Halflings

Halflings (Plains) - Preferred faction when playing against:

Mermaids

Swarmlings

Auren

Witches

Dwarves

Engineers

Chaos Magicians

Giants

Ability

Get 1 additional Victory point for each Spade you get throughout the game (regardless of the way you get the Spade).

Stronghold

After building the Stronghold, immediately and only once get 3 Spades to apply on Terrain spaces following the general rules. You may build a Dwelling on exactly one of these spaces by paying its costs.

Story

Halflings are nice little guys, not overly strong, intelligent, or apt in magic. So, hard work is their only way to achieve something in life. And with hard work, they achieve amazing things. Wherever a family of Halflings appears, the landscape will become flourishing farmland in a heartbeat – and this with only their own hands' work.

Common Strategy: Using the Spade a lot does the trick for this faction. Build a temple in round one, so the priests can be used to upgrade your spade conversion early in the game. Alternatively pick the Priest bonus card in round one to develop spade conversion, or build an additional dwelling. Building neither a Stronghold nor a Sanctuary is not required. Although earning 3 spades from building your Stronghold later in the game is nice when you have dwellings left to build, especially if relevant favor tile/bonus scoring tile are present. The “2 Victory Points per Spade” round scoring tile can give you a great leeway from your opponents, especially if rendered available in rounds 3-4.

Notes:

Green tile + Combo Green/Red tile = preferred starting dwelling positions

Red tile + combo green/red tile = Alternative starting dwelling positions