Just wondering if I buy a new Tide of Iron (the base set game) if the boards have been replaced with those new artwork boards like those in the Normandy Expansion. If not, then are the Designer Expansion set boards the ones I need to match the colors of the Normandy set?

Yes the optional extra boards match the Normandy kind. I have bought both and could use the newer boards for the base game but I do not. I'm one of the few that prefers the look of the original boards.

Opps forgot to add that I don't think a new purchase of the base game will include the newer boards. My copy was purchased in February and still contained the old style. And like I said I'm glad it did because they look better.

Yes to my knowledge they are still the old boards. The only change was that in the base game the boards were apparently warped when it was first released, but i bought it after this problem was fixed.

I dont understand why they changed the board graphics when they were meant to be added on to the core set boards. I dont have the expansion yet but from what i see in pictures i like the original ones better.

My theory is that the original map board artist was not available to do the Normandy expansion so when someone else was tasked to do it their own style was used. It's to bad that artist does not know how to do rivers/streams. There is no character to them, they look a lot like roads. Everything else is fine with the new style except that.

Yeah that makes sense.