Welcome to the end of 2024! There were some great games that came out, but also some great expansions that really contributed to the world of cooperative games! As usual, we qualify our expansions are one of three types:
- Stand-Alone Expansion: Some games you thought might be on the Top 10 Cooperative Board and Card Games of 2024 might have just ended up on this list because they are stand-alone games that can be played without a base game, but at the end of the day they also expand a base game!
- Makes The Game Cooperative: Some expansions take a competitive base game and make the game fully cooperative with the expansion! We saw a number of these type of expansions on the Top 10 Games That Can Be Played Fully Cooperatively!
- More Content: Some expansions just add more content (more cards, etc.) to the base cooperative game!
As of last year, we also add the new characterization: Does It Require Another Expansion? We continue adding this characterization, but note that this requirement was not quite as pervasive as it was last year!
If there were some games you thought missing from this list, be sure to check out Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2024 and our Top 10 Solo Games of 2024 to see if it made one of those lists instead!
Honorable Mention: Comic Hunters Cooperative Expansion
Expansion Type: Makes The Game Cooperative
Solo Mode: Comic Hunters already had a solo mode, but this can be played as a multi-handed solo mode as well
Requires Another Expansion? No
Comic Hunters is a game I adore from this last year! See our review here! There is a good solo mode included with this drafting game, but there is no cooperative mode! I like the idea of cooperative drafting games, but the only other cooperative drafting games I know of are Flourish and Sidekick Saga! Why couldn’t there be a cooperative mode for Comic Hunters?
With a little bit of perspicacity and imagination, I went ahead and developed my own cooperative rules for Comic Hunters and put them up on the web for free so others can try it! See a link here for Cooperative Rules for Comic Hunters! This is basically and free print-and-play cooperative expansion for Comic Hunters!
It’s a little bit of a cheat to put this as one of my favorite Cooperative Expansions of 2024 (since I developed it), but I spent so much time playing this solo and cooperatively with my friends (as I honed the rules), this needed to at least get an Honorable Mention. See the rules here to see if you might enjoy this.
10. Marvel United: War of Kings
Expansion Type: More Content
Solo Mode: Yes, any of the Marvel United solo modes
Requires Another Expansion? Not really, just any base Marvel United game
Marvel United: Season 3 Multiverse has pretty much torn through all of our Top 10 lists for 2024. The War of Kings was special to me because I ended up devouring the entire expansion! I played all the characters multiple times, all the heroes multiple times, and really enjoyed a lot of the ideas here! And I think Lockjaw (see above) may be the best introductory character for when you play with a new player! Who doesn’t love a dog?
I freely admit that this expansion appealed to me because of my love of Comic Books, The Inhumans, George Perez, and John Byrne! However, even when I predisposed to like something, it still has to be good (I am looking at you Freedom Five) …
After playing through this all, I fell in love with the Inhumans all over again (and even watched the Marvel show … sigh). Overall, this was a great experience! There’s so much new and great content for Marvel United here! See our review of War of Kings: Marvel United to see if this is something you might like!
9. Thunderstone Quest: Raging Seas and Ancient Adversaries
Expansion Type: More Content
Solo Mode: Yes (with Barricades Expansion)
Requires Another Expansion? Yes, The Barricades Mode Expansion is required to play the game solo or cooperatively
Nathan and Caroline have become my Thunderstone Quest buddies! See me and Nathan above! We ended up playing through both of these expansions this year!
The Raging Seas expansion (see above) has some great ideas with Pirates and adds the new Corsair! The idea of the Voyage has become ingrained in a neat new way!
The Ancient Adversaries adds the new Totems deck (see above) to replace most Treasure, and the game plays very differently with this new expansion and its totems!
If it weren’t for Nathan, I am not sure these would have gotten played. But, we had a great time! I think I may have gotten to the point where I have “enough” Thunderstone Quest expansions, but even still, I really did enjoy these two expansions!
8. Townsfolk Tussle: Foul Neighbors
Expansion Type: More Content
Solo Mode: Two-handed
Requires Another Expansion? No
I didn’t think Townfolk Tussle needed more content, but it’s nice to have! One of the purposes of an expansion is to breathe new life into a game, and that’s what Foul Neighbors did for us! Me and friends thought this game was silly and fun! See below as Sam I and I play this ridiculous game with this ridiculous expansion!
This expansion just adds more content: 2 new Townsfolk (heroes), 8 new Ruffians, a few new rules, cards, and tiles!! Nothing brain-bending!! This silly, boss-battler game was surprisingly good when we first reviewed it here, and this new expansion reminded us just how silly and fun this is!
My favorite moment from playing Foul Neighbors was blowing up the outhouse to take down the final Ruffian! In a game full of silly cards and fun (but slightly creepy) art, it seemed an apt way to end a game! (My second favorite moment was driving the jalopy over the Ruffian!)! Foul Neighbors is a fun expansion that reminds us how much we like original game of Townsfolk Tussle! It also has some of my favorite minis! See below! They are cute and creepy and cool, all at the same time!
7. Detective: City of Angels: Saints and Sinners
Expansion Type: More Content
Solo Mode: Yes
Requires Another Expansion? No
This is just plain up, more content for the great detective game Detective: City of Angels! And we need more content for this system, since each case is a “one-and-done”, meaning you probably can’t replay it again! So, they fact that they are still coming out with content for this system is great! And all of the new cases felt up to the same level of writing as the original!
We were even able to introduce my friend Sara to this system! And we had a great time playing! See above!
After all this time, I still feel like Detective: City of Angels is a great detective game that doesn’t get enough love! There are so many expansions for it which keep extending the life of the game for me! Take a look at our review here to see if this is something you might like!
6. Marvel Champions: Age of Apocalypse
Expansion Type: More Content
Solo Mode: Yes
Requires Another Expansion? No
If Nathan is my Thunderstone Quest buddy, then Joe is my Marvel Champions buddy! The people at Fantasy Flight keeps plugging away and generating new content for Marvel Champions!
My friend Joe and I played a few games, and although he was skeptical of playing Bishop and his discard abilities, Joe ended up really like how he worked!
For me, the reason this expansion makes this Top 10 Cooperative Expansions of 2024 is because it finally added Magik to the Marvel Champions universe! Her character and deck are so interesting, and very thematic to her abilities.
5. Marvel Zombies: X-Men Resistance
Expansion Type: Stand-Alone Expansion
Solo Mode: Yes
Requires Another Expansion? No
The whole Marvel Zombies: Resistance games surprised me! I didn’t expect to like these zombie battling games as much as I did! I guess I shouldn’t be THAT surprise since I love my Cooperative Superhero games (see our Top 10 Cooperative Superhero games), but I don’t necessarily love Zombie games!
But having a chance to play the X-Men on missions for killing zombies was so much more fun than I expected! My friends and I had a grand time in the X-Men universe!
See our review here to see if you an your friends want to be X-Men killing Zombies!
4. Astro Knights: Eternity
Expansion Type: Stand-Alone Expansion
Solo Mode: Yes
Requires Another Expansion? No
I liked Astro Knights from about a year ago (see our review here of the original Astro Knights), but I didn’t love it. One of my complaints was that it really needed some more content to keep it fresh.
Although it’s fantastic that this deck-building boss-battler now has more content, it was the story that really sold me on this expansion! I played through the whole adventure with me and friends, and we loved all the new content and the Firefly-esque story that unravelled!
For a while, I thought this would be my #1 Expansion! It made the top of my list at RichieCon 2024 (see that list here), but this year was really strong for expansions. See our review of Astro Knights: Eternity to see if this is something you might like! We really enjoyed this!
3. Set A Watch: Forsaken Isles
Expansion Type: Stand-Alone Expansion
Solo Mode: Yes (but you must play 4 characters: it’s not as bad as it sounds, especially once you get into it)
Requires Another Expansion? No
Like all the Set A Watch games (see our review of the original Set A Watch, and our review of Set A Watch: Swords of the Coin), this is a really fun monster battler as players play four heroes trying to get back home! Every night, they camp and one person has to watch the fire while the others go and fight the monsters in the night!
There’s a whole new set of monsters, a whole new set of heroes (with whole new powers), and a whole new set of gear! This game is easy to teach and plays pretty quickly! And you can play it either standalone or combine with other Set A Watch sets!
There’s some new mechanisms in the system (Doom), but it’s doesn’t really change the complexity of the game. Every time I play any of the Set A Watch games, I have such a fun time! This standalone expansion really just made me love Set A Watch that much more! See our review here to see if this is something you might like!
2. Marvel United: Fantastic Four: The Coming of Galactus
Expansion Type: More Content
Solo Mode: Yes, any of the Marvel United solo modes
Requires Another Expansion? No (but you might want the Fantastic Four expansion)
So, for a long time, I thought this would be my #1 Expansion of 2024! The Galactus model was so cool! The Heralds of Galactus added a new style of play! See below!
In the end, there were just a few niggling details that kept it from #1; I loved it, but my friends didn’t like it as much as me. See our review here to see more details of this.
But in the end, it was such an epic game of fighting heralds and Galactus, that this game had to make my Top 10 Cooperative Expansions this year.
See above the epic story told by the battle with Galactus!!
1. Aeon’s End: The Descent
Expansion Type: Stand-Alone Expansion
Solo Mode: Yes, and it’s a true solo mode!
Requires Another Expansion? No
I am just as surprised as you that this expansion was so good! I like the Aeon’s End system (see our Top 10 Cooperative Deck-Building Games), but this new expansion breathed new life into this game! Playing mages cooperatively fighting big bad monsters (in a cooperative deck-builder) had so many new turns!
What really made this hit the number one spot was the addition of the Friends and Foes module! This module mitigates a problem I have with Aeon’s End Variable Turn Order (see our Discussion of Variable Turn Order and How To Mitigate Its Randomness), but also adds some really new and interesting ways to play the game! What’s even better is that you can use this module in ANY of your Aeon’s End games! It’s a module!
And what put Aeon’s End: The Descent over the top to #1 was the story in the campaign! We liked how much the story elevated Astro Knights: Eternity (back at #4), and the story here coupled with the Friends and Foes module AND coupled with all the new mages and cards made this rocket to the top of my Top 10 Cooperative Expansions of 2024! Check our our review here to see if this is something you might like! My friend Becca (who doesn’t like cooperative games that muchh) also really enjoyed it! High Praise indeed!
