Quarriors! - Tips & Strategies

The one rule of Quarriors that never caught on with me is ending the game when 4 creature cards in the Wilds are empty. While most of the rules of the game flow seamlessly with the theme, this one just doesn’t make sense to me… why would summoners quit battling when their summons are healthy, just because they’ve summoned most of what’s available?

I have completely ignored this rule since my 2nd or 3rd game. It helps streamline the game, because it’s one less thing I’ll have to be mindful of. And at the same time, it will almost never change the outcome; I’ve noticed only once or twice where 3 cards have gone empty, let alone 4.

I do understand that this rule adds a potentially neat strategy for players with “weak” dice bags… if you know your opponents have Questing Wizards and Quake Dragons, and you’re sitting on a bunch of Goblins and Ghostly Spirits but up by 4 points, it behooves you to end the game now before they overrun you, which they certainly will. The problem is that, even in a 4 player game, it’s highly unlikely that the supply of dice representing 4 creatures will ever be low enough to need just 2 or 3 more purchases to win.

My dice bags usually end up with between 9 and 11 dice in them… at most, 5 of them are creatures purchased from the Wilds, with a few portals, a spell and some Quiddity. Unless somebody in your game is trying to build a 20-die bag from the onset, there’s likely not going to be enough creatures gone to let you execute on a “trigger the end early while I’m up by a few points with my low level creatures” strategy.

Finally, the most frequent complaint I hear about Quarriors is that it ends just as you’re really excited about the dice in your bag. Eliminating this rule makes an early end less likely, and may give you a few extra turns with that built-up bag. The game isn’t going to take longer than a half-hour anyway… no need to rush things!

One thing that seems counter intuitive at first to some players is the idea of Culling dice, the act of removing dice from your bag forever. You may Cull 1 dice for every 1 creature you have scored with, but its sometimes hard to remember that you will want to Cull.

Why Cull? Simple – you are getting rid of the fat. Think of your bag as a human body. If you don’t Cull, its a lot like you’re sitting on the couch, watching TV and eating pizza. The bag will get fatter and fatter and it becomes much more difficult to draw the dice you want to actually draw (spells, creatures and so forth). If you Cull, however, its a lot like you training your body for an Olympic event – making it leaner and tougher. Good things to Cull would be the Quiddity dice you start with and the brown dice (forget their name at the moment), but also even Corrupted Quiddity when you have the chance.

Don’t forget about the spells in this game. Some can be saved until later when you can use them at an opportune time. This not only gives you extra options but also gets a dice out of your back, giving you more opportunities to roll the creatures that give you glory points so you can win.

Save the spells in your ready area until they will best help you.

As you acquire new, stronger dice to your collection, you should get rid of some of the weaker dice. This process is called “Culling” in the game rules.

Basically, you should cull as often as you can. Remember that culling happen after scoring creatures, and you can cull a creature that just scored. Remember also that assistants are creatures, so they allow you to cull after they score. The only rare exception when you should not cull is obvious: if you have no weak dice in your used area, don’t cull strong ones just to do it.

Don’t make a common mistake of culling basic quiddity dice every time you are to get rid of a die. You may well “quiddity screw” yourself, having no energy to summon rolled creatures.

It turns out to be a good strategy to cull alternately assistant dice and basic quiddity ones. Assistants’ ability to re-roll may look tempting, but it triggers rarely and thinning out your collection works better in most cases.

For longer 3-4 player games (especially if you set the glory points target higher than standard) you may even cull weaker creatures you acquired at the beginning of the game to make your stronger guys appear more frequently.

And the bottom line: don’t even think of culling portals. Every portal makes your collection effectively thinner by 1/3 dice, so culling it in fact counterproductive.

Buying the highest price dice you can afford is rarely the wrong strategy in Quarriors, however you do want to watch out for some exceptions. Any dice that allows you to draw extra dice from the bag or sends dice immediately to your Ready area should be targeted for early purchases. Hand extension is crucial for deck construction games and it is no different for this great dice construction game. The more dice you are rolling or have access to each turn the more times you will win. Relatedly, that is why the Portal is always a good purchase option as are some of the spells.

One of the problems we’ve run across with this game is that if one person is on a roll (pun intended 😉 ), then the game can be over rather quickly and you didn’t even get to use half your dice. We’ve tried a couple of different things to help with this.

Extending the Game: This one’s easy. Instead of winning when a certain number of points is reached, make it only when 4 (or more) of the decks are gone. This can give people a chance to catch up from behind, or finally get to roll that dragon dice.

Shopping Spree!: We house ruled that if you roll only Quiddity and no creatures, you get to buy two dice. A lot more fun, but not suggested for 4 players, the dice dissapear far too quickly.

An Extra Spell: We tried adding a 4th spell to the set up and really like that extra option. Mostly we just like playing with the dice 🙂

Portals are your Friends: As important as it is to have portals, it’s just as important, or moreso, to not let anyone else get too many of them. They are helpful to have a couple of, but if a player gets more than a couple, they can build dangerous chains, where each die is used multiple times, and players can get their whole bag out in some turns.

Remember: This is a fast game, and will be over soon. Don’t get too upset if it goes badly for you due to bad rolls. The next play will probably go better (Like Dominion, but moreso).

Player Area help: Design a mat for players to use as a game aid, or download one from BGG (such as: quarriors player mat)

When you are to capture a new die your decission is sometimes obvious: if you have only 2Q there’s only one critter to buy: the Scavenging Goblin; if you have 8-9Q you should most probably get a dragon if it is available.

In the mid-range you should take into account several factors like:

– How many players are there in the game? (For example Mighty Primordial Ooze works best in a 4-player game while Strong Witching Hag in a 2-player one).

– What creature and spell cards are selected for the current game? (Some of them form nice combos.)

– What dice have been taken so far by you and your opponents? (Look for synergies and counterstrategies.)

By the way there are two creatures that are always a good pick. There may be better picks in a given moment but those two are never bad:

* Ghostly Spirit. (It costs only 3Q and it allows you to cull regardless whether it scores or it’s going to be destroyed.)

* Mighty Defender of the Pale. (Rather expensive – 6Q – but he scores for 3, has a decent defense value and makes all opponents’ critters more expensive.)

Quarriors is a nice little game and I like the play of it a lot. My biggest issue was that it always seemed over before you could actually do anything. Granted, speedy play is nice, but when end conditions make it seem that you weren’t able to execute anything neat, then it needs to be reviewed. What my wife and I have done is that we have started always playing to 20 points, no matter how many players are in the game. A four players game should end at 12 points, but I’ve seen several tiimes players not scoring at all. It really seems like a more satisfying experience to play a little bit longer.

My wife and I play this game a lot. Our favorite way to play is with a slight variation on the advanced culling rule. When a creature lives to the beginning of your turn you can cull THAT creature for glory or you can cull a die from your used pool. (We also use the two purchase rule.)