Small World: Cursed!
2-5
8+
40+
Put a curse on your Small World!
Dark forces are at work in the new Cursed! expansion. It introduces 2 powerful races - Kobolds & Goblins; as well as 5 new Special Power badges - Cursed, Hordes of, Marauding, Ransacking & Were-.
User Reviews (5)
Add a Review for "Small World: Cursed!"
You must be logged in to add a review.
The Cursed! expansion is more of the same… aside from the Cursed power… thus the name. I’m a sucker for adding new races and powers, so this was a no-brainer for me. However, if you are not addicted to expansions like me, you may want to decide if the Cursed power is enough reason to shell out your hard earned cash. That, of course, is not for me to decide.
New Races…
Goblins
Goblins prey on declining races. Goblins receive a one token discount when attacking races in decline. You’d take this when there are a lot of races in decline of course.
Kobolds
11 armies with the restriction that you may never have less than two race tokens in a region. The restriction is restricting, but you get a lot of tokens…especially if you get the Hordes of…
New Powers…
Hordes of…
The Hordes of… power provides you with two additional race tokens in addition to the five provided by the power.
Marauding
The Marauding power allows you to attack twice on the same turn.
Were-
The Were- power gives you a two token discount to attacking on even numbered turns (equivalent of night). During the “day” the power cannot be used.
Ransacking
With this power, you take over regions occupied by an active race, the conquered player must pay you one victory point for each region you’ve won.
Cursed
This one is interesting. It has NO special power and requires 3 VP’s to not take it rather than one. An interesting wrench in the system.
Conclusion…
I didn’t find anything awe-inspiring in this expansion, but it is still nice to add even more races and powers. The Curse does add a little kink… but you’ll have to decide if it is enough of a twist to purchase the expansion. DoW components are excellent as usual… art is great as well. So there you have it.
As some of the other reviews have mentioned, this is more of the same Small World fun. Small World is a brilliant game, and presumably you want more of it as you are reading this. However, if you are looking for a first expansion I would go and check out Be Not Afraid. That has more new races and extra options so it’s a bit more bang for your buck.
Already got Be Not Afraid? This is a great accompaniment to that and to other expansions. The two new races are interesting – Goblins especially who get an easier attack on races in decline – but it’s the powers which will do it for you.
Cursed makes whichever race it joins with very unattractive. And it costs 3VP to skip it. This has a massive effect on when people want to go into decline as you don’t want to be the person taking the cursed race or paying to skip them.
Marauding is also excellent as a way to charge through big stacks of enemies – great for knocking out the player who doesn’t defend in depth.
Were- is also very interesting, making a super powerful attacking race, but only every other turn.
In conclusion, an excellent addition to the Small World universe.
Just had my first two games with the Cursed expansion last night and while I always like adding new races, the powers that come in this set are pretty lackluster.
Ransacking is fun to steal coins with, hordes gives you extra attacking power, and were- is good if you pick it up on the right round, but overall they didn’t add any excitement to the game. The Cursed power is easy to avoid and could only really affect the game if it comes out early and sits at the top with say a race that gives you very few tokens.
The best power is marauding by far. The ability to basically have two turns can really stack up coins. The first time I used it we were on the second round of declines so there were empty regions and I was able to really spread out with marauding. If I could just buy that piece, I would;)
The races are both cool. Kobolds gives you a lot of tokens so they worked well in a quick one move takeover, since you can’t redistribute them very well (only 2 per territory). I played goblins twice, but never got the chance to use their advantage very well.
Overall, it’s definitely a “skipable” expansion unless you want everything or you’re willing to pay full price to cherry pick the parts you like.
A typical “more of the same” expansion. It gives you 2 races and 5 powers. The box also contains a blank power and race card so you could create your own special race and power.
Although this expansion is definitely not essential for the game, I think that it is still worth the money, because both races and all the powers are well designed, they bring more variety to the game, which is always good.
This Small World expansion adds two more races: Goblins and Kobolds. The goblins take out races that are in decline really easily and kobolds can’t occupy spaces with less than two tokens.
It also comes with 5 powers: cursed, hoards of, marauding, were- and ransacking. Cursed races must have 3 coins placed on them to pass on them. Hoards of races get 2 additional tokens that behave just like tokens of that race. Marauding races get 2 conquest phases per turn. Were-races takes spaces for 2 tokens less on even numbered turns, and ransacking races take a coin from the player that occupied the each space you conquer.
Overall, I don’t feel like this expansion added a whole lot of replay value, so if you are torn between this expansion, and a new game, you should probably go for the new game. Otherwise, go ahead and pick it up. Its only about $13 and more races and abilities never hurt a thing.