Templa

I posted a tip for the randomizer app on the Apple App Store earlier. We have now officially made a house rule that ALL games of Legendary played must be setup using the randomizer. It really cuts out any strategy of synergy between heroes, and really forces the players to play smart… and cuts out any ill feelings of experienced advantages.

I could have won last night, had I remembered to check the nobles after each of my turns. Please don’t be like me. Check your nobles after every turn to see if they want to visit you.

After last night’s defeat, I certainly learned something about Splendor. One of the keys to winning is to not let yourself become so engrossed with building the perfect engine that you forget about gaining points. I had a really awesome engine going, but my wife was grabbing point resource cards more often than I was. Even at my final turn, an 8 point turn, I still came up short.

So, strategy – get as many point resources as you can as often as you can. This is how you win.

We have yet to play this game with any expansions, so please take that to heart when I go through this house rule.

Use your hand/arm/foot/whatever to block your dice from rolling off the table as you roll them. That way you can control the relative area of roll and keep yourself from spraying your dice everywhere.

Again, only in the BASE game where there are no curses pertaining to dice sprays or falling off the table.

Since you will be making your way to the entry chamber twice through the game, we have found it invaluable to prepare your dice for the second the door slams. Get to the starting chamber. Start furiously rolling to shore up your gold masks, or to prepare to travel to the next area(s). It’s a good opportunity to remove other players’ black masks as well, instead of just waiting in the starting tile.

Here’s a great strategy if you are into confrontation and you don’t mind people being mad at you. Concentrate on these two special mutations: Killer Babies and Thick Shell. Killer Babies allow you to possibly populate onto an occupied space, as a result of the combat die. Couple that with Thick Shell, allowing you to place a baby up to 3 spots away, and you have killer babies that can spread at a much wider distance!

I have done well in this game by trying to concentrate my efforts on 2 or 3 factions, and not a little bit of everything. Matching up the different * x 3 cards with the benefactors and really using those multipliers to their max is a great way to score a ton of points.

When I first brought this out to my family to try, I attempted to have everyone grasp the playoffs of each card on the first shot. Didn’t happen. Here’s a tip, play a practice round open faced. Explain what cards would do what and to whom. Rounds do not take long to begin with, so throwing in an extra practice round doesn’t add a whole lot to the total time spent. Added bonus – your playmates will understand better and enjoy the game more.

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.

We house rule that new players to this game get one extra Aladdin tile so that they can teleport one more time. Inevitably, the new players will get stuck on a location and not be able to defeat the foes on either side, so having the extra insurance carpet really helps them. And then they enjoy it more and want to play again in the future.

Fantastiqa is a really great game. Our whole family loves it. It can sometimes be a time-eater though. Play the short games and I think the rest of your family will appreciate that. With your gamer friends go all out on the longer games.

I believe in the rulebook, it instructs you to announce what job you are once you’ve been defeated. Our house rule states that all jobs are secret until very end. That way, nobody really knows who is who during the game, and it’s a fun little side game even for those no longer playing (watching from the graveyard).

After playing again last night with my father and brother, and with a score of 77 versus their scores of 27 and 33, I feel my strategy is a solid one. I concentrated on recruiting as many Ally cards as I possibly could. I played as Samwise Gamgee, so his special starting ability was on little use to me. The allies are what powered me ahead of everyone else. Pay close attention to ally power of Legolas. When you stack your deck with ally cards, his ally power can be incredible.

TL;DR Recruit all Allies + Legolas FTW.

My siblings are very quick to action, and are offended easily. DO NOT vote against someone just because you can. That will frost them and then they may hold a grudge against you for future plays or future games involving free voting. Keep your friends and play nice if you can.

I find it much easier to control the buses that I hurl (flick) off my monster if I flip the bus upside down. Then place it on your wooden character to flick. There are just less “bumps” from the bus wheels to mess with your aim.

Let the little kids play with you. I know, I know. The last time my 4 year old niece was over, I told her that I saved her a seat next to me to play a game with us big kids. The look on her face when she caught what I was saying was priceless. “You want ME to play?”

She loved it.

One way to take a huge lead is to flip over as many landscape tiles as possible. If your opponent can’t summon creatures because they do not have enough controlled landscape tiles, you can easily pick off their creatures and go right for the life points.

I find more success when I try to complete my 5 ingredient recipes, then 4, then just by happenstance, the board will probably be better setup to concentrate on the easier ones. And of course ALWAYS try to complete “with style” for the extra cubes.

This is another game that you will want to avoid if you or your playmates aren’t too keen on player elimination. You may be killed in the game in the early rounds, and the rest of the game can get lengthy. The fix? Check out Bang!: the Dice Game. It’s quicker. Or you can try Samurai Sword. No elimination.

If you or your group mates aren’t fans of player elimination, stay away from this game. The first time I played this game, I didn’t even get a turn because I had already been eliminated.

On the Apple App Store there is a randomizer app called Legendary Randomizer. It’s great for starting games when you no longer care which heroes you play or which villains you destroy.

Toolboxes are you friends! However, I suggest not trying to work on 3 different toolbox tech trees at the same time. Stick to one, maybe two, and exploit the heck out of it. I personally like the path that allows you to move known routes. Move them to facilitate more relic runs and watch your opponents fume.

Farmers generate money. Well, at least in this game. You know your opponents are either going to be trading for them or assassinating them. Keep a chapter of Traders going, and also a chapter of Historians. That way you can either steal them back, or just rummage through the discard pile.

I’ve found that for me, the most useful of the stands is the Casino. Being able to change the die face is priceless when you need specific dice faces. Get them early and often!