Expeditions FAQ
241 questions players ask · Updated Nov 11, 2026 · Full rulebook
Overview and Goal
Components
Setup
Gameplay Overview
- Are the cards to the left of the mech mat part of your hand?
- Must the cards in your hand be face up?
- What counts as adjacent to your mech?
- Does 'location' on a card mean a hex tile or a card?
- Which cards count as 'face-up' in card text?
- Which cards count as cards you control, and is there a limit?
- Must you shift your action token at the start of every turn?
- Can you slide your action token straight from Move to Gather?
- Can you choose between Play and Gather after moving to a newly flipped tile?
- Must you resolve Move, Gather and Play in a fixed order each turn?
- Do the starting South locations count as revealed?
- Can you activate an opponent's active card, or a card outside your active row?
- What does 'previous card' mean?
- When a card gains another card's core value, does it include the conditional bonuses?
- Are the benefits of a card or location optional?
- Can you choose the Play action when you have no cards in hand?
- If Play is exposed and you hold a card, must you play it?
- Must you perform every exposed action, or can you skip one you cannot use?
- Is placing a worker on a card mandatory to get its benefit?
- Can you place a worker on a card that is already in your active row?
Actions: Play, Meld and Cards
- Can you take a Refresh turn two turns in a row?
- Does a Refresh benefit move your action token to the Refresh space?
- What is the difference between a Refresh turn and a Rescue?
- Can a Refresh bonus give a mix of power and guile?
- Does Aether Mirror's instant Rescue trigger its refresh bonus?
- Does Aether Mirror refresh itself when you play it?
- Does an item's ongoing bonus apply once you play it with a worker, before it is upgraded?
- Does melding a meteorite make other meteorites stronger when you play them?
- Can you meld more than four meteorites?
- Do melded meteorites count toward bonuses that count cards you control or colors?
- If you meld a card that has a worker on it, does the returned worker count for a meld benefit?
- How does Aether Converter interact with melding a meteorite?
- Does Meldstone's 'meld another meteorite' need a meteorite that is already melded?
- Can you play a meteorite and meld it in the same turn to use both abilities?
- Does Leechstone refresh itself when you play it?
- When you play an item and place a worker on it, do you get both its instant and ongoing abilities?
- Do you still get an upgraded item's instant benefit?
- When another card activates an item's ability, do you also get its instant benefit?
- How long does an ongoing ability last when another card activates it?
- Do a non-item card's abilities repeat each time you enter the Play action?
- Does a 'whenever' ability trigger each time its trigger happens?
- Are all ongoing item effects marked with the word 'whenever'?
- Can Fusion Link or Synergy Halo give its power bonus more than once per turn?
- Can Morphstone's change-a-worker-to-purple ability target a worker that is already purple?
- Must you do as much of a multi-part ability as you can?
- Which cards can you upgrade?
- Does an item's bonus apply to gains made before the item became active?
- Which color of worker can you place on a card?
- Can a card hold more than one worker?
- What does discard mean, and is it the same as trashing?
- Can you discard a card whenever you want, or only when a card tells you to?
- Does Flex Capacitor let you discard a card on its own?
- Where do the cards you gain go: your active row or your hand?
- Is Ancient Wine's 'gain cards directly to your hand' ability mandatory?
- Can you place a worker on a card you gained rather than played?
- Which color does a card count as for abilities that refer to card color?
- How does Deceptor Crystal work with corrupted benefits and either-or tiles?
- When two locations share a band, which one counts as more north for Chart a Course North?
- How does Jiro's 'previous' ability pick its card?
- When a card activates the previous card's ability, do you also gain that card's core value?
- When a card activates an adjacent face-up card, do you place a worker?
- Can a whenever ability trigger partway through a single benefit that gives several gains?
- On a meteorite with an unlocked conditional benefit, must the standard benefit be taken first?
- Can a card's ability be activated more than once in one turn?
- Can a card rescue itself, including the card you just played?
- When a card rescues another, where does the rescued card and its worker go?
- Can an ability that gains an adjacent benefit choose an icon that is not exposed?
- If a location shows benefits separated by a slash, can you take both sides?
- Can a refresh benefit refresh only some of your items and keep one active?
- Does a worker placed on an active card come from your mat or from the supply?
- Can a move take you onto an unexplored location?
- Can your mech move through a face-down location?
- Can a mech move through or stop on a face-up card between locations?
- Can you move through face-down locations with the Jet Pack item?
- Can you pass through an opponent's location and still gain Hover Coil when the move doubles back?
- Can a card gain itself through a benefit that gains a face-up card of its kind?
- Are tucked upgrades adjacent to the first card in your active row?
- Can a played card's worker ability be used again on a later turn?
- In what order do you take a card's core value and its ability?
Actions: Solve, Boast and Glory
- Do you need your mech on the matching location to solve a quest?
- Can you solve a quest on a location that still has corruption on it?
- Can you solve a quest from your hand, or only from your active row?
- When is a quest counted as solved, before or after its benefit?
- When can an item's ability, such as Riftmask's, trigger during a Solve?
- Can one Solve action solve two quests?
- Can you solve more than one quest in a single turn?
- Can you solve more than four quests?
- When you Solve with your character, do you gain the core value of all solved quests, including the one just tucked?
- When a character Solve gains the core value of your solved quests, does it also include the rewards on the right side of those quests?
- Do a companion's star-based core values stack when you have two stars?
- Where does a corruption token come from when a quest's Solve benefit gives you one?
- Can you play a quest card just to gain its core value?
- How do you Boast, and when can you place a star?
- Is Boast a separate action?
- Does a quest reward showing a star give you a star automatically?
- Do you keep a placed star if you later fall below the goal?
- Do trashed map tokens still count toward the five-map glory?
- If I place my fourth star and trigger the end of the game, can I Boast a fifth time on my final turn?
- Can you take Vanquish, Solve, Meld or Upgrade abilities without playing a card or gathering?
- Can you Boast more than once in a single turn?
- If you cannot Boast, can you still gain the power on the same ability?
- After paying a Solve cost, must you take the quest's benefit?
- If a quest rewards a face-up item card and none is face-up, can you flip cards from the deck to get one?
Actions: Vanquish and Gather
- Can the action token leave the Move, Play, Gather box without taking a Refresh turn?
- Which resource removes orange corruption, and which removes turquoise corruption?
- Can you vanquish without a card that tells you to?
- Does a Vanquish count if you cannot pay for it or remove any corruption?
- Can you trash several map tokens for Odin's Wrath in one turn, even in the middle of an action?
- Does Nohoch's pay-$1 ability for the top corruption work on the 20-value corruption?
- Does Arcane Blade pay per corruption token or per corruption value?
- Does the 20-value corruption count as multiple corruption for Arcane Blade?
- When does Hack Through Vines let you discard cards for its Vanquish benefit?
- Can Jet Pack move you through a face-down location and still flip it or gain its map token?
- If a Gather's Vanquish reveals a new benefit, can you gather that benefit in the same Gather action?
- After a companion's Vanquish reveals a location's benefit, can a separate Gather take that same benefit?
- When you vanquish the last corruption on a location, do you gain the newly revealed benefit?
- If a Vanquish reveals an upgrade icon, does the item upgraded that way get its Vanquish bonus?
- Can you split a Gather, or interrupt it with another action?
- In what order can you take the benefits of an action, a card or a Gather location?
- When you Gather, must you take every benefit you are able to take?
- When a Gather location shows two icons, do you take both or choose one?
- How does Sweep work: how many cards can you sweep, and how are they replaced?
- Does Clear A Path Into The Town require you to sweep every adjacent face-up card?
- How does Lumberjack's discount apply to the 20-value dual-colour corruption?
- Does Sunstone's per-3-value meld bonus count only corruption of exactly that value?
- Do meld and item bonuses that count corruption include corruption still on the map?
- How often does an item's coin flip after a Vanquish happen, and does it happen without a Vanquish?
- Can the guile and power from Card 067 be used for the next corruption in the same Vanquish?
- Can Deceptor Crystal add a benefit still covered by corruption to a Gather?
- Can 'gain 1 benefit from an adjacent location' take a benefit still covered by corruption?
- Can a worker placed for Deceptor Crystal's gather bonus also activate the card's core ability?
- When the Automa must take several corruption tokens, does it keep moving past the first location that has some?
- Can you refresh by gathering at the refresh location and then move in the same turn?
- When you move in the middle of a Gather, do you get the new location's benefits?
- Can you gather twice at the same location in a turn if a played card also gathers?
- When you gain a card with Gather, do you get its core value right away?
- Can you score your melded meteorites when you gather from a meld location without melding a new one?
- What does a peek at a face-down location do?
- When do upgraded Aether-Vision Goggles trigger after a move onto a face-down tile, and can you rearrange corruption then?
- After moving onto a face-down tile and revealing it, can you still gather from that tile?
- Must a tile's corruption be vanquished before you move through it?
- Does Fuelstone's turquoise bonus count only the tokens you vanquished this action?
- What does the blank card icon on a map token mean?
- What does 'any card you control' mean on a map token bonus?
- When a map token is trashed, does it go back to the general supply?
- Does the vanquish bonus on a quest card, like Raze a corrupted building, apply to other vanquish actions?
- Does Lure and Confront the Cave Monsters move the 20-value corruption token too?
- Where do corruption tokens go when Lure and Confront moves them onto a southern location?
- Does the 20-value corruption count as both orange and turquoise for Aidstone or Fuelstone?
- Can you start a Vanquish without enough guile, gain the adjacent cards' values first, then finish it?
- Does Bravestone's power count 4-value corruption tokens on your mech mat, including one you just vanquished?
- Can you Move and then use Charterstone to end the turn on the location you started from?
- After a Move action, can a card that moves you return you to your starting location the same turn?
End of Game
- Is power used in the end-game glory tie-break?
- What triggers the end of the game?
- After the game-ending star, who takes the last turn?
- How much is each placed glory star worth at end of game?
- How does the glory tie-break count workers, maps and money?
- Do the starting cards count toward the eight-cards glory?
- When playing solo, when does the game end?
- Does the Automa score end-game coins for the 20-value corruption token?
- If all corruption is cleared from the board, can anyone still earn the seven-corruption glory?
Icon Reference
- Does the icon for activating an adjacent card's ability mean the whole card?
- What does the small 2 meld icon on a meteorite card mean?
- What do the lower ability sections of meteorite cards mean, such as the part after the meld symbol?
- Does a refresh from the location 8 refresh icon trigger Ether Mirror?
- What makes a card red, blue or another colour for an ability that refers to colour?
- When an ability lets you gain one exposed or adjacent benefit, can you take both sides of a slash icon?
- What does 'top card of deck' mean on an item or benefit?
- What is the value of a coin symbol with no number on a card or quest benefit?
- What does the Refresh symbol among a quest's benefits do?
- Do the coins printed at the bottom right of an item card cost anything to use?
Additional Notes
- Can Odin's Wrath be used more than once in the same turn?
- Is a card's ability limited to once per turn, and does that apply to whenever or ongoing abilities?
- Can card 106 in Duel of Meloch trash the 20-value special corruption tile to gain $20?
- Does the Automa earn a glory star for vanquishing the 20-value corruption or meeting other glory conditions?
- Can you attack or fight another player's mech in Expeditions?
- Are there cards that place or move corruption tokens onto tiles?
- Does 'any active card' in an ability include other players' active cards?
- How does the Automa mech move past your mech?
- Which cards are removed from the deck when playing solo?
- Do meteorite cards tucked under my mech mat count as cards I control?
- Does a meteorite's per-corruption bonus count corruption tokens I hold, or tokens on the board?
- Can I use a meteorite's conditional power before its Vanquish ability so I have enough power?
- How does the Automa decide what to do when its card shows a map symbol?
- Can Fusion Link's Guile bonus trigger more than once in a turn if I gain 2 Power in separate actions?
- If card 066 gives the core values of face-up meteorites, do its conditional bonuses apply too?
- If I am already at maximum Guile, does Synergy Halo still give Power when a card gives 2 Guile?
- Does the Guile from a card's own core value count toward Synergy Halo's 2-Guile trigger?
- Does Odin's Wrath's map-trash ability give power, guile and $1 all together?
- Does Aetherstone count itself for its meld bonus of $1 per meteorite I control?
- For a meld card that pays coins per adjacent card, which cards count as adjacent?
- Where does a worker go when Morphstone changes it to purple?
- Does card #84's transfer of the top corruption from each adjacent location include adjacent locations with only one corruption token?
- When Voltan activates an adjacent item like Jet Pack, how long does that item's ability last?
- On card 001, does its ongoing bonus give me a second worker when I gain one?
- Is there a rule limiting how many map tokens you can gain in one turn?
Expeditions: Gears of CorruptionExpansion
- Does Raze a Corrupted Building's Vanquish give 1 power and 1 guile for each corruption gained against the corrupted mech?
- When you gain a map token from a face-down location, do you take its secret bonus before flipping the location?
- Can Aether Vision Goggles rearrange corruption when you gain a map on a newly explored location?
- Does the tilted 'any card' icon in Gears of Corruption mean you may gain any face-up card?
- Can a mech move through the Corrupted Mech's location without penalty?
- When vanquishing from the Corrupted Mech, must you take the top card of the revealed stack?
- Can one Vanquish action take corruption from both the Corrupted Mech and the location's stack?
- Do you still have to place a worker on Mox to use his play-a-card ability?
- Does Zephon's trash-a-corruption-to-tuck-a-quest ability need you at the quest's location, and does the trashed corruption return to the bag?
- Can Scout the Abandoned Base (card 076) take the top corruption card from the Corrupted Mech?
- How does Sword of Nogai's worker ability work when you rescue another card, and does a refresh trigger it?
- How many workers does Sword of Nogai give when one Rescue rescues several cards?
- Can Mole trash a map token to gain a benefit covered by corruption on an adjacent location?
- Can Mole trash more than one map in a single Gather to uncover two covered benefits?
- How does the Corrupted Mech's second movement work after its first movement?
- When does the optional draft happen during setup in Gears of Corruption?
- Do I replace location tile 16 from the base game when adding Gears of Corruption?
- When the Corrupted Mech's path is blocked by an occupied location, does it skip that direction and stay put or move on?
- Where is the Corrupted Mech placed when it first appears?
- How do the Automa's Corrupted Mech cards get collected and scored in Gears of Corruption?
- Does the Automa's vanquish move chase the Corrupted Mech when it is nearby?
- In solo play, when a Corrupted Mech appears, do you add a mech or replace one?
- Can you use the mech cards for starting resources when playing solo, and does the Automa get anything?
- Can Zephon tuck a fifth quest under Tatanka?
- Can the Scarecrow mech trash a map token more than once in a turn for extra actions?
- When Baaliahon removes the last corruption from his location, does he claim the revealed reward?
- Can a double-movement Corrupted Mech penalise the same adjacent player's mechs twice?
- How many times does the Corrupted Mech move per drawn card?
- What does the 'any card you control' icon on Corrupted Mech cards mean?
- Do you have to play with all of Gears of Corruption, or can you use only some of its modules?