Rio Grande Games Dominion: Plunder Expansion - Strategy Card Game, Sea Exploration & Plundering, Rio Grande Games, for Ages 14 and Up, 2-4 Players, 30 Minute Playing Time

This is clearly the largest of all expansions - so big that the slots for the cards have 2 different cards in each slot. If you sleeve your cards, you will have trouble fitting them in the box. I don't sleeve my cards, so it's not an issue for me. The cards work well with all of the other sets and truly bring play to a new level. When Shaman is in use, cards in the trash are always reused. (Makes you think twice about giving Curses to your opponents!) The Loot cards do far more than typical treasure cards which makes for rather interesting play.

Traits are a cool new mechanic; maybe a card will simply cost less, maybe it will resolve twice when you play it and then be returned to its kingdom pile, or perhaps something completely different. Another new mechanic is the Loot pile. A few of the kingdom cards will have you gain a Loot whenever a certain circumstance is met. There is a stack of 2 each of 15 different Treasure-Loot cards that are shuffled and placed face down. They each have a cost of 7, but cannot be bought, only gained whenever instructed to by a kingdom card. The duration mechanic returns in this expansion with a cool new twist: Duration-Treasure cards! My only complaint is that in the box each stack shares a spot with another stack. This was confusing to me at first, but now that I've gotten used to it, it's not a big deal. Just annoying. Overall, this is one of Dominion's best expansions!

Plunder...a masterpiece of Durations and Treasures, bringing together all the joys of Seaside and Prosperity, while adding many new elements, such as Loot cards.My wife and I are big Dominion fans, owning every expansion and having played for the past ten years. While we loved the simple elegance of expansions like Intrigue, Hinterlands, and Cornucopia, we were thrilled with the additional elements of Seaside and Prosperity. After Dark Ages, we heard Donald X was done giving us new expansions. We were sad, but Dark Ages remained a longtime favorite.The past five or six years, Dominion has shifted into high gear. If it was addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication before, it has now gone to algebra, geometry, and--with Plunder--trigonometry. Expansions such as Renaissance, Menagerie, and Allies add a lot, while not getting too complicated, whereas Nocturne and Plunder rocket to the next level in both strategy and complexity.We have only begun playing Plunder, but already love its mechanics and possibilities. For many, I would suggest mixing this with earlier, simpler sets to get an initial feel for the cards. We tried our first game using all Plunder cards. Whew! We had 10 durations out at a time and huge turns very quickly. It might start off better as a turbo boost to games using some cards from previous expansions.For longtime Dominion fans, though, Plunder shows the continued development of a phenomenal game-playing universe. For newbies, Plunder will be something to look forward to or mix in a few cards at a time.

Great addition to a great game.

This expansion has great new treasure cards and action cards that combine very well during gameplay.

As a longtime Dominion player with every previous expansion, I was thrilled to get my hands on Plunder. The new mechanics of Traits and Loot were welcome, and the return of specialized Treasures and Duration cards (originally from Prosperity and Seaside, respectively) was welcomed by my play group and myself.But the packaging… Man, the packaging! The new double-set slots (with 20 cards in a slot designed to hold 18 sleeved cards or 24 un-sleeved) and the loose way they were loaded in the first place… I just have to say this packaging was a huge step backwards for such an otherwise excellent product!At least the new card organizer label was added to the inside of the rule book. That was a welcome change!

This is one of the best expansion packs - in our opinion. Lots of fun cards with unique dynamics. One of our favorites out of the 7 expansion packs we have.

I'm a big fan of Dominion game and this expansion retains an amazing quality of all the dominion expansion while being fun and innovative. :-)