Going deeper underground…
So Clank! by this point is absolutely a modern classic. Its birth back in 2016 by the great Paul Dennen (now lauded for the fantastic Dune: Imperium universe) was a really exciting mix of deck building, worker placement and push your luck as you delve deeper underground to collect treasures, carefully avoiding making enough clank or noise to wake the dragon! If you make your way back out with all your goods great, if you at least get back above ground, great, but if you get knocked out below ground you lose every point you earned in the game. It was such a success it was followed by dozens of expansions, a stand-alone edition set in space (with its own expansions) and a legacy campaign.
Then, in 2022, the (in my opinion) definitive version came out called Clank Catacombs!. This version truly embraced the exploration element of the game but changing it from a singular board to a tile placement game. This meant that each time you discovered a new tile, you had no idea what was going to come out. This totally rejuvenated the game for me. It became dangerous, you could fall into a trap or get stuck in an ice cavern but it was, by far, more thrilling than the original. Its success then saw its first expansion, Lairs and Lost Chambers, which added ever more danger to the exploration where the wrong move could see you bump into Medusa or other gorgons. Clearly there is no stopping Dennen as now comes the Underworld expansion.
Remember to pay the Ferryman…
This new expansions adds the usual more cards, which in a deck builder is always a plus, but the real hero of this box is the new ‘underworld’ board. There is now a hexagonal board set aside and five random tiles shuffled next to it. There are also new overground tiles each with their own access point to the underworld. When you reach an access point, you draw a random underworld tile and connect it to the hex board. Welcome to hell! You now are free to explore down in the depths as long as you can pay the ferryman to do so, but no generic gold coin will do.
We now have ‘undercoins’. These can be collected through various means and can generally be used in place of other coins in the rest of the game, however if you start in the underworld and can’t pay an undercoin, it costs you clank. Being down there is costly and dangerous, Cerberus awaits there too, which will take some defeating but if you do manage to take him down you may take a token that will multiply the value of your artefacts! There are also Harpies that appear and if you defeat them you get an under coin for every Harpy you have defeated so far, and imps that make your secret tomes more valuable. A new super valuable artefact can also be found down there making it all the more tempting and there is also a whole new underworld market offering exciting new items up for grabs! More major and minor secrets. More tiles. More prisoners. Just so much stuff!
My favourite though might be the introduction of the fate cards. These can only be obtained from certain spaces, once per game, but offers either a one off powerful thing you can do or an ongoing power that may lead to end game scoring. Anything that adds secret information I am a sucker for and these feel so satisfying, especially if you can buy the gauntlets from the underworld market which allows you to have two.
The descent is east, to climb back up is the labour!
There is no doubt that there is really fun stuff in this expansion to spice up the game for those who have played a lot. However, there are a lot of new bits and pieces here and so may not be for everyone. With so much luck on whether you stumble across an access point, it is easy for one person to stumble upon one, and then run away with the rewards. In my first game I spent turn after turn in the underworld splashing away clank but claiming lots of hefty rewards while my husband ran in circles trying to find a portal in. It also adds to the already quite hefty table space that this game can take up which will be a concern for many people. But I really really enjoyed my time deep down in the depths of the underworld. I always like more ways to explore and more forks in the road forcing you to make meaningful decisions and mixing this with Lairs and Lost Chambers just adds to the danger but also the reward of exploration.
Will I always play with it? Probably not. However, if you want something a little spicier with some more crunch then load up the Ferryman, and I will meet you on the river Styx!
