Expansion Review – Smash Up Micro-Expansion – Goblins

One of the things Alderac Entertainment Group has been doing for Smash Up aficionados (Editor – “oooo, look at you with the fancy foreign words) has been releasing micro-expansions. In fact, they’ve been doing that for a bunch of their games, including Space Base (which I have also bought).

For Smash Up, these micro-expansions have consisted of one faction, including two bases for them.

After reviewing the new Disney full-set expansion, as well as with news that eventually new regular (i.e. non-IP) expansions will be coming in 2023, I decided to take a look at each of the micro-expansion factions to see if they were worth paying $10 plus shipping for (available only, as far as I know, on the Alderac Store unless you buy them secondhand).

For me, I bought all of the factions along with a couple of Space Base micro-expansions and made it so the shipping per item wasn’t actually that much.

The first faction I’ll be taking a look at is the Goblins faction.

I’m not going to go into how to play Smash Up since my review does that, but let’s see what makes this faction tick and whether or not you should get it.

The Goblin faction is the first faction to rely a lot on pure luck beyond just “what cards am I going to draw?”

That’s because many of the cards ask the player to flip a coin in order to do something.

The Bushwhacking action has you choose a minion and flip a coin. If it’s heads, you destroy the minion. If Tails, you move it to another base. That’s a great way to get a pesky 5-power minion out of your way! Either way works.

Of course, where that kind of luck is involved, there have to be some ways to mitigate it.

Make Your Own Luck lets you change a coin result, though there aren’t necessarily that many in your deck.

But Diviner also lets you do that! And he’s a 4-power minion and lets you draw a card when you flip a coin. And as the Goblins, you will be doing that a lot!

The coin option brings a really interesting aspect to the typical Smash Up game. So much so that the 10th anniversary edition will have an actual Goblin coin!

(There are other issues with that set which may preclude me getting it, but that’s for another post).

They’re a fun faction to play as long as you don’t mind a bit more luck. But if you mind luck, why are you playing Smash Up where you don’t know what you are going to draw?

Anyway, how are the two bases?

The bases let the other mindless peons (that’s how I’m sure the Goblins think of the other players) get in on the coin flipping action!

Goblin Town let’s you flip a coin when you play a minion on that base. If it’s Heads, get a +1 Power counter that minion.

The Goblin Caves are chancy if you don’t have a coin mitigation card! (Which of course nobody but you would have). When the base scores, everybody can flip a coin. If they get Heads, they get one extra VP. If Tails, they discard two cards.

That’s not good! Unless you’re one of those factions that ends up drawing so many cards that you end up having to discard due to the hand size limit anyway.

I really enjoy the Goblin faction. I don’t mind some luck in my games (Editor – “It’s how you win!”). The coin-flipping just adds a bit of fun to an already fun game.

Of course, having to supply your own coin is kind of annoying if you don’t carry change with you.

Or you could be Bryan and have a coin-flipping app on your phone.

That works too.

More micro-expansion faction reviews coming in the next few weeks, so keep your eyes peeled!

But not too peeled. That just sounds painful.

Have you played with the Goblins?

What do you think of them?

Let me know in the comments.

(This review was written after 2 plays with this expansion)

Other Smash Up Reviews:

• Smash Up
• Science Fiction Double Feature
• Cease & Desist
• What Were We Thinking?
• Oops, You Did It Again
• World Tour: International Incident
• That ’70s Expansion
• World Tour: Culture Shock
• Awesome Level 9000
• Monster Smash
• Smash Up: Marvel
• It’s Your Fault
• Smash Up: Disney
• Micro-Expansion – Penguins
• Micro-Expansion – Knights of the Round Table