Swarmlings - Introductory Faction Strategy - Terra Mystica

[@mrfickles]

If you are interested in Network Swarms mentioned in the spice section, keep an eye on Barnawal's games. He's very good at it. 👀

[@clayboterra4776]

Great video. Great faction. Great time to be alive.

[@eastmeetswestpresents6923]

So what's the backup strategy if yellow is not in the game?

[@mrfickles]

Hey! The presence/absence of yellow is actually a bigger issue for mermaids than it is for Swarmlings. Swarmlings only need neighbor at one of their starting spots (due to free TP action from Stronghold) and are happy to start west in isolation with their second placement, if they need to. If yellow is not in, usually Swarms have a neighbor at G6 in the east (grey, black, or brown). Also, sometimes swarms get black on C1 in west or red faction on E3 west. Neither of those are particularly great for Swarms but they do provide neighbor west. Swarms can also survive neighborless at the start, if they absolutely have to, better than most factions at least (but def. something to be avoided almost always).

[@eastmeetswestpresents6923]

​​@@mrfickles hey thanks for the reply, that is helpful to consider. The game that led me to ask this query was a game in which there was me as Swarmlings and we were playing with Halflings, Witches and Chaos Magicians. And the guy who played Halflings spent nearly all his power in the first couple of rounds trying to get back at me after I attempted to block him getting to G5 and H7 (I say attempted because he ended up getting those hexes anyway with that great drain of power). So I may have been leeching off him but thanks to him, I was trapped so the leeching was only temporary and I could only attempt a sanctuary town there with H8 and I11. Witches and CMs did not affect me at all because they were concentrated in the east and so I didn't worry at all about them. It was because I was trapped in the east that I tried my best to work with what I had in the west but that didn't bode well. The Halflings player did beat me in points but out of four players, he came third and I was certain he could have scored more (coz this was in BGA and he had a high ELO) had he been a bit more flexible with his gameplay and try an alternate strategy and not waste his power trying to get to those two hexes I tried to pinch off him. EDIT: I just realised that it's my bad for me not being flexible with trying to go northeast as an alternative route if it appears to Halflings I'm going southwest and so they're spending that power to try and stop me.