RtL - need advice to beat well-armored heroes

By Spalkulus, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

In our campaign (which is currently at Copper level) I was standing in for the regular Overlord last session and discovered to my dismay, that 2 of the heroes had so much armor, that my monsters couldn't penetrate it. These two heroes (Nanok and Modrog) had 5 armor each, and I had only Skeletons, Manticores and Sorcerers in this session. I quickly discovered, that they didn't generate enough damage to hurt them and started picking on the weaker targets (and had no qualms about this at all!), but these had armor 3 and 4, respectively, and well, I could pinprick them at times, but the heroes were also good at placing them in the background, where they were difficult to get at.

I feel bad about letting two heroes walk around with impunity and without fear of anything but the occasional trap, so what can the Overlord do?

Well, first save some threat for good cards to play against these armored tanks. Also, if you can spawn enough of your minions you should beable to do some damage to them to slow them down until you can get the better cards. I do not have RTL yet.... it is in transit and will be here monday.

One day as we started playing JiTD the OL gave us a gut check by Killing our mage 4 times in 6 turns... taking all of CQ points. It took all of 10 minutes Armor 3 Health 8 by using skeletons. It can be done, just have to use strategy and tactics.

First off, recognize that targetting the weaker heroes is almost always the best tactic regardless of other factors.

However, as it isn't always possible to kill the mages, you do need to be able to do something to the tanks. A beastman War Party should be able to get through the armor for a few points of damage each if you factor in their + damage and Command. Try to use other monsters as well when the beastmen pop out so as to make maximum use of the Command.

Save up a few traps to take down the weakened heroes. Never play Space traps on full strength heroes unless it is to keep them from reaching a specific objective, to block off a line of sight alley, or something like that.

If you have The Well of Darkness expansion, Ferrox are nice for causing damage to tanks with their bleed ability.

When you get some Treachery, there are a lot of options available. Critical Strike allows you to spend threat for Pierce. Deep Elves can place Frost which will give you a chance of destroying not only their armor, but their weapons as well. Crushing Blow can be used to destroy armor. Also, you have a whole lot more nasty traps at your disposal.

The most important thing you can do to combat high armor is to upgrade your monsters.

Good advice from previous posters. The best suggestion was in Joram's last sentence: upgrade one class of monsters to silver level. The best upgrade will be eldritch for Demon Prince and Sorcerer King (don't forget sniper/sorcerer upgrades for him), humanoid for Beastman Lord and Titan, and beasts for Great Wyrm and Spider Queen (get acid attack for bane spiders with her).

Also, there are some good critiques of the avatars in the strategy section of BGG. They offer specific ideas of exploiting particular avatars strengths and describing possible problems and weaknesses. This should be required reading. Not necessarily to follow as a blueprint, but to get those creative (and evil) juices flowing.

The thought of heroes waltzing through a dungeon with a sense of impunity sickens me! Kill them! I hope my post helps you stop those meddlesome kids from thwarting your grand designs.

Use a couple of Master Beastmen to back up a couple of Master skeletons and you can put our enough damage to make them start being very concerned.

Otherwise, trap the snot out of the heaviest tanks, knowing their vaunted armor means nothing to your trecherous plotting.

*insert maniacal laugh here*

I love smacking the tanks around with traps, Pits and crushing blocks ignore armour, and as the tanks are usually slow I can usually use the obsticles to stop em dead in their tracks.

Right now in my game, I've killed the teams tank twice? maybe three times the entire campaign....

But I've killed the mage about 20, which is worth so much more.

Last time to Kill the tank I smacked him good with a Beastman Warparty spawn next to the dungeons Master Ogre. Tore him up with the beastmen, used the Ogre's knockback to smack him around a corner, then tore him up with the ranged dudes hanging in the wings, It took most of my monsters, but I managed to get 7 Conquest off him thanks to all the curses he had been piling on himself :P

Doom helps too, adding 0.5 damage.

Skellies with command are excellent, especially if you upgrade them. Place skellies on tables to get +1 damage too. Command stacks, mind you.

Silver hell hounds should blast through 5 armor with zero difficulty, too. Razorwings can run by the tanks to kick some mage butt.

Stick Boots of Iron on Mordrog and watch him squirm as he stumbles towards the exit at 2 MP.

Trapmaster upgrades traps a LOT, if you get out two, a simple pit will do 6 damage... and a Poison Spike Pit from the spider queen 9.