Dune: Imperium Rise of IX

Product Information

Dune: Imperium – Rise of Ix was designed by Paul Dennen and published by Dire Wolf, with illustrations by Clay Brooks, Raul Ramos, and Nate Storm. The contents of the expansion box. Image by Paul Benson. Dune: Imperium – Rise of Ix Components Most apparently, Rise of Ix comes with two additional boards. The first is an overlay for the Landsraad and the Choam area in the top-right quarter of the board and the second is the eponymous planet Ix which sits alongside the upper right side of the mainboard.

There are several additional icons in Dune: Imperium – Rise of Ix. This section will reference the Imperium cards in the photo above. Dune: Imperium and the Rise of Ix expansion were both created by Paul Dennen, the designer behind Clank! and its sci-fi themed board game sequel Clank! In! Space! With Dire Wolf, the studio responsible for the aforementioned Clank! series, being the publisher of both the original Dune: Imperium and its new expansion. Dune: Imperium is a worker-placement board game that sees one to four players competing with one another to acquire power, wealth and control across the planet of Arrakis. Based on the upcoming movie adaptation of Dune - directed by Denis Villeneuve and starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson and Oscar Isaac - Dune: Imperium has players becoming a leader of one of the Great Houses of Arrakis and beyond. Fortunately (almost like we did it on purpose), Rise of Ix introduces cards that cause you to discard a card (or cards). These cards will typically require you to discard a card to power up an effect. Truthsayer, for example, asks you to discard a card. In return, you’ll draw a card. The other principle of mechanical additions is some of the rules on the new cards. There are three modifications. One is the inclusion of a shadowy figure next to the faction/location symbols on the left-hand edge of some cards, which signifies that for this location a player’s agent may be moved to that location even if an enemy agent is already present.There are also extra leaders and intrigue cards to spice up the game-to-game shenannigans. All in all, I would say this expansion adds a desert-load of new content, and new systems and adds further wrinkles into every game of Dune Imperium. I also really enjoyed how easy it was to understand it all and add it straight into the base game, nothing is too complicated, even though it adds a fair amount of player choice. There are also a few new cards and rules to have an epic game, which goes up to twelve points instead of ten. All good stuff. Components. Many of the new cards have a new twist in the reveal box. We call these cards “Unload” cards, because there are two additional methods for triggering the effects in the reveal box: One Imperium card in the expansion is somewhat peculiar in that it asks you to discard twocards. That’s a big ask, so you’d expect a big effect. In this case, the payoff is a Dreadnought, built at Ix and delivered by the Spacing Guild. As you probably saw that big “GeekDad Approved” label, it’s a pretty sure bet that Dune: Imperium – Rise of Ix doesn’t fall into that #1 category. Nor were there any gameplay issues with Dune: Imperium that needed fixing; as a standalone game, it’s a fantastic experience. So that leaves us with the second type of expansion: one that improves and/or expands on gameplay. The base game had several ways to trash cards, so that last option is fairly achievable. But what about discarding? Only a couple cards in the base game – Test of Humanity and Reverend Mother Mohiam – could force an opponent to discard, which would make it somewhat difficult to trigger such effects.

The expansion introduces six new unique leaders. Each one features its own strengths for you to take advantage of and they feel balanced compared to the base game’s leaders. My only disappointment is that only two of them are able to be played against in solo mode. The third mechanic in the expansion is a cycle of cards that have what we call Infiltrate icons. Each of these cards can only send an agent to one type of board space…but you ignore enemy agents when sending your agent! Rise of Ix is an improvement on Dune Imperium in nearly every way. I know there are a lot of concerns that it makes the game swinger and that games won’t be as close. I’ll let you in on a secret, Games are neither more or less close in Rise of Ix, because that was an illusion in the first place. The real reason I love Rise of Ix has nothing to do with fixing any problems I had, but with what it improves. I said it in my review of the original, and I’ll say it again. Dune is not a complicated game, but it gives me everything I seek to extract from more complex games. Variety, variability, multiple paths to victory, and intense, meaningful strategy. Rise of Ix expands on all of that, in every way. Dune Imperium was already one of my favorite games, and Rise of Ix elevated it further. I prefer complex games, and Rise of Ix does add some that I enjoy even more. But it does so in an easy-to-learn and approachable way, assuming that you already knew how to play Dune Imperium in the first place.The Ix board sits alongside the main game board, and is the main source for acquiring two new features in the expansion: Tech tiles, and dreadnoughts. Some of the various Tech tiles. Image by Paul Benson.