You’ve all heard the saying that if you love something you should let it go, or set it free, or whatever, right? Yeah … well in board games, we don’t exactly stand for that. In fact, if you love something, you should probably seek out ways to expand it! Which brings us to the reason that we’re here today – my Top 10 board game expansions!

I love a bunch of expansions for games for different reasons. Some add new rules or variants to play with, some just add something to the game that I couldn’t see ever playing without! It was hard to try and order these, because it really has a lot to do with the games themselves too. So, without further ado and in no super particular order, let’s check out some expansions!

10. Lanterns: The Emperor’s Gifts

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival Base Game
Theme – Floating Lantern Festival
Mechanics – Tile Placement; Hand Management; Set Collection; Pattern Building
Why This is a Great Addition – This expansion adds a bunch more choices to the game, which keep things interesting after many plays! Pavilions can give players gifts which can be redeemed for special actions or victory points. These pavilions can help all players, so you need to strategize when might be the best time to play them! If you’re a fan of Lanterns, this really is a must have so you can vary your plays.
Learn More – BGG

9. Stockpile: Continuing Corruption

Stockpile Base Game
Theme – Stocks/Stock Market
Mechanics – Auction/Bidding; Stock Market Manipulation; Variable Player Powers
Why This is a Great Addition – This adds in a few little things such as bonds, commodities, taxes, and more investors (player powers) which are all fine, and add a little bit of variety if you’re interested in that. But the reason, for me, that this expansion is awesome, is because of the Forecast Dice. These allow for a ton of variability in the market round to round so that players can’t always count on the consistency of something paying dividends and having 2 stocks move down while 3 move up. It really adds a lot to the game and I won’t ever play without it.
Learn More – BGG

8. Arcadia Quest: Pets

Arcadia Quest Base Game
Theme – Fantasy/Dungeon Crawl
Mechanics – PvP/Take That; Dice Rolling; Grid Movement; Variable Player Powers; Pick up and Deliver; Modular Board (it’s got a lot, okay?)
Why This is a Great Addition – First of all, who doesn’t want to bring some adorable pets on all their adventures, right?? It allows for more variability for players’ characters and adds a little extra drop of strategy to each game. Plus, the expansion also comes with another campaign for players to partake it!
Learn More – BGG

7. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game – X-Men

Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game Base Game
Theme – Superheroes saving the world!
Mechanics – Deck Building; Cooperative/Semi-Cooperative Play
Why This is a Great Addition – As y’all probably know I love pretty much all things Legendary, as far as the Marvel sets go. If you didn’t know, X-Men is also my favorite of the super hero franchises – I even have an X-Men tattoo! If you like the X-Men characters like Jubilee, Havok, Longshot, X-23, Onslaught, and more, then it’s a great set to add in. Plus, it’s a big box expansion, so it comes with more characters, Masterminds, and other cards than the standard smaller boxes. It also included a handful of duo/split character cards, which are one of my favorite elements in the game.
Learn More – BGG

6. Heart of Crown: Six City Alliance

Heart of Crown Base Game
Theme – Anime; Promoting a Princess to become the new ruler of the land
Mechanics – Deck Building
Why This is a Great Addition – This expansion adds another Princess to the mix, which is always great for more variability. But what’s really great in this is the new Support cards which can give players additional bonuses when backing a princess. A lot of the expansions for this just add in more cards for the market, so this one is great if players want to try something different out which will lend itself to brand new strategies.
Learn More – BGG

5. Roll Player: Monsters & Minions

Roll Player Base Game
Theme – Fantasy; Adventures
Mechanics – Drafting; Dice Rolling; Set Collection; Variable Player Powers
Why This is a Great Addition – Because Monsters, of course! While the base game does a great job alone of putting players into detailed character roles and giving them that very Dungeon and Dragons feel without all the upkeep, the expansion elevates it by letting the characters fight monsters and foes of all sorts! It adds a lot of fun and more options/strategies as well.
Learn More – BGG

4. The Red Dragon Inn 6: Villains

The Red Dragon Inn Base Game
Theme – Fantasy; Adventurers having a good ol’ drink (or 12) together
Mechanics – Hand Management; Variable Player decks/powers; Betting/Bluffing; Player Elimination; Take That/PvP; one-vs-many play
Why This is a Great Addition – If you’re a fan of the original, or any of the other expansions, this is a must have if the group you play with is looking to try a new feature. This expansion offers characters you can play with normally as well as a new one-vs-many style of play where the villain takes on a team of heroes, instead of it being “every character for themselves.” It’s a great way to keep the game fresh, especially for a medium-larger group.
Learn More – BGG

3. Clank! Expeditions: Temple of the Ape Lords

Clank!: A Deck Building Adventure Base Game
Theme – Jungle Adventure; Fantasy
Mechanics – Deck Building; Point-to-Point Movement; Pick up and Deliver; Push Your Luck
Why This is a Great Addition – There are plenty of unique cards and of course a brand new baddie in this expansion, but my favorite piece of this is the mini-campaign! It lets you really dive into a story with the game, and it’s something new and fresh for long-time fans, like me! Plus, you just get to play even more Clank!, what’s not to love?
Learn More – BGG

2. Argent: Mancers of the University

Argent: The Consortium Base Game
Theme – Magic/Wizards
Mechanics – Area Majority; Variable Player Powers; Worker Placement
Why This is a Great Addition – The reason I love this expansion is, of course, the addition of a new type of mage – Technomancers. Players can still only have the same total number of mages as before, so now they need to decide if these Technomancers are worth their while. With plenty of unique elements coming with them, they allow players to try brand new strategies in order to go for the win.
Learn More – BGG

1. Space Base: The Emergence of Shy Pluto

Space Base Base Game
Theme – Space/Sci-Fi
Mechanics – Dice Rolling;
Why This is a Great Addition – Just like the base game, this expansion has an incredible flow to it which only enhances the original. Not only that, but the expansion is a series of story scenarios and make up a small campaign game, which allows players to learn new elements a little bit at a time, and build a world around the game. It’s very immersive and a lot of the new introductions in this are ones you will definitely want to keep in for future plays as well!
Learn More – BGG

What is your favorite game expansion? Do you like any of the ones I mentioned too?
Happy Gaming~