By Firestone I love expansions. LOVE THEM. Sometimes they can "fix" some of the problems that emerged in a game when it first came out. Sometimes they can just breathe some new life into a game that has grown a little stale. Sometimes they allow more players to play the game (although this is rarely a good thing, IMHO).

Age of Steam is a good example of a game ripe for expansions. Awesome base game, and the expansions are just maps. Maps of new areas—real and imagined—with new and interesting rules and mechanics. Does it always work? No! (cough*Golden Spike*cough). But when it does (Montréal Métro, for instance), it makes me love the base game even more... (Power Grid also benefits from more maps.)

Card games are a natural fit for expansions. Thunderstone, Nightfall, Netrunner, and Lord of the Rings all benefit from just more awesome stuff to add!

Pandemic's On The Brink added some significant gameplay changes—including someone playing as the baddie! Those are the most risky expansions, because they have the potential to be awesome or terrible.

But sometimes expansions are just...awful. The first one that springs to mind is the expansion for The Princes of Florence. Now understand: For years and years and years Princes Of Florence was my very favorite game. It was only recently eclipsed by The Resistance, due to the sheer amount of fun I've had with it. So I was excited to play with the expansion that came in the Treasure Chest (one box that had 10 expansions for six games). It. Was. Horrible. Our one and only game using the expansion took 4 hours. 4 HOURS!! Toward the end of that game, the expansion made me hate Princes Of Florence. Any expansion that makes me hate my favorite game is bad, bad, bad.

Another bad one was the Necromancer Island expansion for Small World. This was a freebie giveaway promotion, so I think they felt they could experiment a little. It's lame. It forces the players to cooperate against the Necromancer player—which doesn't really work well in the framework of the game. But beyond that, those who do work to fight the Necromancer are in a worse position that those who don't. Blech. It's going for ~$30 on the secondary market, thanks to completists who didn't get it when it was free and want a copy now. I'll happily part with my copy for that price...

So what are some of your favorite expansions? And what are some that fell flat for you?

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This week's Kickstarter project comes to us courtesy of Mike Elliott—designer of such great games as Thunderstone and Quarriors...and the far-less-great game Sword & Skull. Lost Legends is a card-drafting game from Queen Games for three to five players. You'll get a hand of cards, and choose one to equip your character or use the cards for new traits and abilities. Then you pass the leftover cards to the next person, and you'll get a batch from the player in front of you. Lather. Rinse. Repeat, until the cards are gone. Then you start kicking some monster butt—or the monsters start kicking yours...

From the Kickstarter description: At the beginning of your turn, if you do not have a monster in front of you, you must encounter a new one. You can choose to take on the face-up monster in the middle of the table... or you can draw the top card from the monster deck. If you don’t think it’s a good idea to fight this monster, and another player also does not have a monster in front of them, you can evade that monster and it will attack them. But, if you do this, you then must take on the next monster from the top of the deck.

The monsters get stronger as you go through the rounds—and after three rounds the game is over. The warrior with the most points, wins.

The project has already blown past its goal, and the stretch goals include gobs of new monsters, and some new heroes, too. It sounds fun—and the artwork is way cool.

If you have a Kickstarter board game you'd like us to highlight, please contact us. Thanks for reading!