I'm secretly glad we didn't get time to play this game this evening as I've got a few questions I'd like to clear up. My eldest (11 y.o.) is really excited about this game so we're either playing it with him running 2 heroes or maybe 3-4 heroes if the wife and the youngest (5 y.o.) wants to play.

A few questions to start off:

1. Would it be a good idea for a new player to be running 2 heroes? If my wife and youngest do join, I'm not sure if I'd like any of them to be running 2 heroes. Obviously if it's just me and my eldest, then he'll have to run two.... or I could run the other hero.

2. Overlord cards -- so far, what I understand is that there is no maximum number of cards for my hand; I draw cards equal to the number of players at the start of the quest (or is it per encounter?), but I am unclear as to when I can draw cards. I know some of the travel event cards will have me draw a card, but what else?

3. Reinforcements -- from what I understand (I just read the intro and first quest), I can put in one monster with respect to the maximum group size... but what if my players kill two or three during their turn? Or if they kill off all my goblins, then I won't be able to do anything on my turn since the reinforcement only enters at the end of my turn, right?

4. Do heroes die at all in this game? What is the "penalty" for dying? Just losing a round or two of dice rolling? I'm coming from a bit of D&D wherein if you die, well, a resurrect spell is expensive!!

That's all my mushed-up brain can think of right now. Any help appreciated!

No help coming from me as I haven't yet bought the game.

But any dad who starts his kids gaming at 5 years old is a fine dad indeed.

Game on, dad!

1) Clearly, I think 5 years old is too soon for descent (unless your kid is REALLY smarter than kids from his age...). As ofr your 11 years old playing a 2 heroes game, I wouldn't recommend it. Make him play 3 or 4 heroes or it will be too hard for him, because a 2 heroes game is way more benefical for the overlord than the heroes.

2) You draw one card for every heroes you face at the start of every quest (not encounter), and keep the cards you got and you didn't use in encounter 1 for encounter 2. You also draw one card each time you put down a hero and on some others effects (like overlord cards, travel cards...).

3) Sometimes reinforcements appears at the start of your turn, sometimes at the end. It depends on which quest you are playing and it's always well balanced (for most of them). If they appear at the end of the turn, yeah you won't be able to use them this turn and will have to wait for the next one.

This rule make big monsters usually a better choice for monster's group who have reinforcement. But it also happens that some quests have more than one monster reinforcement each turn.

4) They can't die before the last quest of all the campagne. For all the other quest, they just have to get up and heal themselves, but only for a small/medium part of their life, and don't regenerate their stamina. It's really effective to put down heroes because : a) you draw a card (or threat) each time you put one down b) they lose action/movement to get up/revive themselves or their compagnions c) They have no stamina anymore and keep some damage who let you able to put them down again.

I think you should read again all the rulebook, this last question is really basics....you can't start a campagne without even knowing/understanding that, or you will face too much harder questions/situations that you will have to handle on the edge of the action. This usually lead us to mistakes

Kyarn answered most of it- but don't forget probably the most important time you're drawing an OL card- at the start of every one of your turns!

For a younger child, 2 heroes might be a bit to manage- however, it's possible that they could keep track of everything.

Yeah I forgot to say that you draw a card every turn too. Thanks Zaltyre.

That being said, more than two heroes could be a little hard to manage for him, but it's still the best way for him to have a balanced game. It's up to you to frequently help him and give him advices in order to let him understand how a good group work.

Thanks for the replies!

We've played a few games this evening and a few questions came up. I had him play only 2 heroes just so he isn't too swamped with PC abilities and such and he always managed to win the intro quest (First Blood) by killing the Ettin (9HP).

5. When a hero is taken out, his only option on his next turn is the Stand Up action then his turn ends. If another hero does a Revive action on the first hero ---- can the 2nd hero still perform a second action? When the first hero activates, he can now do two actions, correct?

6. If he manages to take out the Ettin, but has not revealed both Search tokens, does the scenario end and he ends up with nothing? Or do we assume that he "cleans up" and then does the necessary search actions?

7. The number of goblins that make it through don't really matter until it reaches 5, right? If he manages to kill the Ettin and only 4 goblins made it through, then the 4 goblins don't affect the campaign in any way?

8. In the first game, he managed to find a potion worth 25 gold, but did not use the potion. I know the rules say he only gets 25 gold, but it feels wrong that he could've used the potion and still get 25gp but he didn't.... but I still only give him 25gp. Does this ruling balance out anyway? Or is it commonly house-ruled?


As for the younger child, he loves rolling dice and he can manage a character with a bit of help. He's quite good with other games as well.

Thanks for the replies!

We've played a few games this evening and a few questions came up. I had him play only 2 heroes just so he isn't too swamped with PC abilities and such and he always managed to win the intro quest (First Blood) by killing the Ettin (9HP).

5. When a hero is taken out, his only option on his next turn is the Stand Up action then his turn ends. If another hero does a Revive action on the first hero ---- can the 2nd hero still perform a second action? When the first hero activates, he can now do two actions, correct?

6. If he manages to take out the Ettin, but has not revealed both Search tokens, does the scenario end and he ends up with nothing? Or do we assume that he "cleans up" and then does the necessary search actions?

7. The number of goblins that make it through don't really matter until it reaches 5, right? If he manages to kill the Ettin and only 4 goblins made it through, then the 4 goblins don't affect the campaign in any way?

8. In the first game, he managed to find a potion worth 25 gold, but did not use the potion. I know the rules say he only gets 25 gold, but it feels wrong that he could've used the potion and still get 25gp but he didn't.... but I still only give him 25gp. Does this ruling balance out anyway? Or is it commonly house-ruled?

5. The "Revive" action costs only 1 action for the player who is not knocked out (not 2 actions.) It costs nothing for the knocked out hero, who, after being stood up, has a complete turn. If a knocked out player performs a "Stand up" action, however that costs both of his own actions, and immediately ends his turn as well (he can't fatigue move, or use other abilities during his turn, even if they don't cost an action (things that automatically trigger "at the end of your turn" are fine, though.)

6. There is no "clean up" assumed, and this is important. The quest rules specify exactly when the encounter ends (when a figure is defeated, a goal is accomplished, or sometimes at the beginning or end of a round.) When it's over, it's over. If the heroes want to search every last token, they must do so before the encounter ends- sometimes (often, if the OL is playing well) they need to make a decision between searching all treasure and completing their objective.

7. Some quests offer rewards based on partially completing goals, and it will say so in the relevant section of the rules. The introduction is not one of these quests.

8. No, the way you played is the correct way. If a potion is unused, it is unused- there is no benefit to having "remaining" potions. Heroes already automatically heal all fatigue between encounters, and all fatigue and damage between quests- you can just assume he drank any remaining potions on the way back to town. It also makes no difference because all treasure must be sold between quests (you can't stock up on health potions from quest to quest.) This allows the search deck to be rebuilt between quests, which is also necessary, since there aren't that many cards.

Thanks for that input!

I'm a bit at odds with the ruling on the search tokens, but I guess that's because I like having goodies. However, the "dilemma" introduced (do I search or do I go for the objective?) does make sense.

We played another game - this time, he had his heroes block the passage towards the exit so the archers parked themselves one space away on the intersection and the ettin was just at the corner but with Reach, he could hit both heroes. Since Avric was the closest one (the other PC was Jain), he kept wailing on Avric. Basically, the scenario ended with a win for the Overlord (yay!!) as the ettin and the red goblin just kept taking Avric down and the other two goblins whittled Jain away. Jain just kept Reviving Avric, but she kept losing HP so when both PCs went down, one goblin managed to get past.... and that was it ad nauseaum. I do think we'd need a third PC indeed.

A few questions on Jain's ability:

9. She gets damaged and he chooses to suffer it as fatigue -- do Overlord cards that require "heart" damage to trigger activate?

10. On Jain's turn, he does one action (Revive Avric) and then does a Rest action --- that gets rid of all of his stress --- is this basically like a "heal" action for Jain?

Thanks for that input!

I'm a bit at odds with the ruling on the search tokens, but I guess that's because I like having goodies. However, the "dilemma" introduced (do I search or do I go for the objective?) does make sense.

We played another game - this time, he had his heroes block the passage towards the exit so the archers parked themselves one space away on the intersection and the ettin was just at the corner but with Reach, he could hit both heroes. Since Avric was the closest one (the other PC was Jain), he kept wailing on Avric. Basically, the scenario ended with a win for the Overlord (yay!!) as the ettin and the red goblin just kept taking Avric down and the other two goblins whittled Jain away. Jain just kept Reviving Avric, but she kept losing HP so when both PCs went down, one goblin managed to get past.... and that was it ad nauseaum. I do think we'd need a third PC indeed.

A few questions on Jain's ability:

9. She gets damaged and he chooses to suffer it as fatigue -- do Overlord cards that require "heart" damage to trigger activate?

10. On Jain's turn, he does one action (Revive Avric) and then does a Rest action --- that gets rid of all of his stress --- is this basically like a "heal" action for Jain?

Remember, the goblins have "scamper." They can walk right through the heroes- the hallway can't be blocked- it's a race to kill Mauler.

9. That depends on the exact wording of the trigger. If the card reads "when a hero suffers a wound" then no, if Jain suffers only fatigue, she didn't suffer any wound. However, if it's about "if an attack deals 1 wound" then yes, that would trigger. Even if Jain redirects all damage from an attack into fatigue, she still would suffer conditions like poison- because the attack dealt a wound. She just ended up suffering that wound as fatigue, not damage.

10. "Stress." You've been reading the Imperial Assault rules, eh? "Fatigue" refers to a unit or token. "Stamina" is the total amount of fatigue a hero can take. Jain doing a rest action is sort of like a heal, in that it allows her to take more damage before being defeated, yes. However, she can't remove any wound by resting, of course, just fatigue. If she's taken enough damage to need to take actual wounds, those won't go away. This is one of the cool things about Jain- she sort of has 13 health, even though she actually only has 8.

Ah yes, I did forget about the Scamper ability!

Another game finished and again, the Overlord wins. We're going to re-do the scenario again tomorrow and try different tactics. I suggested he'll play OL this time and I'll play the heroes, just to show him other options that he could be missing. One of which is not going for the second search token straight away. I'm trying to show him that getting two searches done would be beneficial for him in the long run as he gets gold for new goodies. I'm tempted to use Jain and Avric just to show him what could be done with his heroes but the other heroes are also very cool.....

As for "stress," yeah, sorry about that. Plus, I play X-Wing as well and I play Interceptors a lot (hence the forum name!) and I fly them into stressful situations all the time.

Another game finished and again, the Overlord wins. We're going to re-do the scenario again tomorrow and try different tactics. I suggested he'll play OL this time and I'll play the heroes, just to show him other options that he could be missing.

"First Blood" is basically designed for the heroes to win. If you're beating him on that intro encounter, it may be telling of what the rest of the campaign is going to look like. Not to discourage you, but just FYI.