Playing The Invasion
Fragmented by the Outer Gods and spread throughout the universe, you are attempting to claw your way back into this
universe and bring it once again under your rightful dominion.
Your options and resilience are both extensive. You can have practically unlimited “virtual” Power via Eternal Servitude,
or you can stall and stagger your Actions slowly with the plethora of 0-cost Actions at your disposal. Either method is
effective. While your Faction is very Power-rich, you are very Action-poor and will usually feel like you are 2 or 3 Actions
behind what you really want to do.
You are vulnerable in the early game, and while you have access to “virtual” Power, it is unreliable, and it doesn’t help
with how far behind you are in terms of how many Actions you have to take to become a viable threat. In order to
acquire all of your Spellbooks, you’re going to need to take at least nine Actions, not including moving to your Portents
Areas. Remember that you cannot capitalize on a very large turn, as you have no ability to Ritual, and so you are more on
the lookout to deprive anyone else of a huge turn while consistently holding a number of Lord’s Shadows and “normal”
Gates.
While your army is incredibly resilient over the long run, it is very brittle in any particular engagement. You are a
fairly Combat oriented Faction that lacks Combat abilities. Against the heavy hitters like Windwalker, Ancients, and
Great Cthulhu, you will easily be destroyed in head-to-head Battles (unless you are able to give them Baphomet’s Fury
beforehand). You are better off avoiding these direct confrontations and engaging in skirmishing those opponents by use
of Scavenge and by paying other Factions via favorable Blood Offering deals to attack those opponents.
Baphomet himself can provide a very difficult problem for your opponents to solve, costing you no Power and
having potentially enormous Combat potential. But, his potential can be better employed in its threat than its actual
application. Spending a Doom to Attack with Baphomet is an enormous drawback; you’d much rather provoke your
opponents to Attack him. If you are declaring Battle with Baphomet, you’d better be getting something important in
exchange for doing so, like a Gate, Killing an enemy Great Old One, reclaiming a Lord’s Shadow, Killing lots of enemy
Units, or all of those things.
When (or if ) Baphomet’s Fury activates, you can drain opponents of Power. By them acquiring his Fury, upon any battle
in which you lost a Unit, Baphomet himself becomes a juggernaut of destruction. This makes up for your lack of Battle
abilities in the early game. When Baphomet is Battling the Fury holder, he is literally indestructible as you must always
pay 0 Power to keep him alive. Just remember that you must pay for ALL Units threatened with death, so if Baphomet is
in Battle with an opponent who holds The Fury, and you’ve brought some of your other Units along, you must have the
Power to keep them alive in order to also keep Baphomet from dying. Using Fury, you are enabled to Attack entrenched
positions, reclaim lost Lord’s Shadows, or destroy strongholds.
Thwarting The Invasion
Portent Placement
The strategic geography of the Map changes greatly with the initial placement of the first Portents. This is where The
Invasion is forced to travel, so it is best to place them far away from their Start Area. These will be the Areas in which
The Invasion must travel to acquire their Spellbooks and build up their overall Power base and effectiveness of their
Spellbooks.
In general, building a Gate in an Area with a Portent or Lord’s Shadow is only a good idea if you can be sure to hold it.
Don’t commit small forces, as it will usually take considerable force to wrest a Lord’s Shadow away from The Invasion,
especially after Hellgate allows them to bring in armies from elsewhere. The proposition of Battling The Invasion alone
may be daunting, but if other players coordinate to take a Lord’s Shadow from The Invasion in tandem, they will not be
able to fight all of you off.
Battling The Invasion
Attacking Baphomet himself is a dodgy proposition, since you are saving him Doom by initiating the Combat and he’ll
eventually have to come after you, anyway. You are better off slowing his forces down early, setting up defenses in any
Portent Area that will prevent him from safely opening Lord’s Shadows. Killing Baphomet while The Invasion still has
Power is only a setback, but Killing Baphomet once The Invasion are at 0 Power is devastating; not only are they out
of the rest of the round (by being unable to use Eternal Servitude), but they will forgo one or two Elder Signs from
Sacrament of Flesh.
Eternal Servitude gives The Invasion Faction “virtual” Power to spend during their turns, but their access to that Power
is completely within your control in how you chose to spend yours. If they decide to drop to 0 quickly in an effort to
use Eternal Servitude extensively that Action Phase, then you can respond by buying your most expensive Monsters or
expending your Power rapidly in Gate construction or Spellbook acquisition. This puts The Invasion too far behind in
terms of tempo to keep up. In higher player count games, this type of coordination is infeasible amongst players; but, in
those games The Invasion will have a lot of contention for its Lord’s Shadows, be traversing larger portions of the Map,
and be squeezed significantly as a result.
In short, deny him the ability to Capture Cultists and force him to spend Doom with Baphomet to Capture or to
give generously with Blood Offering if he wants to keep his forces from oblivion. His Spellbooks are difficult and slow
to acquire, so keep in mind which ones he is going after and do what you can to slow down his acquisition of them.
Attacking Baphomet directly (unless The Invasion is at 0 Power) is not that effective; instead, target his Fiends or convoys
of Larvae, or set up a defense in Portent Areas, as these are all better targets.
Blood Offering
Allows you to negotiate and bust up alliances while also temporarily satisfying Baphomet’s endless hunger. Remember
that you can cynically employ this to give an opponent Doom, only then to pull them back with Entropy Siphon.
Hellgate
This is unusable until you acquire your second Lord’s Shadow on the Map, and if your Starting Area is already threatened,
then this is a lifesaver to prevent someone else from taking that Area or to acquire that precious Gate that your opponent
has unknowingly built for you. Hellgate is also your primary movement ability, and having this will make any opponent
think twice before trying to snatch one of your Lord’s Shadows from you.
Infernolatreia
This is The Invasion’s signature Spellbook. Allowing you to read the Elder Signs, you are able to consistently take the
best ones for yourself while leaving the dregs for your opponents. Remember that the Elder Sign pool has the law of
diminishing returns, and for it to continue to find the best Elder Signs, you’ll need an ever-expanding quantity of Lord’s
Shadows.
Scavenge
If your opponents do not provide you with Cultists in an agreeable way, you’ll have to go out there and drag them
away with your Grylluses. Use Scavenge in lieu of head-to-head conflicts with the heavy hitters like Great Cthulhu,
Windwalker, or an entrenched Ancients position to harass their periphery.
Entropy Siphon
Entropy Siphon reigns back players that have run ahead of you. Remember that this ability loses a lot of its power once
you have revealed a lot of Elder Signs to strengthen Baphomet’s temporary Combat value. Since other players typically
don’t reveal their Elder Signs, by revealing yours to power up Baphomet’ attack, you’re going to immunize them from
Entropy Siphon. You need a balanced approach.
Eclipse
When to use this one-time Spellbook is an important and difficult decision. Remember, if just a single player were going
to shoot forward in terms of Doom that turn, you might want to hold off on using Eclipse. You can bribe others with
Blood Offering to attack them and use Entropy Siphon to drag that player back to a manageable Doom level, or at least
empty them of their Power. Remember that you’re not there to “save the day” with this Spellbook. Even negotiating the
use of this Spellbook is an incredibly powerful bargaining chip.
Baphomets Abilities
Unquenchable Thirst
Paying Doom to Attack or Capture is both a curse and a blessing…but mostly a curse. With as few as six Power,
Baphomet can run rampant on the board. If he dies and you still have Power, you can easily Awaken him back into
play—also for 0 power—and then continue the assault. This also allows you to “stall” with whatever Power you have for
a long while. Usually, though, it’s not viable until Baphomet’s Fury is in play, which enables you to at least “net” 0 Doom
for your Attacks.
Sacrament of Flesh
You must acquire “fresh blood” of opposing Cultists every turn to feed Baphomet’s insatiable hunger. Failure to do so will
have your own Units permanently consumed. Your Unit Pool is fairly deep, so you can tolerate this occurring a few times,
but if it happens too often, your overall force might be too small to maintain control of the many Lord’s Shadows and
normal Gates you are going to need to win.
Baphomets Fury
Baphomet invokes his special power once other players have performed enough Rituals of Annihilation. Starting with
Fury in your possession is a bit of a handicap, but you can pass it to those that you would want to destroy by simply
forcing them to Kill one of your Units. The Invasion is especially advantaged when Attacking someone with the Fury—
not only are your expensive Fiends only 2 Power to keep in play, but Baphomet himself is literally indestructible (at least
if attacking or defending alone) against the Fury-holder because he costs 0 Power. Just keep in mind that if you Kill any
opposing forces, you will regain the Fury and be vulnerable again. So it’s best to Attack someone who has the Fury that
has 0 Power so that they have trouble retaliating, or use Scavenge to move in a larger force of Grylli to provide cover for
Baphomet.
The Invasion
Note:
If playing a 3-player game with Bubastis and/or Daemon Sultan, play with the following adjustments:
- 1. You gain your Spellbook for the requirement “Have Captured Cultists on your Faction Sheet for 2 or more
Factions” immediately (for free) as soon as you gain your 5th Spellbook in a 3-player game with Bubastis.
- 2. You cannot take Scavenge as your first Spellbook in a 3-player game with Daemon Sultan.
The Invasion isn’t designed for 2-player games
Stages of Lord’s Shadows & Portents
The Invasion has no means whatsoever to create normal Gates and instead can only acquire their own Gates in the form
of Lord’s Shadows in a multi-stage process.
All initial Portents are placed on the map during Setup. Think of them as tokens on the Map. The only other game
interaction with them is on the Shaggai Map, where entire Areas are destroyed. Portents can only be placed by Demon
Larvae into Areas with pre-existing Portents (that were placed by opposing players during Setup), and once the 4th
Portent is added to an Area, all Portents in that Area are removed and a Lord’s Shadow is created. This means that any
other player can move a Gate (Opener or Sleeper) into an Area with Portents but not with Lord’s Shadows (as they count
as Gates for Beyond One or Cursed Slumber).
Creating Lord’s Shadows Where Gates Already Exist
Once a Lord’s Shadow is created it is immediately Controlled by the player with the Controlled Gate in that Area (if
any). The Fiend would still appear, however, as it bursts through the ether when the rift is opened.
PRO TIP: Note that this is a great idea for Opener to get some early guaranteed Combats against The Invasion by
parking a Gate into a Portent Area.
PRO TIP: Taking already-created Lord’s Shadows from The Invasion is challenging, but rewarding, as they count as
a “double Gate” Area (yielding additional Power and Doom accordingly).
Lord’s Shadows Have No Controlling Units (Like Yog-Sothoth)
Primeval: Lord’s Shadows have no Controlling Unit, so a Glacier in your Lord’s Shadow Area does nothing against The
Invasion. Players are well advised to put all Lord’s Shadows in Areas that will not receive Glaciers, even if this leads to a
concentration of forces in the center of the Map.
Dreamlands: Likewise, The Invasion Lord’s Shadows have no Controlling Unit, so Zoogs do nothing against The
Invasion. Watch out for the Bhole though; he’ll destroy your Lord’s Shadows…although that might be a good thing, as it
still gives you 2 Elder Signs (provided that you still control it).
