Who the Heck is Ix? – App Expansion Review – Dune Imperium: the Rise of Ix

If you’re a boardgamer and you haven’t heard of Dune: Imperium, what rock have you been hiding under?

I know that Boardgame Geek is not the end-all and be-all of board games, the game itself is currently ranked 6th and the new “version” of it (Dune: Imperium – Uprising) is currently 25th.

Two versions of the same game (with some differences of course) are both in the Top 25!

That’s a testament to how popular the game is (yes, rankings don’t indicate quality, etc).

I’ve played the board game twice on the table and I do really like it, but I have many more plays of the app.

In fact, I reviewed the game (and the Early Access app) earlier, so I wanted to concentrate on the first expansion that has now been released for the app: Rise of Ix.

As with my early access review (nothing much of which has changed, except some app oddities that I will mention below), this is going to be a review of both the app as well as the expansion itself.

The expansion adds some really cool aspects to the game, including some of what the base game was missing: removing cards from your deck and cycling through cards in your deck.

The expansion (and game) were designed by Paul Dennen with artwork by Clay Brooks, Raul Ramos and Nate Storm. Rise of Ix was published on the table in 2022 and just released in the app a couple of months ago in 2024 (for those who are reading this in the future).

Let’s take a look!

Since I basically explained how to play the game in my Early Access review, I’m just going to go over what the expansion adds and whether these things are good or bad (or Ixian! I’m sorry, I’m not sure what that means).

The first thing Rise of Ix adds is a new CHOAM board in the top right corner of the border, with new spaces that involve the new Shipping track, or potentially getting tech or a dreadnaught for the conflicts!

Oh yeah, those are two other new things.

The Shipping track involves moving up a track when you get the opportunity (the symbol in the two spaces in the top right corner of the board) to send a negotiator.

You can either move up the track or take the bonus of where you’re at and move your negotiator back down to the bottom.

The top level lets you get a new tech for a 2-spice discount.

Some of the new conflict awards also utilize the shipping track.

This adds a lot of variety to the conflicts, since in the base game, they’re basically money, Intrigue cards, spice, points, or a combination of all of those.

You even get a new troop to replace one of those that died in the current one in this conflict.

This addition is a great one as it allows for more varied strategies and effects.

Of course, with the additional conflict options, you may be even more inclined to try to win one, right?

The new CHOAM board also has a space where you can pick up a dreadnaught to your Barracks.

The dreadnaught has a strength of 3 in the conflict (troops have 2) and counts as a troop in regards to allowing you to use swords from cards, even if you don’t have any actual troops in the conflict.

This can make conflicts much more interesting and allows players to make bigger comebacks in gaining strength for a conflict as well.

Even better, if you don’t win the conflict, your dreadnaught goes back to the barracks. It doesn’t die like your committed troops do.

Finally, if you do win the conflict, you can put your dreadnaught out onto a space (any of the three spots that could be controlled in the base game) and it controls that space for the next round. You gain the bonus that anybody else would gain for control of that spot (money or spice) but your dreadnaught goes back to your barracks at the end of that round.

Dreadnaughts make the conflicts much more dynamic and the fact that they can control a space may mean you supersede another player who won control of that space in a previous conflict. It’s only for one round, but still, that can be very worthwhile.

Most important is that once you have it, you always have it (unless it’s it’s controlling a space).

I really enjoy this addition to the game.

As can be expected, Rise of Ix adds some new cards and card effects to the game.

What’s really interesting is the “Unload” icon set.

What this means is that if the card is discarded or trashed, you get the effect as if you had used it for its Reveal effect.

This makes the card much more useful and will let you chain with cards that let you discard cards or trash them.

Other card effects require certain influence levels, or give you new options.

I love the new cards. Again, more variety is always great and the new effects are interesting.

Another cool kind of card is the Infiltration cards.

If the agent icon has a half-profile of an agent marker, this means you can send it to a space that’s already occupied.

This is ground-breaking! Before, you needed an Intrigue card for that to let you do it once.

There are some restrictions, but overall this a very nice thing.

They make a great addition to the game.

Of course, the biggest addition to the game, and the one that has the most impact, is the Tech.

Two of the new CHOAM spaces, as well as the top of the Shipping track, will let you buy Tech if you have enough spice (who needs money?).

These Techs will give you special abilities, maybe ongoing ones or maybe abilities that you can use in certain situations.

Some are shown above. Another one will let you move your dreadnaught back to your barracks rather than taking control of a space (maybe you already control all 3? Or maybe you want to save it to use in the next conflict) when you win a conflict.

The icon in the “Tech for 1 spice discount” spice is also an icon that shows that you can remove one of your troops and use it as a negotiator (placing it on the Ix board). If you visit this space later, you can remove some or all of them and get a Tech for -1 spice per negotiator you remove.

The Tech just gives you a lot of other options and maybe, depending on what you buy, a better way to execute those options.

The new leaders really take advantage of these new mechanisms as well.

All in all, I love all the changes and additions that Rise of Ix brings to the game.

It makes an already great game that much better.

Now, how’s the app implementation?

The addition of the new cards and a bit of a redesign of the Market Row can make it hard to see the “plus” sign where you are supposed to drag cards and also see how much Persuasion you have.

It’s not too bad, and you can always double-click or double-tap a card to gain it, but it took me a bit to figure that part out.

The picture shows that section being crowded a bit but clearly visible, but if you’ve played more cards (the new addition seems to be showing the cards you’ve played already), it can be obscured.

I do like the addition of showing the cards you’ve played, though.

Also, the Market Row and Tech markets are easily accessible from the main screen with a click/tap.

There are two major issues with the app that make asynchronous online play rather difficult and annoying, though.

I’m not sure if they were implemented after I did my Early Access review or if I just hadn’t really played async much when I wrote that, but they really drag down the online component of the game.

(This first one may have been fixed with the most recent update a couple of days ago. If so, then that’s great!)

The first is that only the player who ends the game, and maybe (it’s unclear still) the first player to click the “View Results” button, can see the end result of the game.

Other players have reported that when they click “View Results,” they just get the spinning “working” circle and then it goes right back to the game list. Eventually, the game disappears from their roster.

This is a thing in the Terraforming Mars app and it appears also to be in the Clank app (I hadn’t experienced it when I wrote my review but my friends are reporting it for that app as well).

While TM is not Dire Wolf, to have this in two Dire Wolf apps is simply unacceptable and makes playing asynchronously with random people impossible to enjoy. You will never know what the score was!

I don’t do that. I play with friends who I meet with in other online locations, so the person who ends it always posts a screenshot.

This needs to be fixed.

Second, something I mentioned in my Clank review but which is worse in Dune: Imperium.

The replays in asynchronous play when you go in to take your turn just get tedious after a while.

In Clank, it’s not so bad because it’s at most four turns. But it would be nice to be able to skip to your turn if you want.

In Dune: Imperium, the replays can just get terribly long, and you do need to see that information!

The problem isn’t in seeing other people’s turns.

Instead, it’s mainly around the conflicts.

You see all the other players play their Intrigue cards or pass. You then can play yours. Of course, if you don’t have any, the game still makes you log in to pass (which is bad in itself).

Then you see the results of the conflict.

If you’re not the first player in the next round, the game goes to another player’s turn.

When you go back in to take your turn, you have to watch the entire replay from when the intrigue cards were played and conflict resolved!

Why?

I don’t get it.

Why can’t you just see the other players’ first turn of the new round?

Maybe it’s a programming thing that I’m not expert enough to understand.

But when a conflict has just resolved, I have to steel myself to log in to take my turn because I’m going to be sitting there for 1-2 minutes watching things that I’ve already watched before.

Sometimes multiple times!

It’s just so unnecessary and robs the asynchronous online games of some of their enjoyment.

These are really annoying aspects of an otherwise quality app from Dire Wolf.

I highly recommend this game, this expansion, and the app, as long as you are either not playing asynchronously online, or as long as you can put up with those aggravations if you are.

Rise of Ix is a fantastic expansion, though.

If you play the game on the table, you should definitely get it.

If you have the app, you’ve probably already gotten used to the asynchronous annoyances or you gave up on the app and thus don’t need the expansion anyway.

If you haven’t given up on the app, though, the expansion is also highly recommended.

(This review was written after 4 plays of the expansion)