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Tony Dehner
United States
Waterloo
Iowa
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First off, apologies to those of you who have been following this series and have been awaiting additional entries. We had some incredibly exciting and wonderful news in my family (check the microbadge
 ), but aside from that, this was a difficult entry to write. It's kind of a hodgepodge of ideas that were originally going to be stretched out over multiple blog entries, but none of them quite had enough material to stand on their own. On top of that, while writing it I began to wonder if I was undercutting my primary thesis in a couple of spots. Anyway, I hope this makes sense.
Now, onto the blog entry proper. In case you have been following this series (and thank you if you have), don't be scared by the title. The guy who is now on his fourth blog entry about board game expansions has not suddenly given up on them. I did, however, want to take some time to talk about situations where I've decided not to buy any expansions for a game my wife and I already own, or where I/we decided to pass on a game altogether due to having lots of expansions.
Games we own that I don't feel like collecting expansions for
Alhambra - we've only played Alhambra once, and we enjoyed it enough that if we ever get around to playing it regularly, it'll become kind of a "go-to" game. Still, it just doesn't strike me as a game that needs any additions, the way that Carcassonne needs Inns & Cathedrals (as an example). If we did, we would probably just buy the Big Box and get it over with. Luckily, we have friends who own that set, so hopefully we'll have a chance to try it out at some point.
Railroad Tycoon - this is a great game, and I hope to play it again soon. I just don't know how badly I need more maps for it. As noted in a previous entry, we've already hurtled down the slippery slope of Power Grid expansion maps, and I just don't know if I can do that for a second game, especially when I can get 2-3 PG maps for the cost of Rails of Europe.
A Touch of Evil: The Supernatural Game - one day, my wife and I were at a game store in Des Moines and wanted to buy something. It was between this and Ghost Stories, and we ended up going with AToE. We thought it looked like a nice "Arkham Horror lite" game for when we didn't quite have time for the "real thing". As it turns out, it's not that hard to find time for a game of AH. We intend to try this one again, but I just don't see us playing it often enough that we'll get bored with the content already in the box.
Games I'm not buying due to expansions
All FFG Living Card Games - A Game of Thrones is the one where this really hurts: my wife and I are huge fans of the novels and HBO series, and I'd love to be able to get a Westeros-themed gaming fix without having to recruit 3-4 other people and setting aside 3-4 hours to play the other one. Still, it's just gotten too unwieldy, too quickly. To a lesser extent, I'm also interested in Warhammer: Invasion, but I'm passing on that for many of the same reasons. And now there's The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, which is brand-new but appears to be headed down the same route (plus we already are obsessed with Knizia's game, so I don't feel like we're missing out on too much there). A friend of mine owns Call of Cthulhu, so I at least get to play that one.
Battles of Westeros - bitten again by my love for all things AGoT. This was announced not long after I'd decided to buy into BattleLore, and my first thought was that I'd jumped the gun on getting into BL, and my second thought was that I'd eventually have to own both. It wasn't long before I changed my mind again. There's already 4 large expansions for this one, and the battles aren't the most memorable parts of the books anyway.
Tide of Iron - the base game is pretty pricey by itself, and there are some pricey expansions to go with it. Of course, I probably have a similar amount by now invested in Memoir '44, and there are many out there who own and enjoy both. But the bottom line is, they're both tactical level World War II games with lots of expansions, and I only have room in my life for one of those.
Twilight Imperium (third edition) - TI:3E is probably the game I want the most that I'll never be able to justify owning: it's expensive, takes a long time to play, would require many plays before we started to get the hang of it, and it would have to compete for table space in a group that already favors plenty of other long, epic games. Still, there was a possibility that I'd get a chance to grab a copy, but Shards of the Throne killed that for me. Knowing how I am, I wouldn't be able to stop at the base game, so I'm just nipping it in the bud now.
There was almost a third category: Games that don't have expansions that don't need them. However, I decided to junk that category after the Horned Rat expansion for Chaos in the Old World was announced. Previously, I felt that game didn't need an expansion, but now that one has been announced I can't wait to buy it. In other words, that category would have been meaningless. 
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Keep playing (with those expansions)...
