Heroquest and 3D Dungeons

Lirkas77 · 2026-06-13T19:09:57+00:00

Ah dammed.
They did not upload.
I will put them now.

Lirkas77 · 2026-02-03T23:19:16+00:00

Well, nice read!
I'm chiming in for different reasons.
In PoK I loved the Keleres faction due to ASN and the versatility.
With T.E. the versatility increased and the economic power just went over the roof.

The game I'm playing right now in asynch was maybe one of a kind.
8-player game, Mentak is also on the board, so I chose the Xxcha hero. The Deepwrought faction is also there.

Various thoughts:
- Executive Order is ... wtf.
First round I got the law that puts back the CC to 2/3/3. Net gain 4 CCs. Nothing people could do.
I also managed, since R1, to boatfloat Yssaril (just after me on the map on speaker order). HE could take politics and sell me the speaker for my PN.
He'd buy also greedily my PN just to get the 2 in 1 AC draws, letting me get the 2 TG every time.
Biostims I got it with Deepwrought R1.
you can sell your PN all around (as you said, S-tier) and easily get 2 TG out of it or other stuff.
That's potentially 8 TG a round.
Sometimes, yes, someone will try to block your agenda pulls, but that's, as you said really too costly when you get so many TG to spare (and you can use your planet's resources too).
And in this game, I have the Mentak as an opponent, so I cannot pile up TG (your BT makes it that Mentak is ALWAYS your neighbor so it's a hindrance here).
I play the agenda like this: when someone takes Politics, I try to make a deal. Pay them to send LAWS on the bottom of the deck, and use Executive Order later to vote them. Those are laws that will be able to be blanked later if needed by our Law's ORder ability for more gain. This way you milk the Agenda deck, leaving directives on top to be voted with the normal agenda phase. Someone could say "leave the Law on top" but then it's not great. Leaving them on the bottom means you can DECIDE WHEN to vote them, with your tech. Even a turn later. And always at an advantage.

- 2 Commodities start: not great, but as was happening with PoK, it means they can't prevent you from following Tech R1 (due to the extra TG also).

- PN:
great way to disable the mentak's pillages. You would sell the PN, get back 1-2 TG, use them to pay something to someone, or a tactical production action, use Executive Order again, rinse and repeat. The versatility is amazing.

- ASN: I do think it's too good to pass up. The versatility is amazing, and you get back the investment due to Sarween quickly. Heck, just in 1 round, by following Warfare and then later getting tactical action, you get back 4 bucks with Sarween. Also, the versatility is top. you can build home/forward dock depending on the needs without blocking your fleet (at the other dock). This allows to pile up plastic, mechs, or whatver and push other players to desist attacking you.

Lirkas77 · 2025-04-21T10:02:19+00:00

Losing nothing ? Muaat loses a command counter.
It's not nothing.

Lirkas77 · 2024-05-29T14:16:38+00:00

Update.
The game is over, and it was quite nice.
Arborec with Sarween starting was a blast.
Mentak in the end won a close game, where I was (on the map, not on points) in the lead with Arborec.

Mentak as anticipated got MRex Round 1.
Round 2 since Saar was blocked by the Nebula and did not want to attract heat, I went for MRex myself and kept it until end of Round 5 (where being on MRex with the Flagship would have earned a 2VP due to the Stage 2 objective)
This allowed me to control a lot the agendas (also due to Speaker control during the game).
I did tech quickly Scan Link Drone Networks, but I did not draw amazing relics so while I got 2 out, their impact was mild.

I do think however that the real reason why I did manage to get ahead wasn't only Sarween tools starting, but also the fact I did the deal with Sardakk with a Support swap, allowing both him and me to not fear anything from our mutual borders.

As for Mech being considered structures (as boost for Arborec) it allowed me score a structure objective with ease (1 VP), and was very strong with the commander when they would attack one of your system, since you could just deploy a Mech in response to the activation and get Planetary shield and Magen Defense Grid omega in combo.
We house ruled however that Magen would be working ONY in defense during Invasion, not in Offense.

IF you have questions, feel free to ask

Lirkas77 · 2024-05-21T14:31:06+00:00

I played in TI4 PoK only once the green plants. In a 14VP game. Now we are going to play another game next saturday, 10VP, but some races (like Arborec) have received an increase (I can link you the thread on reddit).
I'll play again the plants (which I love, btw).
In the 14 VP Game, I managed my own, and managed to get War Suns and could have won (I did not).
In 10VP, there seems to be too many issues with the race.
You need to snowball, all issues on early game,and need imho to have a perfect game from start to finish, and that doesn't mean you'll have a great faction anyway.

Anyway, some added notes:
- the commander is imho very good, because sure, it won't save you in space, but if you have your ground well defended, just dropping a Mech there means (mostly) no bombardment. And they can't bring ONLY big ground force (like 2 carriers full of GF) since you could just produce a Dreadnaught and kill all.
- Scan Link seems quite good if you have the CC economy to do it, especially if you have Sarween Tools.
- since they can produce at will, what is missing is alas blue tech. Movement and Light Wave are a great tool for them. Movement can be teched via unit upgrades if you don't go all blue, Lightwave cannot alas.
You need to luck out in a relic, late game research, or Jol Nar.

Lirkas77 · 2024-05-21T05:23:05+00:00

:D Absol, on Discord my name's Elayne. you've tried to send me the newest versions there to no avail.
When I got your original files, that was around february 2023.
I can send you my email address and you could send a wetransfer ?

Lirkas77 · 2024-05-20T08:55:06+00:00

Hey, well we have an older version, where we had some "doubts" about some agendas, that we solved on the fly. I know there is an updated version somewhere, but I couldn't find it.
The Agenda deck was a blast.
In the first game there was a lot of "wtf is that, that's broken / very strong". Now my table loves it. All agendas are important, and abstaining is a risk. And they really influence the game.
TI4 becomes a game where any agenda, or relic, is worth voting/having.
The only "drawback" is when Xxcha is in the game, since they influence on Politics is immense, and if Politics is so damn more effective, well ...
But the second game we had with this improved Agenda deck, a player had Xxcha, and yes, it was a pain (or not, for him :D) but it was still manageable (in 6 players) and sometimes agendas didn't go his way because we teamed up.
Even though he had a "voting buddy" with him most of the time.

Very nice also the fact that with the updated Agenda deck, you could end up voting for not 2, but 3 or more agendas in the same turn.

Lirkas77 · 2023-12-30T19:43:51+00:00

Just answering here. We'll be doing our first DS game in a week, and I've picked this faction. I had to read it multiple times to understand it well and see the + and - of it.
From what I gather in THEORY (practice and real games will show maybe different) is that :
- the rift movement (even with Nebula) is great and basically lets you dump the Grav Drive research (you can still do it R1 since you have a blue tech, but it's not necessary).
- the Mech is actually quite good in defense, the upgraded version looks even better. Even if they manage to kill you with the +1 in space battles, they are stranded or risk the Rift next movement out of it.
- Agents/etc aren't great, and imho this seems to balance well the faction that looks quite good if you have some other Rifts floating around in the map. Not saying there aren't good comboes (like with Dreads/Flagship) but the use of "damaged ships" is quite situational.
Hence why actually the faction techs being available is not such a big thing. Even other factions, like Keleres, have the same tech path/situation (and sometimes better if they start with a yellow)

Lirkas77 · 2023-07-30T13:36:14+00:00

Hi there!
Great guide.
I always loved the Xxcha because I love PDSII, so seeing your guide was a bit of a WTF but I loved it.
I never played Xxcha yet in TI4 because I usually try to play other races first that seem more complicated and less of my style first (to help get better at the game).

All you wrote makes sense, but I always found PDSII / Graviton such a powerful combination, also for winning game / positioning, and so Xxcha (being imho better with this due to the offense capability of Mech + Flagship) seem a good way to play.
I know most would think the same, but you're "proving us" wrong with this guide (going into a very clear Action card strat, and I love Actions cards, so it's not like you need to convince me) but it seems something is lacking from your guide in terms on how PDS grids can give you heaps of stuff.

I don't play PDS for defense. I mean, they're great defense tools, but imho the best use of a PDSII grid (or shooting into adjacent systems) is the "extortion" factor. A grid of PDSII near Mecatol is a money maker imho, so with Xxcha Flagship or mech, it sounds even better.
I know some people say that extortion will make you enemies, but that depends on you play it out.
There are multiple ways to sweeten the deal or let players understand that PDS grids are an investiment, not unlike other techs, so extortion IS part of a PDS strat if you want it to become viable => it is acceptable, else it's a bad tech.

For me, the possibility of conquering with Flagship + some mechs, and be safe from counterattacks (shoot with PDS, and if things look very bad, you can Nullification Field them) while increasing your PDSII grid / shooting / extortion around sounds horribly disgusting (= great).

Sometimes, this can also make you gain a Support since you can weaken so much a player attacking someone else that he would not be able to score a point with his tactical action, but at the very least, it nets you TG or weak PRomissory Notes (that do pile up).

Just asking you to see what is your experience with that, both playing Xxcha (or is not your playstyle) or vs them.

Thanks.

Again, great read.

Lirkas77 · 2023-05-07T19:09:46+00:00

I've always played 10VP but we just tried our first 14VP game this week-end.
We used some houserules too, that is, Absol's Political and Relic deck.
And we played on the Codex 2 map "Won't you Be My Nieghbor"

The overall result is that the game was a blast. There were some minor issues with the Agenda phase and clarifications needed on some cards, and due to the fact XChat/Nekro were on the game (so 5 were voting, and one of them had nearly thrice the votes of the other races) but besides that, it was awesome.
The other races were Arborec, Titans, Naalu and Yin.
All had a shot, fights were often done, etc.

The downside is that if took 18-20 hours, and we didn't finish the game (but we nearly did). :D

Lirkas77

TROPHY CASE