So having done a looooot of Hand of Fate playing, I came to the conclusion that the Iron Hunger style of gameplay was the most unintuitive and difficult to master. So I decided to write this guide to give you some helpful tips. Cards that are good or helpful are included here.

In general, you want to gain equipment as often as possible, and failing at that, get enough gold to buy out any stores you run across. This gets tricky, but there are a few really good cards you can add to your deck to aid you.

Iron Hunger 1 - Easy. Just find the encounter to get the token. You don't need to do anything.

Iron Hunger 2 - Bring 25 ore to get the token.

Iron Hunger 3 - Gain a max life card and automatically get the token.

Iron Hunger 4 - Bring 50 ore to get the token.

Iron Hunger 5 - Gain the Alchemists Potion blessing and the card token automatically.

Iron Hunger 6 - Bring 100 ore (god help you) to get the token.

Iron Hunger 7 - Gain the final token automatically, and finish the questline.

Ore is the basis of everything with the Iron Hunger game. You need it. The Iron Hunger comes automatically with an added "Equipment Gain" card, and the Iron Hunger Helm gives you a random food each time you gain equipment, which is absolutely useless. Replace the helm with literally any other helm, and get the 4 ore from scrapping it.

Now, on to some of the general strategies for how to play. You need to stack your deck with cards that scrap for a lot of ore, so when you DO find/buy/discover them, you can beef yourself up. In some cases, it may be worth keeping your garbage starting gear in order to stock up on ore instead. I'll list various cards that can be included and why below.

High Ore Value Equipment Cards: Simple and straightforward, you want to be able to gain a lot of ore when you find a piece of equipment. Base shields scrap for 1, while Thunderstrike scraps for 12. The difference is massive. In general, though, just add in the special equipment, and you'll be fine.

Thunderstrike: 12
Dragon Tongue: 11
Mithril: 11
Forbidden Armor: 11
Mortal Whimsy: 10
Skeleton Sword: 10
Blood Crescent: 10
Huge Hammer: 9
Clairvoyant Helm: 9
Dragon Helm: 9
Kraken Helm: 9
Desperate Measures: 8
Scorching Zeal: 8
Undead Bane: 8

Very Useful Cards: The following cards are all worth including for various reasons, which are outlined below.

Assassin's Greed: The go-to gloves for this, as they give you gold per successful combat, and you need a lot of gold for this to work.

Fortitude's Breath: Every third encounter does not consume food/ore. Note that this is per encounter, not per step, so retracing your steps still costs normal. But it's the most useful shield for this sub-class.

Golden Mask: Gain 15% more gold. Solid choice.

Plunderer's Helm: Choose your gain card. Arguably the best option, since you want the most bang per equipment card discovery.

Rings: Rings are a little tricky. They get discovered in all the same situations you might find a piece of armor or a weapon. But there is no limit on how many rings you can equip, they tend to be cheap to buy, and many give you additional ways to earn gold. So there's a balance. In general, about 12 rings in the equipment pool is the limit. Below are some of the really useful ones.

Ring of Reward: Free equipment every 3 combats. One of the best rings for Iron Hunger.

Emergency Ring: When your health reaches 0, consumes all your food and gives you a scaling amount of health in return. Hoooooly cow, this ring is almost like functional immortality.

Plunderer's Ring: Free gold and healing every time you get any gain card.

Skeleton King's Ring: Useless most of the time, but costs 0, which means you can buy it when you see it and thin out the pool of equipment cards you can discover.

Healer's Ring: +1 gold each time you heal. Super useful.

Ring of Punishment: +1 gold every 6 damaging hits in combat. Get paid for your pain.

Ring of Experience: Increases max health after successful combat. Really cranks up your tankiness factor.

Ring of Peace: Get additional gold if you avoid combat in an encounter.

Bashing Ring: 10 gold appears in combat after bashing a certain number of times. Easy way to cheese your way to wealthiness, as there is no limit. Just bash that last bandit forever, grab the gold when it drops, and cash that money in after the fight! This is a cheap way to earn money, but the odds are already stacked against you. Fun fact - bosses can't be killed with bashes.


Suggested Encounter Cards: Some encounters are more useful than normal due to the Iron Hunger's unique interaction with food and equipment. Here are a few of the ones I notice consistently deliver.

Ghost of the Sea: Once you've acquired her card token, she sometimes gives 25 ore, but always gives you something good.

Helpful Priest: Useful in that it allows you to exchange half of your food for Blessings (assuming you don't hit the Major Fail).

Soul Gem: Useful for exchanging 5 food for removing a curse, or gaining more health if you have no curses.

Mister Lionel: Exchange food for equipment.

Travelling Tinker/Mage/Jeweller/Shop: More opportunities to buy equipment.

The Lovers: Demanding payment gets you two rings - which also removes the rings from the available pool of equipment that can be drawn or found at a shop. Alternately, good for obtaining a free blessing if you already have the rings.

Metal Ore: Actually just gives you 75 ore. Screw the Holy Forge and the Battle Hammer, you want the ore from this.

The Maiden: Option to give you gold or a blessing. Always a positive outcome.

The Kraken Unleashed: This one is iffy. If you are able to beat the Kraken without taking too much damage it pays off, as you get a couple of gain cards, and the Kraken Mask, which is useful if you don't have a better mask, and which gets turned into a decent amount of ore if you just scrap it.

Loan: Easy gold gain, but you need the gold for the loan at the start. But it never has a bad outcome, so it's a solid inclusion.

Soldier's Training: Easy gain cards against easy opponents.

Twisted Canyon: Free equipment piece, but a possible pain card from the chance game.

Holy Forge: Alright, here's the one that's tricky. Normally you trade the Metal Ore for the Battle Hammer, the strongest weapon in the game. But the Iron Hunger changes that formula, and exchanges 75 ore for the Battle Hammer. At worst, this is a dead card that does nothing. But if you are in a good position with plenty of ore, this gets you the best weapon in the game, and a refund for your ore depending on what weapon you had before that.

Getting ore is hard. Much harder than getting food, which is why Iron Hunger is extremely difficult to play. But there is a broad strategy to getting more ore, and once you get in a good position, the Iron Hunger can make it further than any other class in Endless mode, simply because they do not rely on food, and equipment never ceases to be useful. Here are a few rules for the strategy.

1. Equipment spawns from "Draw Equipment" cards and from Shops. Certain shops carry more of one or another type of equipment, with Tinkerers carrying mostly rings and artifacts. But rings, armor, weapons, helmets, shields and artifacts all fall into the "Equipment" category. Rings and Artifacts cannot be scrapped for ore. This is important to understand. When building your deck, you need to keep it comprised of mostly things you can scrap for lots of ore.

2. Keep your deck comprised of 1-2 artifacts you actually like using, 1 pair of gloves (to use; gloves scrap for little to nothing), and then rings and high scrap value armor/weapons/shields. When you gain a ring, it leaves the Equipment pool, and you will never see it again (unless you lose a ring, which is a rare occurrence), same with the 1 pair of gloves and your artifacts. Eventually, it is possible to only discover high ore value weapons and armor, once you find and obtain all the rings and your chosen gloves and artifact.

3. Until you have a decent working amount of ore, you should always choose to scrap new equipment. Your starting sword, while not amazing, will still get the job done. But having a really fancy weapon won't save you from dying to starvation.

4. Buying weapons to scrap for ore is inefficient - they're too expensive and gold isn't plentiful unless you're doing really well. You want to discover your weapons from equipment gain cards. Shops are best used for buying rings; this removes them from the pool and also gives you lots of abilities that can help you gain gold, health, and occasionally pieces of equipment. Only buy weapons to scrap if you need the ore, or if you have plenty of gold to spare.

5. Food cannot be sold, and is not consumed. That means it is a useless resource. But a lot of cards have options for using food, such as the Helpful Priest, which takes half your food in exchange for blessings, or Mr. Lionel, who gives you a piece of equipment for 20 food. Any card that allows you to utilize your food for literally any purpose is high value for any Iron Hunger run.

So there you have it. My guide for the Iron Hunger. It's a lot of fun once you get the hang of it, and the added challenge of it makes it more rewarding in the end. I've suggested cards that are useful, and given general strategies for how to make Iron Hunger work as a class. Whatever cards you add in that aren't listed really is up to you. Whatever you can consistently succeed in is a good option.

I hope this is helpful to some of you, and that it gives you some useful information and insightful tips for the game. Let me know if you have any questions, or if you have any other encounters or cards you find particularly useful.

Thanks for reading!
-Kenny