Game Tips for Nightfall

5

Nathan {Power Gamer}

Aug 15th, 2011| Rule

59 of 59 gamers found this helpful

“Draft Variant”

Our group likes to place the common cards first, minus the ones added by the draft (so in a 4-player game, we place 4 commons first). This gives us a chance to look for potential chains/kickers, rather than drafting the first card based on what looks coolest. This varies slightly from the open commons variant in the rulebook, which says to place all the commons. We still let the players pick the last card to be placed in the common play area.

EDIT: Reading the new rules for Blood Country, it seems that this variant is now the standard method for setting up the game. Guess it must have been a good idea! 🙂

3

WhiteDragon {Social Gamer}

Aug 16th, 2011| Tip

59 of 59 gamers found this helpful

“Chaintastic”

Try to claim cards to mach chain, try to get for personal archive not “power” orders, but easy chainable or lockable. Kickers are good bonus, but dont try to activate them by any means. And dont forget to try and lock your chain, by not letting chain other players, like playing rare moon order. Locks really help you to win.

3

Sen-Foong Lim {Power Gamer}

Aug 13th, 2011| Strategy

60 of 61 gamers found this helpful

“Watch the Pretty Colours”

The most critical thing to do in Nightfall is identify what cards chain effectively from one to another (and hopefully can effect a kicker as well). So, take time during the initial draft to look at the cards in your hand, the cards that get passed to you, and pick accordingly. Then ensure that you look at the cards in the common stacks and plan your acquisitions wisely! Any cards that don’t fit into a tight colour scheme combo you can now use to “feed” things if necessary or discard to gain more Influence and, thus, more/better cards.

6

Magno {Power Gamer}

Mar 9th, 2012| Rule

59 of 60 gamers found this helpful

“Chain drafting”

A house rule for drafting (for 2 or 4 player games only).
A chain draft. Players each get a set of 10 draft cards. Each player places one card face down. When all players have selected, they turn face up. Now each player must place a draft card down that can be chained to another players’ 1st card.
For two player games, continue do do this 2 more drafts. Then players rotate hands to select their private archives.

For 3 and 5 players the chaining is done with a start hand of 8, chain one player at a time, the after 8 public archives are down, the next player calls out a primary color, all players hand over those cards and the player secretly selects from any of the cards in his hand.. Continue around the table until players have two private archives.

3

AEG-Todd {Power Gamer}

Nov 1st, 2011| Tip

59 of 61 gamers found this helpful

“Hold those Bad Smokes”

I’ve always found that new players will often drop Bad Smoke as soon as possible due to their fear of being hit with damage. Don’t fear it, at least in the early game! Most Wound cards are accelerants to your strategies. Take a few hits early on, then late in the game when the wound count is getting low and those final few are crucial, you can suddenly drop 4 or 8 points worth of wound absorption when your opponents have likely long forgotten about the starting minions.

5

zodball {Avid Gamer}

Jul 3rd, 2012| Rule

59 of 61 gamers found this helpful

“Build Your Team!”

Our group has played with these rules since “The Coldest War” but now with “Dark Rages” and the avatars its even better. So each player begins by choosing a faction and then choosing 3 minions from that faction. So each game will have a total of 12 minion stacks to purchase from. Even though you are allowed to purchase from any stack, with the avatars, you may want to stick to 2 factions. We then as a group select 6-8 action cards to round out our orders. A nice combination of direct damage, removal, healing and maybe a little influence providers. That way each player can kind of go their own direction. Now it gets weird. We each take our starting minion stack of SIX cards. An example would be my favorite, the Ghouls. 2 Enraged Wight, 2 Patrol Zombie and 2 JAREK. Now each player has exactly 12 influence to purchase from the available cards to round out their starting decks. And with 4 players we always play with 60 wounds. We find with 60 wounds the game lasts the perfect length and all players are able to really formulate a strategy. From this point on the game plays out with the normal rules.

2

David Gregg {Avid Gamer}

Nov 11th, 2011| Tip

59 of 62 gamers found this helpful

“Spread the Love”

In games with more then 2 players, having a powerful deck isn’t always going to be enough. So unless you can handle everyone ganging up on you, it’s best to inflict little bits of damage at a time, making sure you don’t make any enemies in the process. If politics break down and you become the table’s favorite target, well, lets just say it won’t be pretty.

6

Magno {Power Gamer}

Mar 9th, 2012| Rule

59 of 62 gamers found this helpful

“Extra card draw. ”

The player behind the active player draws a number of cards equal to the number of players –1 for every spot he is behind the active player when the active player draws cards. This is done to allow for more possibilities of chaining.
Example, 4 player game. Order of play is clockwise.
Active player draws cards, the player counter clockwise draws 3, the next player counter clockwise draws 2, the next player 1.

5

Aselus {Power Gamer}

May 4th, 2012| Rule

59 of 62 gamers found this helpful

“Double draft”

My favorite side rule in Nghtfall is double draft. You start the draft with a hand of six cards. The first two picks being the same as in the base game (pick one, pass the pile, pick one, pass the pile).

The last two picks on the other hand follow the same pattern as the last pick in the original draft (you get four cards, pick one to go in the center and one to discard, pass the last two cards. Get two cards, pick one to go in the center the other to discard.) We have found that this makes for an interesting dynamic in what is picked/put on the table and allows for more choice during the draft phase.

6

Magno {Power Gamer}

Mar 18th, 2012| Rule

59 of 64 gamers found this helpful

“Untold secrets; alternate private reserves ”

Another fun variant to try is having other player’s start off by drafting your first private reserve.
This will be a 3rd private reserve for the player and is the very first thing that is drafted.
The player “down chain” of you selects a private reserve for you before any other cards are drafted. Then proceed to completing the drafting phase.
This “secret” 3rd reserve can be accessed only by you and the player who drafted it for you.

Like am untold secret between the houses.

6

Magno {Power Gamer}

Apr 19th, 2012| Strategy

59 of 65 gamers found this helpful

“Furious Melee: a strategy dictator. ”

If someone is packing this card in their private archive, then be wary of the chaining combos that card can use from your personal archive, and from the common archives. If your strategy is to use minions and only one person has access to this card, the ease of this card chaining will ruin your chances of setting up multiple minions for an attack. It gets harder in multi-player games where the card is in the common area. If this card is being used a strategic choice is to draw upon the cards the deal damage directly to the player. Direct damage to players cards can be tricky in some match-ups as you’re lacking the deterance of minions in waiting in front of you, but when you’re having to deal with Furious Melee In the mix, I’ve experienced loosing my minions score they have a chance to attack and then getting nickel and dimes b their minions.

6

Magno {Power Gamer}

Mar 18th, 2012| Tip

59 of 66 gamers found this helpful

“Using Orders”

Most orders are affective during other player’s chains and so consider this during drafting and purchasing the cards during the game. Sometimes orders seem like a waste of time, but they can become huge if you catch the right time.
So consider not just the text on the order card, but when it is affective.
I.e., an order that prevents another order from taking place is useless to you when you start the chain, but naturally much better when you are following someone else chain.

6

Magno {Power Gamer}

Mar 19th, 2012| Rule

59 of 66 gamers found this helpful

“Add extra wounds for longer game, but keep these out of your discard pile.”

Some games can go by rather quickly for some folks taste. Despite that Nightfall cuts the deck building to the chase, for some opponents they want longer action.
Simple, increase the number of wound cards used.
But don’t allow these extra wounds to get into your deck.

If you add in 5 extra wounds per player, then make the first 5 wounds acquired go to a separate pile. Like a health meter before acquiring wounds.
These wounds are not in exile, never make it to your discard pile but still count toward your wound total at the end of the game.
Players can choose when wounds are placed into this separate (so they can take advantage of cards like Genesis One and Maya), but it maxes out at 5 (or the added number of wounds added for game length.)

6

Magno {Power Gamer}

Mar 19th, 2012| Strategy

59 of 68 gamers found this helpful

“Make the starter cards last awhile”

It’s attractive to get rid of the starter cards quickly to make room for your streamlined built deck.
One strategy is to hold onto a few starter cards by discarding them for influence to buy multiple cards early, then later in the game, you can use the single color starter cards to limit chain possibilities of your opponents, instead of finishing off a chain with a dual colored card.

5

Demombrn {Avid Gamer}

Aug 29th, 2016| Tip

“Help with chain learning curve”

I have had a hard time getting people interested in this game. Their biggest hurdle is understanding the chain.

If you endure such trouble tell people to remember a triangle starting at previous small moons pointing towards new card big moon. Makes it a bit easier to understand.

Nightfall - Tips & Strategies

Tips & Strategies (15)

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