Oh well, that's a problem with mini-campaigns. Because there are so few missions you have to play, it's much easier to tailor a group of heroes to account for the missions themselves. You also don't get to pick other quests to do, it's pretty set.

Yes, you are right about it, thought I don't think they were planning this from the beginning.

We are playing casually, and some guys in my playing group are new to this game, so I'm not very harsh on them, I even allowed them to repick scout character from treasure hunter Logan to Tinashi the shadowalker. Ashrian the spiritspeaker was choosen just because "she is cool". And I have to say that spiritspeaker have done incredibly well so far, and she is my main headacke from the very beginning - vigor (insane stamina regen to whole party), stone skin and healing rain work wonders.

The spiritspeaker is a class I like to try if I'm playing epic play, but not really during campaign play- mostly because I don't find the class very attractive until it has "Vigor."

On the first turn they killed all but one hybrid, I used survived one to get to the door on the north. On the second turn, despite long range Ashrian managed to shoot master imp twice with shared pain, thus killing him and all minions. Geomancer finished the last master imp with one shot. They put scout on the entrance, and managed to kill my reinforcing master-hybrid each turn with 2 actions, for the straight 3 turns. Meanwhile I opened the door and managed to did some nice damage, but they just wiped out every single shaman in 2 turns, while Ashrian was blocking eastern passage, shared pain was huge there.

Reinforcments at the end of the turn was ridiculously useless in this mission, I really had no chance. I understand that I could stop Ashrian with some good card play and positioning, I could cripple her with curse condition etc. but my starting hand had no traps or anything really usefull and they wiped out all my imps on second turn, and all my hybrids on the third. And scout was killing my new hybrids each turn, not a single miss for heroes. Easy win for them, and my imps couldnt even approach the tavern. At the time my hybrids managed to kill scout and imps reached the tavern entrance last villager was already near the exit

Wow, sounds like your heroes were rolling impeccably the whole time! I take it they never failed their attribute tests? And they were able to eliminate your reinforcements immediately and still have time to treat the villagers, all the while suffering from the Burning condition if they were on the Inn tile?

Also there may have been an issue with your imp placement if Ashrian was able to sprint over and get in line of sight of the imps in order to complete two attack actions on them within just 2 turns from the Entrance tile. Having trouble picturing that in my head.. but I'll take your word for it... Ashrian was also able to essentially camp the Imp spawn point without the rest of the party needing her help the rest of the quest?

I guess that Spiritspeaker really turned things around for them. Admittedly, I never had to deal with Shared Pain, as my heroes tend to shun the Spiritspeaker class, so I can't speak to that. I do think that the Goblin Witchers are a pretty poor monster group compared to other options. I would never take them as an open group. Curse is not a very good condition, as the characters that are heavily reliant on Action abilities tend to have the Lore to overcome it easily and there are some classes it barely affects at all (e.g. treasure hunter)

Unfortunately, getting a big loss in this quest may be a bad omen. The next quest is What's Yours is Mine and that is a very hard quest for the Overlord, with the odds stacked heavily in the heroes' favor. At this point you are still using Act I monsters, yet the heroes have the experience and gold of an Act II party. If they got wins in the previous quests and good weapons they will be tearing through your monsters easily, and even with excellent rolls this quest can take almost a dozen turns for the OL to complete.

To make matters worse, if your Ettin ends up missing his attempts to reel in Jorem after he acquires Ore, then the heroes can just have him sprint in the opposite direction down the hall, costing you additional turns you cannot afford. This is pretty much guaranteed to happen eventually considering all it takes is the Blue X or a really high defense roll and you have to make so many successful attacks on Jorem throughout the quest.

I did manage to win this quest, but I attribute it to the Raven familiar, Basic I, and the Bel'thir plot deck. I summoned the Raven in the hallway with Jorem, and used it, in addition to the master Ettin to keep Jorem in check and get him moving and mining Ore every turn. The raven-wounded minion Ettin just held the door to force the heroes to find the key. Its another reason the Raven flock is so darn useful and recommended

Being able to reinforce with 2 Hybrid Sentinels every turn also makes a huge difference. That, along with Bel'thir's other combat-improving cards (e.g. Make Your Own Luck letting me set the die to any face I wanted for a party-wiping Dual-Training Frenzy, Critical Blow, Prey on the Weak, Fire Breath) allowed me to keep the heroes continuously knocked out near the Hybrid Sentinel's spawn point. I used sorcerers as my open group for additional ranged damage to keep the heroes unconscious.

Even with all this lock-down, the heroes still managed to nearly win this quest, which would have been really frustrating after how hard I had to work on those darn ore pieces. My Ettin was forced to move right through them to get to the exit, and was hit by the Runemaster's Runic Sorcery and immobilized, and they managed to bring it to the brink of death in no time at all with their souped up gear and heroic feats. They were all ready to pat themselves on the back with the win when I pulled out a Dark Remedy + Dash to sprint to safety. Dark Remedy is a must in the OL deck if you're facing Runemaster, imo.

Anyway, hope some of this might help with your own attempt at this quest. Most reports I've read on this one tell me that it is usually considered an easy win for the heroes..

Spirit speaker is not my favourite Healer class because it's not actually a healer... but it offers some very useful abilites that can disrupt OL plans. Stoneskin is always nice. Drain Spirit allows you to heal your party while attacking the monsters. Tempest, Shared Pain, Cloud of Mist. If you're playing without a mage, this is one class worth having.

Sadly, I have no plot deck. Also Im playing basic II. I used grease trap on mage to stun him. He trew 0 on his test, so I was forced to use beffudle. And still at 3ed turn he managed to revive 2 villagers. Next 2 rounds my hybrids were dying by the hand of tinashi, my imps were blocked by ashrian and 2 geomancer stones. And Durick was dealing with shamans.

At the end of my 5th or 6th turn (Im not sure) I killed Ashrian and cleared path for imps, and hybrids killed Tinashi and reached the kitchen, but it was to late already.

Im not sure about next quest, we will see. But their firepower was already spectacular even without Valindra's Bane. And the spiritspeaker is great class I agree. Maybe she is not that good as healer, but she is interesting class to play with.

In te next mission if Im right the only chance for me is to make them stuck near the exit for as long as I can, ofcourse it all again can come down to them killing every single hybrid on the very first turn. But if I can split them with trap play or something I will be able to make some good damage.

Charmy, what was your open group choice there, what do you think about cards choice? I am free to reroll my previous skills. And I'm sure that heroes won't change because the are very pleased with their last succses. Currently my group consist of: Ashrian Spiritspeaker, Tinashi Sadowalker, Durik Beastmaster, Quelen Geomancer. I have 6 points of exp, basic 2. I dont have trollfens and mansion of ravens. What do you think?

Spiritspeaker is an interesting class to be sure- but its skills are very costly action-wise. That can be a huge disadvantage.

Edit: In case that was too subtle- STUN (or burn) the spiritspeaker.

Charmy, what was your open group choice there, what do you think about cards choice? I am free to reroll my previous skills. And I'm sure that heroes won't change because the are very pleased with their last succses. Currently my group consist of: Ashrian Spiritspeaker, Tinashi Sadowalker, Durik Beastmaster, Quelen Geomancer. I have 6 points of exp, basic 2. I dont have trollfens and mansion of ravens. What do you think?

Basic II is more about finesse and indirect attacks. Unfortunately Im not sure how well that approach will work here. Once the heroes get the key, then can march into the hallway, and with weapons like Valyndras Bane they can make mincemeat out of your Ettin in no time.

Without the Raven flock familiar, you also probably will need to send at least one member of your open group to help your Ettin keep Jorem in check. Without a helper monster this becomes an extremely difficult task. One miss, and the whole thing is a gong show. Of course, one less member of your open group means less pressure on the heroes, so tough choice. Maybe run the key search token away with the Mimic card to buy time?

I personally wouldn't expect to win this quest and instead play the long game. You still win the campaign if you win the finale, so pick overlord cards that will help you win that. I don't know your play style so I can't give too many specific recommendations, but Web Traps and Imploding Rift are great cards, especially with Basic II, along with general good stuff like Bloodrage and Wicked Laughter

Let us know how it goes :-) May all your strikes against Jorem be true!

I've also found the best defence against a spirit speaker is stay out of reach of his powers. Try to force the party to move more than 3 away, so they can't benefit from Drain Spirit, Tempest or Cloud of Mist.

We skip this Saturday, so my execution is postponed until next week =)

Many quests become easier or harder depending on hero composition and the abilities they choose. Your goal as overlord is to ensure that you avoid the quests that are hard for you to win, based on the team composition and abilities. If the heroes manage to force you to play it against your will, then that's very well done by them and they deserve the quest win.

Since we are only just past the interlude on our first campaign, we all feel ignorant when it comes to choosing what quest to play next. So WW, your advice to avoid those quests that will make it hard to win seems a stretch for us--can you look at the instructions for a quest and know how likely of a win it is or is your advice based more on having played the quest in prior campaigns?

I can look at the instructions and estimate based on what I know of the players, but I'm pretty hardcore when it comes to strategy, and have studied game theory extensively and can often make calculations on the fly for such things. I write strategy articles for a pretty big website (team liquid) on a fairly regular basis for a game that is much more complex than this one.

That's not to point out that you're dumb or that I'm awesome or something, I just want to express that I don't have a context to understand where you are coming from and can't be empathetic.

For people with less knowledge, experience is an excellent substitute, but that doesn't help you until after you've played them a few times.

In general terms, figure out your group's strengths and weaknesses, figure out what the objectives are on the map, and what your own strengths and weaknesses are. Once you've got that figured out, you should be able to estimate whether it should be easier or harder than average for you to win the quest.

Are you comparing Starcraft 2 (video game) to Descent (board game)?

Anyhow, I agree that experience helps a lot in decision-making. But quite frankly I wouldn't make this choice too much of a deal. Just enjoy the game no matter who wins in the end. It will make you realize your mistakes and lay down a royal red carpet for future campaign play, during which you´ll make more and more informed decisions and increase the quality of your strategy making. You´ll enjoy the game more and will be able to see these tiny little things you can't fully grasp at the moment. Just things like planning ahead. For beginners, just play virtually any quest (well, you can have a look at the reward as a way to decide which one feels the most interesting), you will soon enough know what the monsters are capable of, how to interact with the map, how to keep your hero group together and operational etc.

Eh, both are strategy games, so a lot carries over. There's nothing quite like understanding the role time plays in a game, or resources and the limitation of toolsets.

But yeah, enjoyment is more important in any game than winning, unless you're a professional competitor or something, until you get enough experience.

If you really want to win super badly, you can spend a lot of time evaluating the quests to come in between gaming sessions and putting some thought into evaluating the objectives, the map layout, monster selection and positioning, and more things of that nature. That can usually help a bit.

Eh, both are strategy games, so a lot carries over. There's nothing quite like understanding the role time plays in a game, or resources and the limitation of toolsets.

Sounds like real life

I just felt the urge to check what kind of game you were talking about in case it lead me to an unoffical Imperial Assault strategy forum

General rule of thumb (and i mean very general) that i use is to look at the nature of the quest.

Are you looking at a race quest, a defensive quest, an assassination quest or a carry quest. (not all types are applicable and the names are just vague relations to what ever the overall objective is.)

i usually find that

If your doing a carrying quest you need maneuverability and toughness, out right killing power is not necessarily that useful.
If your racing you need speed and numbers
If your defending you need to be tough and have a lot of killing power with some mobility
If your assassinating you need speed and killing power.

Again, that's just at how i look at my options in what heroes im playing with or against.

As the overlord this factors mostly into what open groups you have access to and what monsters you physically have (if you don't have harpies, razor wings etc then race quests are a bit harder although you usually have access to the ever useful goblin archer)

If a quest involves having to assassinate a specific target (like Sir Palamon) you need monsters that can move fast enough to catch/block him and hit hard enough to stack up damage as quickly as possible. But even if you have those given that the old coot will survive a turn if the heroes are built for good defense its s till a dubious quest to chose. (with the errata allowing him to maneuver himself)

Eh, both are strategy games, so a lot carries over. There's nothing quite like understanding the role time plays in a game, or resources and the limitation of toolsets.

Sounds like real life

I just felt the urge to check what kind of game you were talking about in case it lead me to an unoffical Imperial Assault strategy forum

Starcraft 2 is a really good game =p.

Starcraft 2 is a really good game =p.

Well it's on my [very long] list of things I would like to try. Played Starcraft 1 a lot earlier (just for fun, no pro here). I´ve been watching a crap ton of videos about the game to get an idea, including some protours just for the lulz, but I never seem to have time to play video games nowadays.

Anyways (talking to everybody again here), I agree with Underworld from a general perspective. You can refine your strategy depending on the heroes composition or gear to a crazy amount of depth. I explusively play as the overlord, and I have had customer campaign track sheets, notes to self about how I did with some monsters, and experience/plot roadmaps just to help me deciding on which path I´d want take. And re-adjusting the whole thing after each played quest. I don't use all that stuff that much nowadays - for practical reasons mainly, as it does take a huge amount of time to organize if you're taking this game as seriously as I do -, but I still have a lot to learn and haven't played every quest yet nor tested all the monsters or come across every reward.

The beauty of the game is that - unlike in Starcraft - a group of newbies can still kick your spiky dark arse of an overlord, just for the reason that luck remains a key factor in Descent (I think that's a very good thing).

So yeah, the learning curve is probably a bit steep at the beginning due to the sheer amount of content, but after a point even with new releases you kind of classify monsters, cards and skulls automtically in your head, and can normally adjust your strategy quite seemlessly. It just makes sense after a point. Then luck kicks in, and that's where you have to draw the line.

Luck will always be a factor, but calculating probabilities can heavily tilt it in your favor. Knowing the odds of something succeeding and playing it safe on a regular basis can pay dividends.

Luck will always be a factor, but calculating probabilities can heavily tilt it in your favor. Knowing the odds of something succeeding and playing it safe on a regular basis can pay dividends.

Sounds like you are talking about poker.

Luck will always be a factor, but calculating probabilities can heavily tilt it in your favor. Knowing the odds of something succeeding and playing it safe on a regular basis can pay dividends.

Sounds like you are talking about poker.

The concept has a lot of applications.

First time playing this quest. Did a solo playthrough ( as I test out my career mode). I'm also using the Baron Zachereth Plot Deck for the OL. This is how it all went down:

The party would consist of Reyhnart as Champion, Syndrael as Knight, Jain as Wildlander and Widow Tahra as Necromancer. Unfortunately High Mage Quellen is still recovering from getting his face bashed in by Mauler, but I digress. Decided to sit out Ashrael as Spiritspeaker (though in retrospect she should have probably come.)

The heroes had lost the previous quest "A Fat Goblin." So as this was the perfect time for the OL to force the hero side to go on a Rumor quest, I played the card. To make matters even worse, I also played the rumor card that messes up the Shopping Stage. The heroes managed to procure a Crossbow for Jain-Wildlander- anyway.

Then to make matter even worse, the OL plays a third Rumor card that allows him to look at all the travel cards and place them in a specific order. Fortune however took a turn in the heroes direction. The three cards drawn just so happened to do absolutely nothing to benefit the OL as one was a Universal card that made the OL discard a Rumor card ( he had none to get rid of) and no Event would have happened for one or the other stops. Only one stop forced the heroes to suffer 1 heart each or have the OL Draw two cards. They suffered the hearts. Then the fourth card allowed them all to draw a search card for every attribute test passed. Two heroes succeeded, one turned out to be a treasure chest and that turned out to be a bow that was completely useless because Jain already just bought her Crossbow....

Onward to the Quest!

The heroes started out well. They managed to kill three our of the four hybrids on the first turn. However, a Turn one Dash by the OL allowed him to get an Imp into the Inn already. The heroes spent the next turn dispatching the rest of the Dragon hybrids and the ranged fighters started to harry the Imps. However, 2 more managed to blow up by turn 3. Jain used her Heroic Feat to sprint over to the east pathway to where the Imps were coming from. Syndrael healed a Survivor and then ran over to the door. Rehynart picked up a Survivor and started to make his way to the exit. Heroes scattered... not the best plan?

Reinforcement Hybrids started to harrass both Reyhnart and Jain/Tahra. Dash plays got some more Imps past the heroes into the Inn. Sindreal assisted Rey and dispatched the Hybrid that was following Rey. Frenzy and Fire Breaths coming from the Hybrids were doing damage. Despite this Rey managed to rescue the one survivor he was carrying and the other revived survivor walked off the board. Sadly though... that would be the last one to be saved. Using Sindreal's ability, I was able to move Rey and her across to the ranged fighters and help them out. Then the heroes fought.... and fought.... and fought.... basically they were caught in the middle, where they had to focus on dispatching the imps all the while fending off the Sentinels. They held on for a good while, but the Ranged fighters were starting to get Koed. Jain and Syndreal attempted at last to open the door and did so...the Innkeeper ran for the well but the Flesh Moulders inside surrounded him and bashed him good. A final Dash sealed the deal.

OL wins: Gains 4 Threat Total (Koed 2 Different Heroes and won the quest), Armed to the Teeth Act II quest and The Wyrm Queen Relic.

Things aren't going well for the heroes.

Things I learned as OL: Let the heroes make the mistake here. The pressure is on them.

Things I learned as the Heroes: Take your Healer with you. As least take Ashreal. Bottlenecking those Imps are important. Getting to that door is important. And don't carry people unless you have a clear shot at winning.

I recently lost that quest- I made a big mistake during one of my activations, but it was balanced by the huge help I got from the "unseen wings" OL card. I used arachyura to block the innkeeper. Anyway, the heroes used carrying to move the survivors that had trouble healing- they failed several book rolls of 3 and 4 attribute.

It ended up neck and neck- the... sixth, seventh? round, the heros had one more survivor, i needed one more imp, and the innkeeper was stuck. One of us was going to win that round, and they did.

Omnislash024: OL is only allowed to play a maximum of ONE rumor card per campaign phase, so he shouldn't have played those three cards in a row.

Oh. Well thanks. Can't really take it back. That's why I'm testplaying.