I’m a huge fan of Lost Ruins of Arnak, even though I was a late adopter. I loved the Indiana Jones theme right away, and the artwork is just fantastic. After a few plays of the base game, it was a keeper for me and started buying the expansions as they came out.
Expedition Leaders was a must buy—adding new characters with asymmetric abilities that introduced whole new ways to play the game. Then The Missing Expedition came out, which was another must-buy because it brought a solo and cooperative campaign, along with new leaders and more cards.
I didn’t expect there would be more expansions after that, but then came Twisted Paths. Even though I hadn’t played through everything in the previous two expansions, I figured since I was this far along, I’d pick it up anyway, getting to it eventually. The main draw for Twisted Paths was the two new maps on a double-sided board, plus a number of new tiles.
I elected not to get the big Adventure Box that you could get with it because I didn’t want to spend the extra money. Instead, a friend created a 3D-printed insert for me, which worked great for the base game and the first two expansions. I accepted that Twisted Paths would just be an extra box I’d have to keep around, figuring with the money I saved, I could just buy another game.
So of course I was surprised when I saw CGE announce there was another expansion coming out… though they said it wasn’t a big one, since Twisted Paths was the last major expansion. According to CGE’s designer diaries, they saw there was still some empty space in the Adventure Chest card compartments and thought they’d fill it with some creative ideas they had for Arnak that hadn’t been introduced yet.
When I found out I had a review copy of Surprise Shipment coming to me, I was planning to play through all the content I already had so I could provide a thorough review of what’s presumably the last expansion.
Expansion Overview:
Then the expansion arrived, along with a few other games, and my immediate message to Tony was:
“That Arnak expansion is tiny!!!”
“Surprise!” he responded.
“That Arnak Surprise Shipment review is going to be as short as it is small,” I said.
Surprise indeed. I hadn’t looked into the expansion much ahead of time, and while I didn’t expect it to be huge, I certainly didn’t expect it to be that small.
Then I opened the box and, again… surprise. Inside were only 2 new tiles, a replacement tile for one in the base game, 20 new items, and 30 artifacts. Maybe it’s my fault for not researching it ahead of time, but I was definitely underwhelmed at first. Two tiles and 50 cards?! It didn’t even fill up half of the tiny box.
Game Experience with the Expansion:
There’s actually not much to say about the gameplay other than that you can shuffle the site tiles, artifacts, and items immediately into their respective decks and play with them right away with any combination of the base game and expansions.
Thirty artifacts is pretty much a third of all artifact cards in Arnak, and 20 items is a third of the items, too. In the world of Arnak, that’s actually quite a bit of content! For context, the base game only comes with 75 artifacts and items combined. Since these Surprise Shipment cards will make up at least 30% of your deck pool, you’ll definitely encounter them early and often in your first play.
The sheer variety of cards increases your options substantially, offering fresh new opportunities and possibilities, massively increasing replay value.
Final Thoughts:
I have to give CGE credit; there’s a lot more content packed in this tiny box than I initially thought, and it’s not just filler content. It would appear creatively through the design and abilities of the two new tiles and 50 new cards. I appreciate that they even provided a replacement tile for one in the base game for better balancing.
I never did go through all my Arnak content before reviewing this expansion because I didn’t have to. The Surprise Shipment doesn’t change the game like any of the previous expansions; it just gives you more. It fits in so smoothly I’d introduce Arnak with these cards already shuffled in the game.
If you love buying cards in Arnak, this is a must-buy. For everyone else, it’s optional.
Hits:
• Adds 50 new cards, increasing the item and artifact decks by roughly a third
• Integrates seamlessly without adding complicated new rules to learn.
• Thoughtful design and abilities
Misses:
• Now I’m wondering if I should have bought the adventure box
