All Wound Up Strategies |
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Winning Strategies: Slow and Steady
Strategy
All Wound Up is a game that seems to defy the idea of a winning strategy. You might be able to gain some advantage with your card passing, but it seems that in the end you’re at the mercy of the pawns and their sometimes random movment. It’s not true. I’ve seen a winning strategy and have now used it and it works.
Givens
The first given is that no strategy will always work and you may lose anyhow. The second given is that the pawns do not move in a straight line and there are many obstacles to cause problems for moving pawns. Between the edge of the map, the open graves, and the odd mausoleum, a moving pawn is an invitation to disaster. Unfortunately, you can't win if you don't move.
The Strategy
This isn't my strategy, I've learned it watching others play, particularly one guy at Origins who used it to totally destroy his non-gamer wife and two other players. Here are the key points:
- Don't worry if you're falling behind early. Even a big lead can be overcome with this strategy.
- The bigger the move, the more random the results. Wind 4's will frequently put you off the board or into a mausoleum or a graveyard. It's much better to move smaller distances.
- Open Graves may be your friend. Generally when you hit one you don't lose much ground and you get to restart your pawn pointing the way you want.
- Brains are good. Very good. They let you have guaranteed abilities. They only work once, but they don't rely on the other players to be successful.
In Action
To put this strategy in action, the key elements to remember are that slow and steady is better than quick and crazy. During the card pass, you should try to get rid of any Wind 3 or Wind 4 cards you happen to draw. Leave those cards for your opponents to contend with. Unless someone is doing really well, it's probably not worth holding onto rotate opponents either. You want to take baby steps in the direction of your choosing, so holding the low winds and the rotate left and right is really the key.
In the early moves, you want to grab brains whenever you can. Don't worry about your opponents getting ahead of you - one mausoleum hit destroys a whole tile worth of lead. If you can grab a brain do it, even if it isn't moving you in the direction of the race.
For the most part the black and purple brains are the most useful, since they achieve your goals: small movements in the right direction. The green brain may sometimes be helpful, but is usually only worthwhile in the final run for gate. The yellow and red are too random to be reliably useful. It is worthwhile to grab a black and then upgrade it to green as soon as you can. Generally, the green brain is the best one if you're playing slow and steady.
The purple brain can rotate you to pretty much any facing you want, it can also be played at any time. This is especially useful if your pawn starts to go off course - you can discard your token while its moving and rotate it. Note that you can't lift a pawn to rotate it, so you can't use this to let your pawn run out of winds.
Conclusion
By moving with fewer winds each time you can do a better job of moving on the straight and narrow course to victory. Gathering appropriate brains early prepares you for the final rounds when you make that mad dash to the finish and your opponents, shamed to be losing so badly at so easy a game, do everything in their power to thwart your pawn.
Source: Steve Donohue January 12, 2006
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