Lost Ruins of Arnak: Expedition Leaders gives players six new ways to play the award-nominated game
Island idols.
The latest expansion for Lost Ruins of Arnak, a deckbuilding game that was nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres, adds six new ways to experience the game.
Called Expedition Leaders, the expansion introduces a collection of characters for players to choose from at the start of the game, with each one providing a unique playstyle and set of skills. Usually, players do not embody any particular character in Lost Ruins of Arnak, instead becoming a faceless explorer seeking to uncover the secrets of the island. However, Expedition Leaders offers players six different personalities that they can use to direct their missions into the island’s dig-sites.
Each character in the upcoming expansion has their own unique leader ability - which will provide players with different ways to approach the game - as well as a starting deck that players can build upon throughout their playthrough. Expedition Leaders also comes with an alternative, more challenging, set of research tracks for players to explore, alongside some new item and artifact cards for players to buy and use within their decks.
Lost Ruins of Arnak is a deckbuilding and worker-placement game for one to four players that takes place on a mysterious island filled with secrets. In the game, players take turns to perform actions to increase their victory point total - such as exploring new areas of the island, acquiring artifacts and items. Players can perform actions by playing cards from their hand alongside any resources they may have and their worker meeples, gradually opening more options for themselves.
As players continue to explore further into the island, they’ll encounter enormous beasts who will guard certain areas - players will need to defeat them in order to visit these places without suffering from fear. Players can also hire new assistants by moving further along the research track, thereby unlocking new actions for them to perform on their turn. Whichever player acquires the largest total of victory points is the winner.
Lost Ruins of Arnak and Expedition Leaders was co-created by Elwen and Mín, with the board game and its expansions being the co-designers’ debut releases. Czech Games Edition is the company behind Lost Ruins of Arnak and is also responsible for releasing the party game Codenames and Galaxy Trucker, which is receiving a reprint later this year.
Expedition Leaders is set to be released in October at a retail price of $29.95 (£21).