There are few things more enjoyable than playing one of your favorite games, and even fewer when you get an expansion for your favorite game! Expansions are a great way for game developers to grow the world of their card game or board game; and we as players love the opportunity to get even more immersed.
We have seen so many table top and miniature game franchises follow this model, adding multiple game expansions and stand alone spin offs, offering more characters, customization and different events or locations.
As an avid gamer with a tightknit gaming group myself, I absolutely love getting to dive deeper into my favorite games! But you don’t need a committed group of friends to always enjoy these additions, many offer a simpler gameplay, or use the same game mechanics with a new theme you might be more interested in.
Here are our top 5 games with SPECTACULAR Expansions or Spin Offs. If you haven’t had the chance to play the core games, give those a shot! They’re all amazing too.
Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion Stand Alone Expansion
Simplified Gameplay everyone can enjoy
You are a member of Jaws of the Lion, one of the most infamous mercenary groups in this run-down backwater. When a sinister cabal starts disappearing the less fortunate of the city, it somehow falls to you to get to the bottom of it...so long as you get paid for your trouble.
Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is a fully cooperative campaign game of tactical combat in a unique fantasy world. Players will assume the roles of hardened mercenaries and work together to fight through a campaign full of choices, challenges, and twists.
Ages: 14+
Players: 1-4
Game Length: 60 minutes/player
This game can be played on its own or combined with Gloomhaven for enhanced play.
Mansions of Madness: Horrific Journeys Expansion
You can’t help but get fully immersed in the horrific Lovecraftian world
In the skies above the Atlantic, a dirigible's peaceful journey is interrupted by a bloody act of revenge and an oncoming storm. On the sea far below, a treacherous saboteur plants the explosives that will sink a ship. In the New England countryside, a train billows black smoke, desperately fleeing an unimaginable threat.
Horrific Journeys is a deluxe expansion for Mansions of Madness which unlocks three thrilling scenarios that take four new investigators far from Arkham, solving mysteries aboard a bustling transatlantic airship, a luxury ocean liner, and a scenic countryside train.
Ages: 14+
Players: 1-5
Game Length: 120-180 minutes
This is not a stand-alone game. A copy of Mansions of Madness (2nd Edition) is required to play.
Take a look at all of the Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition Expansion
Pandemic: Rein of Cthulhu Expansion
Another Obligatory Cthulhu Expansion - but one we love!
Beings of ancient and bizarre intelligence, known as Old Ones, are stirring within their vast cosmic prisons. If they awake into the world, it will unleash an age of madness, chaos, and destruction upon the very fabric of reality. Everything you know and love will be destroyed!
You are cursed with knowledge that the "sleeping masses" cannot bear: that this Evil exists, and that it must be stopped at all costs. You will fend off cultists and terrifying creatures in order to find the clues necessary to ensure those Old Ones do not awaken.
As your investigation leads you deeper into chaos and madness, your sanity will stretch your capacities to their limits. On the brink of insanity, you are humanity's last hope!
Ages: 14+
Players: 2-4
Game Length: 40 minutes
Check out our other Pandemic Stand Alone Board Games
Terraforming Mars: Venus Next Expansion
Where No Man Has Gone Before - Literally
Venus just might be the deadliest world in the solar system...but it has potential! Up among the corrosive clouds, far away from the scorching hot surface, humans have begun colonizing and terraforming. Your corporation has a good opportunity to make a name for itself; build flying cities, shade off the sun to lessen the greenhouse effect, and introduce life to this planet! And let Venus help you terraform Mars!
Ages: 12+
Players: 1-5
Game Length: 90-120 minutes
This is not a stand-alone game. A copy of Terraforming Mars is required to play.
Lovecraft Letter
For all the humans who loved Love Letter – which is basically everyone
In the 1920s, the world is still in the chaos of the First World War. In the middle of all this, one of your relatives has encountered something mysterious in Egypt. Strange shadows that come to life...Letters with undecipherable texts and strange symbols...Upon arriving, you find out he is missing and decide to investigate. Never would you have expected the horror that awaits you...
Ages: 14+
Players: 2-6
Game Length: 10 minutes
Did we miss an expansion you love? Let us know! What’s your favorite game expansion of all time? What’s a game you wish had an expansion, but doesn’t yet? Email us at info@EntropyGamesandCards.com
Peace, Love and Loot,
Entropy Games