.png)
Lost Ruins of Arnak: The Missing Expedition Review
WBG Score: 8.5
Player Count: 1-2
You’ll like this if you like: Lost Ruins of Arnak, The previous Arnak campaign
Published by: Czech Games Edition (CGE)
This is a review copy. See our review policy here
As usual with an Arnak expansion this comes with a bunch of new Item and artifact cards, new assistants, sites guardians and idols. It also comes with two new research tracks. A lot of these will be discovered and used throughout the campaign but you can also mix them in and use them throughout your normal games. The campaign also comes with two new leaders and there will also be a few components that can only be used for the campaign.
How to search for your mentor
I’ll try and keep spoilers to a minimum so I’ll only give you a brief rundown of how a scenario works. You can play either solo or with two players. Regardless of how you play you’ll still need to set up the solo bot as well and this will work the same as the regular solo opponent. Choose a leader/s to play with. You can use the leaders from this box, some basic leaders with some items cards included in the deck or, if you've got the expedition leaders expansion you can use any leader from there. Set up the game as per the current scenario and take a campaign sheet. Each one will come with an overview card which will tell you your win condition for that game and some objectives to complete to gain bonuses at the end of the scenario. The win condition and the objectives will change slightly depending on your player count. Then play the game as per normal taking into account any scenario specific rules.
If you're playing two player co-op you’ll each have access to a pigeon token. Each can be used once per round to send a resource to your partner. Each scenario will give you ways to gain encounter cards in the form of completing minor objectives. These will give you a bit of story and two options to choose from. Each will give a boon of some sort, one immediate and one to use at a later date.
At the end of the game check to see if you meet the win condition. If you do then calculate your score and the bot’s score. Minus their score from yours to get your campaign score for this game. If you lose you have two choices. Either play the same round again or choose to accept the loss. If you accept the loss then set your score for this game to minus ten and you can then go to the next scenario. Each encounter card option you choose and objective you complete will give you a resource that you will mark on your campaign sheet. When you mark off particular spots on the sheet you'll be asked to read a section of the campaign book that may get you little bonuses for the next game.
Anyone else getting Deja Vu?
If you’ve been playing Arnak for a while then you may already be familiar with an official campaign that came out a few years ago online. I sat and played through all four games in one day and it was great. It used the existing components in such a clever way and told a cool story to boot. Well it must have been a big enough hit with fans because here we are a few years later with a physical version, but with enough changes that you can play this new version and have a different experience with it.
One of the first things that strikes you about this campaign is, like its predecessor, how well it uses the components of this and the base game to tell a story. Essentially this is the story of the disappearance of your old Professor, Kutnil and the rescue mission you organise to Arnak to find him. In the first scenario specific cards, sites and guardians are used to bring the story on the page to life on the board. Not only that but to make you feel like you're actually doing the thing you're supposed to be doing. For example (minor spoiler for the first scenario) The story talks about a crashed plane and you'll be using the crashed plane site from the base game as an objective in the scenario. Everything is so well designed and so cleverly thought out that you can’t help but get sucked into the story like that guy from Lost getting sucked into the plane's engine. They do such a good job of making each scenario feel so different that you don't ever feel like you're just playing another game of Arnak with a bit of story tacked on. You feel like you could be discovering new parts of the island.
The original campaign had to make do with utilising just the base game components to craft the story meaning that it was kinda limited, which actually made it even more impressive with how good it was. With the missing expedition being designed from scratch it means that along with those creative uses of components, the designers could also utilise new, bespoke elements to craft the story how they wanted with fewer restrictions. The Missing Expedition takes the campaign from 4 to 6 scenarios and is able to tell a more in depth story and really open out the scenarios to their full potential. It makes the whole thing feel so much more free.
It's the same, but different.
Let's talk about the scenarios. Each one brings a different and oftentimes big change to how you win/end the game but crucially, not how the game is played. Again, a potential minor spoiler, one game will end as normal, however you’ll need to reach a certain point on the research track to actually celebrate a win. What I love about this, and the whole campaign in fact, is just how much it asks you to adapt the way you play Arnak. Some scenarios will shift the focus more on the exploration side of the game, others more on the research track. It keeps the game fresh for every scenario.
Now, being able to adapt to the scenario may not require too big of a change, after all, all you may be doing is shifting focus and it's not like the game itself is changing. This is where those minor objectives come into play. Each scenario gives those tantalising nuggets to draw you away from the main goal. It’s the board game equivalent of your mate eating a big bowl of cheesy chips in front of you while you're eating your boring healthy salad because you WILL get into those jeans again. Each of those little side quests aren't too much off the beaten path and all are achievable while still getting your main goal, but not always easily. In fact some of them prove enough of a distraction that it could derail your main objective plans if you're not careful and clever with how you go about them.
So, why do them in the first place? Well for one, they’ll give you rewards when you complete them in game (which may go to help you complete your main objective) Second, they’ll give you icons for your story path at the end of the chapter. This is another neat little addition. It's more motivation to go for those extra objectives and getting a little bonus for the start of the next game gives you that nice little dopamine hit. Objectives aren't the only way you get these though. During each game you’ll have ways to get those event cards. Aside from the in game bonuses they’ll give you a different icon to cross off of the campaign sheet at the end of the game. Generally you’ll pick the bonus that best suits your game, but there will definitely be times when you’ll be leaning towards the other option because of the advance it gives you on the campaign sheet.
To Solo (like Raiders of the Lost Ark)
Or play with two (like the Last Crusade)
The campaign can be played either solo or co-operatively and each scenario set up and objectives will be slightly different depending on your player count. Nothing drastic, just a change in how many of something you'll need for particular objectives. If you like the extra challenge though you can change the difficulty. I played through this solo and I personally didn't feel as though I was missing having the extra player there. Socially it would have been good but I didn't ever feel like having someone there to pass resources back and forth or help with the objectives was needed but I put a lot of that down to how well balanced down the objectives were between player counts.
Like any good campaign you can absolutely play this through again or just play scenarios as a single game. Even better, almost all of the components can be used in your regular games of Arnak, including the encounter cards. Yep, it's a more stuff expansion as well so even if you didn't want to play the campaign you still get enough out of this to help justify the cost. Speaking of more stuff, you also get two more leaders but you can also use leaders from the Expedition leaders expansion if you have it. Plus you can change leaders in each scenario which may not be a bad move as you read each one. A couple of the scenarios have aspects that may lean towards particular leaders. That's not to say you can’t win with any others but lets just say that some have a particular set of skills that lend themselves to that scenario. I’m sure it wasn't designed that way but you can certainly see some advantages. That being said, maybe not taking the one with the advantage could be a good challenge.
Talking of leaders. What do these ones do?
The Mechanic
The Mechanic has a cool little cog wheel on her board with silver bonuses and some space to slot gold bonuses tiles. Some of her cards let her activate the silver or gold widgets on her wheel. Whichever one you activate you rotate the wheel 90 degrees and if silver, choose one of the silver bonuses on either side of the arrow to gain that resource. If it's gold, do the same but activate the gold bonus at the arrow. She’ll gain two new gold tiles at round 1,3 and 5, choose one and put it to her wheel. She also has space for three assistants and on round three she’ll also gain her monkey assistant which will let her activate the silver or gold rewards depending on if it's upgraded or not.
The Journalist.
The Journalist will quite happily write before gathering all the facts and because of this his notebook can move one space above his magnifying glass. Before you all come at me this is pretty much the description from the rulebook……but I don't disagree. At the start of the game place article tokens beneath each level one and two sites and 2 / 3 in the notches of their board, then put two of the newspaper tiles into their board. To write an article (collect it) you must pay the travel icon on a site with your archaeologist to put it into your supply. To publish an article, use an action (free or not depending on the space) and put that article on your newspaper and take the rewards.
Both new leaders are fun new additions, with the mechanic being my favourite but not by much. I like trying to manipulate the wheel to get the right resources at the right time but I'd happily play with either of them. It’s also nice to have a couple of new leaders in rotation.
Adventures are great, but you still need to pack and unpack.
Setup and to a slightly lesser extent, teardown are my biggest bugbears of this campaign. Like I mentioned earlier, each scenario has its own unique setup, then you need to find the scenario cards (but they're all together in the deck so its not that bad) and any particular cards and sites specific to it and then player set up and then the solo opponents whose stack of tiles could change each time. There's a lot of parts that need to come together to set up each scenario. It’s a lot to set up and if you have the game split between two boxes like I do then it's a lot of back and forth finding the specific things you need. Same with tear down since you're trying to keep campaign stuff separate until you’ve had at least one play through. Normally I’d say to keep this setup between games if you can, however I’ve tried doing two scenarios back to back and it almost feels like you're starting setup again each time anyway so I doubt it will help. I don't have the big box so I can't really say if it's any easier if you have that.
This campaign is great. It takes a game that you already love, throws in a fun, interesting story and takes the time and care to give you well thought out and thematic scenarios. If your main player count is 1-2 then this is a worthy addition to your game of Arnak. Couple that with the fact that it also doubles as a more stuff expansion and it would almost be a must buy. What about if 1-2 players or a campaign isn't your thing? Is it still worth it? I’d say it's worth looking at. I reckon at least 90 percent of this expansion can be added to your regular game and it's a touch cheaper than the expedition leader box. Sure you only get two leaders instead of six and you may or may not use the encounter cards but there could be enough in here to justify a purchase.
If you have played the previous online campaign then I would still say you can play this and have a great experience. The scenarios are different enough to give a different challenge and while the bulk of the story is similar there are enough added touches to keep it fresh.
Right, I'm off to look into this new type of journalism. Writing without having to research the facts is a game changer. I’ll get so much more done. I’d better get on this early before other journalists start doing it.
