Silverball guide · Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast
Four cards and the Beast
Iron Maiden throws an enormous amount at you. Almost all of it is feeding four collectable cards, and the multiplier most players never switch on.
Everything is feeding four cards
Iron Maiden is a loud, busy machine with multiballs, battle modes, a pyramid, a mystery orb and a tomb full of treasure. Underneath all of it sits one structure worth holding on to: four Eddie Cards, and the wizard mode they unlock.
The four are Mummy, Trooper, Cyborg and Soldier, and each is earned somewhere different. Mummy comes from collecting a Mummy super jackpot. Trooper comes from a Trooper super jackpot. Cyborg comes from completing the Power Pyramid. Soldier comes from reaching 2 Minutes To Midnight, which itself needs all five battle modes played.
Light all four and Number of the Beast opens up. Knowing that turns a chaotic playfield into four errands — and it tells you that a multiball you start but never take a super jackpot from has not actually advanced your game.
The multiplier you have to switch on
This is the single most missed thing on the machine, and it costs more than anything else here.
There are four stand-up targets with an orange X insert. Completing them lights the 2X playfield multiplier — but lighting it is not the same as having it. It sits there solid, and it does nothing until you roll over the lit inlane, which is what actually activates it for a short burst.
Complete the four targets a second time and 3X is available. Further completions add ten seconds. And once the multiplier is running, more hits on the X targets add another five seconds each, so you can extend a live multiplier while you are scoring under it.
The habit to build: get the X targets done, then choose when to trigger it. Rolling that inlane immediately before a super jackpot is worth vastly more than rolling it while you are pottering about.
The plunge is worth learning properly
The ordinary skill shot pays a million, five seconds of ball save, spots an EDDIE letter, and gets a million better every time you make one.
The super skill shot is the one to learn. Hold the left flipper button while you plunge, hit it hard enough to reach the upper flipper, and aim for the super jackpot target. It pays five million, ten seconds of ball save, five million more for each one you have already made — and, crucially, it advances the playfield X value.
That last clause is why it matters. It is the only skill shot on the machine that feeds directly into the biggest scoring lever, and it costs you nothing but the plunge.
The battle modes, and finishing them
Spell E-D-D-I-E on the white arrows, then shoot the Underworld to begin a battle mode. There are five and they are genuinely different from one another.
Fear the Dark lights four purple arrows; hitting any of them lights both spinners for the payoff, and shooting the right ramp afterwards boosts what each spin is worth. Hallowed Be Thy Name is a prison break in stages, and the faster you finish it the more it pays. Flight of Icarus is a ramp combo mode where shooting the unlit ramp builds the value without collecting it. Rime of the Ancient Mariner asks you to move an arrow array north before collecting at the centre ramp — move the whole array first, then collect, or you are cashing in small.
Aces High is a two-ball multiball in three stages, ending with a fighter ace that dodges between shots; you lock on with an arrow and then have five seconds at the bullseye target. Accuracy on the bullseye decides the jackpot, and an add-a-ball is available from the mystery orb if things get thin.
Play all five and 2 Minutes To Midnight lights, which is a mini-wizard mode against a clock and the source of your Soldier card.
The bullseye rewards aim, not just contact
Pharaoh's bullseye target is not a single target, it is three concentric values. The outer red ring scores 1X, the inner blue ring 2X, and the centre bullseye 3X.
This runs through the whole machine. A Mummy super jackpot is worth three times as much dead centre as it is clipping the outer ring, and the same is true of the bomber and fighter jackpots in Aces High. It is one of the few modern machines that pays you for precision rather than just for hitting the right thing.
Drop targets light the bullseye to boost the Power Jackpot, so it is worth knowing where the drops sit in your routine too.
Free balls and free time
Spell R-E-V-I-V-E on the left spinner and both outlanes light for a ball save. On a machine that drains as briskly as this one, a saved ball is worth more than most jackpots — and the left spinner is not a hard shot.
Extra balls come from two Power Pyramid completions, from your fourth Tomb Treasure, and at random from the orb. The Tomb Treasure route is worth knowing about generally: there are eight treasures, and on a Pro you collect them at the right orbit.
There is also a gravestone target above the left return lane, reachable through the left inlane. When no mode or multiball is running, it simply spots one of the four X lights — which is the cheapest progress on the playfield towards the multiplier discussed above.
Combos have no timer, but they are fragile
Combos here run from two shots up to six, and no shot can repeat within one. Unusually, there is no combo timer at all — you are not racing a clock.
What kills a combo is any other switch. A stray drop target, a pop bumper, a rattle into a lane, and the chain is gone. So the discipline is about clean shots rather than fast ones, which is the opposite of how most machines train you.
Deathblows finish a combo with a bonus, available once you have at least a two-way combo running. The regular ones sit on the skill shot target, the orb, either bullseye ring and the sarcophagus. Super deathblows pay more because the finishing shot is harder: the left spinner alley, the super jackpot target, and the centre of the bullseye.
What a Pro does differently
The rules are shared, but three destinations move.
Tomb Treasures are collected at the right orbit on a Pro, and at the left ramp on a Premium or LE. 2 Minutes To Midnight and Number of the Beast both start at the Underworld scoop on a Premium or LE, and at the bullseye target on a Pro.
None of that changes strategy, but all of it changes where you aim. If you learned this machine on one cabinet and then stand at the other, those are the three shots that will not be where you expect them.
Where this came from
Silverball wrote this, but not from scratch: it was compiled against the published rules below and checked against them, rather than written up from one person’s games. None of the wording is theirs. Machines get code updates that move the right shot, so a guide has a date on it for a reason.
- Stern Pinball, Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast (Pro) Backstage Pass rules
