I did it .. it happened, for real, with people who have played before. Against a Disciple, a Champion a Wildlander and a Runemage (all with fairly buff heroes from H&M kits and expansions)

It was a combination of the players getting greedy with a secret room, a lucky Ettin toss so there was no one farming the spawn point for the goblins, and alot of unlucky last minute attempts to finish up mauler who was blocking off the way to 2 search tokens (due to the heretofore mentioned lucky Ettin toss).

Heroes left with a measly 75 gold due to bad fortune in the secret room as well. Shop item pulls were no help - heroes banked the gold.

Next up was Cardinal's Plight, a very tough scenario for fledgeling heroes. The results were predetermined. They tried hard though, really really hard -- did come away with another 200 gold and finally pulled some decent shop upgrades - overall the second half was just brutal because they were so beaten from trying to stop some zombies in encounter 1 that they had no chance of surviving the onslaught of shadow dragons. Not making it past the bouncers severely limited their gold.

Next up next time we play: Rude Awakening --- I am actually going to send them down that rumor because it is just early enough in Act 1 I think I can pull off the win. (I have done it before in the mini campaign when heroes have 5xp by that point in time... this is doable)

I know I will be feeding them some extra gold so I can pursue the reward - but I am thinking it will be worth it. We'll see

Congrats on your First Blood win! I've never pulled that off before, but my focus has always been gold denial on that quest and threat tokens.

Don't forget the extra shopping step and possible treasure chest you're feeding them with that rumor. Her Majesty's Malice" is not worth it. I'd advise against it to retain your lead.

There are so many relics you get in the shadow rune campaign and rarely will you want your lieutenants to engage the heroes directly, so it won't see much use. Far better to equip the staff of shadows or bones of woe.

Congrats on your First Blood win! I've never pulled that off before, but my focus has always been gold denial on that quest and threat tokens.

Don't forget the extra shopping step and possible treasure chest you're feeding them with that rumor. Her Majesty's Malice" is not worth it. I'd advise against it to retain your lead.

There are so many relics you get in the shadow rune campaign and rarely will you want your lieutenants to engage the heroes directly, so it won't see much use. Far better to equip the staff of shadows or bones of woe.

It was about gold denial, initially. When I got a dark charm off to move a hero back into the opening room and then a lucky ettin toss, I put mauler in a position you almost never get to put him, the south fork of the crossing with 3 heroes stuck there. They had one hero in the water to try to intercept goblins, no one farming the spawn point (due to that ettin toss), mauler blocking the main path in, the other ettin pinning their water hero into that space, - thus denying them 2 search tokens. The first token was the secret room. Now they felt committed to cleaning that room seeing themselves down 2 search tokens. It was just enough stress that they did not do enough damage to mauler that a few unlucky rolls prevented them from finishing him off before the last goblin escaped.