Rocslayer

Again I have an older version and I find it helps to change the victory condition for the younger players who aren’t very good at card games yet to getting OVER 1000 miles instead exactly 1000 miles giving them an edge.

I play with an old version and it can be quite frustrating if you can’t get the right fix card turn after turn. I recommend that any two fix cards act as a “wild” fix allowing you to get rid of that pesky hazard that is keeping you out of the game. If you do this don’t forget to draw an extra card to get back to 6 cards in hand!

A good strategy is to use trade actions to power up production and construction. The production gives you the stock you need to keep moving and the construction allows you turn those cards into points.

Sometimes the dice hate you and you end up attacking a monster you should be able to defeat many times just to realize you aren’t going to win and he has half your treasure. I like the idea of putting a RIP counter on the monster card every time someone attacks him indicating that it is wounded and now takes one less on the die roll to defeat. This means that if you are willing to use the turns you will eventually win and get your treasure back.

With two players there isn’t as much competition for areas on the planet. A good way to change this is for each player to choose an unused color and advance a colony on the colonist hub 3 spaces every turn placing it where they want when it reaches the end of the track. This causes each off color colony to be placed about every other turn. Players don’t score points for the off color but can use them to block the other player thus increasing the competition on the planet in an even manner.

When people start the game they often think that getting a vehicle completely built out is a good idea. One has to remember that the final pileup battle is only affected by how many vehicles have 3 or more parts. For this reason when you go to bodge your two parts at the start of a turn be sure to use those to attach your first, second or third parts to a vehicle NOT your fourth and fifth as these won’t be as helpful in the final pileup battle.

One of the biggest mistakes I see new players make is that they engage in “district warfare” were they spend too many resources trying to control one district competing with another player who is trying to do the same. Remember that two second place districts are worth more than one first place district and that being second place often takes much less resources.

Check out the Descent FAQ PDF

Some of the highlights that I either missed in the rule book or that weren’t clear to me:
1) Heroes can NOT trade coins.
2) Heroes can NOT buy treasures unless they have opened an equivalent chest first.

After you have played a level it’s fairly easy to remember where the traps on the map are (especially in the first area of the first level). Our house rule is that the Overlord can move the trap to any square he/she chooses in the same area so that the heroes can’t just side step where they know the trap will be. The Overlord does need to be honest and not just say it’s where the weakest hero just stepped.

If you can always select heroes among the three types (melee, ranged and magic) as evenly as possible. This is especially critical in a two player game where one player is running two heroes. If you don’t you will find that a lot of treasure ends up being sold when it could have gone to good use and heroes will end up being less effective using “town” equipment.

Don’t be afraid to use your clues early on rooms (especially on rooms that require 5+ total dice). The earlier you use clues the better chance you will have of being able to re-roll and complete a task instead of losing a die. Alternatively if you wait until you have just enough dice to complete the last task your chances are slim that you will re-roll the dice you need to complete it.

Once you learn this game it can be deceptively easy on “white” difficulty threat cards and punishingly hard on “yellow” difficulty threat cards. When you find that white cards are no longer much of a challenge first play a few games with a mix of yellow and white cards before you do all yellow cards and realize that you may be in for a much more difficult game if mostly/all yellow threat cards come up.

When first flipping over tiles take a second to note the difficult letters and try to use them first. If you get stuck with nothing loose near the end of a round but a ‘Z’ or a ‘Q’ you will either have to break up some words or do some peeling/dumping which can be more than a little frustrating.

Make a point of dumping tiles to one place and drawing from another, that way you won’t get stuck with the ‘Z’ you just drew three tiles to get rid of a minute ago.

With expansions there are plenty of development cost reducing cards and cards that give you draws for developing. Also if you get enough cost reduction you can end the game before others get more expensive strategies rolling (especially in two player with double develop available). If the right cards come your way give it a try.

I play this game with my wife and seeing as we each have to run an android we have a very difficult time keeping things straight. Our house rule is to play all cards face up to make it easier to keep track of what our players are doing. As for the purpose of the face down rule, you don’t really have time to look at the other players boards anyway if you are running two of your own so it doesn’t really matter if you can see their cards much.