We played our first game and at first, it seemed like it was nearly impossible for Conan to ever complete an adventure, since they were always on the opposite ends of the world. Then we realized that we were playing the Conan action wrong. If the Conan player moves Conan, he does not get one of the Adventure Tokens. That helped a lot. But still, it was rare that Conan fulfilled an adventure.

Even after though, the Conan player for the most part always sent him closer to the destination. Is this the best way to use the Cimmerian? We're new at this and haven't thought of good strategies.

-shnar

shnar said:

Huh? What do you mean if CP moves Conan, he does not get a token ? Or are you talking about the Court+Conan die, when used by the CP? Even regardless, it will only take X number of CP turns before an Adventure ends (X = length of the Adventure), as an Adventure token is always taken or discarded by the CP at the start of his turn.

Play a few more games, and watch what happens to Conan and his adventures. We've played some games where he completes 6 or 7 adventures; it all depends on the way those adventure cards show up. The important thing for the Conan player is NOT "Will I get the extra token for completing the adventure", but "Will I be able to pick up a few more of the adventure token type I'm saving?" and "Will I be able to toss out raider tokens into hard to reach areas for my oppenents?"

He doesn't need to complete the adventure to be useful to the Conan player. Wait until you see him in action on your side in battle!

TK

Yeah, when CP moves Conan from the Court+Conan Die, CP does not gain an Adventure Token. At the start of the game, we were playing that CP gained the token (and totally overlooked the Riot token part). Rereading and seeing that he does not gain an Adventure token allowed Conan to finish his adventure one or two times more (i.e. CP got him one step closer to the location while not one step closer to completing the adventure).

As for Conan not completing adventures, it just sort of became a joke among the players. Wasn't Conan the Barbarian, he became Conan the Failure. Just made us wonder if we were playing right, since he seemed to always fail his adventures. And Riot Tokens don't really seem all that useful. They only take away 1 Empire Point per Token, right? And that's at the end of the age, and if the controlling player chooses (or is unable) to not sacrifice an army unit? Just want to make sure I'm playing this right.

-shnar

We have had a few runs where Conan only has to move to the next province . As for the stratagy of Conan its as variable as the cards. I kknow if I start as Aquilonia I always try for him to help conquer Pictland on turn one. Other than that I look to either where he starts or where he is going to be placed after this adventure track. That an I always try to have my 6 bid token at the start of the third age.

Raider tokens count Axe results as hits in campaigns to take neutral provinces. You remove one per contest. Use them to thwart your enemies plans to expand into an area you are too far from. The same goes for Conan. He adds 1 dice and two hits on the Sword + Hit dice to all contests in that neutral province.

I have a question regarding moving Conan myself.

On page 10 and 11 of the instructions it mentions that the Conan player moves Conan as an extra move, and then it describes the Court + Conan rule. Does this mean that Conan gets moved every turn regardless?

And you always remove or claim an adventure track piece no matter what action you do with Conan? I just bought the game and am trying to learn the rules before I play a game but this is one thing that I can't seem to fully understand from reading the instructions.

Yes every time the Conan players turn comes up he either moves Conan closer to the Destination Marker and takes an Adventure Token, leaves Conan in the same province as the Destination Marker and takes the token or moves him/doesnt move him and discards the Adventure Token if it doesnt bring Conan closer to the Destination Marker. So even if no Court + Conan dice are rolled the Adventure Track still empties every time the Conan Player takes his turn.

As you can see it makes for some quick Ages if several 3's are drawn in a row.

Tim Kelly said:

You're not kidding, it is absolutely stunning to see how effectively Conan can decide the outcome of a battle. In our first game, Friday night, about midway through the 2nd age we began to understand the true timing impact of the Conan Player move mechanic, and how the court-conan die could be utilized to speed up an adventure/shorten the current Conan Player's turn, but at the cost of another action you might want to take while swindling valuable adventure tokens away from the Conan Player. It was confusing as hell pre-game, we wanted to have a good idea about how everything was going to work before we started and it took a LONG time to wrap our brains around it, but it all quickly made excellent sense once we got the game moving.

I had saved my 6 bid token up while my two opponents had used both their 4 and 5 bid tokens to effectively share control of Conan in the first age. In keeping with the canon, Conan spawned many bands of raiders across northern sections of Central and Eastern Hyboria during that age (Conan runs with shady characters), and the guy playing Turan and I both felt the heat from their impact on our nations at the end of the first age.

I went for broke, used my 6 bid token and a 6 strategy card and grabbed Conan when I saw what looked like a stretch opportunity in the 2nd adventure of the 2nd age. I looked new location of the destination marker, did a quick 1, 2, 3 step walkthrough in my head based on the fate dice pool, and magically it all came together. I moved an emmisary over to Koth, on my next turn I waltzed Conan across Corinthia and into Koth via the Conan Player move & a court-conan die, and then used the crown action to use my "Spies of Tarantia" event card to launch a four army campaign into Koth. Since the emissary was there from my last move I drew up 3 strategy cards, and in three quick military contests I conqured Koth. The Black Dragons were a definite benefit, I was nervous going into the combat with just four armies against four valued Koth and had played those guys onto the table at the start of my turn when I had moved the emissary into position, but having Conan in the fight was stunningly powerful. It didn't hurt that I rolled at least one hit+Conan in every battle, and two in the 3rd final battle. Beautiful.

The next round Conan wandered off into Khoraja and finished his adventure, just in time.

Its battle reports like WinterWolfs plus my own experiences that make it so hard for me to understand the reviews that claim (in their opinions) there's little or no Conan theme or feel to this game. I hope its because they cant "play" as Conan.

mbern45 said:

This confused us on our first play, and I think it's worth clarifying how Conan moves and when Adventure Tokens are removed:

Conan moves in one of 2 ways:
1. At the beginning of the Conan Player's turn, the Conan Player has the option to move Conan. Conan can be moved in any direction, or even left alone. When Conan moves here, he does just that, move. Nothing else happens. The Conan Player then removes one of the Adventure Tokens on the Adventure Track. If Conan was moved CLOSER to his Destination, the Conan Player receives the Adventure Token, otherwise it is discarded.
2. The other way Conan can move is if the Conan Player uses the Court+Conan event die. In this way, Conan can be moved to an adjacent province (or left where he was). Before OR after the move, the Conan Player can put a Raider Token in the province or any adjacent province that Conan is in. Note that NO Adventure Token is removed during this action.

Adventure Tokens are removed in one of 2 ways:
1. At the start of the Conan Player's turn, an Adventure Token is *always* removed (either discarded or awarded to the Conan Player).
2. When a NON-Conan-Player chooses a Court+Conan event die, then that player removes and receives an Adventure Token (NOTE: Adventure Token is NOT removed if the Conan Player uses a Court+Conan event).

Does that help? (Also, am I accurate? Cause this is how we played after some confusing readings of rules)

-shnar

That clears it up.

I was thinking that the Conan player also got to remove a token when he used the crown + Conan dice, which would have make the adventure go by extremely fast.

I'll be playing the game tomorrow so hopefully these things will make more sense once I'm actually going through the motions

Yeah, that's how we were playing it too, and it just seemed like Conan was *never* completing an adventure. He was dubbed Conan The Failure until we reread the section in the rules. That was about halfway through the 2nd Age, and Conan finally started completing some adventures

-shnar

Well,

last night conan was very luck, he got all the adventures close from the last destination. So people have to choose betwen finishing the adventure or moving conan to a better spot. Also i saw a intersting efect , people inclunding me , get tons of strategy cards, making the drawing deck be with very little cards. And rising the questinon, If the cards are over? What shuld u buy?

Anyway, for me that was a wrong strategy , the kindon cards are much more useful ...........at least if i have half of the strategy cards made from them!!

shnar said:

My group made the same mistake during our first game. Unless the destination was only one or two regions away, Conan never reached it. We also made the mistake of waiting until the age change to bid on Conan. We realized the mistake when we began the second age, but by then the player who had controlled him for the entire first age had such a commanding lead, we never managed to catch up.