The overlord has far more options and decisions to make than any hero player does. He's got to choose his deck, his monster groups, monster placement, monster activation, reinforcements, when to play what card, plot deck, plot deck usage, when to take threat tokens, (I can go on forever).

The overlord has far more options and decisions to make than any hero player does. He's got to choose his deck, his monster groups, monster placement, monster activation, reinforcements, when to play what card, plot deck, plot deck usage, when to take threat tokens, (I can go on forever).

While this is true (and it is) the OL has less opportunists for his skills to be left to chance, like the heroes. Most all of the hero's abilities reply on that blue dice not being an X.

Indalecio, if you're concerned about your heroes getting too much good stuff, play Infector.

The last Shadow Rune campaign we played, I was the treasure hunter and thanks to my treasure-finding efforts we had secured the Dawnblade, Shield of Zorek's Favor, the Mending Talisman, the Dragontooth Hammer, Lightning Strike, Scalemail, Obsidian Scalemail, Bow of the Eclipse, the Black Iron Helm, the Rune Plate and Platemail, among various other trinkets and stuff. I was rolling Pierce 4 on every attack thanks to Sleight of Hand, and our mage was felling hordes of monsters with Lightning Strike's Blast combining with Plague Cloud. Seems like it was in the bag, right? Here's the kicker. We lost tremendously. We were undone by Kobolds and Zombies due to easy infection token generation: Blue/Yellow attacks versus Gray/Black Defense, combined with a surge, was two infection tokens each attack , multiplied by the small army of kobolds and zombies meant she nearly spent all her tokens! In the finale, Kunzite played Dark Host on me, forcing me to kill our mage (Pierce 4!) and making me wander into the path of the Farrows and two Ice Wyrms who promptly killed me. Two players removed from the game near the opening of the finale. She literally turned our advantage against us, and while I can't speak for Kunzite, I don't think anyone felt good about that outcome.

If you're really that concerned about your heroes getting too powerful, the Infector deck ignores most defense dice and actually benefits from heroes having good defense dice; Outbreak is a Might check that targets a hero and all others within 3 spaces, if failed does 1 damage plus one for each infection token the hero has, Infections can be 'popped' for a free damage per attack, not to mention Level 1 cards with constant effects to minimize the OL deck further, leaving greater chance to draw the cards you need. Baron Zachareth's plot deck with Infector is the stuff of nightmares ; no amount of fortune is worth the torture that combo can put out.

I would argue Kobolds are broken, fixing one broken tactic with another seems ugly to me. Similar to using goblin archers, firing from impossible ranges for token generation, i really dont like it.

Edit: Take no prisoners sort of gaming style is great and all, however stretching it the point of exploiting the systems in place goes too far for me. They may be part of the rules, but i feel its against the spirit.

I had the rare opportunity to re spec my deck in the middle of the game (Ritual of Shadows, OL win). Because my mage was tricked out on defense and playing hexer, I found it really hard to keep up, so I moved to infactor.

IF ANYONE IS GOING INFACTOR PLEASE READ THIS:

It is a very situational class. In order to play ANY of the lv two and up cards you need your lv one cards already sitting out AND your heroes having infections on them. I have had happen, on more then one occasion, where the lv one cards (the ones that stay out and help build infections on your heroes) are next to the bottom of my deck and I am left holding dead cards.

High risk. High reward.

If you play infactor you need to play with weak, easy to kill but numerous monsters. That is why harpies come with that set. That's why I take kobolds. If I have my lv one cards out, it doesn't matter if I hit, miss or fail to do enough damage due to their ability to block. Like Bread said, you are turning their greatest asset to a "Oh crap! Get them away!" ^.^ All monsters are now your very own undead/zombie hoard.

But if your heroes have blast, ways to get extra attacks and means to reach all of your monsters, speed or other means of out witting you then you are SOL.

I got lucky that on encounter one I could drop both my lv one infector cards. Had that not happened then the outcome would have been VERY different. I will not brag about a lucky draw.

"Fortune favors the prepared mind" - Louis Pasteur

Yeah you need the Baron Zach OL deck if you want to play infector to get the most out of it so you can draw the cards you need otherwise there is the potential for huge issues.

We might be getting a bit afield of the topic of this thread, though I think we have addressed the issue.

Yeah you need the Baron Zach OL deck if you want to play infector to get the most out of it so you can draw the cards you need otherwise there is the potential for huge issues.

I would be to differ with this. While Zak might give you a sure-way into your cards, a dark ritual or two are pretty good and work just fine MOST of time time.