Small World of Warcraft gets free to play Murloc expansion
Making Murlocs out of molehills.
Small World of Warcraft, the spin-off board game based on the popular MMORPG world, has gotten a free to play expansion focused around Murlocs.
Designed to be printed out and played alongside the core version of Small World of Warcraft the free expansion, called Revenge of the Murlocs, provides players with new options for both two-player and solo game modes. The expansion is focused on the Murlocs, little creatures from the universe of Azeroth, the world in which the Warcraft video game series is based in. Murlocs are much maligned beings that have long been disrespected and bullied by both the Alliance and the Horde, as well as being generally mistreated by the various other species in Azeroth.
Revenge of the Murlocs sees the slimy fish-people reaching their breaking point and marching on the rest of Azeroth as an army. The expansion sees one to two players attempting to stop the Murloc invasion, with the Murloc forces being controlled by a set of AI rules. Taking place over nine rounds – instead of the usual 10 – Revenge of the Murlocs can be played as a solo or as a co-op game experience between two players, with the players needing to stem the tide of Murloc tokens and collectively win.
Rather than discarding Murloc tokens whenever they might usually be discarded, players put them next to the region they were originally in and return them to that region at the beginning of the Murloc’s turn. The Murlocs might not start with any victory coins, but they will gradually acquire them as they continue to take over regions on the board. Another difference comes with the fact that Murlocs never fall into decline like the other species in the game, making them more of a challenge.
Players win the expansion if they have more victory coins than the Murlocs by the end of the ninth round, but lose if they fail to achieve a better score than their AI enemies.
The Revenge of the Murlocs expansion was created by Philippe Keyaerts, the designer behind the core Small World of Warcraft board game and the original Small World. Days of Wonder – a studio otherwise known for publishing the train game Ticket to Ride – is the company responsible for releasing the Revenge of the Murlocs expansion and the Small World series.
Small World of Warcraft is an area control game based on the Warcraft franchise, whose most popular entry is the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game World of Warcraft. In the video game board game, players take control of one of the species found in Azeroth – such as the Night Elves or Orcs – and gain a special ability alongside that. Players then take turns placing their respective tokens on the game board and using their abilities. On their turn, players can choose to put their species in decline, discarding their cards and tokens in favour of new ones. Whichever player has the most victory coins by the end of the game is named the winner.
The Revenge of the Murlocs expansion can be downloaded from the Asmodee Print-and-Play website.