Game: Blue Moon Expansion - The Khind

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EndersGame — 2008-08-26T18:44:01+00:00

Cropped image showing the names and icons of all seven "NO Gang" characters

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EndersGame — 2008-08-26T18:25:41+00:00

Names and abilities of the TOP Gang characters

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Names of the FUN Gang characters

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EndersGame — 2008-08-26T18:00:35+00:00

Names and abilities of the COOL Gang cards

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EndersGame — 2008-08-26T17:39:01+00:00

The Khind deck MUTANT

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EndersGame — 2008-08-26T17:38:23+00:00

The non-Khind cards in the Khind deck

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Khind SUPPORT cards

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Khind LEADERSHIP cards

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EndersGame — 2008-08-26T17:23:50+00:00

Leader of the KHIND

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Livinus — 2007-09-21T14:04:44+00:00

Box front of the dutch edition (999 games)

Thread: Re: Rotten Brats

ccarlet1 — 2007-07-04T04:11:34+00:00

Thanks. My wife and I are in the middle of a big Blue Moon tournament and the Khind are doing very well, much to the annoyance of whoever has to play against them.

Thread: Re: Rotten Brats

TGov — 2007-07-04T03:02:54+00:00

Perfect description of the deck I find this one powerful too, especially against an opponent that doesn't know how to react. My wife is creeped (sp?) by the artwork though...lol

Calls them the "Chucky" deck.

Thread: Re: Rotten Brats

mpetty31 — 2007-07-03T22:42:36+00:00

I agree with your opinion of this deck. It's my favorite one to play.

As with all the peoples in this game, I love how Knizia managed to match their charater with how it plays. As you say, it's an annoying deck for the opponents. At the same time, the Khind player gets to enjoy the surprises of what you get each time you draw (usually multiple cards) and can have a lot of fun discarding the opponent's cards or popping down the characters in big groups or one at a time in the most effective fashion. I think fun, surprising and annoying sum these Khind up perfectly from what one gathers from the flavor text. Just a few plays with this deck sealed it for me. Blue Moon is a masterpiece.

Thread: Rotten Brats

ccarlet1 — 2007-07-03T17:55:58+00:00

In reviewing this deck, I am assuming that the reader is familiar with the basics of how Blue Moon is played. I will attempt to give an idea of what it is like to play with this deck, its strengths and weaknesses, and what makes it different than other decks.

Artwork:

The artwork for this deck has been much commented on--it has a childish quality which some might see as amateurish or just sloppy. I don't mind the artwork at all, but if your are expecting the precision of the Hoax, or the subdued, near-monochromatic colours of the Terrah, you will be disappointed. Be prepared for purple and pink backgrounds for smudgy, dirty little street urchins.

Play:

The main feature of the Khind is that they have the gang icon. The character cards depict children, which individually are quite weak (the highest value is three); however, characters of the same gang may be played simultaneously, or added to existing active members to form quite high values (up to 18 fire or earth). Because they can have up to seven active character cards, the Khind have no booster cards. So they act like a bunch of little punks swarming the opposition.

The Khind also have a lot of special text in two of the four gangs, as well as in their four support cards, and the special text is quite powerful. Playing them is fun because you have lots of tricks up your sleeve; playing against them is annoying in the extreme because they have lots of tricks up their sleeve. It's like listening to kids in a playground: "You can't do that! Because I said so!" "That's against the rules!"

What follows is a brief description of the cards:

Fun Gang (purple icon): They have the highest combined values--9 fire or earth--with a 0/0 card that doubles the current value, for a possible 18 of either element. They have no other special text.

No Gang (Yellow icon): They have seven cards, for a total of 11 in either element. They have no special power text.

Cool Gang (red icon): They only have a total of four cards, for a score of 8 in either element, but they have very powerful text. They can lower odd or even character cards to zero; and odd or even booster cards to zero. What makes this gang so deadly is that their text is cumulative. That is, if you play one of them and then add to it, both are still active and so is their text. So they can slowly strangle the life out of the opposition's fight.

Top Gang (gold icon): They have five cards for a maximum of 10 in either element, and also have very powerful text. They can allow you to draw an extra card, force your opponent to discard a card from his hand, the top of his draw deck, an active booster or support, and an active card with an icon. Again, the effects are cumulative, so when you get three or four of this gang out, your opponent might have to throw out a couple of cards every turn he remains in the fight.

Other Character Cards: The only non-gang character card is a Hoax card (2/2) that allows you to draw up to nine cards. This is a very useful card to give you maximum selection for gang building.

Mutant: The mutant can only be played if your opponent has at least one dragon on his side. As it has a score of 8/8, it is quite powerful and a good card to play when you are down.

Leadership: The two most powerful leadership cards allow you to draw three cards from your discard, and the other allows you to select a card from your draw deck. Again this is very useful for gang building. The third leadership card allows you to clear the combat area of all but one active character card and any protected cards. This leadership card can be very useful against some decks (it would be extremely useful against the Khind).

Support: The Khind have very good support cards. Laughing Gas allows you to ignore your opponent's special power text. The other three allow you to draw an additional card, restrict your opponent to drawing only a single card, and force your opponent to attract one fewer dragon in the event of a retreat.

Strategy/Tactics:

Obviously, it is important to build gangs and to do that, you need to take advantage of every possible opportunity to draw extra cards. The hoax card gets you up to nine cards, which is great, but any of the cards that allow you to draw one extra should be played early if possible to get their fullest benefit. Those extra cards can give you just the gang member you need.

Having said that, sometimes it is also useful to play a single member of a gang, or two if you only have two. If they have special text, they might be enough to force your opponent to retreat; if not, you have bought more time to build a different gang.

Also, using bits and pieces of other gangs to build up the fight can allow you to grand slam three members of a different gang, and get you up to six cards in a hurry. The Khind's lack of boosters forces you to play differently to get to six cards.

The khind have a pretty solid end game. Due to their lack of boosters, and the gradual accumulation of powerful character cards, you may find yourself with more cards than your opponent at the end of the game, so its never over until its over.

The weak spot for the Khind is not having enough gang members to get a decent score against other powerful character cards, and any cards that inhibit special power text, ignore icons, or allow discards from the combat area. Keeping your hand as full as possible is the best way to combat these problems.

Conclusion:

This is a very powerful deck, and is a formidable, annoying opponent. You definitely need to make some hard decisions as you play to play it well. I rate this deck an 8.

Thread: Re: Mean Little Kids

Jackwraith — 2007-02-12T23:18:21+00:00

I actually look at the background color first. The bright red of the Top Gang is especially distinctive to me when drawing cards into my hand. Of course, perhaps that's just because I've been able to draw the rainbow (one of each gang member plus two leaderships and/or supports) on my opening hand so often...

Thread: Re: Mean Little Kids

Krishna — 2007-02-12T21:54:14+00:00

I totally don't pay any attention to color information in games (I have slightly deficient color vision, in that dark purples look like blues, and pale colors are often hard to distinguish), and infinitely prefer some other form of information (either text or symbol is great for me). I am very grateful that Blue Moon went with both options, thereby ensuring that color-blind gamers and color fans (like Mr. Tommasi) alike can enjoy this game.

So, Mr. Dearlove, I too remember them as "Fun Gang," "Cool Gang," "Top Gang," and "No Gang."

-K

Thread: Re: Khind spacial power texts

SatanicEssence — 2006-12-06T23:54:05+00:00

That would be correct. There are two basic strategies that I see with this deck. One would be too slowly reveal each character of a gang, so as too milk as much damage from their special power text as possible. Especially for the Top Gang. The other is to reveal them all at the same time in the hopes that your opponent will back down from such a powerful attack. Plus, you are able to draw more cards each turn that way, hoping to end the game on your terms, and after you have alot of powerful attacks. There is, of course, a happy medium of the two that often must be employed due to diverse hands and such. The Khind can be a pain to play against, but they are not invincible.

Hope that helps!

Thread: Re: Khind spacial power texts

RyanMC — 2006-12-06T23:50:37+00:00

Correct. The text stays active with the gang. So keeping a gang active is usually to your benefit.

Thread: Khind spacial power texts

drzodiacus — 2006-12-06T23:29:18+00:00

Hi all
I've just bought the Khind deck and one question is in my mind: As long as a gang is active, the special power texts are valid? for instance, if a card says "at the end of my turn I..." does it work every turn until the Gang is no longer active? If so, there are a couple of very powerfull cards in this deck!...

many thanks

Thread: Re: Special Power Text vs. Character Values/Power

brel — 2006-12-01T12:57:50+00:00

Wow thanks for the quick reply! It's much more clearer now. I think I'm going to try and play the Khind again and test this.

Thread: Re: Special Power Text vs. Character Values/Power

Octavian — 2006-12-01T09:22:29+00:00

brel wrote:

Can my opponent possibly play the above two cards even if my Total Power is already 8?

Yes. She doesn't need to match you until she announces power, at which point your total power will have dropped due the the discards.

-MMM

Thread: Special Power Text vs. Character Values/Power

brel — 2006-12-01T08:18:16+00:00

I have just bought "The Khind" deck and played it against a "Mimix" deck. We seem to be stuck with some of the rules. Here is a scenario and my question:

I have a Total Power of 8 based on my cards in play (Mimix deck): I have one Character card with a Value of 5, a Booster with a value of 2, and a Support card with a value of 1.

My opponent has a Total Power of 2 based on cards she has previously played (Khind deck --- TopBanana). It is now her turn and she wants to play TopDog (Value = 2) and TopNotch (Value = 2) Character cards all having same Gang icons. The Total Power that my opponent shall have, in case she plays all three cards is 6.

TopDog special text reads: "On my turn, I may discard one of your active cards that has an icon, except your last remaining active character card and PROTECTED cards."

TopNotch special power text reads: "On my turn, I may discard one of your active booster/support cards."

Can my opponent possibly play the above two cards even if my Total Power is already 8? She says the Special Power Text of the two cards TopDog and TopNotch takes precedence before the matching of Total Powers of the cards. So the Special Text for TopDog will discard one of my active card w/ icon therefore reducing my Total Power to 6. Then TopNotch will force me to discard one more card which is a support card further reducing my Total Power to 5.

Is this the correct way to play it? Does the Special Power Text really resolves first one by one before players compare their Total Powers? Or should your opponent's Total Power required to be met first before a card's Special Power takes effect?

Character Card Value = Casting Cost?

- Which is correct? -

I am thinking the Value of the Character Cards is the casting cost just like in Magic The Gathering. Before the Special Power Text of those cards can be used, the Total Power of your opponent must first be met.

- OR-

Does the Total Power of your opponent does NOT need to be met before the Announce Power Phase?

For example: If you have a Character Card that has a Special Power Text that can discard an opponent's card on your Character Phase, can you play that card to your advantage to decease your opponent's Total Power immediately even wthout meeting it and before the Announce Power Phase? Considering you still have one more card to play that can also decrease your opponent's Total Power even further so when you are in your Announce Power phase, you already have met or surpassed your opponent's Total Power as you have reduced them beforehand.

Please help we are kinda confused by this. Thanks in advance!

Thread: Re: Mean Little Kids

RolloTommasi — 2006-07-12T14:23:35+00:00

Yes, I first look at the gang color, then, the name. It's more immediate for me.

Thread: Re: Mean Little Kids

Dearlove — 2006-02-10T22:09:58+00:00

Insertcleverthing wrote:
The red gang (ignore values), purple gang (has the double gang value card), and green gang (lots of special powers) are among the best in the deck.

First time I've ever seen the gangs referred to this way. And whilst I'm sure there are lots of you who have more cards memorised than I do, I know a few (though I must admit not FunFun referred to above, though I may now do so). But I'm reasonably sure I'd not have got the gang colours right. Cool, Top, Fun and No, those I can related to. But, as a matter of interest, anyone else think in colour terms?

Thread: Re: Mean Little Kids

Wyrenn — 2006-02-09T20:11:48+00:00

The weakness of the Khind though are decks with high powered single cards (Vulca, Terrah and to a lesser extent Mimix) and the fact that retreating against the Khind can totally screw them up.

Don't get me wrong, the Khind are not a bad deck... just easier to deal with in my opinion than what you stated.

Thread: Re: Mean Little Kids

Insertcleverthing — 2006-02-09T17:52:01+00:00

The Khind have quite a few cards which can help them to "stack the deck" so to speak, ranging from the "draw up to nine cards" Hoax supplement and a few Leaderships that let your dig around through discards or what not. Also it is important to know that gang cards with special power text are active as long as the gang is.

The red gang (ignore values), purple gang (has the double gang value card), and green gang (lots of special powers) are among the best in the deck. Careful play with these three should be enough to attain victory most of the time. Just stave off for them while you employ the weaker gangs with all those tricky Boosters and Supports.

After the first few battles, I rarely have the problem of not being able to have a good set-up for the rest of the game. I've also played them enough to conclude it can't be luck of the draw. Perhaps you should consider how and when to play gang cards. Often you should leave one card of an active gang in your hand just so you know you can keep adding on in the subsequent turn.

Hope that helps a bit.

Thread: Re: Mean Little Kids

Philip Thomas — 2006-02-09T16:53:59+00:00

You mean "Call them overpowered, I would not"

Any more detail? I think there is one Khind card in the base set, Pandemonium, if I remeber rightly. (Support card, "you may not play support cards"). Has anyone tried taking the cards for each race from all decks and puttign them together (they are numbered so you could do this if you had all the decks).

Thread: Re: Mean Little Kids

Wyrenn — 2006-02-09T16:50:54+00:00

As a counterpoint, I have rarely seen the Khind win. Their Gang ability is potentially powerful, but requires you to draw enough of the same Gang to use effectively. Fun they are, but I wouldn't call them overpowered.

Thread: Mean Little Kids

Insertcleverthing — 2006-02-09T05:40:28+00:00

BLUE MOON EXPANSION DECK: THE KHIND REVIEW by Simon T. Willems

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INDEPTH REVIEW
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The Khind are mean. Not only can they throw a whole bunch of cards down with special power text but they can compound it turn to turn by continuing to expand upon the chosen gang. Almost all of their cards are interesting and pose some kind of clever cardplay.

The Gang ability is very strong and allows a player to play multiple cards in much the same way as the Pair ability except that as long as the Character cards share the same prefix they may be continued to add upon on subsequent turns by any number.

I rarely see the Khind lose, however, so they may be a tad unbalanced. When there’s such an array of possible moves before a player, it’s hard not to dictate the flow of the battle. Often one can simply exhaust an opponent’s resources and pounce once they’ve thrown in all their good cards. In this way, the Khind are almost too formidable.

I also love the artwork. The style is both gorgeous and creepy and juxtaposes nicely with the other decks in appearance. The Khind really come off as sinister little children running around with scissors they shouldn’t have in the first place. Think Children of the Corn with cutlery. Eek!

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BREAKDOWN
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PROS:
- Most tactical to play (strong strategic feel)
- Deadly compounding gang combos
- Most fun to play in my opinion

CONS:
- Overpowered?

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FINAL VERDICT
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BUY. The Khind present lots of trickery and strategy in deciding how and when to commit gangs. Plus pumping battles up into a two dragon grab in back to back turns can be very satisfying. I rate it a 9 out of 10. The Khind are my all-time favorite of the 8 base decks.