Mage and Monsters – Forest Brutal 800 Blood Shard Achievement Guide

A guide on how to earn the Forest Brutal 800 Blood Shard achievement in Mage & Monsters by using Gus.

Guide to Forest Brutal 800 Blood Shard Achievement

Intro

With Mage & Monster’s latest update, one of the hardest achievements in the game has been added. This guide has been created to give everyone a chance to earn the achievement without the need of spells.

The premise of the strategy is to make Pyromancers (referred to simply as Pyro throughout the rest of the guide) as strong as possible. With the Pyro upgrade costing 150 blood shards, this means we only have a total of 650 shards to work with. Most of these will go into Ranged related upgrades, while a few early game oriented choices are made for consistency sake.

With the difficulty of the achievement, there is no guarantee this guide will work on your first try, and RNG may cause restarts in multiple locations. With that in mind, feel free to adapt as necessary in your own runs.

Pre-Level 1

• Mage: Gus
• Starting Units: 1 Apprentice & 1 Pyro

Upgrades:

Full Run Breakdown

The following strategy has worked for me in ~25% of my runs since fully developing it. Smaller optimizations can be made mid-run depending on unit/gold offerings.

Level 1-4

• Get at least one gold option, reroll if none
• Focus on Footman > Archers > Warriors
• Buy one +10 max units after round 3
• Set all units to 150% Movespeed

Level 5

• Tier 2 Unit upgrade
• Buy unit x1 and focus Alch > Miner > Bandit
• Buy +10 max units

Level 6-8

• Try to aim for 12-16 Alch
• Save gold to ~300 for round 9

Level 9

• Tier 3 Unit upgrade
• Buy units down to 100 gold and focus Apprentice > Knight > Gladiator
• Increase max units to fit army as needed

Level 10

• Save gold and focus Apprentice > Knight > Glad

Level 11

• Roll until you have 10+ knights
• This round can cause restarts if unlucky
• From here on, upgrade max units as needed

Level 12-16

• Save gold and continue to focus Apprentice > Knight
• Round 14 can be tough, have 15+ Apps and 15+ Knights
• Save to ~800 gold

Level 17-18

• Tier 4 Unit Upgrade
• Buy units down to 200 gold, focus Pyro > Golem > Paladin

Level 19

• Buy units until 11+ Pyro, pref 15+
• Save as much gold as you can

Level 20

• Spend down to 200 gold

Level 21

• Buy two +HP and one +Ranged Damage upgrade
• Dump rest of gold into units, 20+ pyro

Level 22

• Turn down movespeed of melee units to 75%
• Turn down movespeed of ranged units to 125%\
• Buy +Ranged Damage upgrade
• Good luck, hardest round

Level 23+

• Long live Pyro + Gus combo
• Focus Gold > Pyro > Anything
• Buy +Ranged Damage upgrade every round
• Pray

If you’re able to make it past round 22 with a healthy amount of Pyros, then you’re likely to finish out the rest of the game. There’s no need to buy tier 5 units or increase the number of tier 4 units offered, since both cost too much gold.

Conclusion

Hopefully this guide is able to help you all earn the achievement!