Hi,

Just wanted to say hi to everyone who plays and is on the forums

I just got descent yesterday in the post and wondered if some of you guys with a reasonable level of experience have any general tips on being a reasonable OL. I came from Doom and last nights first game seemed pretty easy player bashing, I just wondered if there is any indispensable advice any of you would throw at me as the OL or at my players?

Thanks in advance guys

I'm no pro, but I've won 4 out of 5 games as the OL...

What works for me:

Forget they're your friends. They are invaders in your realm and you want to kill them. (Don't be a jerk, just don't go easy on them)

Prey on the weakest character. If someone's wounded, finish them off.

Traps, traps, traps. Play them at opportune moments to slow them down, or again, to finish off someone. Remember that most if not all of them ignore armor.

Whenever possible, attack and then move. Make them come to you so they can't take a battle action.

Use weaker monsters or ranged shots to get rid of those Guard orders. Better they kill a Razorwing than a Master Beastman who can come in and deal some solid damage.

And, as always, have fun. Remind the hero players that you're goal is to stop them and not to take it personally when they die.

Also when attacking with monsters, try to use the OL cards "charge" only when attacking with high powered baddies (bosses, ogres, manticores). This will cause major damage and/or death for the players. I also try to save a "dodge" OL card for the turn directly after doing that, as most players will try to get the revenge kill on the preceding turn.
Combo's like putting the lights out before playing a spawn card are very good for keeping the players on their toes and watching the back doors, thus wasting their time and bringing you closer to victory just from the turns passing by.
As for spawns I mostly use up the circles and war parties, discarding the others for the threat. I tend to try discard to pay for costs rather than saving up threat unless I'm trying to get an important power out... unless I have a few of them in my hand then I will of course discard for the costs like always. Threat in the hand is worth more then threat on the table because the players can't get to it with the items they can find in the treasure decks and it keeps them thinking that you are weak... making the trapped door to the bosses room that you are planning that much more of a surprise.
I'm going to fully agree with the above statement of the players not being your 'friends' {they are obviously your friends but not on the board if you’re the OverLord, trust us, they will walk all over you if you let them!}.
They are in your dungeon trying to steal your stuff, and the more they get the better they are at killing your minions off. The faster you can get conquest tokens from them the better, kill the weak armored heroes with monster combos and the stronger street sweeper heroes with traps {crushing blocks and spiked pits are great for this}. Playing these kinds of traps can be very nasty if you wait for that last step a heavily armed and armored player takes when they are just about to lay waste to a set of monsters you have been trying to kill a mage with. If you can lure the heavy hitter to his doom with a spiked pit in wait, all the better, as they can't attack from out of the pit and you can just move your monsters around the pit blocking them from getting out. Timing for that is crucial, you have to plan very carefully and watch for the exact time to spring it, but it is very very effective for killing off the guy with all the gold item stuff or trapping them for more then just one turn... and not losing all your monsters doing it. Hope this helps, good luck and always have fun... because once the heroes learn to work together as a team, your days of winning will be few and far betwen.

It starts to happen when some one gets the leadership skill and figures out how to use it with a partner that has quick shot and just has them watch the sides next to them both as they just walk down the hall side by side, laying waste to monster after monster... It's not pretty and makes me think of a bulldozer...

Oh yeah, another tip I picked up here (thank you everyone!):

Have monsters shut doors. That blocks line of sight so you can spawn, spawn, spawn, or it forces them to come back and open the door to restore the LoS. Granted, the effectiveness depends on the layout, but its another way to slow the heros down or they risk getting shot in the back.

Thanks this is some great infomation from you guys.

One kind of connected question I had in my first game,

Traps that was when a player moves(forgive me I don't have it in front of me) mean I play it in his turn straight as he moves as an interrupt, or in my turn after he has moved?

Thanks in advance guys, any more advice?

Lilikin said:

You play it on his turn as soon as he moves as he satisfies the triggering condition ie moving into an empty space.

Here's my tips, cut and pasted from another thread :

Re-read the rule a few times. I was shocked at how much stuff I was doing wrong after the first game. So you might find something there. Also check the FAQ and the GLoAQ on the forum.

A good tactic is to spawn ranged attack or high speed (ie razorwings) monsters behind the Heroes at every chance. So while the Heroes are moving forward hitting your melee monsters, they are getting attacked from behind with ranged people. This works especially well since most groups tend to keep their magic/ranged Heroes behind the tanks.

Whenever possible, have a monster move and close a normal door to an already revealed area. Give you an unrestricted spawning area to work with.

Chain your trap cards. For example, when a player is going to open a chest play Chest Trap. As soon as they move one space away, play a Crushing Block card, and when you move them to an adjacent square, play a Pit Trap. It will make your Heroes fear to move if you have more than two cards in your hand.

Don't be afraid to discard like crazy for threat, especially when trying to get enough threat to play Powers, like Horde of Things.

Lastly, being OL is more than just moving monsters and playing cards. You need to utter screw with the minds of the Heroes. You need to make them afraid to move. One of my favorite tactics: Pile threat in stacks that match the cost of certain cards, and line them up in front of you. They're going to start wondering what you are planning. I've even gone so far as to take cards out of my hand, line them up on the table in front of you with their threat on top. I did that one time with the Trap Chain, and had the guy utterly scared to move his character. He almost didn't go for the chest.

Part of that is you need to bluff sometimes as well. Make them think you are strong when you are actually weak. I've done that with the threat stacks. I could have like 3 Dodge cards in my hand, and I'll stack 3 pile of 4 threat each out there just for effect.

Another mind tactic is to help them at the start of the game. Give alternative suggestions for moves and explain why they are better than what they were thinking of. Then, once they think you are on their side, start making the suggestions a litte less helpful for them, and a lot more helpful for you.

So a lot of it is mindgames, not just cards and figures.