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I have had to adopt my play style to accommodate my nieces who love this game and play very aggressively whether they realize it or not. They focus on energy cubes to buy the cards because they are fun and like to score hits because it means giggles and screams of ‘OH NO!’. From the dice of babes…
Triplets are all well and good to gain a quick VP boost, but they eat up half your roll. This isn’t a war of attrition – this is a battle of Radioactive Behemoths.
Vying for a 1 or 2 triplet is easily mirrored by moving into Tokyo City. Hits will put your opponents on the ropes and get you in the city.
How to be an Aggressive Monster with Six Dice:
Ones:Pointless. Always a reroll. This isn’t the Squire of Tokyo.
Twos:Unless you get a triplet on the first roll – Toss ’em!
Threes: Threes are the only triplet an Aggressive Monster should consider. Regardless of play style – it is always nice when a group of 3’s show up on First Roll.;) You might not be causing havoc but a 3 VP round boost still shows them who is boss.
Hearts: If you need them you need them, if you don’t you don’t – that’s the Game of Hearts. (Unless you are playing a Power Up Gambit )
Hits and Energy are aggressive Kingmakers. Hurting monsters are worried monsters and they can’t dethrone you if they spend half their rolls vying for hearts. 😉
Those Purchase Cards are expensive…but GOOD! Even the cheapest and seemingly worst of them give you a boost over the other Big Bads. Building up an energy hoard can flip the game with just the right power or a VP purchase energy sweep.
Besides playing Aggro Monsters make for a shouty good time and Tickle Fights of Victory. 🙂 🙂
Hail to the Princess, Baby! I am The King!
Everyone wants to build up energy and VP early, but inevitably someone will pop into Tokyo inadvertently by rolling a spare claw, and start the damage chain. While the dice are random and preclude any particular strategy, the key to winning is being flexible based on results.
If you’re in Tokyo, look for power cards which will give you health back as part of a Discard effect — this healing is not prevented. Don’t be afraid to drop out even if you take a little damage, just to make sure the next guy gets stomped on instead.
Mind your opponents’ scores; don’t let someone with high VP into Tokyo. It may be risky to stay, but if you let them in with high HP, they could edge closer to victory and then only have to survive a turn or two to win. Better to stay as king of the hill and rack up points yourself.
If you’re playing for last man standing, combine a multi-claw roll with an energy buy of a Discard for damage, even if it will also cause damage to you. The one-two punch can rock an enemy back on his heels.
If you’re in Tokyo and somehow avoiding being damaged heavily, watch your opponents’ energy totals. If you can’t buy the best power yourself, sweep the power row if they’re close to being able to buy something which will ruin your day.
In our House to make a two player game more balanced to start we each get a power up in the beginning. Shuffle the deck and instead of dealing out three face up first give each player one. If it is a KEEP card, keep it face up by your monster as if you had bought it, if it is a discard do just that and draw again until both have one KEEP card beside their monster. Compare the cost and deal out any energy difference to the person with the lower card cost. Example: I start with Shrink Ray which would have cost me 6 energy to buy, my opponent starts with Even Bigger which would have cost them 4 if they’d of bought it. They get two energy cubes along with Even Bigger to make up the difference and the game begins. The card’s abilities do not matter, and yes… sometimes you get a dud to start with but hey it was better than nothing 😉
When you start your turn, you will always be hoping for something. If you are close to 0 hit points, you will want hearts. If you are close to 20 victory points, you’ll want numbers.
These are “special occasions” and do need to be dealt with.
But when you are starting out? Or you notice everybody is OK for health, and nobody has a huge VP lead? Then go big with your 2nd roll.
Basically, pick the path you like the best and go for it. Often people will be tempted to keep a variety of items from the first roll. All this does is lower the odds of you getting what you need. If you want the 3 VPs for three 3s, make sure you have every chance possible to get that 3rd one.
The worse thing to do is to limit your dice and be left with a mixed bag of dice.
While younger gamers love the idea of monsters rampaging through Tokyo, very-younger gamers don’t love the games cards so much due to the tactical element they bring to the game being a bit much for them. They don’t care about special armour or being omnivorous … they just want to rampage through Tokyo.
So simply ditch the cards.
Energy cubes are collected as per usual, but are used as follows:
– when in Tokyo, spend 3 gems to convert one dice roll into a Claw
– when not in Tokyo, spend 3 gems to convert one dice roll into a Heart
And that’s it. A simple houserule that maintains the feel of the game, while making the game more accessible to the younger gamer.
The game says it plays two…but it doesn’t work that well. That being said, there is a way to make this a monster vs monster game…just don’t use the board. This eliminates one player racking up points by camping in Tokyo, but also increases the odds that players will seek out cards and victory points.
Why?
Because everybody can heal themselves.
If a power card comes up that mentions Tokyo, simply discard it and draw another.
Sure this make a light game even lighter…but for a two player dice chucking game, heavy isn’t required.
One of our three starting cards to purchase “It has a Baby”. Basically allowing you to die once and then start over again from scratch. This would allow for the player to go at the other players balls to the wall.
One player announced that was the tactic they were going to go for and started collecting their energy tokens. Knowing that would be a pretty devastating card, someone paid two energy tokens before they could get there. This was a great tactic to prevent your opponent from getting a tool that you know would rip you a new one.
TLDR: Pay 2 energy to clear the cards and stop someone from getting something to hurt you.
This strategy tip is of course for all monsters and not merely the Kraken but “unleash the cyber-bunny” just doesn’t have the same ring.
It is not really advisable to stay in Tokyo very long but sometimes you will make it around and get to roll while in Tokyo. When this happens there is only one thing to do…that’s right…unleash the Kraken! This means roll for as many claws as you possibly can get. This is your one opportunity to damage every opponent and you can win the game by the massive damage and deaths you can cause here. After doing so you may have to duck out of Tokyo at your first opportunity to heal up but what you frequently find is that a massive attack launched from Tokyo may well allow you to stay and do it again as other players will now become desperate to heal rather than hit you and will give up their claws in an attempt to roll more hearts.
1-2 damage can be really useless if you are not careful. Too many players dish out low damage and then get sucked into Tokyo and get hit hard. If your health is low, or other players wanna kill you because of high victory points, healing yourself and rolling victory points is a better action than damaging the guy in Tokyo. Let the other players do your dirty work.
You put everyone else in a bind. how can they kill you? And will they allow the player in Tokyo to win the game by amassing victory points? Staying outside and winning the game is very easy to do with the right cards and management of attack rolls versus, energy rolls and healing. So don’t be suckered into attacking all the time.
One strategy that we often employ is when someone is low on health (maybe they just yielded Tokyo after getting beaten on) is to suck them right back in. If they hit the player in Tokyo you should yield Tokyo to prevent them from being able to heal further and to focus all the damage of other players on them until they die.
So then the counter to this strategy should be straight forward, when you exit Tokyo because your health is low make sure you don’t accidentally attack the player in Tokyo until your health is restored. This might mean passing on a 3rd roll if you have already rolled a bunch of hearts to prevent that random claw from pulling you back in.
King of Tokyo should be played for fun but admittedly it is fun to win too. In the game it is easy to forget the primary die roll is actually the heart. The number one way to lose the game is to be killed so never stay in Tokyo long and if you roll a heart when you are outside Tokyo it is almost always best to keep it (unless of course you are at full health). Making sure you are always maximizing your health will keep you in the running as your opponents knock themselves out by pushing their luck. It also allows you pounce when an opportunity presents itself.
Attacking opponents and buying super powers is definitely more fun than merely healing but healing is the key to winning in this game and winning is mighty fun too.
An issue I’ve seen from a number of players in King of Tokyo is a need to use all of their rolls, even if there are times where it could be detrimental to do so.
This will most often come up after two rolls where a player is relatively low on health, and are going after hearts and energy. They’ll have one or two extra dice (non-claws)that aren’t giving them anything, and they’ll re-roll them. Unfortunately, one of these non-claw dice becomes a claw, and suddenly they find themselves entering Tokyo when they weren’t wanting to.
Don’t fall into the trap of automatically using all three rolls, especially when you’re low on life. Often times, you’re better off getting nothing from a die as opposed to risking a claw roll.
This may only come up once or twice a game, but I’ve seen it end in the death of a character many times. Take a moment and think, is this re-roll worth risking my character’s life?
Don’t be afraid to spend the 2 energy to wipe those good cards. Preventing other players, especially those with more energon cubes, from purchasing powerful cards can keep you in the game for a win. Sometimes, spending the two is better than hoping for four more.
Hello fellow Monster. Are you tired of being alone?
No friends to cover your back or to make you smile when you are feeling depressed because you rolled 2 ones, 2 two’s and 2 threes on your final re-roll? Well, enough of that..Time to team up!
This is a coöp mode I invented and I hope you’ll enjoy.
First of all make 2 teams, then locate yourself so your between 2 enemy players.
The first team who has 50 VP wins the game. Another option to win is to knock out all of the opposing monsters. This game mode is only for 3 vs 3 purposes.
Rules: (cards)
– remove “It Has A Child” and “Evacuation Orders”
– When a card says “add x VP and deal y damage to all other monsters” (ex. the “Gas Refinery” card), it will only deal damage to all opposing monsters.
– When a cards says “Deal x damage to all monsters”, like in the rule above, it only applies to enemy monsters.
– When a card says “add x VP and take y damage” (ex. the “Tanks” card), you may choose to take the damage, or let one of teammates take the hit.
Other rules:
– When a monsters VP-indicator hits 20, he gains 3 energy and regenerates 2 health, even if he/she is in Tokyo.
– When a monsters has 20 VP and earns VP, he must increase a teammates monsters amount of VP.
– A monster can buy cards for himself OR for a teammates monster.
– When a monster is inside of Tokyo and throws one or more punches, he doesn’t attack his allies.
– When a monster dies, he is out of play, but the VP he/she has still counts toward the teams total.
– When an allied monster is inside Tokyo, and you roll a punch, you have 2 options:
# Ignore the punch (your ally doesn’t get hit)
# Hit your ally but takes over his place in Tokyo. This means he takes the amount of damage that you rolled and he moves his/her monster to Tokyo Bay. (your monster takes over Tokyo City) When it’s that players turn, he/she take his/her monster away from the board. This means that in the time the monster is in Tokyo Bay, he/she still can be hit by enemy monsters.
– When you roll one or more punches and there are 2 enemy monsters on the board, you may choose which monster you hit. (You can only choose one, so if you role 5 punches, you can only deal 5 damage to a single monster. It’s not possible to split the damage)
The fun thing about these rules is that every member of your team can focus on something. For example: 1 monster focuses on getting energy, another one is going to keep Tokyo for as long as possible why the third member is focusing on rolling some VP and Regenerating so he can switch places with the monster inside Tokyo.
Some tips: Cards like “Healing Ray” and “Psychic Probe” can now be used to help your allies. The fact that you can buy items for allies also is a nice thing because it can help out the one who’s defending Tokyo. One last tip: If your ally is in Tokyo, don’t wait for to long to take over his place, because he needs to survive minimum one more dice roll from an enemy before he totally “retreats” from the game-board.
That’s it, no more reading for you. Now go mighty Monster, team-up and conquer Tokyo together!
When you’re out off Tokyo: do 1 or 2 damage every turn so they keep getting damaged and focus on getting Energy.
When you are in Tokyo: go for Punches and Energy as a main goal.
When you damage the player in Tokyo and he retreats, you will earn a VP. From the moment you get hit ones, retreat. (this is very important)
If you keep doing this, your opponents will be on low health and they will “waste” dice on regenerating. Also when all opponents are low hp and you are in Tokyo, you don’t need to retreat because nobody wants to risk it to take over your place in Tokyo and get killed by the other players -> this means you will get 2VP’s on your next turn.
Your hp isn’t going to be low because you instant retreated every time, so you will only receive damage from one player.
Final things to say:
– Only choose to keep 2’s and 3’s if you roll 2,3 or more of them the first time you roll.
– Never keep 1’s except when that will result in winning the game
– The most important thing is Energy, except when you are standing in Tokyo, then Punches are equally important.
– Cards are strong, spend ENERGY wisely
– Sometimes you need to improvise a bit, so think wisely before Re-Rolling.
– Don’t forget that you can pay 2 energy to flush away the three cards that are on sale:
Only do this when there is a card that can be a big threat or
when you have enough energy and just need 1 or 2 more VP’s to win.
There are plenty of cards that give you this amount of VP so
it’s worth taking the risk.
I believe in this way of playing. I won 5 times in a row by applying these simple guidelines and I hope it will help you too.
Have fun!
PS: check out the tip:
“Re-Rolling and Praying!…Or Just Be Smart”
My gaming group plays this game a lot and occasionally my friends and I get a little bored so we thought we would change things up slightly. So we invented this house rule…
All monsters start with a base power (i.e. one KEEP card). First we go through the deck and separate out all the 2 (or sometimes 3) cost KEEP cards. We shuffle the cards together and each player draws one card. After all players have one KEEP card, we shuffle the remaining back into the deck and start the game.
This adds some interesting elements to the game, and often adds more depth to the game overall.
Important Note – The upcoming expansion to this game involves a very similar system in its rule set.
I’m going to explain this tip with an example.
You roll:
3 , 3 , Energy , Punch, Energy , Health
a standard thing to do is to keep the 3’s (VP are always good)
and you want to keep the energy too. (energy wins games, seriously)
Re-Roll 1:
[3 , 3 , Energy] ; re-roll gives you: Energy , Energy , Punch
Now, like I said before Energy is always a good thing. It can damage opponents with cards, it can heal you with cards, it can “flush away’ threats,…
So I would keep the 2 extra Energy resulting in the fact that there’s a Punch left. Some people would just Re-Roll that Punch and hope for a 3..
this isn’t a good choice. Only do this when it’s your final chance of winning. Instead, keep the Punch(which is good because it’s not a dice lost) and Re-Roll the 3’s. The chance you have a Hearth, a Punch or an Energy is higher then your chance of rolling a third 3.
Rolling a third 3: 1/6 chance -> 16.67%
Re-Rolling the 3’s:
– Rolling a Punch, Energy or Heart: 3/6 chance -> 50%
– Rolling 2 of the above things: (3/6)² chance -> 25%
This means that you have more chance, throwing 2 useful dice then the chance of throwing a third 3.
If you are in Tokyo, this is different because you can’t heal, but still I would Re-roll the 3’s.
Short said: don’t always go for the obvious roll, think what has the most chance of giving something useful.
I get into Tokyo as quickly as possible, and start rolling for punches. If I can get the health down far enough of the other player, they will let me stay in Tokyo for a few rotations. This racks up the victory points. To keep from getting too low on health, I also keep all Energy cubes and try to buy HEALING cards.
I will only drop out of Tokyo if the player attacking me is low on health (4 or lower) or my health is less that 6. I also will avoid attacking people who didn’t attack me (tit-for-tat) whenever given the choice.
For me, this strategy causes me to either win it all or lose first in groups of 4-6. Strategy changes a little as the total players drop under 3 if I am low on health.
I have introduced this game to a lot of new people and commonly their first comment before I explain the rules is “Oh we get to destroy a Tokyo!” Actually, no. The art on the box shows monsters destroying Tokyo, the art on the cards shows monsters destroying Tokyo, and the game board shows Tokyo being destroyed, but really this is a game of ‘king of hill’. You are only attacking the other monsters.
So I decided to add a little extra to the game. I found some buildings from Monopoly City and added them to the game board. They are just the right scale and include different sized and shaped sky scrapers, houses, warehouses, and power plants. Now if somebody stays in the city for an entire round they not only get two glory points but they also get to knock over the building of their choice with their monster. It is actually quite gratifying.
I have found that when playing 2-3 player games, it’s not so enjoyable because it’s more of a damage fest (Roll for claws) and healing. There isn’t much time to try rolling for energy or VP’s in these cases, as there are more limited people playing and it seems that in those cases cards are ignored.
What I have done, is the following:
(AGAIN, NOTE: THIS IS FOR 2-3 PLAYERS ONLY)
1) Start everyone at 12 health. Allow to heal to 14 (we used glass counters/beads to represent the extra 2). This adds at least another turn to the game, giving more time to even THINK about doing something other than damage or heal.
2) reduce card costs by 2 energy cubes each, to make purchase of cards more viable.
I’ve seen that with my groups, this has improved the overall experience. In 5-6 player games, there are more opportunities for various strategies, but in smaller games it seems to not be the case so much. These adjustments have allowed for more viable card use, and have helped to keep the game interesting for our plays. Hopefully anyone else who has the same impression of the game as I do with 2-3 players, can find improvement with this as well!