Mage Knight Solo Conquest: Tips and Thoughts

I’ve been getting deeper and deeper into Mage Knight Solo Conquest for the last couple of weeks. So far, I have around 20 hours of gameplay under my belt, but I have still only scratched the surface of this majestic game. Only played Solo Conquest mode with three characters, there is a whole world ahead of me, especially once I start implementing some expansions.

As you can read in my first impression, I’ve had a rocky start comprehending the massive rules, but after playing and studying a bit more, I am slowly getting better at the game.

What Is The Best Way To Learn Mage Knight?

Preparations

You can progress simply by playing the game and referring to the rules, but to make my progress faster, I did some research online. It’s been fun researching (and by research, I mean reading articles and watching videos) about the game I like so much. I’ll list some better resources.

• Rules are your number one source of information about the game. Reading and re-reading is something you should do regularly, especially when getting to know the game. I’ve read them three times and referred to them during gameplay dozens of times.
• Mage Knight Official FAQ is further clarification on some harder-to-understand concepts and commonly misplayed rules. It’s a must-read (and print).
• This thread on BGG Forums contains a lot of useful information.
• Another way to learn (and to get a general feel of the game) is through play-throughs. Written (by Membury) or in form of videos (Ricky Royal has some great play-through on Solo Conquest, Lost Legion, Shades of Tezla, and others).

Parallel with learning about the game, I played the game myself, of course. Let’s see how I did.

Mage Knight Solo Conquest – Game Analysis

I’ve played five full Solo Conquest games so far. This may not sound like a lot, but a single game can last between 2 to 3 hours if you rush things a bit. If you take it slightly slower, you can have the game on the table for the better part of the day.

I’d argue this is the best way to play it. Have a spare table, set it up, and play when you have time. I’ve had my game with Tovak up for six hours, playing it on and off, taking it slowly, and doing a lot of other stuff in between (like cooking and taking care of the kids).

Game 1

For my first game, I picked Arythea. I talk about this game in my First Impressions article, so I won’t go into detail here. I failed to conquer any cities and didn’t even track score at the end. I took it more as a learning experience, not playing.

Game 2

I was a lot better prepared for my second game. I took Arythea out again (determined to get a win with her!) and it went better. I conquered one city but just came short at conquering the second. I was too weak, especially when it comes to units I commanded (I only had one), and did not have a realistic chance at conquering the second city.

I think I paid the price of burning down a monastery early on, which hampered my reputation and I couldn’t recruit any worthwhile units. I did fine with towers, keeps, and adventure sites though. Here are the stats:

• Arythea, Mission Failed
• 79 basic Fame
• 4 Spells, 6 Advanced Actions, 2 Artifacts, 4 Crystals, 2 Units (1 wounded)
• 2 Keeps, 1 Mage Tower, 1 Monastery, 3 Adventure Sites
• 2 Wounds
• 1 Conquered City
• Total Score: 120

Game 3

Looks like Arythea doesn’t like me much, but I refuse to take no for an answer. Using my experience from the previous two tries, this time we were successful. I didn’t play much differently, just made sure I recruited some good units.

But it wasn’t an easy win, I was just strong enough to conquer the second city. I guess it was that quality unit or two that made the difference compared to the previous game.

• Arythea, Mission Successful
• 87 basic Fame
• 2 Spells, 3 Advanced Actions, 1 Artifact, 0 Crystals, 3 Units
• 4 Keeps/Mage Towers/Monasteries, 1 Adventure Site
• 1 Wound
• 2 Conquered Cities, all Cities conquered
• +11 Fame for Dummy cards and no End of Round announced
• Total Score: 156

Game 4

So, I have mastered playing with Arythea (or so I thought), and I wanted to try another character. It was around this time I read Membury’s report and viewed a video play-through with Goldyx. I knew that he is not the most beginner-friendly character, but I decided to try him out anyway.

It didn’t go so well, unfortunately, starting right from the first turn – I didn’t even bother with a Mage tower next to the starting point, since it had a pretty nasty occupant. I went for the keep instead and took some heavy wounds there. And then forgot to recruit a unit.

Continuation followed a similar path. I did manage to conquer one city, but it was a real struggle that wore me out. I was so weak, that I didn’t have any chance of even challenging the garrison of the second city let alone capture it.

Goldyx felt like he relies on mana heavily and I just couldn’t produce the needed mana at the right time, so the whole game was an uphill battle. It probably didn’t help, that I was in a real-life hurry, and didn’t take sufficient time to think things through and adequately plan my moves.

Goldyx, 96 points, defeat. I was so disappointed, I didn’t even write down a mission summary.

Game 5

For my next game, I decided to do things differently. I’m not going to be in any rush. I’ll set-up the game and play a turn whenever I have time, regardless of how long does the game take. Meanwhile, I can take care of my other duties and can think about my future moves and plan them thoroughly, so I don’t make any silly mistakes like forgetting to recruit.

I took some risks at the very beginning – I ventured into a dungeon and I knew I would be in trouble if that enemy with paralyze comes up (20% chance) – in that case, I might as well quit. Luckily, it didn’t and I was in for a great start.

Later I came across one of the brutal dragons and there was no way around him. I had to take 5 wounds and should have been knocked out, but since this was my first knock-out, I forgot about this mechanic. I went for the rest of the next turn and discarded my wounds (and one action card). With a knock-out, I would have lost one more turn.

The cities themselves were a bit of a pushover at the end. I was very powerful, had Horn of Wrath and Savage Monks for Siege attack plus Tremor (I think that’s how it’s called) for reducing the armor of multiple enemies. I recruited Altem Mages in the first city and didn’t even need them in the end. Also, I had several action cards still available and had no wounds on units or in my deck.

I think I made a small mistake with Tovak’s Resistance Break skill, which reduces the Armor of one enemy, and I used it to reduce the Armor of all enemies in both cities. Even taking this into account, plus that turn I “cheated” at the dragon, I believe I would still conquer both cities with ease.

• Tovak, Mission Successful
• 130 basic Fame
• 1 Spell, 6 Advanced Actions, 2 Artifacts, 1 Crystal, 5 Units
• 2 Keeps, 1 Mage Tower, 2 Monasteries, 2 Adventure Sites
• 0 Wounds
• 2 Conquered Cities, all Cities conquered
• +12 Fame for Dummy cards and no End of Round announced
• Total Score: 216

Some more things I learned (and some I still have to)

• I still have some trouble understanding how red and blue resistances work. I know you have to double your attack points if they are resistant to it, but I don’t get the part where they ignore special actions of that color. It’s not very clear in the rules. What cards does it refer to? If an enemy is fire resistant, can I power my rage with red mana or not?

• I like the way the game is designed as a puzzle. And I don’t just mean a puzzle in a sense of how you’re going to get through your turn. I mean a puzzle about how you’re going to get through the whole map, collect enough fame, skills, actions, and units. And time it so, that you get to those cities just in time and strong enough to take them down. Hats off to the designer, this is superbly balanced and it shows they have done a lot of testing.

• There is an element of luck involved in the beginning. If you get lucky with your hand and map tiles to get an early tower/keep/dungeon etc, this will only compound later on and you’ll have an easy game. (my game with Tovak)

• Contrary – if your starting hand/map is not favorable, you’ll have a lot of difficulties coming back from that (my game with Goldyx), particularly if you lack experience.

• One thing I don’t like about the game is that the characters are not different enough. OK, they each have their skillset and some special actions, but you all build them in a similar direction. I understand that this is because of competitive scenarios – to give all players similar chances of winning, but for solo play, it’s not ideal. For that reason, I have decided to not take other player’s skills from the common skill area.

What will I play next?

Goldyx still owns me a win, so that is certainly on my bucket list. As is Norowas, a character I have yet to try. I heard he’s good at recruiting units and that’s about it.

I saw a video about a solo game against Volkare, so I’m pretty excited to try that too. But expansions will come later after I master the base game.

I’ll try to find some more information on how resistances work on the Internet, so I can scratch down another borderline scenario I have trouble with. Until I understand this fully, I won’t add any enemies from the expansion, as they are full of resistances.

The mentality is going to be like I had it in my game with Tovak: take things slowly, think through, there’s no rush. And most of all, enjoy and don’t worry if you get a rule wrong, just don’t cheat and make sure to look for the answer later.

Read my Review of Mage Knight Ultimate Edition here

If you made it through my ramblings, congratulations. I’d love to hear your thoughts about my progress. Leave them in the comments below. If you enjoy reading these reports/guides, I have a similar article about Scythe, a strategy game set in an alternate diesel-punk 1920s Eastern Europe.

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• Mage Knight vs Gloomhaven

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