Czech Games Edition’s Lost Ruins of Arnak was already favored due to its classic sense of adventure and immersive mechanics, but rather than simply adding more content to the experience, CGE decided to change the way every player approached the experience with the Expedition Leaders expansion. The new expansion gives each player a unique character to play, and while some offer small ups and downs, others radically change the core gameplay, and that’s not even new quests, artifacts, items, and more. While Expedition Leaders isn’t required to play the base game, I can’t see a time or place where I’ll play Lost Ruins of Arnak without it, so it’s absolutely essential for me.
Lost Ruins of Arnak is a deck building and worker placement game that has you exploring mysterious archaeological sites, facing the guards of those sites, getting resources to defeat them and making your way down the quest path trying to earn enough points during an expedition to win the game over 5 rounds. This goal remains the same in Expedition Leaders, but this time instead of starting the game with the same abilities and a nameless character, you’ll choose a unique leader who each has their own advantages, disadvantages, and abilities.
You’ll quickly notice how this radically changes the role to transform the game, and leading players can choose from Captain, Falcon, Baroness, Professor, Explorer, and Mystic. The Captain is probably the most obvious, giving you an extra archaeologist to research the sites, while the Baroness and Professor both offer benefits when acquiring items and artifacts respectively. These three still need to get a little used and provide a fun twist on the gameplay, but it’s really the next three that really shake things up.
The Falconer has an Eagle tile that moves to a different place on its path each round, giving you access to a unique ability, but there are also other ways to move the eagle forward. Two abilities at the bottom of the tracker allow you to activate level 1 and 2 locations whether someone occupies them or not, which is very useful, but the previous abilities can be used as free actions and get gold and tablets. In addition, you may need to memorize the eagle movement card or the idol effect of something on the road, so there is an incentive to stay.
The effect of this push and pull is most evident in other leaders, including the Explorer, who only has access to one Archaeologist but can use light tokens to move to additional places. In the end, you will even get a third Snack Token, which for a fee allows you to explore the island more than anyone else, although I learned later, sometimes they are better used on their Starter Cards, which can activate sites and net You can use idol effects on the board. Explorer was challenging at first to get a beat, but in the end, I found myself really amused with how it changed my gameplay. However, I wasn’t really ready for The Mystic.
Mystic offers a Ritual mechanism and relies heavily on Fear Cards, which are usually not useful in your hand and will cost you points at the end of the game. In fact, Mystic ends up with more of these cards than anyone else off the bat at every turn, and that takes some getting used to. You can then burn these into a ritual, and doing so will give you many different rewards, but you only have that many cards that can start a ritual, and you have to banish them to do so. It took a while for me to get the hang of planning things out a bit because I didn’t want to burn it out too soon and leave me with a lack of options later. The good news is that you can easily banish Fear Cards if you look at the different locations and quest path, both of which provide many opportunities to get Fear Cards out of your deck into the ritual pile. I’ve never quite felt comfortable playing as The Mystic, but I enjoyed the challenge, the new perspective and given enough time, I’m sure I’ll find a groove in the gameplay.
New quests also add new wrinkles to the experience, adding new costs, rewards, and mechanics. The temple that made the biggest impression was the Lizard Temple, due to its eye-catching artwork and Guardian inclusion in the middle of the path. If you’re really looking for a new experience, the Snake Temple is your first stop thanks to the extra ranger and various bonuses, including a volcanic eruption that ejects its guardian slab. The Monkey Temple is also fun and changes your ascent with a two-pronged path and even an artifact, but it’s not quite as innovative as the Snake Temple.
CGE has even introduced a Red Moon Crew variant that allows you to view more artifacts and items, of which there are new items in the expansion. However, the stars of the show here are the leaders, all playing so differently from one another that each replay felt more inherently diverse than in the base game. If you’ve enjoyed Lost Ruins of Arnak and are looking for a way to take it to another level, Expedition Leaders are your answer. If the original Lost Ruins of Arnak didn’t click with you, there’s a good chance that Expedition Leaders will be the expansion to win you over and keep playing for a while.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Posted by: CGE
Designed by: Michael Stach, Michaela Stachova, Thomas Ohler, and Adam Spanell
Art and Graphic Design by: Radek Buxan, Ondrej Hrdina, Milan Vavron, Jerry Koss, Jacob Pulitzer, Frantisek Sedlasek and Stepan Drastak
Lost Ruins of Arnak: Campaign leaders are available in stores now.
What do you think of the expedition leaders? Let us know in the comments or as always you can talk about all things tabletop with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!
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