talk about expansions seriously, so this is a fun, non-serious topic, at least for now! But having played the game a couple of times and thoroughly enjoyed it, I can't help but imagine some possible items for an expansion, though I would be careful about needlessly complicating this game or making it longer than it can be. It's a gem as it is. That said, though, here's what I would like to see:

1. Another race or two, allowing up to 6 to play. This would make for a very long game and a very big board, but a couple extra races would give variation to the 2-4 player games. (I confess that I miss dwarves in my fantasy epic....)

2. Special "Wonders" that each race could build that would convey a specific benefit and give the sense of a living culture. These might function like developments, perhaps granting more influence because of the awe and wonder they inspire throughout the land.. Anything that adds theme and flavor to the fantasy world and its races and cultures without making the game more complex would be nice.

3. Enabling heroes to affect battles more directly. As it is, the heroes are a strategy unto themselves, and I'm happy to leave them as they are.But I notice that variants are already being proposed and played using the heroes in the battles (and the results posted on BGG), and they sound doable and exciting without adding a lot of extra complexity to the game. It would be nice for there to be an official version of the affect of heroes upon battles. (It could be very simple, such as the presence of a hero allows one unit to ignore a rout result or once per battle enables one unit to use its special ability as if it had drawn an orb.)

That's it for me.

Maybe I'm just unimaginative, but all I really want is "more of the same!" More units, more heroes, more races, more hexes. Even if it stays at 4 players, I just want more options.

I'm sure more races and more heroes won't be an issue. Assuming the game does well enough to warrant an exapnsion, they've got the remaining BM races and the other heroes from Descent/RB who would surely like a treatment in RW. Even if FFG doesn't make such an expansion themselves, I don't imagine it will be long before the fan start kitbashing those themselves.

New rules and variants and so on would also be welcome, although I can't think of any cool ideas beyond what you've already suggested just now.

I have actually been thinking a lot about this and have come up with the following ideas, hopefully FF is listening and will consider some of my ideas:

1. I think that a 6-player expansion is not only do-able but easy. I think it would be interesting to hear what new races people would want to see. I think it would be cool to have lizardmen and minotaurs. I would also make them neutral factions. As neutral faction they would have their own pile of objective cards unique to them. Introducing a new set of heroes would be ideal, six new heroes to be exact, two of each alignment. Having a neutral race would be a nice twist and accomidate players who didn't want to be pegged as good or bad. I would like to see a little variation in the starting areas. Perhaps the lizardmen start with 3 food 3 wood and only 1 ore while the minotaurs start with 3 food 1 wood and 3 ore. I would make the starting influence for the lizard men 5 with 0 cards and the minotaurs would start with 5 cards and 0 influence.

2. To accomidate the new players I would add 5 new zones. These zones would consist of 2 2-hexes, 2 3-hexes and a 1 4-hex. On these hexes I would add new unit types. I think that it would be cool to have a summoning unit that could add units to the battle, much like the necromancer. I would make a second square base unit and an additional circle unit.

3. I think it would be cool to add a mechanic where heroes can carry dragonrunes. This would mean that heroes could go into enemy areas and pick up unprotected rune tokens. Each hero can only carry one token at a time and the rune only counts toward the players total if the hero is in an area controlled by the player. This would make the heroes more dynamic in obtaining runes. The player can choose to move heroes out to steal other players rune tokens, or complete quest and discover their own runes. With the questing I would allow the players to place one of their rune tokens onto their hero, as opposed to an area they control. The hero could then move the rune to a friendly square. Further, I would allow runes to be stolen during duels. The loser of a duel would be forced to give the rune he was carrying to the victorious hero, unless the duel winner already had a rune, in which case, the loosing hero would be forced to his rune in an adjacent hex. Finally, I would add a mechanic that allowed heroes to raise their health, much like training.

4. I would add new season cards and then have players construct a season deck, so that the game ends upon pulling the last season card, if no player has the needed amount of dragonrunes. These new season cards could be geared towards the accumulation of dragonrunes or any other number of different aspect of the game. Perhaps having a spring card that allowed the winner of a bid to place a number of neutral units on an unoccupied space.

5. Finally, I would add a fourth title card, Leader of the Spies Guild . This title would allow a player check the rewards/rune carried by any one hero in play. Further, the player would receive +1 strength to any battle in which he is defending.

These are just a few of the ideas that I think would be cool to incorporate. I think an expansion with this much addition would be well worth buying. I would love to hear what other people think about my ideas and to hear some of their ideas too.

jamesbean said:

1 I agree in principal. I think they ll do Dwarves, Orcs, Dragonkin, and one other new race in the next expansion, if they follow the diskwars armies at all or battle mist; and in all honesty I hope they do.

2 You need to add 2 new zones for each player you intend to allow to play. If they were to give like six new races but say only allow for an additional 2 to play creating a map for up to 6 players, though you have more factions than that; you would only need 4 more tiles. I agree that there should be more new unaligned units like demons, bandits, and other monsters in between

3 I would like a reward card that allowed that.

4 I don't understand your fourth thing

5 I can think of a dozen new tactics cards I hope they create, though the specific one you mention sounds good. What I hope for is new cards that interact with existing mechanics; ie a tactics card that is a wizards council card, a card that gives extra bonuses if you have a title card, tactics that start influence bids, and of course more tactics cards that interact with heroes.

I could see orcs and dwarves as two new races. Orcs start with the 3/2/2 set up, 5 tactics and no influence. Neutrally aligned because of the 4 neutral orc heros already present. Dwarves would be easy to add. Maybe start with 2 food 2 wood and 3 ore. No tactics but 5 influence. Perhaps a mountain or two in their home realm, one of them could be only of the 2 border mountains.

Things like Tactics cards, Quests, Heroes, Rewards, Seasons cards, and Objectives are easy to add to the game. I think Objectives would be a tad difficult to handle if they tried to make Neutral objectives. The good and evil objectives are opposites of each other so it would seem odd to try and walk a middle line in some cases. I suppose Neutral races could pick from an evil or a good objective at the beginning of the game. Some new objectives could include something like "I control 3(4) Strongholds", "I control X amount of false runes", "I have three heros matching my alignment", stuff like that

More variation in Neutral units would be cool. I would like to see some ogres, trolls, manticores, nagas, etc added.

More types of Developments could be interesting. Perhaps developments that create units depending on their base shape. Being able to train a rectangle unit or a couple triangle units due to harvest would be an interesting development.

Perhaps Race specific order cards. That is something that has been tossed around in my game group. Haven't thought about what race specific ones would be.

Taki said:

I think this one is a pretty safe bet, assuming an expansion comes at all (and I think it's likely we'll at least get one.) Exactly how many races it would contain is a mystery, but I think it's a safe bet any new races will be pulled from the leftover BattleMist races they didn't use in the base game. Given the parallels in the four races they did use and especially since the first announcement article clearly said this game was the spiritual successor to BattleMist. Orcs and Dwarves are also prominent races in Descent/RB who are - as yet - unrepresented here. So the combination of the two universes would seem to demand at least those two.

I also wouldn't mind a few full on water hexes with some (limited) ocean-faring units. Not sure how those hexes would combine with the existing ones - combining land and water in a modular system is always tricky.

Agreed Steve-O

I agree we should most likely expect to see some of the other races from Runebound. Even in the fluff of the game story, Dwarves are mentioned a few times, so I would imagine a Dwarf faction.

One of the things I like in the game is the building options. I would like to see more types of developments, and other empire building options, that augment your fighting force. I don't know if that means more tactic cards or unlocking units.

More heroes, more rewards, and above all else,

I think I want to see nice plastic strongholds. or cities. Putting those in place on the board would be interesting and add to the spectacle of this deal.