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By: Kim and Devin
November 17, 2022
Overview
Everdell: Newleaf is one of the two expansions released for Everdell in 2022, bringing the total number of Everdell expansions to five! That’s a lot of game content to sift through as a new buyer looking for the next step. We’re here to give our thoughts on Newleaf so you can decide if it’s right for you. Since we’re going to be talking about a game expansion, we’re not going to go into too much depth on Everdell itself. We want to focus on what’s new in, well, Newleaf!
New to Everdell and just want to know what we recommend for expansions? Skip to the paragraph just above KC's thoughts to see what we have to say!
Newleaf comes with new cards to shuffle into the main deck, special events deck, and forest spaces deck, as well as two new basic event tiles that can be scored. It also adds several new mechanics such as the Station side board, visitor cards, tickets, and reservation tokens. If you want to play base Everdell you can leave everything shuffled into the decks and play without the Station board - you would just have to remove two cards from the main deck when they are drawn (the Locomotive cards). The Station board gets three cards from the main deck and the visitor cards which act as other ways to score points at the end of the game. The Station board also receives three train car tiles drawn from a bag, which will be explained a bit more later.
Critters and Constructions on the Station can be played to your city just like cards in the Meadow. However, beside each Station card is a corresponding train car tile. When you play a card from the Station, you also gain the benefit on the train car tile, usually resources, but sometimes points! Then the tile is discarded and a new one is drawn from a bag.
One of the worker spaces on the Station board allows you to discard three cards from the Meadow and/or Station, refresh them, draw three, then take a reward from one of the train car tiles. The other Station space lets you discard one of the face up visitor cards, and then choose one of the two face-up visitors to place in your city. You will then score the associated points if you meet the goals on the visitor card by the end of the game.
A new mechanic on all Newleaf cards allows more freedom when playing Critter into a Construction through the use of golden occupation tokens. For instance, a Critter from Newleaf may be able to be played into any Green Production construction, no matter what it is. Each player only has three golden occupation tokens, so you can’t rely on freely playing Critters wherever - you’ll still need to plan your plays. This is balanced in a way that allows Newleaf cards to integrate easily with the base cards while still requiring strategy and planning.
Each player has one Reservation Token that can be used instead of any of your usual actions on your turn. To use a Reservation Token, pick a card from the Meadow or Station, move it to your play area, and place the Reservation Token on it. Now, only you can play that card to your city, and you’ll get a resource discount when you do. Each player can do this once per season, and you’re allowed to discard your reserved card when you reset between seasons.
Players also receive one Ticket that can be used freely at the start of a turn. To use a Ticket the first time, a player flips the Ticket over, then moves any of their deployed workers to another open space. The second side of the Ticket can only be used during or after Summer, and when that side is used, the Ticket is discarded.
If you’re new to Everdell and looking into what expansions to pick up, here is our recommended order of purchase right now, but we haven’t played Mistwood yet (keep an eye out for our review soon)! Newleaf and Bellfaire add quite a bit to the game while still keeping the focus on the core gameplay loop, while Spirecrest and Pearlbrook shake things up significantly. That’s not a bad thing, but it may be a bit daunting to players wanting a more relaxing experience.
Newleaf -> Bellfaire -> Spirecrest -> Pearlbrook
Thoughts
🔴Kim🔴
Everdell is one of my favorite games, so when I get to add more expansions and get even more Everdell, it’s great! Newleaf is a great expansion that adds so much to the game, but without changing the mechanics up too much.
Newleaf adds a Station board, visitor cards, and new cards to be shuffled into the special event, forest, and main decks. I really like all of the new cards that are added to the decks. While the size of the main deck may seem overwhelming at first, the addition of the Station board spaces help cycle through the deck, along with the new Critter and Construction cards’ abilities.
The special events that are added in Newleaf help level out the events from the base game and previous expansions. Previously, they were very limiting and hard to get because a lot of them had very specific requirements, like having the Historian and Clock Tower or the Barge Toad and the Miner Mole. It was very rare for anyone to claim the events during the game, but these new special event cards are more generic and make scoring the special events easier (but not too easy!). Some examples of the new special event cards are: have three Growth and two Governance cards in your city, or have 6 unique Critter cards in your city.
The Station space that allows you to discard Meadow/Station cards, refresh, and draw is a great way to cycle through the cards that are available and get a resource from the train car that you really need. I really like the addition of the visitor cards as a way to score points at the end of the game. It’s a nice way of spreading out the points for meeting other conditions besides just the basic or special event cards.
I really recommend picking up Newleaf if you really enjoy Everdell and want some new cards and mechanics to spice it up a bit!
🟣Devin🟣
Everdell is one of my favorite games, so you’ll have to take all of this with a grain of salt. If you didn’t like Everdell before, this expansion isn’t going to change your mind - you’re still playing Everdell. However, if you did like Everdell and wanted to try out some mechanical tweaks or a significant overhaul of Events and the Main Deck, this might be up your alley!
The Reservation Tokens allowing you to reserve a Meadow or Station card for yourself is similar to mechanics in other games, so it’s nothing revolutionary, but it can change the dynamic of the game significantly. It can allow you to better plan future turns, or it can lead to more direct player interaction in the form of reserving a card you know an opponent wants.
The Tickets that allow players to strategically redeploy workers twice per game are also a seemingly minor change that can have big repercussions. This can lead to bigger chain reactions in your city as you chain effects together with a strategically timed extra worker action.
These two mechanics are probably the simplest additions in Newleaf, and they feel natural to play with straight away. I like them quite a bit, but I could imagine some people saying they make the game “too easy” or “too forgiving.” I see it as the opposite: the extra opportunities each player gets means you need to be as efficient as possible with your plays, or else other players will take these new mechanics and score big off of them!
Let’s dig into some of the bigger changes. The cards that you add to the main deck will take it from about 130 cards to 190 cards. That’s a lot of dilution, but the golden occupation tokens and new effects that help cycle the deck faster keep everything balanced. You won’t find yourself stuck without matching Critter / Construction combos any more often than before, at least in our experience. I wasn’t sure about this change at first, but the more we played, the more I liked it. It opens up a lot more possibilities for your city’s engine and keeps the game from becoming stagnant with repeating cards or a Meadow that won’t cycle fast enough. You’d think this makes the game much easier, but when you’ve played a Newleaf Critter into your Palace for some small benefit, just for a Queen to be revealed later, you’ll realize that playing Newleaf cards willy-nilly isn’t always the best choice!
One thing that did throw us off was the rules section explaining how to use Newleaf Critters/Constructions with golden occupation tokens. There are several examples in there, but all of them are concerning a base game card and a Newleaf card interaction, never a Newleaf-Newleaf interaction. Just adding a sentence like this would have cleared the whole thing up:
"As long as the golden occupation condition is met on EITHER the Construction OR the Critter, the Critter can be played using a golden occupation token."
Overall, I think Newleaf breathes new life into Everdell through its rules tweaks and large number of cards to shuffle in and play with. As with every Everdell expansion, every mechanic is modular, so you can take what you want and leave out the rest. This way, you can tailor the play experience to your preference.
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