Saturday, February 4, 2017

Top 10 Expansions We Own: #6

The newly discovered outer worlds, with their rich, untapped resources, are tempting targets for those seeking to expand their power.  Now, the scramble for control of these unclaimed territories begins.  Will you outwit your opponents and claim victory in the Colony Wars, or fail and see your Star Realm lost?  Coming in at #6 is Star Realms: Colony Wars.  Everyone that knows about this game, understands that the expansions are typically small, including 12 new cards in each expansion.  Colony Wars is a full standalone/expansion for Star Realms and this is one of the primary reasons we have placed it in our number 6 spot.  There are a lot more cards in this expansion so read on to get a brief rundown on the game.

With a complete count of 128 cards, and an all new 80 card trade deck (20 new cards per faction), this review is only going to show several of them. In Colony Wars, you receive 20 New Star Empire cards, 20 New Trade Federation cards, 20 new Machine Cult cards, and 20 new Blob cards, each providing multiple new effects and self synergies that aid you in a whole new diverse and aggressive approach to eliminating your opponents. Because this expansion is also a standalone version, you can mix it with existing releases of Star Realms, combine other small pack expansions, or just play the game by itself. All of the new cards seem evenly distributed amongst each other so there shouldn’t be one faction that proves superior over another. Your strategy will most likely change based on the card types, or you may focus your energy on one type of faction. I can safely say this expansion combines more effects from varying factions across the game, rather than merely focusing on one type of faction on each card.

In other words, one faction may have a multitude of effects from other factions on a single card which vastly enhances the diversity of options, technically making it somewhat easier. However, there are now more cards that will cost you less trade for higher effects. The Machine Cult also includes a lot more scrapping of cards so your chances at filtering out the lesser cards from clogging your deck has been greatly enhanced in this version compared to the base game. The fire power for the Star Empire is more powerful in Colony Wars. Everything has really been more enhanced. While other cards from the base game were considered good, the replacements in Colony Wars (in my opinion) significantly increases speed and playability. Whether you purchase the Gambit, Cosmic Gambit, or Crisis expansions, they’re all micro expansions which are definitely good at enhancing the gameplay for the base game, but what players really need are more cards in a single pack with a wider range of effects. Colony Wars delivers that for you. There are a lot more cards included in Colony Wars than my brief review provides, but if you’re a fairly big fan of Star Realms, you most likely already own it, but if you’re still curious about what all Star Realms has to offer for a fast-paced deck-building game, you should really consider Colony Wars into your collection if you don’t already own it.

Star Realms - Colony Wars
Overall Meeple Rating: 8/10



New additions:
1) First standalone expansion
2) 80 new trade deck cards

Have any thoughts or questions?  Leave a comment below.

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