Sagrada is one of my favorite go-to dice games and one that has stood the test of time well in our gaming world. Today we are going to look at the next expansion in the Great Facades expansions and see what this adds to the game and decide if it is a god addition to your base game!
Sagrada Life is published by Floodgate Games and is designed by Adrian Adamescu and Daryl Andrews. Graphic design by Matt Paquette and Kris Aubin. It is designed to be added as an expansion to the base game of Sagrada.
First off, let’s cover the details of these expansions. Sagrada is currently in the middle of a 3 game expansion called the Great Facades. The first one, Passion was published last year and added Inspiration cards, Rare Glass Dice, Rare Glass Private Objectives, Rare Glass Boards, Symmetry and Balance Public Objectives to the game. You can read our review of that expansion here:
Gaming with Sidekicks reviews: Sagrada Passion
For those already familiar with Sagrada, the mechanics and additions of this game expansion are once again straight forward. As a review, Sagrada is a dice drafting game where players take turns trying to pick dice that best match their personal objectives and stained glass windows. Dice fit certain designs as you build up your window, matching colors and numbers to the underlying board design. You score points based on how well you match those personal and community objectives.
Sagrada Life adds the following to the game:
12 Orange Masterwork dice
6 Public Objectives
12 Window Pattern Cards
1 Masterwork Board
22 Apprentice Cards
2 Tool Cards
This new modular explores the journey of life-the hardships and the helpers that come along that journey with you. The nice part of these expansions in that they are multi-pieced, allowing you to add just a few things or all of them to cater an experience to exactly how you like.
Let’s discuss each of the new aspects and then talk about how they are used. First off are the Apprentice Cards. These are given to players as one-time abilities or private scoring cards. The Apprentice Window Patterns are new patterns with two special spaces that award players with one of the Apprentice cards when a die is placed there. Masterwork Dice are new orange dice with any point values that awards points when placed in a window. The Masterwork Board is a marketplace that contains the new dice where players can pick them up. Finally the Toil Public Objectives are rewards for players creating challenging configurations in their windows.
Apprentice Module
Here players will add the Apprentice Cards and put them on the board to form a deck. Reveal the top card and place it face up. Each players is given 2 Apprentice Window Pattern cards and chose one to play as normal. Whenever a player places a die over one of the Apprentice symbols on their window they may either look at the top 2 cards in the Apprentice deck and choose 1, discard 1 or gain the top card from the discard pile. These cards are kept secret until played and then revealed.
Masterwork Module
The module will introduce players to the new dice in this set that will add restrictions to the player’s window. The Masterwork Board allows players to acquire and place these dice into their windows. If the restrictions are met, points are earned. If they are not, you will lose victory points.
The Masterwork board is placed near the round track and dice are added based on player count. Each of the Masterwork dice must show a unique symbol facing up and are placed on the board. When drafting players can gain a Masterwork die from the board by swapping it with a matching die to the color or value of the matching open slot on the board. They then take the corresponding die and rotate it how they like and place it on their window. You gain favor tokens based on the die space and must place it based on restrictions that have it as any color or number but the restrictions on the dice must be met by the end of the game. They count as a sum of zero and each symbol is unique and counts other dice that match it as the same.
You score 5 victory points for each die that has its restrictions satisfied and lose 2 victory points for each one that does not.
Toil Public Objectives
These objectives are more challenging than ones you may have seen from the game in the past and can be mixed in with the others from the main game when you randomly pick the starter setup cards. There are some that correspond to the Masterwork dice and should only be used with those when played.
Overall Impressions
Sometimes a game we love to play can get a little repetitive and lose some of the luster that made it a favorite in rotation. For me, a simple addition in the form of an expansion can be enough to breathe new life into a game I already like. In this case, Life does just that for Sagrada. The additional aspects really help this game drive home parts you already liked while introducing some new components and concepts.
I particularly like the new dice and mechanics for them. It changes the game up but doesn’t make it a hard thing to understand or follow, staying true to the base game while introducing new aspects. I like the Mastworkers board and dice-it really made the game a but more challenging than it has been for me in quite some time. The Masterwork dice require you to fulfill more than just the basic restrictions on the game which is where the challenge comes in.
Overall if you are looking for a way to change up your copy of Sagrada for the good, this is a great expansion to buy. You’ll love the new, challenging aspects and familiar components like new versions of window patterns and Objectives that the game adds. I recommend this one to players already familiar with the game and are ready to level their copy up a notch. Make sure to check this one out and get Sagrada Life on your table soon!
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