Rusviet Mechanical Strategy

Hear ye, hear ye, the Rusviet Mechanical strategy is here! I was able to get my games with it down to 14 Rounds consistently. As such, I figured I’d post a play through.

Now, 14 Rounds isn’t a guarantee. With some players that know the combination, I’ve had games go 15 to 18 Rounds if they did well derailing me. Additionally, getting poor Encounters can make it take longer. But overall, Rusviet Mechanical still averages less than 16 Rounds. So, enough of my chatter, let’s get into the meat of it.

Mechanical Mat.

The Mechanical Player Mat starts a player off with 3 Popularity and 6 Coin with a turn priority of 4. It’s strongest column is Produce / Enlist, because having Enlist below Produce sets a player up to get their Enlist Star off of a standard game action. As a bonus, the player also gains 2 Coin per action, and Enlist can be discounted down to only 2 Food with two upgrades.

Along with that, Bolster / Deploy is the next strongest column. The benefit is the player gets good Power gains from getting mechs on the board, which synergize well together for combat situations. Also, both the top row action and bottom row action are working toward Stars; and the coin gain is decent as well.

Rusviet Mechanical Star Strategy.

I don’t recommend starting a game without considering what Stars you want to achieve. For those unfamiliar, Stars are Victory Points, and the first player to Six Stars ends the game. So, they’re kind of important.

Upgrade Star. 

Really, we don’t even have a plan to get an Upgrade unless it’s from an Encounter. So, no Upgrade Star for us.

Mech Star. 

We love mechs as Rusviet, we need our mechs to have the best chance of winning. So, yes to Mech Star.

Build Star.

Rusviet isn’t able to easily access a Forest, and since we’ll be wrapping up our Produce actions a turn after we get our Enlist Star, we won’t have time for Lumber. No Build Star for us..

Enlist Star. 

Mechanical is geared to Produce and Enlist. Don’t need much more reason than that, so yes to Enlist Star.

Worker Star. 

In the course of all our necessary Produce actions, it won’t be difficult to gain our eight workers, so we’ll go for this one.

Objective Star. 

Objectives are always on the table. We should be able to work our game around getting one completed. If not, we’ll know at the start of the game that we have to make some adjustments.

Combat Star(s). 

We’ll always have these as a focus. 

Popularity Star. 

Very rarely has Popularity gotten to 18 in competitive games I’ve seen or played in. So, there’s really no point in having it as a focus. We might try for Tier 2 Popularity for scoring if Encounters make it possible, but that’s about it.

Power Star. 

Because of Bolstering to Deploy, we’ll have a shot at this. But we won’t get it in our normal rounds of actions. So, it’s possible if we Enlist early enough for Upgrades and our opponents Upgrade. We’ll say possibly to the Power Star.

All in all, for Rusviet Mechanical, I think it best that players prioritize their Enlist and Mech Stars. In addition to that, we should add in getting the Worker, Objective and two Combat Stars. If there’s an opportunity, we can include the Power Star to replace Objective if it’s unachievable.

Rusviet Mechanical Objective Strategy.

Getting an Objective is important for us to get our 6th Star, and actually winning with Rusviet Mechanical in 14 Rounds will require us to complete an Objective. Because of this, we really need to have a solid plan going into the game of how we can accomplish one of the Objectives we get; and if we can’t, knowing right away that we’ll have to adjust our gameplan.

For this game, we received “Hedge Your Bets” and “Population Advantage.” 

Hedge Your Bets.

“Have at least one Upgrade, one Mech, one Structure, one Recruit, and one of each resource at the end of your turn,” to complete. This Objective is tough to get for any faction, as it requires one of each bottom row actions to be completed at least one. But then, we must have one of each resource on hand as well. This can be done, but it’s slow and we have better options. So, we’ll pass on this Objective.

Population Advantage.

“Control at least three Village territories at the end of your turn,” to complete. Since we have a Village territory in our base hexes and one right outside, we should be able to pull this off. The main advantage to this one is it can be completed in our regular Move action sequences.

Rusviet Mechanical Strategy Overview.

Almost all Rusviet combinations start off with a Produce action. We’re going to do that three times. After the third we’ll have our Worker Star and enough Metal for our first mech. From there, we want to Produce / Enlist, and then focus on getting our remaining mechs out. After that, it’ll be a matter of getting combats and our Objective.

Rusviet Mechanical Step by Step Strategy.

Objectives: Hedge Your Bets. Population Advantage.

1. PRODUCE: 1 Worker and 1 Metal.
2. PRODUCE: 2 Workers and 1 Metal.
3. PRODUCE: 3 Workers and 1 Metal. [Worker Star].
4. BOLSTER: 2 Power. DEPLOY: Riverwalk Mech on Village.
5. MOVE: Hero to Encounter. Mech + workers from Village to Farm.
   1. Encounter: We’d benefit from and Upgrade, Enlist, Food, or Metal.
   2. We received Encounter 7 and chose to pay $2 to gain one Upgrade. We used that Upgrade on Bolster / Deploy.

6. PRODUCE: 7 Food and 1 Metal. ENLIST: Enlist / Combat Cards reward.
7. PRODUCE: 7 Food and 1 Metal. ENLIST: Upgrade / Popularity reward.

Mid Game.

8. BOLSTER: 3 Power. DEPLOY: Speed Mech on Farm.
9. MOVE: Hero to Encounter. Mech + 4 workers to Tundra, leaving 1 on Village.
   1. Encounter: Ideally, we’d like an Upgrade, Combat Cards, or Power.
   2. We received Encounter 30 and chose to pay $2 to gain 4 Power.

10. PRODUCE: 2 Food and 1 Metal. ENLIST: Deploy / Power reward.
11. PRODUCE: 4 Oil and 1 Metal. ENLIST: Build / Coin reward. [Enlist Star].
12. BOLSTER: 3 Power. DEPLOY: People’s Army on Tundra.

Late Game.

13. MOVE – Mech + 1 worker from Farm to Village, leave worker, then to adjacent Farm. Mech +3 workers from Tundra to Tunnel Village, leave 2 workers, then to combat with Togawa on Togawa Mountain. [Combat Star] [Objective Star] [Power Star].
    1. Combat: Togawa had only 2 Power and a couple Combat Cards. As such, we spent two Combat Cards valuing 7 Power for the easy win.
    2. Power Star: Before our next turn, Togawa upgraded giving us 1 Power from our enlistment bonus; and that gives us the Power Star.

14. MOVE: Mech from Tundra to Tunnel Village, pick up 1 worker, then to combat with Saxony on Tunnel Mountain. Heroine out to Togawa Forest from Tundra for extra territory. [Combat Star].
    1. Combat: Saxony was camping on the Tunnel Mountain hex. Even with their Disarm mech ability, we were able to put down two Combat Cards valuing 9 Power for the easy win.

End Game Stats.

• Stars: Power, Enlist, Objective, Combat (2), Worker.
• Round 14; 52 Coin.

Thoughts and Tips.

Overall, most Rusviet combinations are beasts. As such, once we get our momentum going, it’s all a matter of keeping ourselves protected until the end game when we can get our Combat Stars and call it a day.

During this play through, a lot went our way. For one, our Encounters were solid and didn’t interfere with our plans. For two, our opponents upgraded enough to let the Power Star basically fall into our laps. Because of that, we didn’t even need to spend an action to Deploy our final mech. Instead, we were able to end with spreading ourselves out and getting into combat.

That being said, expect any games you play with moderately experienced players to feel like it’s you against the rest of the table. And if you get into a game with a really good player, they’re going to try to sabotage Rusviet Mechanical because it’s the only hope of the game not ending prematurely for them.

To prevent this, we want to avoid spreading ourselves too thin. We also want to ensure we have a worker with each of our mechs once People’s Army is deployed. Finally, don’t burn through Combat Cards. Because this combination Enlists later than other factions, we might be a bit strapped for Combat Cards and may only get around six of them all game.

As always, here’s my rant about playing against Scythe bots: Even the hardest bots are easy compared to real players. They make really poor decisions and leave themselves and their resources vulnerable all the time. Just know, real players won’t make it as easy to win super fast.

Rusviet Mechanical Video.

Additionally, we have a great video following this combination from FOMOF, who is a great Scythe player and content creator. Check it out and follow along to get a variant game play example.

That’s about it! If you’re a newer player or would like a refresher on some general parts of Scythe, check out our Quick Tips and Strategy section. Looking to get into Scythe? Check out the tabletop version at Stonemaier Games or the Digital Edition on Steam!

Otherwise, if you’d like more combinations, check out our Rusviet Strategy overview, and if you enjoy our faction / mat combination posts, find more of them in our Strategy Archives. As always, leave a comment if you have any thoughts or want to share how this strategy worked for you!

Happy gaming!

• Norman