It’s worth trying to place a star for the bottom row action that will earn you 3 coins. And get it done early! As Akiko was entering her second year of training, her brother, a prominent engineer, went missing during a mission to the mysterious Factory in Eastern Europa. This is definitely something to keep in mind while you play this faction. Being efficient with resources is a huge tell. Bursting with pride, the shogun gave Akiko a special trained monkey named Jiro. As for the Rusviets, there is a tactic we will cover in the Rusviet section called “the rushing reds” which has the Rusviets at the factory early in the game. So that will be our main priority when playing this faction. Thanks Patrick! Consider we have an opponent who only needs a single Combat Star to win the game. The annexation of Crimea, the war in eastern Ukraine, the military deployment in Syria, the tense military standoff with the West in the Baltic and Black Seas, and the interference in U.S. and European domestic politics have all enhanced Russia’s image as a major power with significant power projection capabilities, as well as Putin’s reputation as a bold and skilled leader. And that ultimately embodies this faction. It’s possible by most play mat and faction combos to use a bottom row action by move two. However, they have very little mobility. One key mechanic of township that can be overlooked: you can hop from any village to the factory to any other village you control. If you like strategy board games with a minimal element of luck, immerse yourself in Scythe and the alternate-history 1920s lands of Europa. Any time we’re in combat, we can steal one of our opponent’s Combat Cards at random. The base board is set up such that you can only really riverwalk towards the centre of … They are the key to a strong early game. Fortunately, the Riverwalk and Wayfare mech are  an easy way to accomplish that. A lone mech is an easy target for an attack. Putin’s popularity over the last 10-plus years has been pegged to military campaigns and patriotic hysteria. This strategy, in particular, states that one of the objectives for children education up to 2025 is ‘to raise children in patriotism, pride for their Motherland, readiness to defend the homeland’s interests, responsibility for the future of Russia through developing the children patriotic education programs including a military patriotic one’. It still currently ranks as one of the top strategy games on Board Game Geek. Lastly, Crimea has easy access to two encounters. It’s pretty embarrassing to have your only Combat Card stolen and used against you in that combat. Getting Encounters is great when it lines up with the rest of what you’re trying to accomplish, but bouncing about the board just to get them is a waste of turns and will generally leave a player further behind their more focused opponents. Starting right off with workers on a Village and Farm hex means we can start building our worker economy and get our first Enlist action completed fast. For example, if say Albion is coming up one resource short on completing a bottom row action (BRA), they will then have to wait two more turns to complete that BRA. Given the same resource counts and the same player mat, Crimea will always have that slight edge with Coercion. Just focusing on what else is going on in the game outside your next move will help you win.It’s worth talking a little about defense since this is going to be your best bet at keeping that carefully constructed plan intact despite your faction or player mat. Each player represents a faction of Europa, a fictional version of Europe that is trying to rebuild itself after World War I.The factions consist of leaders (and their Loyal Animal Companion), workers, and four giant mechs.. In longer games it can even be a bad strategy. The most obvious and one of the most effective uses of their faction ability is to spread workers out as quickly as possible. Because our starting zone has pretty much all the hexes we need within a single move action (provided we have Speed and/or Riverwalk Mechs out), it’s of a huge benefit for us to get all our workers out immediately and get them to a desired hex for maximum production turns. Your email address will not be published. Feel free to comment below with any thoughts or critiques or successes you have had with Crimea! Patriotic – Banned (but we’ll eventually put out a strategy anyway). It will get the popularity flowing, which is a huge factor in winning the game. We’ll jump into some strategies that you will need to use for any faction before diving into faction-specific strategies. Either your trade or produce bottom row actions will cost three and can be rushed. The four mech types are: Riverwalk and Speed are the typical mechs every base faction has, and they’re pretty self explanatory. Deploying a mech will open up one of it’s abilities to all deployed mechs and our Heroine / Falcon – Zehra and Kar. Now, this may not sound like a huge deal, but it makes a major impact, especially early game. You can start producing to get your engine running and utilize tunnels to get your workers to far-reaching areas of the map. However, if you have all of that resource they need to use the bottom row action on one space, that space should be heavily defended or moved. With the starting location of the Rusviets, they can easily have all of their workers and a mech built by turn 5, so this strategy will take shape very quickly. And maybe you’re wondering how that’s considered the best mech ability by a great deal of players. Because of this,  holding off on getting combat cards to end the game is a useful strategy since you can swing the point score significantly by pushing units off territories and ending the game on your flags. This game lends itself to being enveloped in your own moves and planning out the next 5. Well, Wayfare is our way of steering clear of that opponent attacking us while we work on our victory conditions. These won. I’ve made this guide with the help of this analytic data on Scythe from hundreds of games. This isn’t the best resort, but it is extremely effective. The central part of this faction is the ability to move across water immediately. Many remain operational, having been re-purposed for peaceful farming and transport uses. There are a few major advantages over the trade action: the cards can’t be stolen, can become any resource, and can serve as combat cards if needed.Combat cards essentially become the key resource of the game for Crimea. Scythe has been one of the biggest hits of the board game world for a few years now, since originally releasing in 2016 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. I wanted to do a text discussion of discussing which is better, Rusveit Industrial or Patriotic Crimea. This is the other expansion faction and is equally hard to master. Enlist! For starters, the ability can be used as a deterrent for combat. But with those exceptions, once we start our Produce action for workers, we aren’t stopping until we have all 8. After we have increased mobility, we will be a serious combat threat to our opponents and that should definitely be used to our advantage. Required fields are marked *. So, lose away! Sounds really simple right? Today I am going to be writing up a game of Scythe I played recently as the Saxony Empire. Hello everyone, welcome. It makes it very easy to not realize what your opponents are planning and how they intend to use their next 5 moves. Let's discuss the strategy, pros and cons, and I'll let you know my conclusion. Scythe is a 2016 board game published by Stonemaier Games, designed by Jamey Stegmaier and with art by Jakub Rozalski. Two Combat Cards is like an Enlistment bonus. With Wayfare, the name of the game is occupying more territory. Timing your upgrades and mechs being built can help keep your efficiency high. Thank you for what you’ve done so far! The rulebook includes and introduces an artificial opponent called Automa to Scythe, so that it can be played solitaire. The general strategy with this faction will be to get our engine going and increase mobility through the rally mech ability. Scythe Strategy is very straight for almost every faction & it involves a few key steps which players follow to finish it from beginning to end. Crimea won’t have that problem, and thus excels their game play rounds faster than most of their opponents. Leftover from war-time, large Mechs litter the countryside. Based on their ability, it appears that Saxony is a war-monger faction. And that’s not even considering opponents who only have a single Combat Card. Albion has an interesting new flag placement mechanic and mech abilities. If your opponent is aggressive and wants a specific space, sometimes the best strategy is to just put as much distance between their units and yours as possible. All without sacrificing any popularity. But sometimes, and in most other factions, it isn’t wise to get all 8 workers out in the early game. Outside of combat, there are some great strategies that this faction can leverage. Crimea Strategy. The Rusviets push their people hard, day after day, to achieve their ultimate goal. Here are some useful tips and tricks that you can explore as you get more comfortable playing Scythe and each faction: There are 5 base factions and 2 expansion factions in Scythe: Factions are at the core of what will determine your strategy in the game. The biggest trick with the Nordic Kingdoms is to utilise that swim ability for the workers. Because of this, the best combative Saxony game is a short one. And as for the more combative strategy’s, there are plenty. I forgot to take pictures before the game started but this one is close enough. It’s a huge point swing and your opponents usually won’t see it coming. So, within a single move action, a mech with workers can get from the Farm or Mountain hexes to any other type. Get an overview of the game, understand the goals and gameplay in just a few a couple of minutes. Although I’ve titled this as workers, they actually represent popularity. The game is pretty well balanced but some factions tend to be easier to play while others can be extremely powerful if you learn to use their ability efficiently. If you need some additional Scythe tips, check out our Quick Tips strategy posting! It can be a successful strategy and your opponents won’t see it coming. The starting position for this faction doesn’t have many resources, so most good strategies for will focus around mobility. To spoil it now, Crimea can use Combat Cards as resources. (Start of Scythe strategy blog Here) For my first of these case study posts, I looked and an 8-Worker strategy for Agricultural Polonia.I thought that for the second case study, it might be useful to look at how a similar strategy might look for the same Player Mat, but for a different Faction. For example: On the Patriotic Mat you may do a Trade top row action, and then pay to do a Build bottom row action, whilst on the Mechanical Mat, Upgrade is the bottom action. * Automa Helper now shows new 'Factory' Faction option for placing encounters and controlling special units. Stealing Combat Cards AND getting a Combat Card for any losses is fantastic. Set up the end game so that you can win by placing 2 stars at once. Looking to take your game to the next level? It involves 4 key steps which help you build your engine that will eventually finish the game: If you accomplish those steps you will build a good engine and you’ll have a good starting position to win the game. The former strategy seemed to yield better payoffs, as the three qualifying heats winnowed the field to semifinalists and yielded a few notable statistics: The overall average bid was 1.67; the average bid for winning players was higher, at 2.82. We need to line up top and bottom row actions as often as possible. So even stealing a value 2 Combat Card has some great benefits. Scythe is a board game that’s designed to be played many times. Stegmeier (the designer of the game) was very clear: if you can prove it's possible to consistenly end the game in 14-16 turns he will ban a combination for tournament play. Progress is slow due to the holidays though. You don’t just want to dive into any fight though, pick your battles carefully. At the same time, we need to think about mobility to move off of our section of the map. If you focus too much on combat, you will lose time and popularity while your opponents build engines for the late game. This ability also applies to a Factory card if you have one (see Factory section). Lets talk about Crimea’s faction ability, because this is a huge part of how they can start the game so strong. As you can see, this heavily depends on the situation. Attack next turn with an added combat card. One of the most underutilized, and perhaps most misunderstood mechs in the game is the Wayfare Mech. Following is the overview of new faction’s specific play styles, in a similar fashion as my Scythe base game factions overview. It can be a huge advantage to have some of the other mech abilities while your opponents are trying to leave their starting island. Y'all know who I am. Additionally, with a Riverwalk Mech, Crimea has immediate access to all five primary hex types. Why wouldn’t we? Really Useful Guide. There is no limit to the number of stars you can place from completing objectives and winning combat. This is the first expansion faction on this list and these expansion factions are notably harder to play than the base factions. As such, a lot of the time, Crimea’s neighbors are also Enlisting. Your opponents are less likely to attack you since a loss would give you a star and shorten the game. It’s also one of the most straight forward to play and strategize with which makes it the go-to choice for any new players to the group. However, you will sacrifice a few turns of bottom actions to set this up. Scythe has you covered. The one located on the Mountain in the starting zone, and the one on the Village just outside of their base. It’s worth trying a 0 popularity rush game where you just bash your enemies into submission. This ability can lead to some very interesting tactics that are hard to counter by the other factions. A simple guide on play mats would be easy for me to put together, so I’ll add it to the list of planned articles. That is something that will need to be addressed while you play. Currently, Rusveit Industrial is banned online. Combining popularity loss and a combat loss plus a combat star is usually too much of a negative for someone to decide to take a tile. It’s one of the easiest Stars to get. Early in the game you can use this to get a quick upgrade or mech deployment. One major negative of the faction is that they do not start off with any power. Not only do we steal a card at the beginning of combat, but when we lose (and spend 1 Power or 1 Combat Card) we can claim an additional card. So, let’s look at our unique mechs and see what kind of fun can be had with their abilities. Look no further! Additionally, Enlisting also has the added benefit of gaining Power, Popularity, Combat Cards, and Coin based on our neighbors. The tension between Russia and Crimea has a corresponding conflict in cyber space. Often this is territory that’s really difficult to get to for our opponents. This ability is so crucial late in the game, especially when we’re neck and neck with an opponent in score. If a retail customer opens an expansion box to discover 2 new power dials, they might wonder if they should have gotten 5 in the original game. I’d strongly advise against this. Here’s how the moves would play out if someone tries to attack you: Your opponents will lose some tempo and likely give you a combat star in the process .Additionally, this is the only faction that can strategically skip the riverwalk mech and move on to other mechs. Secondly, you’ll be making progress so quickly that you risk using up a bottom row action like building mechs which will lose some efficiency. Being aggressive early on can lead to some great star placement leads without any real negatives. Although it may seem like it, this isn’t the best way to deter enemies because there is one major drawback: combat stars. We typically won’t Build and only use Upgrades as needed. Because of that, it’s easy to control the combat in the game. Stealing Combat Cards from opponents to turn around and use them in combat or for resources? The Nords can be bullied early in the game and we could potentially steal all of their cards in the first attack. Enlisting is widely considered the strongest BRA in the game due to the benefits of the recruitment bonuses. The faction has a hard time building up mobility but can be quite fast once a few workers are built and flags are placed. If you watch what your opponents are doing closely, you can easily throw their plans off and turn the tables in a tough game. ONE YEAR AGO: I just played my third game of Scythe. I really like this strategy. Additionally, whether attacking or defending, losing a combat is like an early Christmas. This gives an already rush oriented faction a good chance at an early game economy boost. There are two factions (Albion and Togawa) that are included in an expansion for the game called Invaders from Afar. It has gained attention both for its satisfying engine-building gameplay and its striking visual style, with a world blending mechs and European peasants brought to life by Polish painter Jacob Rozalski. This is easily countered with enlistment bonuses and you should definitely keep that in mind. This is a huge advantage. Often an opponent will happily attack a mech for a combat star but won’t be willing to take a popularity hit for the workers on the tile. The encounters can give you some great opportunities to change tactics mid-game and blindside your opponents. Out of 49 combinations, 2 are considered banned for now. Its rich collection of mechanics and forking paths to victory make it something to be picked away at - to be gradually scaped until you’re happier with what your strategy produced than the last time.