Board Game Expansions: When They're Worth It and When They're Not

Board game expansions are the easiest purchase in the hobby to justify and the easiest one to regret. You already love the base game, the expansion costs less than a new game, and the box promises more of what you like. Sometimes that is exactly what you get. Other times you end up with a $30 box of components that makes a game you played every month into one you set up twice a year.

This article is part of our Smart Buying series, alongside the pillar on how to buy used board games. The goal is a simple test you can run before buying any expansion, plus a rule for who in your play group should own it.

What kinds of board game expansions are there?

“Expansion” covers four different products, and they deserve different decisions.

More players

The Catan 5 to 6 player extension is the classic example. It adds nothing to the game except seats. If your group regularly has five or six people and the base game caps at four, this type of expansion directly creates plays that would not otherwise happen. If your group is reliably four or fewer, it does nothing.

More content

More cards, more tiles, more scenarios, more of the same. Dominion expansions add new kingdom cards; Ticket to Ride maps add new boards; Carcassonne adds new tiles. The game plays the same way with more variety. This type is the most common and the most likely to sit unplayed, because the base game already had enough variety for most groups.

New mechanics

The expansion changes how the game works: a new phase, a new resource, a new way to score. Wingspan’s expansions add new bird powers and new board features; Spirit Island’s add new spirits and new adversaries. This type can turn a game you were tired of into a game that feels new again, but it also makes the game longer and harder to teach.

Fixes

Some expansions exist mainly to patch problems: a two-player variant, a rebalanced faction, a shorter mode, a catch-up mechanism. If a known weakness is the reason your group stopped playing, a fix expansion is the cheapest possible way to bring the game back to the table.

Knowing which type you are looking at tells you most of what you need to know. A more-players expansion is a math problem. A fix is a yes if the problem is real. More content and new mechanics are where the test below earns its keep.

The one test: have you seen the edges of the base game?

Here is the test. Ask your group: have we played the base game enough that we have seen its edges?

“Seeing the edges” means you know the game well enough that it has started to feel predictable. You recognize the strong openings. You have tried most of the strategies. The variety the box came with has started to repeat. Someone has said, out loud, “I wish there were more of these.”

If you have not reached that point, an expansion is a solution to a problem you do not have. The base game still has plenty of plays left in it, and the expansion will either sit in its shrink or, worse, get mixed in early and make the game harder to teach to the next new player. Plenty of groups have bought the expansion after three plays and never played the game again because setup became a chore.

If you have reached that point, an expansion is one of the best purchases in the hobby. The game already proved it earns plays with your group. The expansion costs less than a new game, needs no new teach for the regulars, and brings a tired favorite back to the top of the rotation.

A practical threshold, purely as an illustration: for a medium-weight game, ten plays with mostly the same people is usually enough to have seen its edges. For a quick filler, maybe twenty. For a heavy game like Terraforming Mars or Twilight Imperium, five might do it, because each play covers so much ground.

When an expansion beats a new game

Run the cost per play math and expansions look very good under the right conditions.

Say your group plays a $40 base game about once a month. It has twelve plays a year. A $30 expansion that keeps it in the monthly rotation for another year adds twelve plays for $30. A new $40 game, by contrast, has to earn its plays from zero: your group has to learn it, like it, and choose it over everything else on the shelf. Many new games manage three or four plays before they settle in.

Expansions win when:

• The base game is already in your regular rotation, not just on the shelf.
• Your group has seen its edges and is asking for more.
• The expansion type matches the actual gap: more players if you lack seats, a fix if there is a known problem, new mechanics if the game feels solved.
• Teaching the expansion to your regulars takes five minutes, not a full re-teach.
• The combined game still fits the time slot you have for it.

In those conditions, an expansion is usually a better buy than any new game. It is buying more plays of something proven instead of a chance at plays of something unknown.

When a board game expansion is a trap

Expansions become traps in a few predictable ways.

Buying for the collection, not the table. The expansion completes a set, matches the box art, or was on sale. None of those are plays. An expansion that does not change how often the game hits the table is the most expensive kind of decoration, and it goes straight to the Shelf of Shame.

Buying before you have seen the edges. Covered above, but worth repeating because it is the most common mistake. If the base game still feels fresh, wait.

Bloat. Every expansion adds setup time, teach time, and play time. A 60-minute game with three expansions mixed in can become a two-hour game with a 20-minute setup. The groups that handle this well keep expansions modular: one in, the others in the closet. The groups that handle it badly stop playing the game entirely.

Replacing variety with volume. Some expansions add so much content that the thing you liked, a tight set of well-balanced options, disappears into a pile. More is not always better. Sometimes the base game was already the best version.

Buying an expansion for a game you play elsewhere. If you only play Pandemic at a friend’s house, buying its expansion for your own shelf makes no sense. You do not own the base game, and the expansion cannot be played without it. This happens more than you would think.

Expansion-only exclusives. A single promo card or a handful of alternate pieces sold at expansion prices. Ask whether you would notice the difference at the table.

Who in a play group should own the expansion?

This is where expansions fit into The One Copy Rule. A play group needs one copy of a game. By the same logic, it needs one copy of each expansion, and that copy should live with the base game.

The rule is simple: expansions go to the base-game owner. An expansion that lives in a different house from the base game is useless on game night. Someone has to remember to bring it, and the time it gets forgotten is the time everyone wanted to play with it.

This makes expansions the best gift in the hobby, which is the whole argument of Gifting as Library Strategy. If your friend owns the group’s copy of Wingspan and the group has seen its edges, an expansion is a gift you know will get used, by the person who will use it, with you at the table. You are not adding a second copy of anything to the shared shelf; you are deepening a copy that already earns plays.

It also keeps the group’s spending sane. Under Claim a Lane, each person owns a genre. The expansion budget follows the same lanes: the co-op person buys the co-op expansions, the party person buys the party expansions. Nobody buys an expansion for a game they do not own, and nobody buys a duplicate.

One group habit worth adopting: when someone proposes an expansion, the base-game owner runs the edges test out loud. “Have we seen the edges of this one?” If three people say yes, it is a good buy. If three people say “we have played it twice,” it goes on the someday list.

A quick decision checklist

Before you buy any expansion, answer these in order:

1. Which type is it: more players, more content, new mechanics, or a fix?
2. Does our group actually have the gap this type fills?
3. Have we seen the edges of the base game?
4. Will this keep the game in rotation, or just make it longer?
5. Does the base-game owner want it on their shelf?
6. Would the same money buy a game that fills an empty role on our shared shelf instead?

Three or more clear yeses on questions two through five, with a no on six, and the expansion is probably worth it. Anything less, and the base game still has plays to give.

FAQ

Are board game expansions worth it?

Usually yes, if your group has played the base game enough to have seen its edges and is asking for more. An expansion to a game already in your rotation adds plays cheaply and needs little new teaching. They are not worth it when the base game still feels fresh, when they add more setup and length than fun, or when you are buying to complete a set.

Should I buy an expansion or a new game?

Buy the expansion if the base game is in your regular rotation and your group has started to find it predictable. The expansion adds plays to a proven game for less money. Buy a new game if your shelf is missing a role, such as a party game or a two-player game, or if the base game was never a favorite.

How many times should I play a game before buying an expansion?

There is no fixed number, but a useful illustration is about ten plays with mostly the same group for a medium-weight game, more for a quick filler, fewer for a heavy game. The real signal is when the variety in the base box has started to repeat and someone at the table asks for more options.

Who should buy expansions in a board game group?

The person who owns the base game. An expansion stored apart from its base game rarely gets played, because someone has to remember to bring it. In a group that shares one copy of each game, expansions belong with that copy, which also makes them the easiest gift to give a gaming friend.

More from Smart Buying

• How to Buy Used Board Games Without Getting Burned
• The One Copy Rule: Why Your Play Group Only Needs One Catan
• Gifting as Library Strategy: Expansions Make the Best Gifts
• The Shelf of Shame Has an Infinite Cost Per Hour
• The Kickstarter Question: Should You Back Board Games?

Want the rest of the Smart Buying series as it publishes? Subscribe to The Ludarium newsletter and we will send each article straight to your inbox. Never stop playing.