ALIENS
Aliens love to mess with people, and they love to mess with other players even more. From bouncing minions back to players’ hands, to replacing bases in play, aliens are out to have a great time, at any planet’s expense.
Description
The Aliens are one of the 8 factions from the Core Set.
Aliens abduct your friends and foes. You might see them again. Who knows?
Other factions from the same set: Dinosaurs, Ninjas, Pirates, Robots, Tricksters, Wizards, Zombies.
Cards
The Aliens have the usual 10 minions and 10 actions. The total minion base power (not counting any abilities) is slightly lower than usual at only 28 or an average of 2.8 per minion compared to the usual 30 and 3.
Actions
Among their actions, there are:
- 0 play-on-minion actions,
- 1 play-on-base action: Jammed Signal,
- 9 standard actions (7 that affect one or more minions, in bold): Abduction, Beam Up (2x), Crop Circles, Disintegrator (2x), Invasion, Probe, Terraforming,
- 0 actions that directly increase a minion's power.
Gameplay
Actions
1x Abduction - Return a minion to its owner’s hand. Play an extra minion.
2x Beam Up - Return a minion to its owner’s hand.
1x Crop Circles - Choose a base. Return each minion on that base to its owner’s hand.
2x Disintegrator - Place a minion of power 3 or less on the bottom of its owner’s deck.
1x Invasion - Move a minion to another base.
1x Jammed Signal - Play on a base. Ongoing: All players ignore this base’s ability.
1x Probe - Look at another player’s hand and choose a minion in it. That player discards that minion.
1x Terraforming - Search the base deck for a base. Swap it with a base in play (discard all actions attached to it). All minions from the original base remain. Shuffle the base deck. You may play an extra minion on the new base. (errata'd by The Bigger Geekier Box)
Characters
1x Supreme Overlord - power 5 - You may return a minion to its owner’s hand.
2x Invader - power 3 - Gain 1 VP.
3x Scout - power 3 - Special: After this base is scored, you may place this minion into your hand instead of the discard pile.
4x Collector - power 2 - You may return a non-Collector minion of power 3 or less on this base to its owner’s hand. (errata'd by The Bigger Geekier Box)
Strategy
Aliens' overall power is quite low, so they're not too great at breaking bases. Their Scout minions, however, are specialized at maintaining presence on the bases. You may return them to your hand after the base they are on scores, so you can reuse them. You're not likely to win bases this way, but second and third place are enough to support you along with the next strategy.
Invaders probably have the most powerful on-play ability in the whole game. By playing, returning, replaying, and rereturning them in an "Invader Dance", you can theoretically win the game without breaking any bases. More commonly, Invaders make up just one component of the Aliens' overall game plan. Relying on this tactic consumes a lot of your minion plays, so reserve Crop Circles to simultaneously slow your opponents' efforts at breaking bases. While fairly easy in a 2-player game, this gets harder the more opponents you face, because they will more and more easily break bases without your input.
Synergy
Aliens work best alongside factions that are also good at returning minions to hands. The next best have and/or support on-play abilities and help slow down the game for your opponents.
- Ninjas: Master Ninja and Tiger Assassin are even more formidable if you can return them to hand and re-use their minion-destroying on-play abilities.
- Robots: Zapbot, Hoverbot, Microbot Fixer, and Microbot Reclaimer all have useful on-play abilities that provide extra minion plays.
- Tricksters: Blending their tricks and hindrances in with the Aliens, Tricksters also offer much-desired extra minion plays for you to farm VPs.
- Time Travelers: Directly replay Invaders with Do Over! and take control of the bases.
- Star Roamers: Ship's Captain can fetch any minion you need, and even play them as an extra minion if their power is 3 or less (like the Invader). Science Officer's talent lets you return one of your minions to your hand to play another with a different name, giving you access to a VP farming engine with Invader. Collector and Supreme Overlord are good partners for that combo, allowing you to repeatedly return other minions to hand. Medical Officer lets you return your Invaders and other minions to hand if they would be destroyed. Ensigns and Protector Fields can protect your Invaders and other minions from removal outright.
Tips
None.
Additional Info
Mechanics
Like those in our stories, the elusive and mysterious Aliens of Smash Up take people for who knows what reasons. Aliens are experts at returning anyone's minions back to their hand. They can Beam Up their friends to safety, and Abduct their adversaries to Probe them for information. Can you withstand their bubble-helmed Invasion?
In isolation, returning minions to their owners' hands is not that significant of an ability, but Aliens leverage their expertise to enable a number of unique strategies. All of their returning abilities can target friend or foe. After you return an enemy's minion, use Probe to discard it, and also spy on their hand. You might preemptively deny them a powerful minion you weren't aware of! Aliens have a minor ability to play extra minions to help replay your own minions you return.
Aliens can do more than just return minions to hands. Send them to their decks instead with Disintegrator! This is especially strong against Tenacious Zs. As always, you can use this on your own minions. How about bases? Enter Terraforming! You also get to play an extra minion.
Expansion
Core Set
Playstyle
- Support
- Snowball