Chaos Marauders - Tips & Strategies

Chaos Marauders is wildly random. Even the one thing that’s supposed to be “permanent” – completing a battle line – is rendered temporary by a laughably high number of cards. This is actually part of the appeal of the game, and I don’t begrudge it.

But it does stink to have to worry about re-filling a formerly-complete battle line by replacing a card an opponent was able to knock out… all while you’re trying to finish your incomplete battle lines… and you have to remember which is which because you’re not allowed to re-attack with that formerly-completed line once you re-complete it (for a simple game, this sure sounds convoluted!). What we do is house the following rule: if a completed battle line loses a card at any point, just fill the hole by moving the disconnected end of your line forward.

This makes it so that once a battle line is complete it stays complete… but you can still wreak havoc on your opponent’s final score by targeting their completed battle lines. Your final score depends largely on the number of cards in each of your completed battle lines: you get the highest points with 11-12 cards; second highest at 9-10 and so on. If your opponent has an 11-card completed battle line, you can cost them big points by hitting them with one of the cards that can target completed battle lines and dropping it to 10 cards. This actually adds a nice layer of more permanent strategy to all the randomness.

I switched to this rule after 2 or 3 games, and I’ve never considered going back. It’s made the game much better for me.