Board Game Arena

As we all know bats are 95% of the time the worst option to play. I like them (because they are cute) and would like to invent homebrew rules that updates bats and bat-related cards to make them relevant. Share your ideas on how you would do it !

Why not have this thread for other homebrew ideas as well.

I have played bats occasionally just because it's fun, and my starting hand warranted trying it. My problem with them is how quickly they fill trees when you get enough to put down - how about bats of the exact same type stacking? I think that would even be thematic.

More interactions with the crane fly and gnat would be a nice boost.

"Play any number of bats for free, then draw all bats from the clearing onto your hand."
Or straight up allowing you to use both clearing and hand bats, since the bats will be 'flying to you to get that gnat'.

Or give gnats and crane flies different multipliers depending on the number of gnats or crane flies in your forest.
1 Gnat: 1x1 per bat.
2 Gnat: 2x2 per bat.
3 Gnat: 3x3 per bat.
This follows the rabbit example, but is limited to three as there is no more gnat cards than that.

If you have the woodland expansion, you can get three crane flies, who can also give you 1/4/9 multiplier.

The gnat/crane fly multiplicator would force the same 'need to deny this card' dilemma of the wolf, but that is perfectly fine.
It is very strong at 3, and gives bats a chance at 2.

Having all expensions gives us total numbers of:
6x3 bats (18) x 5
3 gnats = 18 x 9 = 162
3 crane fly = 18 x 9 = 162
bat cave = 18 x 3 = 54

If you draw and use all 18 bat, 3 gnat, 3 crane fly cards and the cave, you get 378 points. (not accounting for cards that have both)
Realistically, you are looking at far, far less, as you would be denied the insects if possible, each of which more than halves the multipliers, and you have neither the trees needed to play all of this, nor the chance to use the cards below the third winter card.

The limiting factor of bats would be trees, the limiting factor on deer and wolves are cards to discard.

Retired Actuary wrote: ↑11 March 2026, 22:10 I have played bats occasionally just because it's fun, and my starting hand warranted trying it. My problem with them is how quickly they fill trees when you get enough to put down - how about bats of the exact same type stacking? I think that would even be thematic.

very nice idea! Unfortunately, I see one problem: It will almost never happen in game. Each bat exists 3 x, 2 x on one side, 1 x on the other side. For the stacking to work out, you would have to get the 2 identical bats facing the same side. This is much much rarer than for example getting two or three hares facing the same side. (11 hares in total, 5 to the one, 6 to the other side)

IrisRain wrote: ↑13 March 2026, 20:11
Having all expensions gives us total numbers of:
6x3 bats (18) x 5
3 gnats = 18 x 9 = 162
3 crane fly = 18 x 9 = 162
bat cave = 18 x 3 = 54

If you draw and use all 18 bat, 3 gnat, 3 crane fly cards and the cave, you get 378 points. (not accounting for cards that have both)
Realistically, you are looking at far, far less, as you would be denied the insects if possible, each of which more than halves the multipliers, and you have neither the trees needed to play all of this, nor the chance to use the cards below the third winter card.

The limiting factor of bats would be trees, the limiting factor on deer and wolves are cards to discard.

Shouldn't disregard the barn owls in this consideration. They do NOT occupy side slots AND offer an extra turn. They are the most powerful bat cards imho. 2 owls x 3 pt per bat x 18 bat = 108 potential points without any extra rules.

Also, throwing in 1 or 2 European fat doormouse can give a nice point boost.

lordhavoc306 wrote: ↑14 March 2026, 09:55

Retired Actuary wrote: ↑11 March 2026, 22:10 I have played bats occasionally just because it's fun, and my starting hand warranted trying it. My problem with them is how quickly they fill trees when you get enough to put down - how about bats of the exact same type stacking? I think that would even be thematic.

very nice idea! Unfortunately, I see one problem: It will almost never happen in game. Each bat exists 3 x, 2 x on one side, 1 x on the other side. For the stacking to work out, you would have to get the 2 identical bats facing the same side. This is much much rarer than for example getting two or three hares facing the same side. (11 hares in total, 5 to the one, 6 to the other side)

I mean, back of the envelope, the odds of a matching bat (with both expansions in play) after three unique bats is around 13%, then 19% with a fourth unique bat, then 25%. I know it wouldn't come into play often, but given you could load a bunch up at once (unlike hares), that could still be appealing.

Another approach to balancing would be not to strengthen a seemingly weak subset of cards, but instead to weaken the overpowered ones. For example, butterflies become too strong when both expansions are in play. Reducing the gentian factor from 3 to 1 could help tone down their power. Alternatively, stacking on a stinging nettle could be limited to butterflies of the same species—so two or three peacocks could still be stacked, but not a mix of peacock and map butterflies.

If butterflies were no longer overpowered, all other options, including bats, would naturally become more viable.

Retired Actuary wrote: ↑11 March 2026, 22:10 I have played bats occasionally just because it's fun, and my starting hand warranted trying it. My problem with them is how quickly they fill trees when you get enough to put down - how about bats of the exact same type stacking? I think that would even be thematic.

I like this thematic idea, quite simple, and does cover the issue of tree being filled too quickly !

IrisRain wrote: ↑13 March 2026, 20:11 More interactions with the crane fly and gnat would be a nice boost.

"Play any number of bats for free, then draw all bats from the clearing onto your hand."
Or straight up allowing you to use both clearing and hand bats, since the bats will be 'flying to you to get that gnat'.

Or give gnats and crane flies different multipliers depending on the number of gnats or crane flies in your forest.
1 Gnat: 1x1 per bat.
2 Gnat: 2x2 per bat.
3 Gnat: 3x3 per bat.
This follows the rabbit example, but is limited to three as there is no more gnat cards than that.

If you have the woodland expansion, you can get three crane flies, who can also give you 1/4/9 multiplier.

The gnat/crane fly multiplicator would force the same 'need to deny this card' dilemma of the wolf, but that is perfectly fine.
It is very strong at 3, and gives bats a chance at 2.

Having all expensions gives us total numbers of:
6x3 bats (18) x 5
3 gnats = 18 x 9 = 162
3 crane fly = 18 x 9 = 162
bat cave = 18 x 3 = 54

If you draw and use all 18 bat, 3 gnat, 3 crane fly cards and the cave, you get 378 points. (not accounting for cards that have both)
Realistically, you are looking at far, far less, as you would be denied the insects if possible, each of which more than halves the multipliers, and you have neither the trees needed to play all of this, nor the chance to use the cards below the third winter card.

The limiting factor of bats would be trees, the limiting factor on deer and wolves are cards to discard.

I agree with the fact that bats are bad because they are the only ones that do not have good card multiplicators (the owl being the only good multiplicator card and being rare) and instead give flat amounts of points so buffing multiplicators on gnat and cranes would be a good way to go (also it does have side effect of making the frogs that are 5 points per crane actually an arguable option than the butterfly they are tied to). Even when you play bats, it is sometimes not worth it to play cranes or gnats because the 1x multiplicator is so low and the good effect of the card (playing bats from hands) is situational.

The downside of increasing multiplicator is that you will have more incentive to go for bats to profit from it and will ignore the mouse thing that gives 15 points flat, which is one of the cards that can actually make investing in bat worth it.

I feel like investing in bats in general you would want to end fast, because they are flat points with no end game point investment + you need many trees so you are on a fast pace in the deck putting cards out, so I do not know if "trying to make bats butterfly-like multiplicators" would make them rewarding and more on the gamble side of actually drawing them. When you are vs butterflies you either want bigger multiplicators or accelerate game before it pays off so Idk if I like this or not.

However the idea of buffing the effects of gnat/crane is nice because it is super situational as it is now. I think playing a card straight from clearing is quite busted so what I have in mind would be more of reducing cart cost to 0 for both because you would want to hold on either of these cards for a bit to actually profit from their effects and when you are waiting for cards to appear in hand, you stack up little by little good cards that you want to hold onto, and it is a pain to get rid of a good card just cos you waited 3 turns to draw a bat and play your gnat/crane.

lordhavoc306 wrote: ↑18 March 2026, 13:14 Another approach to balancing would be not to strengthen a seemingly weak subset of cards, but instead to weaken the overpowered ones. For example, butterflies become too strong when both expansions are in play. Reducing the gentian factor from 3 to 1 could help tone down their power. Alternatively, stacking on a stinging nettle could be limited to butterflies of the same species—so two or three peacocks could still be stacked, but not a mix of peacock and map butterflies.

If butterflies were no longer overpowered, all other options, including bats, would naturally become more viable.

I rather go for a simpler solution! Besides, bats and butterflies are not in competition when it comes to balancing the game, bat archetype being mostly left/right cards options, and butterflies top/bottom.

I think making a real viable bat card would be to invent new ones to be honest, they occupy quite a few slots on the roster, but they are pretty straightforward and always do the same thing, flat points, and doesn't communicate much with other multiplicators/cards besides color. The dedicated cards that are supposed to communicate with bats are also flat points (the mouse and the frog) and they are both tied to generally better options on the card (more bats/furrets/butterflies). What makes bats bad is that none of bat or bat-related cards let you do something else than give you flat points, the only option for that is crane/gnat and I guess owl replay (very good card). If we had a bat related card that would let you draw, or communicate with something else, it would make it much easier to keep something going, the feeling you have when you play bat is a feeling of being very slow to go through cards (while you want to go faster to end first).

But these little changes ; stacking same bats and buffing gnat/crane are both great ideas to make it more fun!

The funny thing is, the Common Hazel already has a buff (compared to say the Mole) - you can keep playing down bats instantly if you draw them. In practice, however, even with two hazels down I've rarely drawn additional bats, and certainly not more than once per turn.

Draft Mode is so underutilized and underappreciated...it fixes everything here (and almost everything that's not here) with no alterations needed.

Anything like the bat strategy, which can be a lot of fun to play but hard to find and therefore ultimately less viable vs stronger themes like deer&wolf (my guilty pleasure is rabbits), has a lot more potential if you have control over starting cards. And aside from finding your favorite rare cards, Draft can also be used defensively to simply remove from the game strong cards from themes you'd prefer not to play (or play AGAINST), or to fill your opponent's hand with weak cards.

And that's killing two Goshawks with one Moss covered stone. Maybe three.