hi everyone, I need to know your experience on nase set monsters. which ones will you often use and which ones never ever to use. I have an upcoming finale "the man who should be king"and i'd really love to win this for my friend zachareth. but I do not know which open group to give him coz for some **** reason, ffg adviced him to put one of his best monsters by default which are those slow and worthless zombies... please help

First off, don't forget the errata for Encounter 1. Splig appears on the opposite side of the door from the original printing of the quest. His original position made him goblin-food for the heroes!

In Encounter 1, Hellhounds are a great choice because you don't place them right away. They only trickle in from the Entrance to chase the heroes as they try to run down Splig. Hellhounds are very fast, do excellent damage and have fire breath, so they should be a real pain in the neck for your heroes. Just remember, as per the quest text, that Splig has the master key. Your heroes cannot lock doors behind them like Splig can, so don't let them try to rule that they can permanently seal off your hounds by closing doors on them.

If you can, try to amass cards in Encounter 1 by Dashing Splig to the exit, locking the final door behind him, and waiting till the last possible moment to escape. If your heroes are afraid of taking damage before Encounter 2, they will be advancing cautiously and you may be able to squeeze a few more cards out of the deck.

In Encounter 2, I like Sorcerers because there are sniping points through the rocks on the first tile you can use to really mess up the heroes. Most groups like to cautiously clear out the first wave of zombies and may not be paying attention to LoS. Even though Act II sorcerers didn't scale very well, they still do solid reilable damage with Sorcery. For even more fun, use them later in the fight to Summon your zombies into the battle more quickly as they reinforce from the Entrance.

I know you said "Base Set Monsters", but I'm not sure if you have the Conversion Kit as well. If you really only have access to the original set of monsters, then I'd say replace Hellhounds with Goblin Archers or Barghests, and Sorcerers with Flesh Moulders. Much of the same things apply, they just aren't quite as nice.

Finally, if you can, pick up 2x Blood Rage for this Encounter. Blood Rage is an awesome choice for this finale because you can sacrifice your hard hitting monsters like the Master Zombies to do massive burst damage to the heroes. If you can kill off the healer early in Encounter 2, you are probably going to win easily, especially if you have Eliza and Merrick with you for relic/artillery support when the beleaguered heroes make their way into the throne room.

In encounter 2, it's not so much about which monsters you pick as it is about how you play. The goal in this encounter is ACTUALLY to kill the heroes, so it's about striking hard and fast, and not giving them time to heal up. If you can manage to win encounter 1, that's great. If you can't, just pick on a hero who isn't wearing the crown with Dark Charm. I used Shadow dragons, because they're marvelous damage dealers. I forget the available traits, but Ettins would be very nice for tossing heroes to the lieutenants.

Speaking of the lieutenants, keep them in a group- if you send 1 lieutenant at a time, they will each fall. Again (unless blast is a key strategy of the heroes,) swarm them. On your first turn, move the lieutenants up into striking range. On a later turn, use a zombie to open the door, and bring on the pain.

Alternately, you can hole up in the throne room and draw a bunch of cards.

ugh its a loss. the heroes just kiled the worthless zombies with shared pain, knight jump kills em, dragon gets imobilized poison by runemaster, red dragon never even got to do anything. the heroes got pots in encounter 1 and ended it in 1 round, yet I even got to use dash on headstart and web trap. this is so broken... encounter 2 ends up where zachareth decided his main def are zombies? belthir and alric who survived enc1 abandons him. and with all heroes level 8 fighting who refreshed all their heroic feat, super itemed with lots of skillz, vs. a 20 hp idiotic king wanabe is too horible to play we cannot even kill just 1 hero with the tank and jane disposing overlord cards per turn and rest. I wonder how they play tested this finale. not worth the long campain as the normal acts prove more a challenge for both sides...

we got really bored seeing it we got bored to even start the expansion... very disapointed. are the quests designed this way where the quests do not scale well?

At this point I've played all 3 major campaigns, and seen them swing both ways. There is variation aplenty, but statistically, there is balance.