Portal announces Cry Havoc and 51st State expansions, picks up Alien Artifacts

Portal Games has bolstered its 2017 line-up with three expansions and a brand new title.

The new add-ons will include the first expansion for Cry Havoc, Aftermath, which adds three structures and five skills for each faction, nearing doubling the number of available abilities, as well as a game mode that guarantees to stretch gameplay to the full five rounds. There are also new scoring mechanics to offer more victory points when passing an event token instead of removing it.

Meanwhile, 51st State: Scavengers will be the first expansion for the game’s Master Set, based on the existing 51st State add-on Ruins. 50 cards will come in the pack, combining fan favourites from the original expansion with new locations and mechanics. True to its name, players using the set will be able to dig through the discard pile and recover locations to use in their state.

Stronghold: Undead is a case of new-not-new, as it’s a revamped edition of the eponymous expansion from six years ago for the game’s Second Edition, adding new rules regarding mana, spells and terror, plus buildings and abilities for the defender and a map with fresh routes for the attacker.

Finally, Alien Artifacts has re-emerged under the Portal banner, having originally popped up a couple of years ago as a new announcement from Trefl. Viola Kijowska and Marcin Ropka’s 4X sci-fi card game sees players build up interplanetary corporations and explore further and further into deep space with upgraded ships and advanced technology. Although it’s described as 4X, playing time is estimated to be under an hour. The base set includes 200 cards.

All four of the products are scheduled for release next year, alongside Ignacy Trzewiczek’s First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet, which the designer and Portal founder has previously said will be released ‘when it’s done’.