We're currently playing the original campaign, but with monsters, heroes, classes, etc from all expansions except the two big ones. The biggest difference this makes, it seems, is that the Overlord is able to throw in far more open groups with massive monsters, given the availability of them for all terrain types. We're often facing giants, ettins, shadow dragons, golems, chaos beasts, and often several at the same time, meaning they're blocking up terrain and gives him better reinforcements. We've played several encounters where there were no 1x1 monsters on the map.

My question is, have other experienced that this unbalances the campaign, since it wasn't written or playtested for such a great availability of Big Ones? Are there any strategies to counter it effectively? We've often found that we hacked down a master giant, only for him to reinforce next turn and be back in the same spot, blocking the same path, before we got to move anywhere.

My group and I (as OL) have all expansions for this game. We have found over hundreds of hours of playing that in most cases (I do say most), having many smaller monsters usually equates to a more effective strategy for the OL than having 1 or 2 large based monsters. In fact, there are monster groups (such as Kobolds) that have very little health/armor on their own, but the size of their group limits, and some of their abilities, make them a far stronger choice than most large based monsters.

Further, those large based monsters are almost inevitably relatively slow, so for most quests, and depending on spawning locations, it is very difficult to get them back into play once they have been defeated. This can also be affected by when the OL can spawn (at the beginning or end of their turn).

If your party of heroes has been well constructed, it really shouldn't be very difficult to defeat the larger monsters; and once you do, we have found the heroes almost always have the advantage.

As for strategies to undermine the use of large monsters, your heroes should obtain abilities/skills and/or weapons (such as the Crossbow) that allow them to by pass and/or move the monsters - this effectively renders the blocking point moot.

All quests/encounters will have some form of imbalance - sometimes in the favor of the heroes, sometimes in the favor of the OL. It is dependent on your group to figure out the best strategies to nullify or at least mitigate those imbalances - and if they can't, at least devise strategies for maximizing their gold, so that in the long run, they have a better chance to win the over all campaign.

One of the things that my hero team has learned very well is that the campaign is a long bloody battle, and sometimes it is advantageous to them to forgo winning the individual encounter, in an effort to maximize their chances to win the overall battle.

I agree with any2cards. Additionally, I'd like to add that there are certainly some quests that become unbalanced with expansion monsters, but it's not the massive ones. For example, "The Frozen Spire" can be over in 1 turn with the harpies' "Flock" ability and a luck on the part of the OL. Changelings are a deadly addition to "Castle Daerion." Overall, though, everything stays on par. The use of rumors in general favors the heroes, and the number of quests that get really affected by the new monsters is minimal.

Heroes scale in power with gaining access to better equipment from the shop deck, so sometimes its better to make sure to get all the search tokens to maximize the gold reward from playing a quest as the primary objective than making sure you "win" the encounter/quest. Most quests will be giving everyone an XP point anyway, and only the relics are really worth slugging it out over. I have tried explaining this to my group of newer players but half of them feel its a ruse to get them to allow me (the OL) to win more often. To be honest, access to much more shop items from expansion sets with the added green die is what scares me as an OL. Seeing act one weapons that roll three dice really rustles my jimmies. So I would say that is what brings the balance back into the heroes favor, if the many monster options ever even gave much of an advantage that really tipped the balance for the Overlord.

The heroes in my group always refuse to explore secret rooms, they treat it as a "nothing" draw, but I always setup the secret room tile with the challenges for fun. I try to explain to them YES it does take some time from the quest at hand, but look at the reward for completing it is a free pick off the top of the current shop deck! half of you are still using starting equipment and we are approaching the interlude... this may be worth it to risk letting the OL win this encounter to maybe get a really nice upgrade in gear. But no, they think I am trying to trick them.

I have mixed feelings about the large monster vs small monster debate I see on here often. Small monsters do offer you more mobility and more actions during your turn, BUT large monsters, especially the hard to kill (giants, shadow dragons, etc) are still the best way to block hallways to keep heroes from getting to their objective. Fundamentally it comes down to countering the advantages of the enemy. Sure Kobolds are pretty awesome but I have seen Blast just destroy them, and Giants are really menacing but I have seen warriors two-shot them in one turn.

I haven't really experienced unbalance in the original campaigns when using expansion monsters, even from the H&M collection packs. Some monsters are clearly better than others, but you´ll always find a situation when a particular monster or monster group will be doing great and even grant the OL a win and therefore make you feel like it broke the balance for the particular quest. But in fact you could just achieve the same results with other monster types and under different circunstances. There are many factors involved, hero gear/skills included, and the monster card is just one of the many of them. It's like being butchered by a specific piece of hero gear and call it unbalanced just because said gear was a deciding factor in a particular encounter. You need to accumulate results of the sort before you can truly call something unbalanced.

Some of my players think the Throwback ability (sending your hero three spaces away, usually in a lava/hazard space) overpowered, but when you try to figure out a way to avoid this situation as a hero you just need to prepare and don't give an opportunity for that monster to throw you in there. That's where newbies often underrate conditions when they have access to them. And even if you do you just need to accept that executing the skill will still occur a % of the time due to a OL card helping and whatnot. Same with Harpies with the Flock ability, or Volucrixes for Ravage. If you let them come close and do the things they´re really good at doing then it's easy to think of them as being overpowered, but it's the wrong mindset. Every monster in this game is good at something (even zombies to some extent) so heroes need to adapt to that. But so far I haven't seen a monster clearly abusing a mechanism from an original campaign that would warrant a "ban" or anything close to that. Powerful monsters are also restricted in numbers as per the core rules.

Chaos Beasts is actually the monster group that comes to mind since I used them with 4-attack dices Tristayne in a room, that seemed like a good way to capitalize on all the dices. Still, heroes just needed to make sure the beasts couldn't snipe them. There´s always a way.

The only monster I would consider overpowered is kobolds. They're the one thing in the entire game I think might actually need a nerf.

The change in balance is most prominent in scenarios where the open groups reinforce at the entrance. The last one we played (Frozen Spire part 1), the giants would block the entry path, the heroes spend a turn hacking a passage through, and then the master giant reinforced next turn (right behind them), and because of the way large monsters shrink during movement, was able to tip-toe past the heroes and block the same spot again (and wear down the heroes more). Although the heroes had two rather good Act 2 weapons, there wasn't any juice left for movement after clearing the path, neither to outrun the giant or set up a staggered formation that prevents expansion of the giant. It's not the only time we've seen this scenario, and - if it isn't considered imbalanced by more experienced players here - what are the tricks to prevent getting stuck this way?

A lot of this boils down to positioning, movement speed, stamina and classes.

What heroes and classes are in use? Some monsters get a match up advantage against some characters and classes by fact of movement/stamina.

I dont have all the information to hand but i think act 2 giants only roll 1 black defense, which is reasonably poor against act 2 gear and you shouldn't have to much trouble taking the master or minion out with 2-3 attacks, looking at the map layout can you tell us where you are getting stonewalled?

The most important question i have is why are you killing the master?

From what i remember of this quest the blocking monsters have to stand in very specific places to stop movement efficiently from setup so once they die you just have to blitz past them.

Assuming that the overlord places both the giants on the rivers edge across the map segment that leads to the entrance to stop movement just kill the minion giant and run around the master.

If he has positioned them to block the exit to the stone bridge then do the same.

Opening turn unless there is something i am not remembering both giants have to be positioned to block.

Often just killing the minion in the large monster groups opens up enough space to move past.

Usually, killing one is enough.When it isn't, certain classes/heroes have several ways to combat this tactic, even in situations where monsters keep spawning nearby:

1) The thief's "Tumble" skill, or Duriik's hero ability/feat to walk through the monsters.

2) The knight can be placed on the far side of a monster if all adjacent spaces are occupied using "Oath of Honor." Tomble and Tinashi can accomplish the same with their heroic feats.

3) There are several area attack skills/abilities that can help eliminate the blockade with less actions, assuming you can see more than 1 monster.

4) The treasure hunter's whip (or any ranged character with the crossbow) can move one of the monsters out of position- this is especially effective against large monsters.

5) Once the blockade is cleared, the geomancer, necromancer, beastmaster, or more effectively the conjurer are able to summon things that can block reinforcement spaces, forcing monsters to be placed in a way that will not block the heroes- this is most effective when reinforcements arrive at the end of the OL turn, rather than the start.

5) Once the blockade is cleared, the geomancer, necromancer, beastmaster, or more effectively the conjurer are able to summon things that can block reinforcement spaces, forcing monsters to be placed in a way that will not block the heroes- this is most effective when reinforcements arrive at the end of the OL turn, rather than the start.

To me, this is one of the best points made, and so often overlooked by my heroes. They go to all of the trouble to get past some choke point, or at least to open up a path through, and then they forget that they have the ability of summoning something that would effectively keep the area open.

Then, when I am able to re-block this area, they want to cry "foul". After the encounter/quest is over, we often discuss what they could have done different. This almost always leads to asking why they didn't use a Stone, or a Reanimate, or whatever to block the path, to keep monsters from getting back to the same position.

If nothing else, they would force the OL to make a choice ... attack the heroes and/or affect their goals, or attack the Stone, etc.

The funny thing is, this is the exact thing I do as OL to them ... force them to make critical choices ... get gold or try to achieve the victory conditions, etc.

There also is the option on the crossbow - which while a little weak for an act 2 weapon (as its act 1 shop) is consistently useful and with its surge abilities not to bad for picking off small minions.

As its an act 1 weapon you can ALWAYS buy it after the interlude, if you are getting blocked by big monsters it may well help (with the exception of golems, who laugh heartily at your puny crossbow)

Alright, thanks guys. There's a lot of useful tips here. I'll keep them all in mind for our future games.

I have to say that Bestmen in "The City Falls", in the SoN finale, are a great choice for bringing down one iron ward. I don't know if the campaign designers had thought about the possibility of bringing in monsters with Ravage ability straight next to the ward and start pounding on it. Fortunately for the heroes there are only 3 spaces available next to the middle-right ward (Beastmen come in grouups of 4 with 4 players), but that's still 6 attacks with quite decent power.

I´m not going to go as far as calling Beastmen overpowered for the quest, but they truly shine for this particular one.

I have to say that Bestmen in "The City Falls", in the SoN finale, are a great choice for bringing down one iron ward. I don't know if the campaign designers had thought about the possibility of bringing in monsters with Ravage ability straight next to the ward and start pounding on it. Fortunately for the heroes there are only 3 spaces available next to the middle-right ward (Beastmen come in grouups of 4 with 4 players), but that's still 6 attacks with quite decent power.

I´m not going to go as far as calling Beastmen overpowered for the quest, but they truly shine for this particular one.

Ravage is a stellar ability for any monster to have- though I think it's generally more powerful on a ranged monster, such as Tristayne- otherwise, you only benefit from "Ravage" if you can be already adjacent to your target by some other means (master volucrix reaver excepted, as he can just "Skirmish.")

I haven't taken the time to look at it, but I'd bet there are a few SoN maps where plague worms could help the OL get past a portcullis in an advantageous way- and a master golem is a serious blocking monster for any "speed" map.

In general, I think these monsters make interesting strategies possible for the OL, but do not severely unbalance quests.