A Touch of Evil - Tips & Strategies

There are a lot of variables that come into play in a game of Touch of Evil, and one of them is that most Heroes tend to lend themselves to a particular area (physical combat, investigation, or spirituality). In the competitive game, this can slant the game one direction or the other on you (for instance, villains like the Horseman or the Banshee and their minions are especially dangerous against characters with a low Spirit score).

The best way to compensate for this is to train up your weak skills (in the example of the Horseman or the Banshee, you will want to boost your spirit up to at least a 4, for instance). If you have the Something Wicked expansion, the Monastery provides items that are useful for this as well. Try to use your strengths to turn things to your advantage, too – a character with high Cunning can gather investigation more easily, and use it to train or gear up.

In a co-operative or team game, focus your team members on their key areas. Have the Cunning hero gather investigation, buy gear to trade amongst the team, and locate the Lair, while the Combat or Spirit based characters keep the Minions at bay or investigate the corner regions.

Depending on the combination of Heroes, Villain and circumstances, the game can slant itself in favor or against a given Hero, but there are a variety of ways to rebalance things for yourself.

One interesting variant to try is to recruit a hunting party in the game. Before playing, decide how expensive it is to recruit (10 clue points work well) and the maximum hunting party (3 is a good number, though stick with two the first time). The boss’ health will be multiplied by this max-party number.
In the Town, a player may spend in Clues the decided amount to recruit a new party member– randomly select another investigator. Each turn, you may select the “head” of your party, and they will take all damage and take all skill tests.
When facing the final boss, you will need to decide whether you wish to fill your party (each consecutively attacks) or if you’re strong enough with fewer than the max amount of party members.
One more variant, you may wish to consider allowing a player to spend two Clue to switch the head party member when blindsided by a surprise test.

The Hunting Rifle is one of the most useful items in the game. Every combat that happens in the game happens simultaneously; that is, even if you win a combat against a minion, it will still get its licks in as its going down, because all combat happens at the same time. The Hunting Rifle changes this. Whoever is using the Hunting Rifle will be able to inflict their damage BEFORE their opponent. Which means that if you deal enough damage to put a minion down in a combat, it won’t be able to attack you. This can turn an average hero into a murdering machine, as they won’t have to stop and heal at the town doctor nearly as often as anyone else. Not only that, but that hero will be gathering a lot of investigation from combats that can be used to improve stats or investigate Town Elders.

Flying Frog does some great free mini-expansions for their games. Check out their website for three new villains to add to the danger!

http://www.flyingfrog.net/atouchofevil/atoe_web_content.html

This game has two rule sets, basic and advanced. The basis rules are useful to get a quick handle on the game mechanics. Beyond that, the basic rules set is a less exciting game experience. Once a player has decent familiarity with the rules, jump right into the advanced rules. It’s harder and more exciting.