The Doomlings Techlings Expansion adds modifications into the quick-play, set collection game, giving you the chance to refine and tweak your traits in cool new ways.
The Techlings Expansions is one of a bundle of ‘booster pack’ style expansions available for Doomlings. In this case, it includes 15 normal traits, a new dominant trait, a new age and a new catastrophe. Most of these tie into the modifications theme, with the Dominant trait (for instance), Ruggedized, latching onto another of your traits and making it so that it can’t be stolen by other players.
Techlings‘ modular nature adds a satisfying level of chaos due to one key element, namely that the ‘attached’ modifiers are also affected by anything that affects the card they’re on. That means that if another player steals or swaps a trait with attachments, they’ll get the whole stack. It also means that one tactical discard (or return to hand) can wipe out a handful of cards all at once.
It also means that you can ‘build tall’, with one trait with multiple attachments, rather than building out wide, which can change the midgame dynamics quite a bit.
There’s a couple of highlight cards in the pack: Hyper-Myelination has a value equal to the highest Gene Pool in play, which is a great late-game play; Lyonization deactivates the trait that its attached to, while Electromagnetic refires the action of a trait. My personal favourite is Nano, which is equal to the value of the trait its attached to — a brutal combo with Hyper-Myelination… but also, a very good reason why Techling‘s attach traits can’t be bolted onto Dominant traits.
If there had to be a weakest area for the expansion, it would be that the new age simply has you play your round with your hand showing. It’s a little lacking considering the nature of the expansion. That said, the catastrophe makes up for it by letting you pick a colour and then have your neighbour discard all cards of that colour from their hand.
Doomlings Techling Expansion is available now from Amazon and from the Doomlings website.
