SantoriniPowerEuropa

Introduction

E&T is seen as weak by most. Her power is only a moveable dome, affecting both herself and her opponent. Yet, how to turn it into an advantage?

God Power

At the end of your turn, you may relocate Talus to an unoccupied space neighboring the worker that moved. All players treat Talus as a dome.

Category

Opponent blocking

Explanation

Once E&T places her token for the first time, she can no longer remove it, she can only move it.

Game Strategies

Early Game

An interesting variation of E&T (but much stronger) would be one where she could move to the token, i.e., having a Clio’s coin at each turn and moving it around the board. However, this doesn’t happen and Talus affects every player (just like Aeolus’ wind). But the fact that E&T is the one controlling Talus is what in fact gives her a power. Another variation was to move the dome before moving, which would also be interesting but I think more or less leveled in terms of ability with the original one.

E&T is especially strong in the early game. I would recommend starting with a worker in the center (C3) and the other in C2 (or equivalent). With E&T, you usually prefer to keep your workers close to each other. You can use a worker together with Talus to create a barrier of two squares. This might be very hard to defend. Consider the following example of an example of a matchup between E&T and Maenads: (https://boardgamearena.com/archive/replay/210812-1032/?table=194015221&player=38368730&comments=84688684;) After 2 turns, the situation is as follows:

Notice how the E&T creates a barrier in the D-column and now she has a serious threat impossible to defend: E&T will create a level 2 in E1 (impossible to block), she will move there, build in D1, move to D1 and build in E1. There is absolutely nothing Maenads can do. Talus and a worker in D2 and E2 respectively block any possible defense of the corner.

At the end, E&T wins after 5 turns, the least number of moves she can (using only her blocks). You can’t say that this isn’t impressive. Just in the second move, she had already made a winning attack impossible to stop.

Lesson to take home: E&T is strong playing with her workers together and creating corner attacks. As an opponent, you should try to prevent E&T from getting her workers close and using a corner comfortably.

Mid Game

If you think that the Talus is just a square you are taking away from your opponent, you are missing some neat strategies which E&T can use. Sometimes it might be useful to use the Talus to prevent your opponent from building in that square (this is nice against Ares).

For example, she can block her own winning threat: E&T is in a level 2 and builds an adjacent level 3 which only she can use, i.e., she creates a winning threat. But instead of really threatening to win, she places Talus on the level 3. Why? Creating that winning threat can mean nothing if the opponent can block it. By doing this, E&T is preventing the opponent from doming the tower and at any moment, she can remove the token, thus creating the threat. Consider the following example:

E&T didn’t want to let the opponent move up to A4, but timing wasn’t right to create a level 3 threat (the opponent could block it easily and move on with their game). So E&T blocked her own winning threat and waited until a good move was available to remove it.

The Talus can also be used to weaken a lot of powers, for example Bia, Maenads, Minotaur and Siren, by preventing them from using their ability.

Another thing worth mentioning is that E&T should not make the mistake of blocking an opponent’s level 3 threat by using Talus whenever she can build a dome. If the opponent does not move the threatening worker, E&T won’t be able to move Talus ever again!

Late Game

The late game is usually very good for E&T, if there are several level 2s, this usually benefits E&T as it is a lot easier to create winning threats for her than it is for the opponent. Moreover, she can start thinking about “sacrificing” Talus in order to trap one of the opponent’s workers (or all of them, even better).

Specific Matchups

Ares

In this matchup, the Talus token is especially good. First of all, it makes it a lot harder for Ares to get closer to your buildings (thus not allowing him to use the ability) and second of all, E&T might place Talus in her own blocks so that Ares cannot remove them.

Artemis

An interesting matchup which I would advise you to try. Although Artemis is very fast, Talus can be a problematic obstacle which E&T can take advantage of.

Bia

I would not recommend this matchup as it is very easy for E&T to avoid getting killed. Most times, E&T can play normally and place the token so that Bia can’t kill her in that turn.

Charybdis

This is one of the rare matchups involving two powers with tokens, and it's important to note that no token can be placed on top of another token. This means that Charybdis cannot place a whirlpool on top of Talus, and Talus cannot be placed on top of a whirlpool.

That said, Charybdis holds the upper hand in this matchup. However, if you are playing in a friendly environment, you might allow Europa & Talus to place their token on top of the whirlpools to make the match more challenging. Even in that case, Charybdis remains the stronger power.

Circe

E&T must be careful here as when she loses her power, Circe might use Talus to prevent her from connecting the workers and thus staying without power.

Dionysus

This is a balanced game but E&T should be prefered. She can also consider the possibility to use Talus to prevent her own workers from playing certain moves, when controlled by Dionysus. A similar analysis can be done with Eris, but in that matchup it is actually Eris who should be stronger (E&T should try to keep her workers separated and climb slowly to victory).

Eros

Although it might seem easy for E&T to keep Eros apart by making use of Talus, she will still have a very hard time and Eros will be the one dominating.

Hecate

E&T can use Talus just to try to find the location of Hecate, which is quite cool. She moved, she built so if the Hecate is indeed where she placed Talus, she doesn’t lose this progress.

Hydra

It is in fact surprising that Hydra will be the one defending in this matchup. E&T has a lot of initiative and even by spreading workers all over the board, it will be very hard for Hydra to defend.

Iris

This is a very interesting matchup because Talus is very effective. This is because E&T might use Talus to prevent Iris from jumping and when the possible jumper moves, she can move the Talus token. For example, if Iris creates a winning threat with both workers by using her ability, E&T can place Talus in the level 3 and remove it in the next turn since Iris will no longer be threatening that square (she has to move a worker).

Maenads

As seen in the first example, if Maenads is not careful to place her workers, she can lose in very few moves. The problem is that even if she doesn’t E&T can use Talus to prevent Maenads from using her condition. E&T is stronger in this matchup.

Minotaur

Even though E&T can sometimes use Talus to prevent Minotaur from pushing her, Minotaur is still stronger in this matchup. Still, E&T can still try to create some corner strategies (Minotaur is less effective playing in the corners).

Nyx

When there is an odd number of complete towers, the square with Talus is treated as a normal square. In particular, any worker may move to that square or build there (removing the token and returning it to the player). If the day (even number of towers) comes and there is a worker over Talus, that worker cannot move. However, E&T can still use her power. If she does, she frees the worker which was in the same square as Talus. If she doesn't, that worker will have to wait for the next night in order to be able to move.

Pan

This combination provides a balanced matchup. E&T can use Talus to prevent Pan from moving to a level 2. But she needs to be careful when doing this because if Pan doesn’t move that worker, she won’t be moving the token any time soon (only when creating a winning threat).

Siren

E&T is very strong in this match as she can most times prevent Siren from using her power on at least a worker. For example, if the wind is pointing towards North, E&T can place Talus one row above, e.g., E&T in B3 and Talus in B4, and Siren does not get to use her ability on the B3 worker. It will be very easy for E&T to play this game, and I doubt Siren will have any chances.

Conclusion

E&T is an interesting power because her dome is not completely a dome. That allows some other ideas a domer like Atlas or Selene couldn’t employ. She is very dangerous using the corners, and the opponents must carefully defend them. E&T is just a mortal with a portable token which also affects herself and that is why she is not much stronger.

Tier ranking: B