The Queen of Hearts is the villain from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. Her character in the Disney Villainous board game is really fun to play. This guide gives you the best Villainous strategy for the Queen of Hearts.
As the Queen of Hearts, you will focus on playing a marvelous game of croquet and making the winning shot. Everything else is just an annoying distraction from your fun. Off with their heads!
In this strategy guide I look at:
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- The Queen of Hearts Villain Guide
- Strategy to win as the Queen of Hearts
- The Queen of Hearts’ cards
- Important cards in the Queen of Hearts’ deck
- The Queen of Hearts’ board
- How to stop the Queen of Hearts’ from winning
The Queen of Hearts Villain Guide
Objective
Have a Wicket at each location and successfully take a shot.
Cards you need to win
Card Guards
To win as the Queen of Hearts in Villainous you need to have a Card Guard card that has been transformed into a Wicket at each location. To show that a Card Guard is a Wicket, turn it on its side.
Take the Shot
You need to use the Take the Shot card after you have a Wicket at each location. There are 3 of these in the deck and whether you successfully make the shot will depend on the luck of your draw.
To take the shot, you turn over the top 5 cards of your deck. If the total power cost of these cards is lower than the strength of your Wickets, then you successfully make the shot and win the game!
Activated Abilities
All of the Card Guards in the Queen of Heart’s deck have an activated ability. To activate the ability on a card, you need to move to a location with an activate symbol on it and pay any associated power cost to activate the power. Each Card Guard costs 1 power to turn it into a Wicket.
The other card with an activated ability is Stopwatch. This is free to activate and will get you one power for every Wicket you have. A great way to earn some power is to pay the 4 power cost of the Take The Shot ability.
Shrinking heroes
Using the cards Fury and Makes You Smaller, you can shrink heroes played against you. When a hero is shrunk it only covers one of the actions at the location, rather than both of them.
As a bonus, while there is a shrunken hero at a location, any other heroes played at the same location can’t cover the other action.
Enlarging heroes
When a hero is enlarged it is turned on its side to cover an additional action in the next location across. So it now covers 3 actions rather than 2. Your opponents can choose which additional action to cover.
Strategy to win as the Queen of Hearts in Villainous
Here are the high-level strategy tips to win as the Queen of Hearts. To give yourself the best chance of winning, read the following sections which look more closely at the Queen of Hearts’ cards and board.
Play to win croquet
Focus on playing a lovely game of croquet. That’s all you need to worry about. Play your Card Guards, get your Wickets lined up, and Take The Shot.
Off with their heads (or not)
Don’t be hot-headed like the Queen of Hearts and try to take the heroes down unless you need to.
You are Queen after all, these heroes are beneath you and not worth your time. Just get on with playing croquet. If a hero is irritating, consider shrinking it instead so that it only blocks one action.
Use your power wisely
Everything you need to win the game will cost you power.
If you add up the cost of playing the cheapest Card Guards, changing them all into a Wicket, and using Take The Shot it is 12 power. When you add in the effects, allies, and boost costs, the Queen of Hearts is an expensive villain to play. She is a Queen with expensive tastes.
The Stopwatch card and the Very Merry Unbirthday cards can help you to collect a lot of power in one turn after you have several allies or Wickets. Make these cards count.
Avoid changing Wickets back into Card Guards
If you’ve paid the cost to convert a Card Guard into a Wicket, don’t pay to change it back to a Card Guard. It takes an Activate action and costs you power too which you’ll want to keep to Take The Shot later.
Remember that you can have more than one Wicket at each location too.
To get rid of a hero by another method, use the Off With Your Head cards or use Tweedle Dee and Tweedledum.
Boost Tweedle Dee and Tweedledum with the Spears
Tweedle Dee and Tweedledum’s unique ability to not be discarded when used to defeat a hero means you can use them to vanquish heroes multiple times.
Boost them with all 3 Spears to give them a strength total of 5 and then move them around to different locations to get rid of heroes. They can even defeat Alice and the Cheshire Cat with a strength of 5. Picturing Tweedledum and Tweedledee holding three spears between them and smiling is actually terrifying!
A closer look at the Queen of Hearts’ cards and board
To stand the best chance of winning as the Queen of Hearts in Villainous, it helps to take a closer look at the cards in her deck and the actions on her board.
Queen of Hearts’ cards
Card by type
As you might expect from a ruling monarch, the Queen of Hearts is mostly concerned with controlling her subjects with effects and commanding her allies.
Taking a closer look at the Queen of Hearts’ cards, it is obvious how she is meant to be played. She uses her Card Guards and her power to get what she wants. Perfect for her character!
Cards by ability
There are 6 main card types in the Queen of Hearts’ 30 card deck.
1. Card Guards
The most important cards for you! It makes sense there are a lot of these in the deck. Remember that you can play multiple Card Guards at each location.
2. Gain power / Reduce power cost
Given that you need to pay your Card Guards to do your bidding and change into Wickets, it makes sense that the Queen of Hearts is power-hungry. Even using Take The Shot to win the game costs 4 power so you’ll need to be grabbing power and taking discounts wherever you can.
3. Take The Shot
There are 3 of these cards in the deck, so they will come up fairly frequently. If you draw one early in the game, it may be worth discarding it so that you can draw a more useful card.
4. Shrink heroes
This is one of the main ways you’ll control the heroes that are played against you. Shrink heroes so they don’t block the board actions you want then you can deal with them in your own time.
5. Boost ally
These 3 cards are all Spears. They give a +1 Strength to whichever ally they are played on. You could use them on a Wicket to make it stronger, but they are better played on Tweedledee and Tweedle Dum so they can take care of any annoying heroes for you.
6. Defeat hero abilities
The 3 Off With Your Head! cards are in this group. They allow you to defeat a hero with strength 4 or less. Of the heroes that could be played against you, 4 of them will always have strength 4 or less. The March Hare and Mad Hatter will too if they aren’t both in your realm at the same time.
Important cards in the Queen of Hearts’ deck
All the cards in your deck will help you in some way. But there are some cards that are really important and can help give you the edge in a game.
Card Guards
Your most important cards. You can’t win without them. Don’t use them to vanquish heroes unless absolutely necessary. The more you can turn into Wickets, the more likely you are to make the shot and win the game.
Take The Shot
The end game trigger card. You have 3 of these in your deck. They are your most expensive card to use at 4 power.
As you’re playing Villainous, try to keep track of where these cards are in your deck.
The last thing you want when playing Take The Shot is to draw another one of these as part of your 5 revealed cards.
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
A super, super important card. Play all your spears on this card to make it a strength 5 and it can handle any hero that is thrown at you. The best thing about Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum is that they are not discarded when you defeat a hero so they just keep on working for you.
Simply use the move item or ally action on your board to move Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum to different locations to vanquish annoying heroes.
Spear
While individually the Spear cards look quite underwhelming when you add them all to Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, you have a very powerful ally.
The Queen of Hearts’ board
All the locations are available to you at the start of the game so you can play anywhere you like. How useful is each location for you? Which is most beneficial at different stages of the game?
Courtyard
A super useful location because it has the move an item or ally action. To use Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee as your defender of the realm you’ll need this action.
This location also has 2 power and allows you to play a card. At the beginning of the game, you can quite happily alternative between Courtyard and Hedge Maze to gain power and play Card Guards. Until an opponent realizes what you’re doing, anyway!
Hedge Maze
You’ll be spending a lot of time at the Hedge Maze. It allows you to do all the things that you want to do the most in the game – play Card Guards, activate their Wicket ability, and gain power.
Here you can play 2 cards in one turn and gain 3 power. That is enough to get 2 Card Guards out in one turn. Then you can activate one of them using their activated ability.
Tulgey Wood
This is the only location with a vanquish action on it but it will give you no power if you go here. And you are the Queen of Hearts, you need power!
Only go to Tulgey Wood if you really need to get rid of a hero. There are better locations for you to use all the other actions.
White Rabbit’s House
The White Rabbit’s House is an ok location. It lets you do a little bit of all the things you need – gain 1 power, play 1 card and activate a Card Guard. It’s just not as good as Hedge Maze for those actions.
You might need to go to White Rabbit’s House if heroes have blocked the activate action in the Hedge Maze and you really need it.
But, it’s not really worth it. Especially because you have to move to Tungley Wood on your next turn, which is not one of the best locations for you.
How to stop the Queen of Hearts from winning Villainous
Don’t despair if every time you play Villainous the Queen of Hearts wins. There are some tactics you can use to stop her from winning.
If you are playing as the Queen of Hearts, watch out for these moves by your opponents!
Play a hero on Hedge Maze early in the game
The Hedge Maze is the best location for the Queen of Hearts. To slow her down her ability to play Cards Guards and turn them into Wickets you need to block the play card and activate abilities here early on in the game.
That will be enough to slow her down for a little while.
Choose these fate cards for the most impact
Alice
Alice is your best friend against the Queen of Hearts. She is very strong so it is difficult for the Queen to defeat her. Not only that, but when Alice is in play, the Queen can’t move her Allies or Items.
When you play Alice, play her at a different location to where Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are.
Then, if the Queen is using Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum to defeat heroes, she will have to use Card Guards or the King to defeat Alice. That will set the Queen back a couple of turns while she gets her Wickets back.
Cheshire Cat
The Cheshire Cat is another hero that forces the Queen’s hand. With a strength of 5 it is difficult for the Queen to defeat. In addition, it changes two Wickets back to Card Guards.
The Queen of Hearts will either have to:
- Use some Card Guards to defeat the Cheshire Cat
- Wait for Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum to be powerful enough to defeat it
- Ignore the Cheshire Cat completely and just pay the power cost again to turn Card Guards back into Wickets
March Hare and Mad Hatter
These two cards are best used together. If you draw one alongside a weaker card it is worth playing the March Hare or the Mad Hatter.
The Queen of Hearts finds it difficult to get rid of heroes with a strength of 5 or more. When both the Mad Hatter and the March Hare are played they boost each other so that they have strength 5.
Conclusion – Villainous Queen of Hearts Strategy
You will stand the best chance of winning as the Queen of Hearts if you focus on three main things:
- Play Card Guards whenever you get the chance and don’t use them to vanquish heroes.
- Collect power and use power discounts whenever you can. Don’t waste power changing Card Guards into Wickets and back again.
- Use the Spear cards on Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and use them to vanquish heroes.
Hopefully, this guide has been useful and given you some ideas for the next time you play as the Queen of Hearts.
Villainous is such an awesome game! The only thing that lets it down is the flimsy plastic cauldron. But you can get an upgraded Villainous cauldron with power tokens on Etsy! It even fits in the Villainous box!
For more Villainous upgrade inspiration see my article – 7 Wicked Disney Villainous Upgrades and Accessories!
If you enjoyed this Queen of Hearts strategy guide, check out my guides for the other Villainous characters – Jafar, Prince John, Ursula, Maleficent, Captain Hook, Dr Facilier, Evil Queen, Hades, Scar, Yzma, Ratigan, Cruella De Vil, Mother Gothel, and Pete.
You can check out my thoughts on the character theming and difficulty ranking in my Villainous character guide or check out my thoughts on the game in my review of Villainous.
See what other people are saying about Villainous in the Amazon reviews.
More Villainous articles
- 7 Wicked Disney Villainous Upgrades and Accessories
- Captain Hook strategy guide
- Cruella De Vil strategy guide
- Dr Facilier strategy guide
- Evil Queen strategy guide
- Hades strategy guide
- Jafar strategy guide
- Maleficent strategy guide
- Mother Gothel strategy guide
- Pete strategy guide
- Prince John strategy guide
- Ratigan strategy guide
- Scar strategy guide
- Ursula strategy guide
- Yzma strategy guide
- Villainous character overviews and rank
- Villainous review
Emily
Hi, I’m Emily, the tabletop gamer behind My Kind of Meeple. If this article helped you, I’d be honoured if you’d say, “Thanks!” with a £3 coffee on Ko-fi.
