Lairs with Tiff! Are the expansions actually essentials?

A two-player board game that feels like Battleship grew up, learned dungeon design, and decided to mess with your head. Clay Gable is joined by Tiff from @tiffs.board.games on intstagram to unpack Lairs from Kids Table Board Games, a build-then-explore dungeon crawl where you create a maze behind a screen, hide treasure, plant a trap and a monster, then race through your opponent’s creation while they do the same to you.

We break down what makes the system click: the moment-to-moment tension of turning corners, the satisfaction of building a dungeon that “reads” like a puzzle, and the mind games that show up fast once you learn how your opponent thinks. We also get honest about the base game. The core loop is fun and the production is charming, but the limited variety can leave experienced gamers wanting more after a couple plays, especially if you start to feel like hustling is always the obvious move.

Then we dig into what the expansions add to replayability and strategy. The Adventure Pack brings more monsters, traps, and new actions that open up your decision space, while Deeper Dungeons goes bigger with larger boards, challenges, bosses, terrain like mist that blocks peeking, special wall types like lock-and-key obstacles, and even asymmetrical characters. If you’re shopping for a great two-player strategy board game, a compact dungeon crawler, or a hidden movement experience with real table talk, this conversation will help you decide how deep to go.

If you enjoy the show, subscribe, share this with a friend who loves tense head-to-head games, and leave a review. Are expansions a dealbreaker for you, or part of the fun?

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Welcome to the Operation Game Night podcast. I'm your host this time, Clay Gable. Travis is out moving his family across the country. So we've asked our friends to step in for a few weeks. And today we have the pleasure of having Tiff from TIFFS Board Games on Instagram. There's some dots in there if you're looking for. So there's like tiffs.board.games. You'll find her. She's out there putting out amazing content. How are you doing, Tiff?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

I'm great. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:48

I'm awesome. This is fun. I'm glad Travis is gone.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Aww.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah. Well, you know, he he really commandeers my time. I don't get to hang out with other people. So it's good to talk to fellow gamers out there.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Yes. He runs a tight ship.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

He does. You know, and he's just basically a solo gamer. So I don't have much in common with him anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Oh my gosh.

What Lairs Is Really About

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Well, well, yeah, today we're talking about a beautiful two-player game that we've both played. We're talking layers from kids table board games. What do you think about this?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

I love a good two-player game.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

And I feel like we play a lot of dungeon crawlers or dungeon delvers. And how often do you get to make your own?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Not that often. Not that often. Yeah, for the listeners out there, I the shtick of layers is like if Battleship was actually a good game. You know, you got two people, they have a little map behind a screen. And the first half of the game, you build out a little dungeon that your opponent has to crawl through, and they're doing your dungeon that you're going to have to crawl through at the same time. And then when you both finish, you go and explore each other's dungeons, and you're using these action cubes to decide whether you want to hustle through the dungeon, you want to creep around slowly, you want to peer into other rooms. Um, you have the opportunity to set up traps in the dungeon, like put monsters in different places. But ultimately, you're trying to navigate this dungeon, find some treasure chests, and get to the exit before the other player. You don't necessarily need to do it first to win, but it's pretty helpful, especially in the base version of the game, which we'll just get that out of the way right

Base Game Feels Too Thin

SPEAKER_00 2:45

off the bat. We've both played the base version of this game, and I heard plenty of people railing against this game because they said the base version was overly castrated, like a shell of a game that was in need of expansions. And honestly, I heard that before I got the game, and I was like, uh, you know, typically I buy expansions and then I regret it because I'm like, I just like the game the way it is, and I don't want to learn more rules. But I will say that in this game, I think that criticism is quite fair. What what are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Yeah, I mean, I feel like you can play a couple times and then it leaves you wanting like a little bit more.

unknown 3:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Because you're just playing with the same monster, the hungry glob guy, and the same trap.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous, really. I mean, I it's so blatant about the fact that it was designed to have expansions off the bat that the rule book says base game rule book. Like it yeah, there it's not even hiding it. There's literally like spots on your screen that I suppose you're supposed to put stickers from the expansions. But yeah, I mean, it literally it comes with one monster and one trap, and that's it. Like, you know, it it's wild. And but did you have fun those first couple plays?

Dungeon Building And Mind Games

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Oh yeah, I really enjoyed it. I did. Um so you're supposed to, I think like there's three treasure chests, and you're supposed to put like one trap and one monster somewhere along the path of that treasure chest. And I just kept putting them right next to each other, so you hit my trap. Yeah, you're hitting the monster next.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Oh, that's tedious.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yeah, I thought that was pretty funny.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

But that that's wild.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Yeah, I played with it was cool just like making your own little thing with the little walls and the little monsters. I don't know, I thought it was fun.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Yeah, the production's amazing. I mean, like the little pieces to make your dungeon. Uh, I mean, it feels cool, it looks cool. I realized I am not that clever at making a dungeon. I just like had my I don't know what I was thinking really. I played last night with my wife, and I just like stuck the treasure chests in the corner. They weren't like guarded by anything, and she's just winking the way through the dungeons. She's just like, there's one, there's another. And it was like before I did anything, she had discovered two of my treasure chests, didn't feel very good.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yeah, the same thing happened with my husband too, because you can like peer into the spaces, which is basically you can like look at what's there before making the decision to go. And I would stop and be like, All right, I'm gonna peer into this space here. And it always ended up being like his monster or his trap. He's like, How do you know?

SPEAKER_00 5:50

You just get a sense for each other, and those I feel like those are the kind of mind games that would be fun on repeated plays. It's just like, oh, you know, I I just came up on a blob. I bet Mary stuck the trap the treasure chest right behind it because that's what she did last time, but she knows I did that last time, so maybe this time she just puts the treasure chest like just in the middle of nowhere, you know.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

So it is cool having those two parts, and I found that both parts of the game like were fun. Like when the other person was going through and I'm like describing what they're seeing and you know, wondering if they're gonna step onto my traps. Like, I enjoyed that part, and I also enjoyed when I it was my turn to go through, and I was like, okay, what's around this corner? What's you know, what's going on here, and seeing what I came across.

Hustle Versus Cautious Play

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Um my chief concern was that I don't know how you feel about this, Tiff, but I felt that I always be hustling, all right. Like I it felt like there was never a reason not to hustle because what the grid's like I don't know, it's like a 60 60 spaces, and there's only six ones you can get in trouble with. How big is that?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Uh six by six.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

So 36 spaces. And there's six that you can you can stumble onto a monster, a trap. And so I'm like, you know, if I you know, if I hustle, when you hustle, you can spend like two cubes or a one certain color cube, and then you get to go like three spaces in a row. Um but you have to stop if you land on something. And I never felt like there was a good reason to do the option where you just go one space at a time, personally.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

I yeah, I think I actually did the opposite, honestly. Because really, once you fall into the trap for the monster, like you have to like fight it. Yeah, do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

But fighting them's good, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Yeah, but not if you're not ready and you don't have your cubes like in the refreshed stage. Do you know what I mean? I don't know. I guess we just played differently.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Yeah, you're a little cautious. I was throwing caution to the wind. I was like, bring it on, I'll jump into a monster trap.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

I'll fight these monsters.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yeah, and so the way it works is if you do if you stumble into a spot with a monster or trap and it's unknown, you have to suffer its damage right away.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Yeah, and usually that damage is just moving cubes from your um fresh or what's the one before fresh? Spent from your fresh or spent area to your fatigued area. Yes, yeah, so it's got this like nice little cube action system where every turn your cubes refresh one space to the left. So being fatigued is the worst. Like when those come back around, they still stay in the spent spot, and spent cubes go to the fresh spot, and then there's a place where you can conserve cubes and then they do double duty on the next turn. Did you ever use the conserve action?

SPEAKER_01 9:09

I never I did, yeah. I did a couple times.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

See, man, we you don't this is why I need to talk to you because I was just like, this game's kind of lame. I just hustle, hustle, hustle. I didn't do much else.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yeah, I think um I did it a couple times because I did like peering. Um so I'm like, oh, if I save it, then I can just peer twice or oh that's true. If you save one of the special cubes, you stay the special cubes, you get to do it twice. I also like that it's like cubes, and you're not dealing with just like resources or like you're just it's just cubes. You spend cubes for dice, it's just cubes.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah, I it is a pretty clean little like action economy that that it works through. I just was like I was just stuck in my rut of why wouldn't I just hustle? And I felt like there wasn't any interesting decision to make. I was like, yeah, I'm just gonna move as much as I can every single turn to try and discover this whole dungeon so I can find the stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Um yeah.

Adventure Pack Adds Real Variety

SPEAKER_00 10:17

But that's where probably that's probably where the expansions come in. Yes, and add some. Do you know what's in these?

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Like I do, yep. Okay, so I bought them both two or three nights ago. Um, and I looked through most of it and read the books, and there's a lot, a lot of like content. Um, so there's the adventure pack, um which comes in little boxes, and it's like, don't open this box until you've played the base game, and don't open this until you played this and that one. Um so there's new monsters and new traps. Um of the monsters have like weaknesses, I guess. Um there's new actions, which are the little stickers that you're gonna put on your screen.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Oh, sweet.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

You can get like attributes. Um and then after you've opened like all the boxes, then you can just take like whatever content you want and like set up a game that way using like a couple different, you know, you could use this monster in this trap. Um kind of makes it a little more interesting, I think.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yeah, do you have a lot of things?

SPEAKER_01 11:36

A little bit a little bit more content.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Yeah, what type of actions are there?

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Like I think um well, I didn't want to like spoil it for myself or anybody on here because it's supposed to be like a secret, but the one I did look in the first one. Um yeah, it's all in little boxes.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Um dang.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

So I but I did look in the first one. So spoiler that there's a scrounge action, so they give you new cubes, so you can spend like your scrounge cube to scrounge like an open area with nothing in it, and then you can get like these scrap cards.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Um man, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

So like I feel like definitely you need the adventure pack.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Yeah, that I mean that's what people were saying online. And as much as I don't love that they sold a $40 game that like feels kind of hollow, I'm probably gonna support it because I do see how this can be a super like engaging, fun game for the long haul, especially with new actions and new monsters. And is there like a boss monster thing in there? Somebody was saying, like is that in the monsters pack?

SPEAKER_01 12:46

So that's in the deeper dungeons. Oh, the deeper dungeons. So when I went to buy them, I actually I just bought that, and then I read the side of the box before I left the store, and it says you need the base game and the adventure pack to play, so you'd have to buy both to get the deeper dungeons. Um

Deeper Dungeons Go Big

SPEAKER_01 13:09

but the deeper dungeons have like a multiplayer mode, so one person creates a dungeon and it's like double layer, so you're you have like two pages with you. So one person builds the dungeon and two people try to they both try to get their way out of it. Um the boards are bigger, let me say. The board is bigger. I'll show you real quick.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

I'll make you big and see if I can't mess myself up again.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Don't make me big.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

I'm gonna make you big. Oh, there she is with the two big boards. Well, that's the regular board and the larger one.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

So it's just like two, yeah, the deeper dungeons too larger, which is still pretty cool, especially if you can like mix all the different contents and make like a crazy dungeon. So I was really excited for the deeper dungeon pack. It has um challenges to overcome, uh, which is just like a little card, like where you have to there's a couple different ones, but one was like you roll dice um and take steps. And if you roll the dice and it doesn't match the next step, then you fail the mission. Um, there's bosses, there's terrain tiles. So I looked at one that was like mist, so you can put mist in your dungeon and you can't peer through it. Um, you don't know where the walls are unless like you go into it and like you accidentally bump into one. So if you try to like move and you bump into a wall, then you you're just stuck there until you find your way out. Um there's weird walls, um which are a couple different walls, and they they're basically like mini expansions, so each different wall has its own thing. Like there's a lock and key, so you have to find the key to get through you know the the locked wall, and then there is also characters which each have like asymmetrical abilities. Dang, so there's so much content.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Holy cow! Seriously, like uh we're I played this game with thinking a blob and a trap, and that was it. Like, good grief. Oh man, and like more ways to score points, I'm assuming.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Like, yeah, yep, definitely. Um, there's just so much more stuff in that deeper dungeon box that you gotta buy layers and the adventure pet.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

So, like all in we're talking like 100 bucks, yeah, yeah, to get the game as it should be.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Yeah, dang. Could have put it in like one big box and made it like 80 bucks. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Yeah, people would have fussed about that too. Everybody's fussing all the time, everybody's always fussing. But at the end of the day, I think it's a really cool system. I do think the the base game is gonna leave you wanting, especially if you're a gamery game type person, you're gonna be like, okay, that was interesting for a play, but where's the rest of it? And it's out there, you just have to pay more money, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

I

Kids Table Appeal And Wrap-Up

SPEAKER_01 16:35

mean, we buy expansions for all kinds of games, like it's so different.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Most of them I don't even play, but I can guarantee I would play, I would play with this stuff. Um, have you played this with your kids?

SPEAKER_01 16:49

No, that's one thing I did want to say though. Like the kids table, it's I feel like they design it for kids in mine, but also like adults who can enjoy this stuff too. But my kids have not played it yet. I don't think they're really interested in it yet.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

I my the first time this game was played in my house, it was both my kids like like loved the look of it so much, they wanted to play each other. And so I just like kind of taught them as they played each other, and and they had a really good time with it. So I think kids' table board games, they I mean this has been the one that I thought was the coolest. Granted, I don't think I've played maybe but two others of theirs, so yeah. Um keep up the good work.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Yeah, I actually um quite a few, like creature comforts. I like that, uh I like that line, creature comforts, maple valley, and river market. Yeah, I like their games.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Yeah, I'm gonna have to check out some more, but but Lairs, do you have anything else to say about it? I think we did, I think we did our due diligence here.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah, Lairs, Lairs is great. If you want it to be greater, get the expansions.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

I'm I'm sold, Tiff. All right, well, Tiff, thanks for joining me. Um, again, she's got some dots. Tiff Sport Games on Instagram. She is posting the coolest stuff and playing the neatest games. Uh, we just all aspire to be like her and her lovely. What is it? His name's Champ or Coach. Coach. Ah, I knew it was a sporty name. Old coach down there. They're playing games and taking picks. And we are signing off from Operation Game Night. See ya, Tiff.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Bye.