These Board Game Expansions Are Absolute Must-Haves

While everyone's surely got their own favorite or two when it comes to board games, the ones they're always itching to bring to the table, there's always room for improvements and expansions in our minds, especially when it comes to the ten board games we've got below for you in this list!

The base versions of all of these beloved board games are definitely fun on their own, but if you've got the means to get some of these well-known expansions for the best board games in your closet, we're sure your friends will thank you come next game night!

Catan: Cities & Knights

If you and your friends just can’t get enough of one of the most well-known and beloved board games to date, consider grabbing the Cities & Knights expansion the next time you’re looking to add more to your game of Catan.

You’ll be able to begin recruiting knights to defend the cities you’re building from the impending and eternal threat of barbarian attacks. While you’re not worrying about invaders and your defenses, you can also pursue more culture-based victories and expand your cities in that regard.

Scythe: The Rise Of Fenris

Whether you’re playing Scythe by yourself or with a group of fearless friends, there’s always validity to spicing up your gameplay with a few expansions. Scythe: The Rise of Fenris not only brings the base game’s story to a neat conclusion, but it offers up to 11 individual modules to allow for some neat customization as you press onward.

The Rise of Fenris adds eight episodes worth of narration to the game set after the Great War, and you’ll find that the rules for gameplay evolve as the story continues, growing more grueling as the games press on.

Sentinels Of The Multiverse: Shattered Timelines

If you and your friends have been getting some good mileage out of Sentinels of the Multiverse, the superhero deck building game, consider adding the Shattered Timelines to the table next time you meet up to play.

Reeling from the death of his daughter, Paul Parsons will stop at nothing to achieve his missions – nothing – as you and your group contend with the literal fracturing of time. If you’re not burned out on multiverse games just yet, be sure to give this one a shot if you’re looking for more superhero Sentinel action.

Space Alert: The New Frontier

Another game we listed on our suggestions for some of the best solo player board games, Space Alert tasks you and up to four friends with a terrifying life-and-death mission out in space, stuck in enemy territory with only ten minutes to defend yourselves from the gruesome onslaught.

Once you’ve nailed the masters of space combat, though, consider adding The New Frontier expansion to your game. You’ll be able to specialize your role within the team, take all kinds of new actions on your turns, and so much more.

Dominion: Prosperity

Once you’ve established your dominion over your friends at the board game table by crushing them a time or two in, well, Dominion, your group should consider the Prosperity expansion if you’re looking to stick within your well-established land borders and continue thriving.

The Prosperity expansion for Dominion focuses mostly on wealth generation and management, adding plenty of new high-powered cards, Victory Point tokens, a new victory condition you can aim for, and plenty of other additions that will provide just the shakeup you’re looking for.

Pandemic: On The Brink

If the Pandemic board game hasn’t become a little too real for you and your friends for board game nights after, well, you know, then you may want to find some new ways to explore saving the world before it succumbs to deadly diseases. If that’s the case, check out the On the Brink expansion.

To shake up the old and familiar gameplay in a board game that’s been around as long as Pandemic, you’ll find the On the Brink expansion to add all kinds of new cards, roles, and challenge conditions to the game. Are you ready to deal with mutations?

Terraforming Mars: Prelude

Humans have been thinking about colonizing other planets for as long as we’ve known we could reach them, and Mars seems to be the one we’ve focused on due to its proximity to Earth. Ready to start your own corporation with the goal of making the planet habitable in the name of development?

The Prelude expansion adds more into the game’s earliest stages, as the name suggests, and they serve to offer some helpful perks that make establishing new projects and goals with a handful of helpful tweaks.

Carcassone: Expansion 1 - Inns & Cathedrals

Another one of the most beloved tabletop games, Carcassonne is something of a legacy game, tasking you and your friends with establishing a thriving medieval world. Unleash your Meeples and claim all kinds of features and facilities and work to make the biggest and best improvements of anyone.

If you’re looking to add a little something along your roads and throughout your cities, the Inns & Cathedrals expansion offers just those two things! Not only do you have some new features to build, but you’ll also discover Big Meeples, too.

Wingspan: European Expansion

If you’ve already mastered the variety of bird species you can document at your wildlife preserve in Wingspan, you may want to consider sprucing things up a bit at your next game night with the addition of the European Expansion. Not only will you gain tons of new birds from the continent of Europe, but there are other perks added as well.

Some of these include physical additions like bird trays, another scorepad (since you might be running low on the ones in the base game by the time you’re ready for expansions), and tons of cards and tiles that change the wildlife preserve you thought you knew.

Spirit Island: Branch & Claw

Spirit Island puts you into the role of a relatively all-powerful elemental spirit, and your goal is to both establish yourself as a powerful being and scare off would-be invaders before they can explore too much of your untouched home.

The Branch & Claw expansion for Spirit Island adds a few new things to spruce up your island gameplay. These include new spirits added to the mix, new token types, an event deck, plenty of new cards to add to all your base game decks.