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[massenburger]

Disclaimer: I've been mostly a lurker on this site for a while. I only started playing Dominion at the end of last January, so I'm not that great of a player by any stretch. I didn't play on iso that much, and I don't really play on Goko that much either (but I want too....).

Anyway, my wife and I played a couple of Alchemy/Prosperity games last night, and we came across (in my mind) this really interesting board.

http://www.dominiondeck.com/games/big-or-small
[Herbalist,Apothecary,Watchtower,Philosopher's Stone,Familiar,Talisman,Bishop,Mountebank,Apprentice,Hoard]

I had just read about the herbalist/phil stone combo a while ago, so that is what immediately jumped out at me, but the more I looked at the board the more I started seeing other viable strategies. I ended up trying the herbalist/phil stone combo, and pulled it off pretty well. My wife quickly filled me up with all 10 curses, and a bunch of coppers, which I was happy to count every time I played my phil stone. I ended up winning 35-29, which I think is pretty good considering I had all 10 curses, and some terrible luck with my phil stones and herbalists not lining up (despite the fact I had about 8 herbalists, and 4 phil stones).

As I said, I'm still fairly new, so I may have missed a few (maybe obvious) strategies.

Also, is there another board I should have posted this to? I looked but couldn't find any kind of "IRL game session" board.

[eHalcyon]

Welcome to the forums!

You might be looking for the Game Reports subforum, or the Help subsubforum within that one.  But GD is probably ok for it too.

Was this set using Colonies?

In general, I'd say that Mountebank is hard to ignore, but the interaction with Philo Stone is interesting.  But I probably would not go for Familiar unless I was also interested in either Philo Stone or Apothecary.

[qmech]

I do like Philosopher's Stone.  It's hard to pass up on Cursing altogether though, so I'd be tempted to open Potion/Herbalist then buy exactly one Familiar before focusing on the PStones.

Very complex and interesting set.  I think this is a fine place to post it.  (I also suspect that most regulars browse from "recent unread" rather than the forum lists, so will see it wherever it gets put.)

[Avin]

I'm interested in hearing others' thoughts on this as well. I tried this board on Goko singleplayer and destroyed Lord Bottington both using a pure Philosopher's Stone/Herbalist strategy (I did discard curses to Mountebank and trash curses in my hand to my opponent's Bishop), as well as using an initially offensive strategy followed by Apprentice and Bishop trashing until I was able to buy a Colony each turn. I obviously had a higher total score on the former but the latter seemed to work just as well. I'm not sure how I would have fared pitting the two against each other.

Both games were Colony games.

[Morgrim7]

Gotta be Herbalist/PhilStone.

[DStu]

Thirded PS/Herbalist+1Familiar.  Give out light cursing to not end 0-10 on them and also slow your opponent a bit.  PS/Herbalist itself can handle the Curses quite well, Mountebank even better.  If opponents follows for PS, maybe no Curser at all.

[GiB]

Interesting board indeed.

I agree Herbalist+PStone+Curser should be good, but I would not commit to that strategy in the opening, just in case the opponent goes on heavy Bishops+Hoards (in which case it is probably best to forget about PStones).

• With 4/3, I would either :
  • open Silver/Potion, grab a single Familiar ASAP, and save the Herbalists for later. With $2P I would probably also buy Apothecary over Herbalist.
  • open Silver/Bishop if my opponent opens Herbalist
• With 5/2, open Mountebank/-, deal out a few Curses, then again switch to heavy Bishop/Hoard (trashing Mountebank over Copper) if my opponent goes for PStones.