Smash Up - Tips & Strategies

When I’m playing a game against zombies or robots, or really any faction, when my opponent starts going after a certain base, I put down a low level minion or two, and then just play somewhere else. Unless it’s the mall or the factory.

Force them to use up a lot of minions to take a base while you go after a different base. When the base scores a lot of them will clear off and you will have the advantage on one or both of the other bases. It’s true zombies will be able to play from discard, but it takes them a while to get rolling again and hopefully you have locked down the other base(s).

This can be frustrating to the opponent and a lot of times they stop playing on the base they were going after and try to go after you, but hopefully you can destroy, or move away their minions, but at least you have that head start on scoring.

Aliens excel at sending characters back to their owners’ hands. This may seem a little weak at first, as you spend event cards to do so as you slowly build up one alien at a time. But consider the following: Why not send your own guys back?

After a few scores in the game, you’ll probably have some points. Ideally you’ll be winning, but even 2/3 of the way is fine. Now’s the time to start playing your Alien Invaders. 1 VP every time. Then what? Abduct them back to your hand. Then play them again. Rinse and Repeat.

You may be slowing yourself down at first by removing your own guys from the board, but every turn you’ll be scoring yourself at least 1 VP (more if you can get extra minions plays from an abduction or from your partner faction). And then it won’t be long before you reach 15. 🙂

To help breakdown overpowered faction combos and allow for a unique strategy straight from the get go. Take a card from each faction and shuffle them together into a single deck. Have each player draw two cards, and then have everyone pass one of those cards to their right/left(however you want to play it). The two cards each player is left holding are their factions. This gives people the chance to mess with each other before the game even really starts, which is what SmashUp is all about anyways.

As an alternative to choosing faction in the rulebook, a house rule I sometime use is to gather 1 card of each faction and shuffle them together and deal them to each player until all factions are given. Depending on number of players, each player gets to decide which faction he wishes to play with and discard the excess faction cards. This way, players tend to argue less when choosing factions.

Best targets for the card Terra-forming:

Home World – Build up on the base by dropping tons of minions with power 2 or less, and then change it into Rhodes Plaza Mall. You should score a bit of points using this tip, more if you’re playing Robots, or Aliens/Wizards.

Anything – Let other players fight it out for a base, and when they’re close to scoring the base transform it into the Jungle Oasis. It will only give the leading player 2 points, and any others a big fat zero.

Ever since we got this game we have always decided the factions by taking on of each, shuffling them, and then dealing out two to each player. At first it was because we didn’t know anything about them, but now we find that it balances things out nicely. Also no hard feeling about no one getting their favourite team!

Even if someone gets lucky and gets a strong team, it such a short game that it’s not a big deal for us. Just brings us back again to see who gets what!

Simple House Rule:
We often play Smash Up as a two player game to 20 VPs instead of the the normal 15. It lengthens the game and adds a little more strategy to the end game. It lets the players set up a few more minions and think a little further out. A standard 2 player game is won in 5 bases or less. This extends it to approximately 7 bases.

Smash Up is all about getting more minions and power in each base than your opponents does. Robots are a great faction for this because 18 out of their 20 cards are minions. There are several robot minions that allow you to play additional minions, and the microbots, in particular, work to boost the power of other microbots. This can provide a great deal of power per base.

The downside of 18 minions is that there are only 2 action cards. This is where the wizards come in. The minions for the wizard faction aren’t very strong, but the wizards are all about card draws, extra actions, and playing extra minions. When combined, robots and wizards make an excellent team, with the wizard card draw and events allowing for the playing of the more powerful robot minions.

At the end of the game, you must of course sort the cards back into their respective decks. But with full art and occasionally similar frames, this can be kind of slow.

Gamer Bling has found that the quickest way is to do this is to turn the cards upside down (not face down, but upside down). This way you can sort by the distinct shapes of the decks’ icons. The icons are also placed against the card frames, which makes the differences between the decks very clear to see.

When reading about Smash-Up on other sites I see players who seem to think Dinosaurs, Cyber Apes, Bear Calvary, Robots, and zombies can be over powered when paired with another in that group. But you do not need one of these factions to win! For example, playing against robot-zombies? Don’t necessarily try to out muscle. Try aliens and pirates. The pirates can send a ton of robots to the discard and move tons of minions away, while the aliens will send tenacious z’s back to the hand, or swap out bases at the last second. Additionally, the first mates will stick around after a base scores, so you have a good shot of getting a head start on the next base before the hordes come. Robot-Zombies were whipped in a match up like this a few times, and against other factions like the secret agents.

What I’m trying to say, is yes, some combinations are easy to play with and hard to beat. But there are combinations that are really powerful against those powerful combinations. Keep playing against those challenging combinations and you will find your own pairings that will work. In the process you will find better strategies that will make your game more consistent.
If you are not picking randomly, then pick wisely!