Can someone explain 'here comes the flood' strategy?

[Derpy Muffin]

I understand the mechanic involved, think it's pretty cool.  But after one round with my 4 heroes I'm already down 17-0.  How can you possibly compete when Magga routinely scored 3-4 points every round?

[Derpy Muffin]

and after 2 rounds, down 29-0.  I have literally not seen an ally yet, but magga has apparently eaten 29 of them?

[Kgk4569]

No, Magga has eaten 29 CARDS. You don't know how many allies until the end.

 

The strategy is to mine the location decks as fast as possible to gather allies. You can use Augery to either bring them to the top, or drop everything else to the bottom (for Magga to eat). Use spyglass and Kohl to bring allies to the top.

 

There are 2 sources of allies, the ones in the Ally section of the location cards, and 1/3 of the ones in the "?" section. Figure out these numbers at the beginning of the scenario, then count allies as you get them, once the ones mentioned are gone MOVE. Let Magga eat the rest. If you are unsure because Magga ate some "?" cards, MOVE to a location that has verifiable allies.

[Derpy Muffin]

Well that makes a LOT more sense, thanks

[Kgk4569]

Yuppers!

[araciel]

Use all allies and blessings to cycle through decks as fast as possible, and of course use all your resources to get the allies that pop up.

[rewind]

And I can confirm that in case of a tie, u win.

[mindlar]

The basic strategy is to burn down individual locations as fast as possible. You'll want to start with the ones that have more allies and progress to the ones that have fewer allies.

 

If you have a blessing or an ally in your hand, use it to explore since you don't need to worry about the villain or closing locations.

 

Remember that Black Maga is going to random locations, which can include empty locations or closed locations.

[Borissimo]

To add to what the others said above:

 

Put your largest-hand, best-diplomacy heroes at the front of the turn order and have them piledrive the Village House. There are 3 guaranteed allies here, and probably 4. Then try the Dam and the Waterfront, which have at least 2 and probably 3 allies in them. (In any given location, you can get lucky and find 2-3 extra allies or unlucky and find 0 extra allies.)

 

If things go well, you'll get the allies you need by the time you're done piledriving those locations. If not, explore the remaining locations as fast as possible and hope to get the 1-2 more allies you need before Magga feasts upon them all.

 

Here's a long link to my recorded 6-player party beating the scenario on normal. You don't have to watch it all, but I'd suggest checking out the first couple of minutes where I explain how the decks are formed and how to count the number of allies you will need. I end up getting lucky in my win, but then again, you do need to get a little lucky in this scenario regardless. If Magga eats 4 cards in the Village House on the first two rounds, you'll probably lose unless the rest of the scenario goes really swimmingly for you.

 

Good luck!

[Brainwave]

Actually, I'd slightly alter that strategy. The village house is the most important location so definitely send characters there. But because you can acquire allies there automatically by recharging a card, I would send your worst charisma/diplo characters to that location. Then send your better charisma characters to the Dam/Waterfront whichever other locations have the most allies and actually require normal checks to acquire those allies.

[Borissimo]

Actually, I'd slightly alter that strategy. The village house is the most important location so definitely send characters there. But because you can acquire allies there automatically by recharging a card, I would send your worst charisma/diplo characters to that location. Then send your better charisma characters to the Dam/Waterfront whichever other locations have the most allies and actually require normal checks to acquire those allies.

 

Aha, we have a strategic difference of opinion here. I stand by my original advice. If you send someone who's bad at diplomacy, they'll need to recharge cards to pick up allies, which means they'll either explore less or have to give up their weapons. Seoni, by contrast, can auto-acquire a good chunk of allies and spend every single ally and blessing in her hand to get as much of the location explored as possible in a single turn.

 

The more turns you take to clear the Village House, the more opportuntities you give Black Magga to munch the Village House, and the greater the odds that you'll miss 1-2 allies from that location -- which has a snowballing effect in making the rest of that scenario just that much more difficult.

[Longshot11]

 

Actually, I'd slightly alter that strategy. The village house is the most important location so definitely send characters there. But because you can acquire allies there automatically by recharging a card, I would send your worst charisma/diplo characters to that location. Then send your better charisma characters to the Dam/Waterfront whichever other locations have the most allies and actually require normal checks to acquire those allies.

 

Aha, we have a strategic difference of opinion here. I stand by my original advice. If you send someone who's bad at diplomacy, they'll need to recharge cards to pick up allies, which means they'll either explore less or have to give up their weapons. Seoni, by contrast, can auto-acquire a good chunk of allies and spend every single ally and blessing in her hand to get as much of the location explored as possible in a single turn.

 

The more turns you take to clear the Village House, the more opportuntities you give Black Magga to munch the Village House, and the greater the odds that you'll miss 1-2 allies from that location -- which has a snowballing effect in making the rest of that scenario just that much more difficult.

 

It's great the game supports multiple strategies, but I'm with Brainwave on this one with sending the low-Charisma chars at the Village House - there's usually plenty on non-explore cards in any given char's hand to recharge.

 

That being said, because you never know where the Magga is gonna feed from at the start of turn, I tend to put chars with the highest blessing/ally count at the head of the turn order - which profile Seony also usually fits - in order to maximise the Village House explore before the Magga has had a chance to decimate it.

[ikarinokami]

the reason you send the high charisma person to the village is so that you don't have to recharge cards and you can maximize explorations.

[Kgk4569]

the reason you send the high charisma person to the village is so that you don't have to recharge cards and you can maximize explorations.

 

Yes, but what Longshot and Brainwave are doing with their strategy is allocating MULTIPLE  bad charisma characters to Village House, and wiping it out asap. While using the Good Charisma characters where they are more effective.

 

Keep in mind, a significant amount of most of characters' decks are not always devoted to maximizing exploration. So while in some situations, having a crossbow and a dagger and an armor in your hand is Good, in this scenario they are a liability. Here you can discard them for a useful purpose, allowing you to get an ally AND possibly get a card that allows you to explore better when you reset.

[Rhygar]

I'm with borissimo there with regard to the reason why I have seoni there instead of other sub par diplomacy specced character without meaning disrespect for other viable strategy of course. And she will be assigned the first to go in case random pick has magga feasting on village. With her handsize of 7 by then she's far likelier to draw more than average of 3 blessing /ally in first draw . Even considering sajan who has a higher distribution of blessing/ally than seoni, you will need an extra die ensure proper success rate in acquiring ally ( and this scales upward more the higher difficulty modifier you get for ally acquisition) and even with extra die it doesn't come close to seoni natural 1d12+6 at that point I believe ? Unless you for some reason spec sajan totally in charisma . That would be some charming if toothless monk indeed. Still at 7 hand there's no one better to tear through village location than seoni with a high probability at third round she will be the earliest character to go after the first of 2 vacant location thereby leading to possibly more ally acquisition there too.

 

Might have something to do the make up of the party , for eg, since I have Lini she will man the location with second best mix of ally.

 

Edit: on that bit of multiple characters staking it out at village, which I kinda left out, it's abit arguable whether it nets you a net gain so to speak. I say that because one extra body you have at village would mean missing out on one extra location exploration( average of 3 explorations for that spot in one round of turn by my estimate ) so what you actually gain by netting one or 2 more ally in village by virtue of extra body you might miss out on netting that number in that abandoned location. Not to mention the fact that on legendary, movement is a hassle and village happens to be like one extreme end of the chain. Also, I remember in location where normally there's 1 ally, in HCTF , I have seen 2 more extra allies. The opportunity cost of leaving an extra spot unmanned can be bigger than you imagine .

 

Regardless, I feel even if you fancy the gambit of placing more egg in one basket as opposed to a balanced portfolio ( forgive the financial parlance ) , seoni or lem has the be first to go in village just for the eventuality that magga likes villager food early, and of course , in seoni case there's a possibility her burst given her superior hand size ( and if u like me picked up the ability to banish father zantus for 3 more draw) could clean up village location top heavy with allies. If you want to place your eggs in one basket , make sure your front runner has the legs for it.

Edited June 4, 2016 by Rhygar

[Borissimo]

The problem with "sending multiple low-charisma people to take out the village house" is that Black Magga eats between everyone's turns. Even if you clear the village house on turn 2, Black Magga still had two chances to eat there. That's two too many, in my view, and I certainly don't want to give her any extra opportunities.

[Kgk4569]

The problem with "sending multiple low-charisma people to take out the village house" is that Black Magga eats between everyone's turns. Even if you clear the village house on turn 2, Black Magga still had two chances to eat there. That's two too many, in my view, and I certainly don't want to give her any extra opportunities.

True, but you are still assuming your high charisma char will have a sufficient number of cards that further exploration. You could put some high explore or deck manipulating characters there, figuring that IF you fail you at least have one less for Ol' fatty to eat.

[Brainwave]

So to explain my strat a bit further - one of the reasons I send low Cha characters to the village house is... What else are you doing with them? If you don't do it that way, you are basically writing off the turns of those characters are useless in terms of acquring allies to win the scenario.

 

Also while the village house is important, there are other locations with 2+ allies (not including random extra allies) at least in 6 character game. And this strat definitely varies depending on how many locations are available that have at least 2 allies listed for the location. In a low character game maybe the best strat is to send every soul to the village house, depending on what the other locations are. But in a game with other multi ally locs, I prefer to try and cover those with at least 1 guy each and also make use of all characters, including ones with low Cha/diplo, and this strat allows for that.

[hfm]

I happen to agree with sending the low CHR chars to the village house. It's their best chance to get allies in this scenario.  You don't want to be wasting blessings that could be used for explores helping those chars acquire allies. Waste your other cards instead.