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Tips & Strategies (51)

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5
Cross Hares fan
I play purple
37 of 37 gamers found this helpful
“Successful Searches”

Since each mouse can only have one successful search per tile, I put a little glass bead on the mouse’s card when a search is successful. This way, I don’t have to remember if a search was successful or not. It’s especially helpful when playing by yourself. I use the flat type of glass bead that you put into hanging glass planters (like, for candles), but any type of marker would work the same.

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7
Greater Than Games fan
Stone of the Sun
Chief Inspector
139 of 143 gamers found this helpful
“Stay together when possible”

There are several advantages to staying together as a group. When encounters first occur, if the group moves toward a particular minion, it makes it more difficult for other minions to get close enough to attack your mice for several rounds. Spend the time searching instead. Furthermore, be sure to share the most powerful weapons and armor among your group as you go down the initiative order before they attack or have to defend. The same weapon or armor could be used several times each round!

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7
Advanced Grader
Novice Reviewer
Knight
56 of 58 gamers found this helpful
“Filtch's Daggers”

Note that having multiple daggers does not stack the abilities on each attack. Multiple daggers gives Filtch multiple attacks, but each dagger only gets the ability per attack that it is used for.

Example:
Filtch has 2 daggers that remove 1 defense die from a minion and uses knife strike.
Wrong Method – stacking both, taking 2 attacks that remove 2 defense die per attack on minion.
Correct Rule – take 1 defense die per attack. Right hand attacks, uses ability to remove 1 defense die. Then Left hand attacks, using it’s ability to remove 1 defense die. In both attacks, only one die is removed.

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5
Zealot
Rated 25 Games
Sophomore
50 of 52 gamers found this helpful
“Straight out of the Mouse's Mouth”

Whenever we have questions about Mice and Mystics we tweet the question to the creator of the game and he responds very quickly which is pretty nice when you are in the middle of a chapter and need an answer. He is on twitter under @mice_guy

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9
Sentinels of the Multiverse fan
Greater Than Games fan
El Dorado
70 of 73 gamers found this helpful
“Do I really have to give this up?”

We’ve been getting a little frustrated with the losing-most-of-your-stuff at the end of each chapter, so have added the following house rule:

An additional free action available on your turn – spend 9 cheese to permanently add one of your currently held items (not consumables) to your starting equipment.

Now Filch doesn’t have to spend the first half of each chapter looking for a knife or two to make Knife Strike worth using. And getting captured is a little less punishing. This seems stronger than leveling up and adding skills, so we increased the price accordingly.

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7
Miniature Painter
Stone of the Sun
I'm Completely Obsessed
Novice Advisor
47 of 49 gamers found this helpful
“Recording the stories as mp3 files”

With Mice and Mystics (or any game that involves reading a lot of story chapters) you may find it helpful to read and record those story chapters as a mp3 file. That way, for subsequent game plays, it is simply a matter of pushing Play. So – do you nominate the gamer with the best speaking voice (and who will likely get into it the most, giving the different characters unique voices) – or do you alternate readers? The choice is yours. And for families with children, it may be quite a treasure to have a recording of them reading from their favorite game to look back on in years to come. For those who don’t wish to make their own recordings and don’t mind shelling out some cash, one can purchase 53 downloadable mp3 recordings of the Mice and Mystics Sorrow and Remembrance Story Moments from the Mice and Mystics website.

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9
Sentinels of the Multiverse fan
Greater Than Games fan
El Dorado
42 of 44 gamers found this helpful
“Abduction Taming”

I haven’t been playing for long, but every time the Abduction Search card comes up, it completely derails what’s going on. The effects seem a little bit too strong for something that’s totally random and is nearly impossible to prepare for. Ordinarily the effects are as follows:
-Remove the mouse from the board
-Advance the hourglass token
-Remove all wounds/effects
-Lose equipped non-starting items and all cheese
-The mouse is out for the rest of the battle (if in a battle)
-The next mouse’s search is wasted to bring this mouse back (rescued instead of finding a Search card)

I’ve been modifying it as follows:
-The mouse is removed from the board as normal until another mouse successfully searches for them
-The hourglass marker is not moved
-For each equipped piece of non-starting equipment (doesn’t include pack) and for each piece of cheese, roll a die. If the die shows a *, then they keep the item/cheese. If not, then they lose it. Normally they would lose all of it.
-I haven’t decided about whether or not to keep the wounds yet (I’ve only had wound-less mice abducted so far).

This keeps Abduction disruptive, but makes it a little bit less terrible; the games have been more fun as a result.

Does anyone else do anything else like this?

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5
I Walk the Talk!
41 of 43 gamers found this helpful
“Sleeve size. ”

If you’re a lunatic like I am, you dig sleeving all your game cards. I’m a big fan of the Fantasy Flight sleeves, so here are the sleeve sizes for Mice and Mystics and the Fantasy Flight Game sleeve package colors for them.

Large cards, 71 cards (Encounters, Search deck): 63.5 x 88mm; FFG Standard Grey
Mini cards, 46 cards (Initiative deck, Abilities deck): 44 x 68mm; FFG Mini Euro Red

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2
73 of 77 gamers found this helpful
“Painting Guide Available”

I created this painting guide for anyone out there who wants to paint their Mice & Mystics minis, and need some tips.

http://www.plaidhatgames.com/images/games/mice-and-mystics/mmpaintingguide.pdf

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6
37 of 39 gamers found this helpful
“Draw Them In”

When the initiative track is not exactly in your favor, wait on minions or move to a space that you can time your first enagement with them on your own terms – where you are out of their range, but they are within yours. Then Pounce!

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7
Baseball Fan
Book Lover
Plaid Hat Games fan
Comic Book Fan
25 of 26 gamers found this helpful
“Re-rolls”

Many of the gamers in this thread play M&M with their wee ones and have posted some excellent house rules.

My 5-year-old son hasn’t jumped into board games like my 8-year-old daughter. But I played M&M with the lad all weekend and he just loved it.

I tried to focus on the story and the thrill of beating bad guys, rather than bludgeon him with rules.

Like GM fudge dice, I didn’t always let him see when rolling minion defence.

And because so much excitement and disappointment can hinge on a dice roll, I allowed my son to spend cheese to re-roll any or all of his dice. But he must keep the final result.

Pure joy for me to see his little face light up when his Lily character (ranged) throws three bow and arrows 🙂

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7
USA
Book Lover
Novice Reviewer
Cooperative Game Explorer
46 of 49 gamers found this helpful
“Game length and Kids”

I have found that my 6 y.o. cannot sit and play through one chapter. After playing to chapter three, then starting over and playing to chapter four I have found that she enjoys the game more if I add an intermission.

Now when we play we go through three board faces (halfway through the chapter), then “pause the game” by marking on sticky notes what each character has and any other important information and pick up. We then finished the game in the next day or two, recapping what happened in the first half in story form before finishing the chapter.

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6
Cooperative Game Explorer
Rated 100 Games
46 of 49 gamers found this helpful
“Playing with more than 4”

Yes, I have seen the other tips here just to make sure, but when we last played M&M, I was the volunteer 5th wheel. Instead of adding an extra mouse, I just assumed control of a type of DM player. So, I read all the bits out of the book, I made sure everyone was playing properly, and I controlled all the baddies. Yes, my minions got trounced, but I had a great time, and the new people to the table also had a great time playing their mice. Win-Win.

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5
Miniature Painter
Explorer - Level 3
33 of 35 gamers found this helpful
“On painting minatures”

My wife and I played the first two chapters before we painted the figures. We took a break from playing and painted the whole set. We really enjoyed painting them and now when we play the game really becomes more immersive. Painting really added value to the game for us.

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5
Plaid Hat Games fan
Miniature Painter
I play red
44 of 47 gamers found this helpful
“Filch House Rule”

The first time I played the campaign, I neglected to limit the amount of items kept between missions limited to one non-character item. However, I would recommend making one exception to the rule: Filch may carry one additional dagger between missions. His special ability becomes much more of an incentive to the Filch player if they can hold onto those daggers (and not become captured), allowing it to fully stack to 3 daggers instead of carrying two and hoping he finds a third every mission. It just feels more like what the character would actually do, anyways.

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6
29 of 31 gamers found this helpful
“Never Mind Those Minions”

I find that as long as there are minions on the board, everyone is fixated on them. Don’t forget, “Time is short” and you have a quest to complete. Divvy up responsibilities based on the abilities of your mice and keep working on all the tasks at hand, not just the minions. Heal! Move to or near locations that are important to leave or complete the tile. Search for goodies (with prudence).
Caveat: Don’t forget to check the story for special searches. Most are not available until all the minions have been cleared.
Knowing when it is safe to ignore the minions takes some playing time and will change as your mice develop new abilities.

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7
Greater Than Games fan
Stone of the Sun
Chief Inspector
70 of 76 gamers found this helpful
“Tinkerer's Treasure”

If you have Nez in your group, make sure to get the Tinkerer’s Treasure on the first tile in Chapter One. Consider getting a powerful weapon that more than one of the group can share or something to boost anyone’s armor. Remember, he could also get a weapon designed for someone other than him (maybe to increase attack of Tilda or Filch) and give it away as a free action.

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8
Norway
Plaid Hat Games fan
AEG fan
Tasty Minstrel Games Fan
28 of 30 gamers found this helpful
“Mice and Mystics with young children”

As Ralsar suggests not adding cheese to the minion wheel is a good idea.
I played with my son today and we removed all cheese from the game (rerolling when getting cheese in fights) and also removed the ability cards.
I did this to simplify things a bit and make the game experience faster and more smooth. We’re having problems with keeping concentration for too long and this made us, for the first time, get through the first chapter! I plan to add more complexity later on but right now we’ll try to finish some more chapters without the cheese at all.

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7
Advanced Grader
Novice Reviewer
Knight
42 of 46 gamers found this helpful
“Cheese Surges”

Cheese Surges are used to keep the game going along, and it certainly does the job. However, here are a few tips that have helped me so far.

– If a surge is nearing when you are done with an encounter, check to see how many pages you have left in the chapter. If you still have a few pages, you may want to take that surge in the current tile, so you don’t get double the encounter in the following tile.
– If there is one enemy left and it is the last characters turn, you might want to consider leaving the minion alive until the next turn so that the surge wheel doesn’t get another cheese for having no minions at the end of the turn.
– Make roaches priority. Roaches initially tricked me when we first started. They are only roaches after all, right? But the truth is that roaches can set off the surge wheel faster cause they get twice the cheese. Every time they hit you and every time they roll a cheese. This makes encounters come out more frequently and makes them more difficult. Do yourself a favor and get rid of them asap.

Hope this helps!

Edit: Roaches tip only applies to hungry or greedy roaches, as they are the ones that set off the wheel when hitting you. But you probably want to get rid of several easy minions who get more attack rolls + cheese on attack and defense anyway.

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2
51 of 56 gamers found this helpful
“Chain Lightning is OP (and always search)”

Chain Lightning, Maginos’s spell is pretty good at clearing weak mobs. When you see a lot of roaches or rat warriors around, one good roll will usually make every encounter MUCH easier. So be sure to share some cheese with good ol’ Maginos now and then.

Another good tip, is to always search whenever you can. Items you gain from searching can be pretty powerful and game changing.

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