Tips paganfateofroanoke

The most important tip is to control the three villagers who place two assets: Doctor Annie, Preacher Wulfric, and Widow Atkins. Generating more Secrets/Clues than your opponent will give you more flexibility. If you control all three of these villagers, you will place twice as many assets as your opponent each turn.

Note that Visiting an occupied Villager will cost 2 actions (one to Ready, one to Visit) and you only have 2. Prioritize based on your opponent's actions. The most important Villager in the game is the one who can place two assets on the True Witch.

The Witch

The Witch has an advantage, especially for newer players. Its deck has a greater density of powerful cards, allowing multiple strategies and the ability to make mistakes for bluffs to fail.

When placing Secrets, focus on one or two Villagers at a time. Convert Secrets to Favors as quickly as possible. Getting the second Favor on a Villager allows you to use their ability twice, boosting your economy. A Favor can be created in a single turn with the help of a Villager that can give 2 asset tokens. If the Hunter is careless with his Action Pawns and Clues, they may be stuck with no options when the third Favor is added.

Four general strategies can be used when playing the Witch:

Rush: Put Secrets and Favors on the True Witch as fast as possible. If the Hunter fights for control over the matching two-Secret Villager, they will never have enough Clues to Eliminate the True Witch before you can Perform the ritual. If they don't, the Hunter needs to play precisely and carefully to stop you. This strategy is most effective if the True Witch can place assets on its own color (Nestling Mia, Stranger Sue, and Native Pamuy). Abandon this strategy if the Hunter controls the two-secret Villager. The Hunter may believe you were rushing two Favors to let you use the Villager's ability twice.

Shell Game: Get multiple Villagers to three Favors on the same turn, obscuring which one is the True Witch. The Brews Jar of Glibness, Surplus Elixir, and Blend of Nature are key for this strategy. First, get as many Villagers to two favors as possible while preparing these 3 brews. In one turn, Consume the Brews and visit three Villagers (including the True Witch) to add their third Favor in a single turn. The Hunter will not have enough resources to stop all of them, and they only have a 1 out of 3 chance of guessing the True Witch correctly.

Checkmate: Create a board state where the Hunter cannot discover the True Witch before the ritual is performed. The cards Flagon of Oblivion, Misdirection, and Hypnotism are key for this strategy. On the turn you place the third Favor on the True Witch, use the Flagon of Oblivion and/or Misdirection to strip the True Witch and their allies of Clues. Playing Hypnotism will waste the Hunter's action, removing their chance to control the True Witch on the next turn. If you can, use Brews to get to 4 Favors on the True Witch on this turn. The Hunter's only solution to a good Checkmate strategy is Bribe, but an extra Favor negates that.

Murder, He Wrote: Rush, Shell Game, and Checkmate can also be used to bluff, tricking the Hunter into killing the wrong Villager. If the Hunter Eliminates the wrong Villager, all Clues are wiped from the board, leaving you wide open to Perform the ritual. Plus, you may be able to make the Hunter lose by Eliminating three incorrect Villagers.

Keep note of the pace the Hunter is Exonerating suspects. Start taking actions to win by Performing the Ritual when the 4th suspect card is drawn, especially if you have no way of removing Evidence. Any longer and you risk running out of time, even if you set up a Checkmate, because the Hunter may draw the last suspect card before your winning turn.

While a successful bluff can win the game, a series of failed bluffs often leads to the Witch losing. Each Villager the Hunter exonerates brings them closer to success. Be very careful when bluffing a Shell Game play unless you think you can trick the Hunter into a third kill. Setting up multiple Villagers simultaneously for the ritual is expensive. If the Hunter doesn't take the bait, they know exactly who you aren't.

Save Pyrokinesis and Discredit for destroying the Hunter's Village Center Location and Operative Ally. Without these cards, the Hunter can't gain extra Clues and has far less room for error. Save Hypnotism for a Checkmate play. While the combo with Isolation looks tempting, Isolation is too expensive for the Witch and too easy for the Hunter to remove. Isolation only restricts visiting, not raiding or eliminating.

The Hunter

The Hunter has a disadvantage. The Hunter deck contains a few weak or dead cards. Your economy has a hard time keeping up with the Witch. A single mistake can cost the game, letting the Witch move fast or preventing you from taking action to stop the ritual.

Stall the Witch as much as possible. Buy time to gather Evidence and make deductions. If you can draw all suspects from the deck, you win. Every turn the Witch isn't preparing for the ritual is a turn you are gathering Evidence and Exonerating Villagers. Evidence comes naturally as the board fills with clues, so prioritize slowing the Witch down.

Rush for Evidence after drawing the fifth suspect card. Once you have five suspects, the Witch has little time to prepare the ritual before you've acquired 9 more Evidence. Save Ransack and Combine Information to surprise the Witch by stealing time they thought they had.

Don't leave the two-asset Villagers ready or it can lead to the Witch being able to perform the ritual before you can Eliminate or Exonerate anyone else. If you can deduce the faction the True Witch belongs to, you only need to control a single two-asset villager. Investigations, like the card Quarantine turn a two-asset Villager into a zero-asset Villager to the Witch, freeing you to focus on others. Eliminating a two-asset villager early can cripple the Witch, slowing the growth of their Brews and halving the number of Secrets a faction can receive in a turn. This technique can only be safely used early in the game, though Operative and Village Center can push that window further. Those cards, plus Bribe are your best cards. The first two generate Clues, protecting against the Witch's speedy economy. Play Bribe if you think the Witch is close to performing the ritual.

Investigation cards are your next most powerful tool. The Witch can only stop Investigation cards with Qualm.

Most Locations aren't very useful. Visiting a Location does not place Clues and does not control a Villager, giving advantage to the Witch. The ideal three Locations are Village Center, Message Board, and Headquarters. The others are all too slow and best fed to the Clerk Ally to generate Influence.

Raid a Villager

Raiding places no Clues and spends three of them. Unless you have Operative or Village Center on the table, repeated Raids give the Witch too much of an advantage in Secrets. Elimination of a Villager, especially if they have more than one Favor token on them, is usually more effective.

Do's and Don'ts

Do Raid a ready two-favor Villager. It will slow down the Witch.

Don't perform a Ready action, then Raid. That uses two of your three actions and four Clues. On the next turn, the Witch can create more Secrets than you removed.

Don't leave a Villager with 0 clues. This leaves you open to the Witch Performing the Ritual before you can Eliminate anyone. Recovering a Clue on one Villager is easy, but Misdirection can turn one Villager with 0 Clues into three.

Do Raid when you can win by drawing all 8 suspects. Even if you have to Ready beforehand, raiding is safer than Eliminating the wrong Villager. Count your Evidence and examine your hand to see if you can gain an extra turn or two to compensate for a bluff from the Witch.

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