General Strategy

[Ross Przybylski]

Here are some suggestions to help you get the most out of your heroes: 

•Protect your mage and kill the enemy mages.  By defeating a mage, you destroy a player’s ability to revive heroes, summon new creatures, and launch surprise attacks.

•Focus on killing one enemy unit at time rather than spreading your attacks against multiple foes.  This will increase your odds of eliminating an enemy unit, which means one less miniature that will be attacking you on your opponent’s turn.  Exception: If you don’t have the power to eliminate an enemy unit in the early game, attack at least three different enemy units (preferably from different players) to rack up Valor which will increase your power.

•Kill summons before attacking heroes with full Life.  Unless you are sure you have enough available attacks to eliminate an enemy hero, target enemy summons first.  It is more likely that you will kill a summoned creature rather than a hero with full Life, and doing so will reduce the enemies attack strength for their next turn.

•Unlock your valor abilities as quickly as possible.  A mage with all of their Valor abilities unlocked is exceptionally powerful.  You can gain up to 3 Valor per round attacking for making 3 attacks.  You'll gain even more Valor if you attack multiple opponents in the same round.

•Consider your enemies' distance and visibility when planning your move. Do not send your heroes into a position where your enemy could potentially focus their attack on a single hero and eliminate them on their next turn.

•When the strength of the enemy is overwhelming, retreat. There is no sense to fighting if your heroes are battered and the enemy outnumbers you.  Fall back to a safe location and wait for new spells to help recover your strength.

•If your enemy is weakened, seek them out and destroy them.  By letting your enemies escape, you give them the opportunity to recover their strength.
 
•Read and understand the special abilities of your heroes and your spells.  Consider the ways in which different abilities compliment one and other to form devastating combos.

•Be mindful of how many cards are left in your hand.  If you use up all your cards up too quickly, it will be harder to adapt to your opponent’s actions.   Always keep a few tricks up your sleeve.

•Practice diplomacy. Persuade other players to attack your enemies as you devise your plans for ultimate domination.

•Observe and respond rather than planning ahead. Unlike chess, where a player can plan strategies several moves ahead, the environment of Hero Mages changes rapidly.  A player who seemed doomed might suddenly emerge as the most powerful with the right spell.  The key to success in Hero Mages is to constantly adapt your strategy to whatever is thrown at you and always make the best of what you have on your turn. 

[Archie]

May I add  -

Never Give Up, Never Surrender! (Yes a movie quote but it's a good principle!) - I've lost my mage in the first round and gone on to win. This has happened not only in group fights but also one on one sessions against another person. With the element of chance this game is very fluid so fight on until your last life point ebbs away!

Move, FIRE, run - move your mage out of cover, fire off a spell or two, run them back behind cover! You have to be careful as your sprint distance is variable each time but it works a treat if you only have to run a square or two

Eye Spy - the fastest way to check what square you need to be on to target an enemy unit is to click on the Line of Sight icon (looks like an eye) and then click on the ENEMY UNIT in question. This immediately shows you which squares it can see - AND be seen from. Much faster than clicking around at random.

Run and launch - Move your mage (even sprint as well if you want) then summon a creature - which can itself move before it attacks! This means you can hit enemy creatures a really long way away...I might get the exact number wrong here but let me see...move 5 squares, sprint up to 4 is it? Then cast in the square adjacent and then that creature runs 5 and can now attack...so a hitting range of around 14 or so!

Try it out - it's nasty!

[diesbudt]

May I add  -

Never Give Up, Never Surrender! (Yes a movie quote but it's a good principle!) - I've lost my mage in the first round and gone on to win. This has happened not only in group fights but also one on one sessions against another person. With the element of chance this game is very fluid so fight on until your last life point ebbs away!

Move, FIRE, run - move your mage out of cover, fire off a spell or two, run them back behind cover! You have to be careful as your sprint distance is variable each time but it works a treat if you only have to run a square or two

Eye Spy - the fastest way to check what square you need to be on to target an enemy unit is to click on the Line of Sight icon (looks like an eye) and then click on the ENEMY UNIT in question. This immediately shows you which squares it can see - AND be seen from. Much faster than clicking around at random.

Run and launch - Move your mage (even sprint as well if you want) then summon a creature - which can itself move before it attacks! This means you can hit enemy creatures a really long way away...I might get the exact number wrong here but let me see...move 5 squares, sprint up to 4 is it? Then cast in the square adjacent and then that creature runs 5 and can now attack...so a hitting range of around 14 or so!

Try it out - it's nasty!

In Free for all, definately never give up, the other teams will take each other down to just guardians eventually too. To play the best with only guardians in a FFA, team up with another person whos weak and team up on the big guy. Sure, If I have my hero alive and you don't 99/100 I never lose, its too easy to stay outta reach. But with 4+ units coming at me you just never know.

And actually the summoned units major strength is, they can hit a enemy unit that is not in Line of sight from any other attack.

Anyone who plays me knows my first basic strategy mixes "run fire and cover" with Run and launch. Basically causing chaos in another players backfield with a summon (forcing him to spend time with that and not moving forward in the game) and returning my mage behind a wall with a sprint so he isn't in LoS.

[Ross Przybylski]

Best "end-game" character for FFA, imo, is the Psionist. My brother has won way too many games hiding her in the corner, letting everyone duke it out, then mind controlling and psy-blasting away to victory. Very few units can stop a Psionist in the end game. Best tactic against her is to have remaining players team up and charge her since she can only mind control one at a time.

[Rugman]

Very informative! Thanks