It feels like it was just yesterday that I sat down to play Sky Team at Gen Con 2023. I remember that first game where we expected to land the plane smoothly, yet ended up crashing into the ground. While the black box for that flight was never recovered, we did give it a few more tries before eventually getting that bird down safely. Sky Team ended up winning our award for the Best Cooperative Board Game of the Year, so it’s safe to say, it’s made its way to our table quite often.
Fast-foward a year and we now get the first expansion for this two player game. Called Sky Team: Turbulence, this modular expansion seeks to add new challenges and variety to the base game.
Expansion Overview:
In addition to adding a handful of new airports to land at, one of the main attractions of Turbulence is the modules you can add. Some are required for specific scenarios, while others can be added in for those looking to up the challenge.
The biggest one is the Alarms module. In this one, each time an alarm symbol shows at the beginning of the round on your position track, you need to flip over an alarm token. Until you reset that alarm, you can’t use the associated action in your plane: a game version of the old “have you tried turning it off and on again?” Basically, it forces you to waste a die action during a round.
The rest are pretty straightforward. There is Turbulence, which causes you to reroll all of your leftover dice after you place one. And Bad Visibilty, where you only roll two dice at the start of the round, and then after you place one, you roll an additional (basically, you only ever have 2 dice to choose from). Both of these modules substantially ramp up the randomness of the game, a tradeoff designed to create more realism, since Mother Nature doesn’t always allow for perfect pre-planned flights.
Finally, there are some penguin tokens include. In the NZIR scenario, you have an icy runway in Antartical you are trying to land on. So instead of other planes, you have penguins in the way. The publisher explains “We know very well that penguins don’t fly… But look at how CUTE they are!!” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Game Experience with the Expansion:
I’ll admit I wasn’t clamoring for a Sky Team expansion. Not because I don’t like the game (I do!), but because the base game already has a ton of content with it. There are 20-some airports to land in, and a whole mess of modules once you get past the intro game: Traffic die, intern, kerosene, wind, ice breaks, fees for seat changes (ok, maybe not that last one)…. Suffice it to say, there is a lot to engage with here and I’m still working my way through the core box.
That being said, for those of you who have deeper experience with all that the game has to offer, this is a great expansion. It fits in with my cardinal rule of expansions: it adds content to the base game without overloading me with new complexity. I don’t want to feel like I’m learning a whole new game here. And Sky Team: Turbulence fits the bill; all the modules are really easy to integrate.
The most unique additional is the alarm module, but even that isn’t hard to integrate. Flip a token to block a specific action until you place a die. Easy peasy. At least, learning the rules is. Actually dealing with the alarm panel can be a challenge depending on which ones are flipped and when. If the brake light comes on and your brakes are already done, its no big deal. But if your flaps malfunction in round one, that can really set you back.
With all of that said, all of the modules find some way to hamper you, and thus make things more challenging. It would have been nice to see some chnages that made things easier or more entertaining without ramping up the difficulty, for those who aren’t looking for a greater challenge. That being said, the expansion is called Turbulence, so it makes sense. Hopefully the next one is called Friendly Skies or something.
Final Thoughts:
Sky Team: Turbulence is a good expansion and a great one for those who have fully experienced the base game. That being said, I wouldn’t call it an essential expansion, simply because the base game already offers a ton of variety, and most things here just serve to up the challenge for the players. If that’s not something you are interested in, you don’t really need to rush out to pick this one up. That’s not a knock against it, it’s really well-made and fits right into the core box. But might not be for everyone out there.
Hits:
• Easy to integrate
• Fits in the core box
• Lots more variety
Misses:
• All new additions are only for adding challenge
Source: Board Game Quest
