Rusviet Strategy

Being completely transparent here, “Rusviet strategy” seems a little unnecessary because typically Rusviet has all the advantages at their disposal. And depending on the player mat, they can become near unstoppable in any given game.

“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

However; overpowered advantages do not always translate to victory, and I can admit I’ve lost a decent amount of games playing the Rusviet Union. As such, in this guide we’ll delve more into the concepts of how to best utilize the advantages of playing them and some of the pitfalls to avoid.

Let’s see what all the fuss is about!

Rusviet Union.

Mech Abilities.

Deploying a mech will open up one of it’s abilities to all deployed mechs and our Heroine / Tiger – Olga and Changa. Now, Rusviet has some run of the mill mechs just like every base faction, but they have two very unique mechs as well. The four mech types are:

• People’s Army – In combat where you have at least one worker, you may play one additional combat card.
• Riverwalk – Move across rivers to Farms and Villages.
• Speed – Plus one hex per movement.
• Township – Move between any village you control and the Factory.

Riverwalk and Speed are the typical mechs every base faction has, and they’re pretty self explanatory. So, let’s look at our unique mechs and see what kind of fun can be had with their abilities.

Township Mech.

Township is a lot of fun, mainly because it gives us immediate transit to the Factory, provided we’re going from a Village hex. This in and of itself is a sizable boon as we basically get to choose when it’s a good time to hit the Factory. But that’s not all (ahem, creepy salesman voice initiate), with this beauty you also get the added benefit of transporting units from any two Village hexes you control and/or the Factory.

What this means is if you have units on Rusviet’s base Village and units on, say, Saxony’s base Village (clear across the board), in a single move, you can move a unit from one to the other. The same goes with any Village your units occupy and the Factory. Pretty sweet right?

So imagine the possibilities this allows for just a second with me. Then add on the other silly mech abilities such as Speed and Riverwalk. Suddenly, our reach as Rusviet goes far and wide. Encounters? Yes please. Easy combats? Well, certainly. Gobbling up the entire map? Uhhh, we’ll try.

People’s Army Mech.

This Rusviet Strategy wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t inform you that People’s Army is one of the absolute best mech abilities in the game. And one of the best parts about it is how simple it is. With just a single worker, you essentially double your Combat Card power. And if you aren’t aware of the rules of the game, mechs pick up and drop off workers as part of their action. So, now we carry a worker everywhere we go with our mechs and all combats whether we’re attacking or defending gives us the bonus of using an additional Combat Card.

To put this in a numbers perspective, in any general combat with a single unit we max out at 12 total Power. Doesn’t matter if we have maxed Power and dozens of Combat Cards, 12 total bidding Power is our max for combats. Well, with just that one worker, we can now max out at 17 Power. Meaning, if we have enough Combat Cards to go around, we have a severe advantage in any fight. Not to mention, a veritable army on every occupied hex.

To be clear, this doesn’t only benefit us for combats. Suddenly, our single mech with a worker sitting on a Tunnel hex is not as attractive as any other faction’s unit in the same situation. What’s more, our opponents still lose Popularity if they win a combat where we have a worker.

Faction Ability.

Relentless: You may choose the same section on your player mat as the previous turn.

Let’s talk about Rusviet’s faction ability, because this is the main reason Rusviet seems overpowered to players. Unlike other factions, we get to do the same thing consecutively turn after turn. Now, this may not seem like that great of a benefit, but when we put it in some applications, there starts to be a pattern that lends itself to top notch efficiency.

For example, if we have the Patriotic Player Mat, the Produce action is above the Enlist action. As Rusviet, we take 3 workers to a Farm hex and Produce / Enlist for the next 4 turns to earn all our enlistment bonuses and our Enlist Star. Take a faction like Crimea in the same situation and they have to figure out what they’re doing between their Produce turns, since they can’t do them consecutively. So now, for peak efficiency, Crimea has to figure out how to get resources for their other bottom row actions. And even if that works for them, it’s still 7 turns compared to Rusviet’s 4 before they get all their enlistment bonuses and Enlist Star.

1. Produce / Enlist.
2. Other Action.
3. Produce / Enlist.
4. Other Action.
5. Produce / Enlist.
6. Other Action.
7. Produce / Enlist. [Enlist Star].

In addition, the benefits of enlisting quickly and early in comparison to your neighboring factions is that the first player to Enlist each bottom row action gets the most benefit. So it’s not just getting finished faster, it’s getting things done more efficiently and because of such raking in higher rewards.

This is not even to mention how much benefit comes from the Move action being done consecutively. How many games have we all been in where someone’s about to get their 6th Star and we’re trying desperately to spread our workers to hexes and get a last combat? Show of hands? Everyone?! Yeah, exactly. Rusviet has a bit more luxury on this end being able to move every turn if we want.

Rusviet Strategy.

Starting Zone.

Rusviet’s starting zone is as good as it gets, barely edging out Crimea’s starting zone in my opinion. Which makes sense, since Crimea is the 2nd head of the two-headed Rusviet-Crimea titan which rules the Scythe board with an iron fist. Starting with a worker on a Village and a Mountain territory couldn’t be better. We have the ability to start producing more workers to get our economy rolling and get some mechs out to move them around right out of the gate. Not that Produce should always be our first action, sometimes it’s better to start rolling out Upgrades to make the rest of the game even easier. Oh look! There’s a Tundra in our base hexes too!

We won’t have much difficulty getting to a Farm territory either while playing Rusviet, just need a Riverwalk Mech and the decisiveness to pick which one of the two adjacent Farms we like more to the north of us. What’s that you say? You want them both? Okay! Truth be told, the only hex type we may have any difficulty with is getting to/controlling a Forest territory. It’s the farthest away from our starting zone, and is located on a Tunnel. The good news is we basically never need to go with buildings in a Rusviet strategy.

Lastly, Rusviet has easy access to two encounters that are pretty commonly uncontested for them. The one located on the Tundra in the starting zone, and the one on the Farm just north of Rusviet’s home base. This gives an already rush oriented faction a good chance at an early game economy boost.

8 Workers (Almost) Every Time.

To clarify, we should always aim to get our Worker Star by spitting out all 8 of our workers in a game. Why wouldn’t we? It’s one of the easiest Stars to get. But sometimes, and in most other factions, it isn’t wise to get all 8 workers out in the early game.

Rusviet differs here on most of their player mat combination strategies. Because our starting zone has pretty much all the hexes we need within a single move action (provided we have Speed and/or Riverwalk Mechs out), it’s of a huge benefit for us to get all our workers out immediately and get them to a desired hex for maximum production turns.

Now, there are a few Rusviet strategies that this doesn’t benefit us as much on (namely Engineering and Mechanical). But with those exceptions, once we start our Produce action for workers, we aren’t stopping until we have all 8.

Overall Rusviet Strategy.

• 8 workers (almost) every time, then Produce like madmen.
• We need to line up top and bottom row actions as often as possible. So our turns need to be efficiently geared to making that happen often.
• Use workers to our advantage defensively and offensively (People’s Army, remember?). Once we start spreading out, we’ll be on the hunt for combats to win and sealing off access to our territories.
• Most commonly we’ll be focusing on Deploying and Enlisting bottom row actions. We typically won’t Build and only use Upgrades as needed.
• Rusviet’s fast, and solid games can end between turns 12 – 16. The only reason to go longer is if Objectives aren’t possible to complete.
• We will never NEED to get more than two Encounters – if that. So, unless our Hero can grab another as part of a Move action for spreading out or combats, we don’t need to waste our turns hopping about the board for them.
• Go get the freaking Factory before the end game! We have Township!

Mat Combination Rusviet Strategy.

Looking to take your game to the next level? Having trouble understanding a certain player mat’s beneficial synergy with Rusviet? Look no further! Check out what we have below:

• Agricultural – Coming Soon!
• Engineering – Coming Soon!
• Industrial – BANNED (but we’ll post a strategy soon anyway!)
• Innovative
• Mechanical
• Militant – Coming Soon!
• Patriotic – Coming Soon!

If you need some additional Scythe tips, check out our Quick Tips strategy posting! If you don’t own the game, check it out at Stonemaier Games. It’s 100% worth whatever you spend on it!

Thanks for taking a read of our overall Rusviet Strategy! Feel free to comment below with any thoughts or critiques or successes you have had with Rusviet!

Happy Gaming!

• Norman and Jacob