The Expanse Board Game

In space, no one can hear you count Victory Points.

• Runtime: 60 minutes
• Players: 2-4 players
• Mechanics: Area-control, Trade Row, Variable Player Powers

The Expanse Board Game is based on the SyFy TV Series of the same name. (which in turn is a TV adaptation of the fantastic Expanse book series by James S. A. Corey) Only some of us were familiar with the show going in, so first thing we did was watch the series trailer. It really set the mood.

You play as one of four factions vying for power and control over our solar system: Earth’s United Nations, The MCRN (Martian Congressional Republic Navy), The Outer Planets Alliance (OPA), and Protogen, Inc. The Rocinante and her crew, (the show’s main protagonists), acts as an NPC of sort in the game. Providing some extra options to whichever player controls it.

The goal: Compete for influence by controlling territories in various sectors of the solar system (The Inner Planets, The Belt, and The Outer Planets). 

Each turn you either spend points to take actions or resolve an event card you choose from a trade row. There is a set number of score cards that, when you play them, trigger end of round scoring and let you choose a bonus sector. Play goes around in this fashion until the last scoring card is revealed, at that point you score your Control Points and the victor is revealed.

The Good Stuff:

• We liked the interesting choice between using the points on a card or using the event the card depicted. We’ve seen this mechanic before, and it was well executed here.
• The varied strategies of the factions were interesting and fun. They were also well attuned to the ethos of that faction in the series.
• We liked that the end of round scoring was not fixed in time. Throughout the round, each player would set up for scoring, but the actual triggering of the end of the round was a strategic choice that we enjoyed. This also added to the excitement and anticipation of the end of each round.
• The progression of bonus scoring and the fact that successive rounds unlocked faction abilities gave some great forward momentum to the game. With medium-to-long play lengths, this is an essential mechanism to keep the players interested and engaged.
• The area control aspect of the game was well executed and felt great.
• Gameplay was thoughtful and well executed.  It did not feel as though you were waiting forever to take your turn or not engaged in gameplay the whole time.
• The fans of The Expanse in our group thought the game fit the universe and that the card art – while only consisting of stills from the show – was well selected.

The Bad:

• Some of the mechanics, such as paying control points to do certain things, didn’t seem to be relevant or affect the game outcome. We felt it just made the accounting more complex.
• The area control aspect when scoring wasn’t immediately apparent. We felt like we should’ve been able to look at the board and get a sense of who is in the lead at a glance. But we always had to do some calculation to make that happen.
• The components didn’t immerse us in the theme as much as we wished they would. All of the punch outs and cubes were pretty much the same, just different colors. We would’ve liked to see different symbols on the ships or some custom bits to denote influence instead of generic cubes.
• The symbols for the different resource types were hard to read and generally not apparent to what they are. Most of the time we just ended up calling out a color rather than using the resource names. A legend or key would definitely have helped here.

Overall:

We thought the game was enjoyable and we’d play it again. We just wished The Expanse world was connected a little more in the components.

Overall we would say this game gets an XYZ Game Labs BGBC 7 out of 10.