Antihero: Tips and tricks to get your thief on

In real life, stealing is bad and you should definitely not do it. Not so in Antihero, the digital board game from Versus Evil where you run your own Victorian era thieves’ guild. Stealing and other underhanded activities are actually a lot of fun.

But only if you do them right. We can help with that, since we’ve been playing enough Antihero to guide you to get your guild in tip-top shape. Follow our tips and tricks and stick to the shadows.

How to win a game of Antihero

Would probably help if you knew how to win before you dive into any big strategy discussions, right? In Antihero, the object is to score more Victory Points before your opponent.

You can score said Victory Points in three ways:

• Infiltrate churches for Blackmail. You’ll need to infiltrate the same church three times to get one Blackmail point.
• Assassinate targets to earn Skulls. While targets can be seen on the map, you won’t know their identity until you scout the area in which they’re located.
• Buy Bribes in the Guild.

Often, you’ll have an easier shot at one of these methods of winning than another, but any combination of the three can lead you to victory.

You and your Master Thief

The Master Thief isn’t just your avatar. He or she is the person who makes things happen, scouting unrevealed portions of the game map and performing the widest range of actions.

Here’s what your Master Thief can do for you:

• Scout areas with fog over them to find out what’s there.
• Burgle buildings to earn you gold; some buildings can be burgled twice, though the second visit yields less gold.
• Attack opposing characters, except for the other side’s Master Thief. Upgrades in the ‘Stabbery’ tree, like Reinforced Steel and Poison Blade, can help your Master Thief do more damage.

The number of actions your Master Thief can take in a turn is indicated by green dots above their head. You can increase the number of actions per turn with the Expert Scout and Master Scout upgrades in the ‘Sneakery’ branch.

Know your buildings

It’s not necessary to be an architect to have success in Antihero, but you do need to know the different types of buildings and why they’re important. Let’s take a quick look:

• Businesses – Distinguished by the banners above them, Businesses can be infiltrated by Urchins to yield resources and upgrades.
• Churches – Found in grey districts, you can earn one gold per turn by infiltrating a Church with an Urchin. If you get three Urchins into the same Church, it will give you a Blackmail Victory Point.
• Trading Houses – Important because they will produce lanterns, which are needed for a variety of upgrades, you’ll find Trading Houses in green districts.
• Strangefellows Clubs – Want to upgrade your Thug or Gang units? You’ll need to find a brown district and infiltrate a Strangefellows Club.
• Orphanages – Located in blue districts, Orphanages reduce the gold cost for recruiting Urchins and also allow you to upgrade those Urchins so they can evict opposing characters from buildings.

Some Skirmish and Campaign scenarios also have specialized buildings on top of the ones you’ll get to know very well as you play more often. Be sure to learn and take these into account.

Things to remember to do before ending your turn

Antihero helpfully doesn’t let you end your turn without taking all the actions available to you. Even so, you should get to the point where they are second nature for you.

One nice thing is that you can take these actions in any order in most cases:

• Have your Master Thief perform all their actions.
• Spend gold to recruit more characters, if you have enough.
• Make sure all characters you have on the board take their actions. Recruited characters can take actions in that same turn.
• Purchase an upgrade, or …
• Take Charity. You can choose between 4 gold and 2 lanterns every turn you did not buy an upgrade. There’s no downside to it, so be sure to take advantage of it every time.

Once you’ve done everything you can in a given turn, the green checkmark in the bottom-right corner will light up and you can pass play to your opponent.

Nick Tylwalk

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Nick Tylwalk enjoys writing about video games, comic books, pro wrestling and other things where people are often punching each other, regaardless of what that says about him. He prefers MMOs, RPGs, strategy and sports games but can be talked into playing just about anything.