Living on the Edge – Forest Shuffle – Woodland Edge Expansion Review

I want to say that the Alpine expansion for Forest Shuffle was the first one, but I’m not 100% sure.

That one (as I mentioned in my review) helped by adding a few different cards that mitigated some other favoured strategies in the base game.

No matter which was first, though, I have to say that the Woodland Edge expansion is so good at this!

Forest Shuffle: Woodland Edge is another expansion designed by Kosch with artwork by Toni Llobet and Judit Piella. It was also published by Lookout Games in 2024.

If you must own only one expansion, this is the one to get!

Not only does it help with some overpowered strategies in the base game, but it adds so much good stuff to help other strategies, and with only 36 cards.

I mentioned in the Alpine expansion review that it added a new bat and a new butterfly, adding a great number of points to the butterfly strategy.

Woodland Edge adds yet another butterfly, and also cards that score with bats!

This makes both strategies so much better.

For the butterflies, a 7th butterfly means that if you can get all 7, you get 55 frickin’ points!!!

Not to mention things like the Stinging Nettle plant, which lets you put an unlimited number of butterflies on one tree or shrub (will get to shrubs in a moment).

This means you have trees and shrubs open for other top animals.

That results in things like this, and you still have trees and shrubs to put other animals on!

Not to mention that you then get 2 points per butterfly.

My latest play a few days ago, I won with a shit-ton of butterflies and a bunch of plants that gave me points per butterfly.

Granted, that was only 209 points, so it wouldn’t do by itself against experts in the game, but it was still impressive.

Shrubs are the main addition from Woodland Edge, because there are no new trees in this one.

Instead, you have three types of shrubs (and multiple copies of them) that let you play butterflies, bats, or plants and give you new cards when you play them. They act as trees in that they have 4 spaces to put animals or plants, but they don’t have the Tree symbol so they don’t count for cards that score that.

Not to mention that, if you pay for them with the right colour discards, they let you play one of those associated cards.

They don’t give you points for them, but they do give you a card draw when you play them.

Then there’s the Crane Fly, which gives you points per bat, making that strategy more viable. Not to mention letting you take all of the bats in the clearing into your hand, which could be very good.

And also the Barn Owl, which apparently loves bats! (I didn’t realize owls were that supportive of bats’ rights).

The European Polecat gives you 10 points if it’s alone on a tree or shrub. The Great Green Bush-Cricket gives you 1 point per bug, which butterflies are bugs!

The Eurasian Magpie also gives you the option of putting cards in your cave, enhancing the cave strategy a bit.

Not to mention that Digitalis gives you points per different plant you have in your tableau.

The Wild Boar actually makes a Squeaker strategy viable, at least as a supplement! It gets 10 points per Squeaker that’s in your tableau (not just “10 points if you have at least one Squeaker”, like the animal in the base game).

The shrubs and animal cards in Woodland Edge just make Forest Shuffle so much better.

Some strategies are enhanced and, of course, the dilution of the deck makes deer strategies very luck dependent.

There are still a few hooved animals (like the Board) which will help if you do get the right deer.

But it’s not an almost guarantee like it was before.

The addition of shrubs adds some decision-making as well.

Shrubs have the same card-placement spaces as trees, but they don’t count as trees.

Do you play them when you have cards that give you points for tree symbols?

Maybe?

I just think Woodland Edge adds so much to the game, more choices, more things to consider, and also more scoring paths.

Some paths are just incidental to your strategy, like the polecat giving you 10 points if it’s alone.

You’re not using that as a main strategy, but 10 additional points is 10 points!

Woodland Edge adds so much to the game. If you can only get one expansion, I would definitely recommend this one.

Keep in mind that, if you have fewer players, you are removing a lot of cards so deck dilution is definitely a thing.

In a 2 player game with both expansions, you’re removing 90 cards!

In a 5-player game, it’s not as bad as you’re just removing 30.

Dilution is helped there because it will be so long until you’re next turn.

If you don’t like Forest Shuffle for a bunch of other reasons, then this won’t help you.

But if dominant strategies from the base game are the reason you don’t like it, Woodland Edge will greatly help with that and I highly recommend it.

For those of you playing Boardgame Arena live (not asynchronous), if you are using both expansions (or even just this one), I highly recommend increasing the timer.

There are so many options to choose from that you will inevitably run out of time.

(This review was written after 3 plays with this expansion, plus numerous BGA asynchronous plays)