Meloch's Duel: what changes if you already own Scythe or Expeditions

The playground question, now in a box

At first glance, Duel of Meloch looks like a crossover for fans: take Scythe, take Expeditions, slam them onto the same map, and watch the sparks fly. Fan service in a box. Looked at closely, it's a more awkward thing—it's the playground question, who would win between the behemoth of Expeditions and the war machine of Scythe, taken seriously by the person who designed both systems. One player uses the rules and pieces of Scythe, the other those of Expeditions. Not a third game that imitates them: the two real games, facing each other, on a map half the usual size. And who wins, between the two? Keep the question in mind: the answer is not where you think.

Which immediately ignites the constraint that no one puts on the cover. There is no common rulebook to learn at the table: there are two grammars that glare at each other, and you need one, your opponent the other. It's a box that takes for granted a competence—yours, and that of the person sitting opposite you. Not the games, the competence: inside there's already its share of both, a faction on one side and a mech on the other, and you don't need to own either Scythe or Expeditions to play it. You just need to know how to play one. Stegmaier doesn't even try to hide it.

What goes into your box depends on where you come from

On the map, you can't hide. Ten locations, two lakes, a continuous hide-and-seek: you're always one step away from the opponent's mech range. The real friction, however, is the Triumph Track, the track where you place the stars to win. Same symbols for both, different thresholds — on the identical popularity icon, the Scythe side must reach 10, the Expeditions side 3. And each category has only one star: whoever reaches it first places it and closes it in the other's face. From there the race begins. There's even a thematic subtlety that veterans will immediately grasp: the Expeditions player, to attack, must spend a Vanquish action — the one used to usually clean up corruption — because in this duel, Scythe is the corruption to be swept away.

But the question you bring here—what does it add to stuff I already have?—has two different answers, and it depends on which door you entered.

If you come from Scythe A new faction, Constantinople, with the “Adventurous” player board. And 60 combat cards, which you pour straight into your Scythe.

If you come from Expeditions A mech, a character, a companion, and 30 discovery cards. But the map and duel-format remain closed here: they don't return to your Expeditions.

And here's the real reason why Duel of Meloch is tricky to explain: the same box looks in three directions simultaneously.

By itself → it's a complete duel, you don't need anything else If you have both games → the box expands them ... and they → expand it, with infinite matchups

Translated: owning them doesn't make you play "more" in a single game, it multiplies the combinations. But the gift isn't symmetrical, and the most concrete piece brings a number.

The Graft · Cross-expansion 60 New combat cards. And half of their meaning lives in the Scythe you already own. combat 1–5, mute → combat 0–7, each an ability → playable in base Scythe

The old Scythe combat cards were just numbers, from 1 to 5: you played them, you won or lost. These go from 0 to 7 and each does something. 0 is not the bottom of the deck—it's worth the power you've loaded on the dial, so with 7 power it becomes a 7. But the real hit is the discard ability, which you use outside of combat. One is called Refresh and moves your action token from one section to another of the board in the middle of the turn: you take the top row of one section, discard for Refresh, and cash in the bottom row of another. In plain Scythe, you've never been able to do that in ten years. You buy Duel of Meloch for the duel, and you find yourself with a new lever for a game you've had on your shelf forever.

You need someone who knows the other half

Duel of Meloch has two readers, and no middle ground between them. If you've already started thinking about Scythe and/or Expeditions, there's a lot of substance here—more so if you come from Scythe, which brings a faction and a deck capable of changing the base game. If, on the other hand, you've never touched either and are looking for a gentle introduction to 1920+, stay away: it's a 1-2 player game, it's the distilled but not softened rules of two challenging games, and—in the author's words—the first game is daunting.

And there's a friction that no box solves: to truly play it, you need someone at the table who knows the other half. One person on Scythe, one on Expeditions, or someone willing to learn half a heavy game for a 45-minute match. It's not the title you pull out with anyone who comes for dinner. Period.

And if you were among those who were waiting for the "Rise of Fenris of Expeditions"—the big expansion with campaign and modular variety—this is not it, and it won't be: Stegmaier has reiterated that no further Expeditions expansions will arrive. The "new" duel locations are printed on the board, not tiles to shuffle into your Expeditions. Those who hoped for more exploration are left empty-handed, this time without appeal.

For solo players The Automa here is brand new—not the recycled solo mode of Scythe or Expeditions, which are not used in the duel—designed by Morten Monrad Pedersen with Lines J. Hutter and Lieve Teugels. The bot plays both sides, the Scythian or the Explorer, on five difficulty levels (level 2 for the first game): the same opponent will last you a long time. And there's an optional Threat Variant where it learns to dodge battles it would lose and seek those it wins—tactical, not an automa that goes straight. The honesty, read in the rulebook: it remains a card-driven engine. The Automa draws and executes, it doesn't consume resources from the board like you do—so you can't starve it like you starve a flesh-and-blood opponent, and those who love Scythe precisely for the resource war will feel it. The very tight map and direct combat add friction to the table, but the verdict on how it really plays will only come after July 7th, with the first solo playthroughs.

Which flips the practical question, because as a duel, it's still a 45-minute 1v1: how many times do you actually set it up with two people? Those who play it solo get rid of it entirely; for others, it remains. Stegmaier himself, explaining how to store it, takes for granted that many will dismantle it to put its pieces into the two games they already own. If you play the duel three times a year, maybe you're not buying a game: you're buying the biggest double expansion box ever put together. And if you own neither, it's the opposite: it's a new and complete game, an oblique entry into the two worlds—oblique, not easy.

So who wins, then? Back to the backyard question—colossus or gear? The truth is that answer isn't in the box, and never will be: Stegmaier's asymmetric duels are designed so that neither wins on paper. You don't buy a verdict. You buy the right to decide it yourself, one game at a time, one matchup at a time. The answer to "who wins" isn't inside Duel of Meloch. It's you, every time you set it up.

In the end, the real choice isn't whether to buy it. It's what you do with it as soon as it arrives.

There is no right answer. But how you open the box tells you what kind of player you are.