Hi all,

I am excited to finally be joining in the fun of owning and playing some of FFG products. I have been a long time 'observer' and basically lusted over their games and expansion in all the local 'comics & games' stores.

Thanks to some gift cards, good sales and a little extra work I have purchased Tannhauser and most of the expansions as well as MoM and all the expansions. I know I probably should have played both extensively before buying the whole thing but I just really like having all the options, variations and gameplay available through obtaining the entire lineup.

We will be playing Tannhauser as a 4 or 6 player group over the weekend and I have yet to play with more than 2 people so I was curious if there were any reccomendations or tips to play with a larger group. I have searched and read all the posts here and on Miah's blog about multiplayer variants and some sugestions so I am just looking for any additional hints or personal experiences with a larger group.

I have all the characters except for Asteros (too powerful and not in the 'theme' for my group of WWI & II nuts) so we have a lot of options available and I think we will probably play 4 teams of 2 heroes and 2 troopers or more heroes and split the control of each team to accomodate additional players beyond 4.

Anyway, glad to finally be joining the fun here and looking forward to many years of enjoyment from the crazy-complex and beautiful games I am finally able to play instead of stare at on the store shelves.

Cheers,

The last game I played was with three friends. We decided to just split the Reich and Union teams as evenly as possible. But, since I had the trooper packs, everyone was able to field three characters. One player on each team had one hero and two troopers, the other two heroes and one trooper.

It was a simple deathmatch and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the game. It came down to the wire with only Hoss H left on one team versus Hoax and one trooper,............................................. the Union won.

In retrospect it would have made little difference to give everyone two heroes and one trooper. An extra trooper over the top of this would simply extend the game a little longer, and since we enjoyed it immensely, I can't see this being a problem.

I haven't played the game with more than four using the new ruleset. I did when I had the old rules and it also worked out fine - although the game was more lethal with the old rules and didn't last long

Good luck and welcome to Tannhauser!

-Nhoj

Have you thought about a "tournament" instead of a mass tannhauser game? Some hints:

1- Turn sequence gets a bit heavy already in 4p games, you have to roll for initiative and them move in sequence, a player gets to act once per 4 activations, if you dont play fast you bore.

2- If you cram 4p in one regular board it makes 16 minis if not using extras llike voivodes or hoax, its very crowded.

3- If I play 4p in 1 board I'd definitely use Umtoma rules so we basically have 2 sides which simplifies the game a lot, and 1 hero 2 troopers not 2 heroes, it also helps a lot with the two points above. If playing 2 boards I would go with 2h+2t (connecting the boards per hinansho rules) and having 2 players starting in each board.

4- A different faction for each player! thats why we have 4 factions.

If I had 6 people willing to play tannhauser its a different story I would set up first the teams beforehand. 2 Matriarchy teams (as miah suggests), plus 1 shogunate, 1 union and 2 Reich maybe...not repeating heroes obviously and maybe not even repeating troops either.

I would hold then 2 or 3 separate games (3p or 2p games) and try to make them fast (4 characters per team) to play more than one game. An example:

Round 1: 3 vs games

Round 2: 2 3p games, one for the "winners" and another one for the "losers"

Round 3?: 1 3p game, 2 first players of the "winners" game and the winner of the "losers" game? while the disqualified oplayers go for beer and pizza (or fanta if you are underage!!!)

There are several possibilities (some were already mentioned by others). As you said you had most of the expansions, you could play with 4 different teams (2 heroes and 1 trooper each) on 1 board. You could split up 2 factions for this or use all 4 existing factions. You could also play with 4 normal-sized teams on 2 linked board so that 2 players start on each board. You could also play a 2 vs. 2 variant this way where the 2 allied players start on different boards of course. Or you could do as Moebius suggested and play a tournament where every player chooses a team and plays against every other player. This could even be the best option because gameplay would be faster than in a 4 player game. Furthermore, a player that suffers from a bad start in a 4 player game or looses all of his characters soon would have a bad playing experience in a drawn-out game. That could be avoided by playing several 2 player games.

i've only played 3 games with more than 2 players!! and i can't comment on any of the awesome-sounding variants mentioned, but i have played 2 other 'variants':

4-player: Using a "Assassination Orders" mechanic: each player places 1 unused equipment token from each of their heroes in a bag. Each player takes turns drawing tokens that do not match their own heroes until they have a number of enemy hero tokens equal to the number of their heroes. So in a normal 3-hero squad setup, each player gets 3 enemy heroes as Assassination Targets (if you draw one of your own heroes, redraw - if someone isnt paying attention or cheats, it will be obvious at the end and you can then ridicule said player at will). Keep these tokens hidden from other players. If a player kills one of their Assassination Targets, they reveal the target and get Victory Points (they're back!) that determine winner of game. Place an even number of objective tokens (objectives can only be completed once), and let the bullets fly! Winner is determined by VP (keep track of them during game using some ad hoc tokens):

Trooper Frag: 1 VP

Hero Frag: 2 VP

Assassinate Target: 3 VP

Complete Secondary Objective: 1 VP

Complete Primary Objective: 2 VP

3-Player: Just an extrapolation of the Daedalus Scenarios. The third Faction is Asteros and the 12 Sentinels (aka Revenants - tokens or other models). Sentinels have the following stats: Combat: 5, Stamina: 5, Mental: -, Movement: 5. They have 1 row of health, but must be dealt 2 wounds at one time to be killed (if they receive 1, it is ignored). Each carry a Daedalan Kopis as a weapon that rolls 5 dice (cannot be picked up...since no tokens for them ). 2 of the Sentinels are Elite/Captains/whatever: They have Com: 6, Stam: 6, Mental: -, Movement: 6. Still 5 attack dice. Asteros is of course the leader, and is equipped with ALL of his Armor! (and Labrys). When he is wounded, he must destroy 1 peice of armor of attacker's choice. The Asteros player activates all of his characters AFTER all other players have, in any order he wishes.

Since there always seem to be a gang-up situation in 3P, i figured i'd accept that fact. And who else is better to withstand an onslaught of multiple characters than Asteros, everyone's favorite Minotaur to hate for his power?

I can see how the 4-P option i tried can be expanded for a 6-player game (definitely using 2 maps there) and the the 3-player option for a 5 player game.