The game-playing in the 'Under the Influence' Christmas even introduces two new types of weapons: planes and crosses.
Planes ("Smart Planes"): Requires 5-7 tiles. Will send a hit to a random object(s) you are trying to clear. There’s no real way to guide them to hit a specific location or a specific type of object. They seem to target the densest area of objects on the board. The number of objects they clear depends on if the objects are close together. The number seems to range from 1-5.
Crosses ("Cross-rockets"): Requires 8-9 tiles. They work like an overlapping set of arrows: they clear a row and a column. Unlike the planes, their location does matter if you’re trying to take out a specific target - it has to be in the right row or column. Unless you have a big group of objects, like grass or dandelions, the crosses are probably best used in combo with planes or color jars.
Color plane = a launch combo of a plane and a color jar
Color cross = a launch combo of a cross and a color jar
These new weapons require a change in strategy. Normally I focus on which targets I need to take out, and build my weapons in that area. Since so much of these ones’ damage is random, I focus mostly on where I can make good color tile matches in the board. (Although, plain matches to remove objects can of course still target specific objects.) The planes’ location doesn’t seem to matter at all when you launch them - their targets seem to be random. (But maybe they hit at the most concentrated area of objects?) So if your target objects are on the right side of the board, check the whole board for the best matching potential. Your plane launch might be on the completely opposite side from its targets.
If you combine a cross with a plane, the cross will jump to one of the objects that needs clearing and take out a row and column from that spot. Adding additional planes to the combo does nothing.
Planes’ effectiveness depends on how concentrated your objects are. If a dandelion is by itself, a plane will only clear that one dandelion. If you have many dandelions grouped together, it will take a bunch of them out.
If you launch two planes that are next to each other, it will double the number of objects that are cleared. If your objects are close together this combo will work well. If they’re spread at a distance from each other you’re better off launching them separately.
If you launch two crosses that are next to each other, the blast goes out in diagonal directions as well as horizontally and vertically. It's pretty cool!
Color crosses seem to be the most effective by far. If you have a decent number of launch tiles, they’ll cover the whole board like a color blast would, but they may also take out a bunch of the objects that require two hits.
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