I actually like Dark Host. It is quite easy to meet the requirement even with just Airborne alone, and its effect is very strong. There are so many good OL cards now, so its hard to justify the cost at times, but there are way worse 3xp cards than this that one.

That said, I don't think it combos with Blood Rage. Dark Host turns the hero into a monster for the OL's turn, but Blood Rage can only be used at the end of the OL's turn, which is after the hero stops being a monster. There was a thread with this ruling on BGG some time ago.

I'm kinda glad that doesn't work, because its a little cheezy.

3 hours ago, Indalecio said:

One combo that never gets mentioned is the Dark Host + Blood Rage combination

Because this has been discussed when Trollfens was going to be printed, and FFG clarified that it doesn't work

3 hours ago, rugal said:

Because this has been discussed when Trollfens was going to be printed, and FFG clarified that it doesn't work

I was going to say, I was pretty sure that 'treated as a monster' referred only to movement rules and attack target rules for the duration of the actions.

Although I believe you can still play expert blow and other 'after dice are rolled' and 'when declaring an attack' cards.

I am a little confused as to the ruling of playing 'Frenzy' or 'Dash' cards during the charmed heroes activation. CRRG states;

* Overlord cards that refer to a monster's activation cannot be used.

Which I simply don't understand the rational for.

1 hour ago, Silidus said:

I was going to say, I was pretty sure that 'treated as a monster' referred only to movement rules and attack target rules for the duration of the actions.

Although I believe you can still play expert blow and other 'after dice are rolled' and 'when declaring an attack' cards.

I am a little confused as to the ruling of playing 'Frenzy' or 'Dash' cards during the charmed heroes activation. CRRG states;

* Overlord cards that refer to a monster's activation cannot be used.

Which I simply don't understand the rational for.

Cards that can dramatically alter a heroes' position, such as Dash, or grant many attacks with the heroes' potentially very powerful weapons, such as Frenzy would be imbalanced. The wording was crafted to prevent those cards from working with mind control effects.

1 minute ago, Charmy said:

Cards that can dramatically alter a heroes' position, such as Dash , or grant many attacks with the heroes' potentially very powerful weapons, such as Frenzy would be imbalanced. The wording was crafted to prevent those cards from working with mind control effects.

... but I WANT to attack their friend twice and move 10 spaces through lava/hazard.

1 hour ago, Silidus said:

I was going to say, I was pretty sure that 'treated as a monster' referred only to movement rules and attack target rules for the duration of the actions.

Although I believe you can still play expert blow and other 'after dice are rolled' and 'when declaring an attack' cards.

I am a little confused as to the ruling of playing 'Frenzy' or 'Dash' cards during the charmed heroes activation. CRRG states;

* Overlord cards that refer to a monster's activation cannot be used.

Which I simply don't understand the rational for.

Let me clarify:

Actions that a charmed hero can perform are not considered to be an activation of that hero. Thus, anything that has the triggering condition when activating a monster or similar cannot be used on a charmed hero. This includes Frenzy, Dash and other Overlord and Plot cards.

1 hour ago, Sadgit said:

Let me clarify:

Actions that a charmed hero can perform are not considered to be an activation of that hero. Thus, anything that has the triggering condition when activating a monster or similar cannot be used on a charmed hero. This includes Frenzy, Dash and other Overlord and Plot cards.

Thanks @Sadgit, I had read that section "Performing an action with a charmed hero does not count as an activation of that hero." as it not counting as the Heroes activation for the turn, and does not count for any effects that may affect the hero when activating or start of turn, etc. I had not realized it also implied that it does not count as activating 'as a monster' either.

Hmmm that one wasn't easy. Luckily I was just theorycrafting here, so no damage done. I should probably go through the FAQ once again (sigh) to see that I haven't written anything in contradicton with the rules. Thanks guys for pointing this out about Dark Host.

In the next version of the CRRG I will change the respective bullets in the Dark Charm entry to:

• For the duration of the effect, the hero is considered to be a monster and no longer a hero. For Dark Host the hero is considered to be a monster only during the move and attack action. Performing an action with a charmed hero does not count as an activation of a monster.

Since there are so many great 1 exp cards, do you think that any of those 2 exp cards are actually worth it?

For me, I only consider:

Rune of the Phoenix
Curse of the Monkey God
Wicked Laughter
Diverse Means

the 3 exp ones are nice, but for the same price I can get THREE good cards that help me get rid of the fat from Basic deck.

55 minutes ago, Wakomski said:

Since there are so many great 1 exp cards, do you think that any of those 2 exp cards are actually worth it?

For me, I only consider:

Rune of the Phoenix
Curse of the Monkey God
Wicked Laughter
Diverse Means

the 3 exp ones are nice, but for the same price I can get THREE good cards that help me get rid of the fat from Basic deck.

Wicked Laughter tops them all in my opinion, since there are many applications for it.

Rune of the Phoenix could be useful depending on the campaign you´re playing, to protect your lieutenants.

Curse of the Monkey God is not bad.

Diverse Means I would avoid.

Wicked laugther is maybe one if the worst card ever since basic 2 ! I'm never going to buy or play this card anymore ... Beffudle does the same in better ways, as a basic card ! If Wicked laugher was at 1xp, it could worth the try sometimes, but 2 xp ? And it needs to buy 2 other card from the Saboteur class ? Seriously ?!? Web trap does nothing if heroes are lucky and exploding runes is useless ... Forget it !

- Curse of Monkey god is limited to search only and on many times if heroes rushes on search tokens, you will have useless card in your hand. IF only it was to doors too, it would be usefull, but as it is ... Sorry, but no, and same troubles as before.

- Divearse means is cool, indead, but it needs many card to be of some uses and so better on late games than starting ones.

Personnaly if I had to choose, summoning the servants is always a good option, even if not buying any more card from their class (but since it would work on any of them, I would do it anyway) and going Magus with Unholy rituals and Rise again is always a better choice in all situations.

Since recently, I avoid Saboteur and Shadowmancer, I need to try again Punisher, and my last try with Infector was a bad memory (if your deck goes upside down and the Infector cards are at the bottom, you're dead !)

Curse of the Monkey God won me an encounter once.

It was a SoN quest where you needed to kill each hero once, I had killed the other 3, but the last hero was Tom Burrowell who just constantly stood next to Revala Lightfoot (black die), wearing Rune Plate (another black die), while himself wearing some stupid armor and a barons cloak (immune to pierce).

Heroes continued to form defensive walls around him while he continued to move towards their objective and I just could not bring him down.... until they got cocky and went for the search token.

11 hours ago, rugal said:

Wicked laugther is maybe one if the worst card ever since basic 2 ! I'm never going to buy or play this card anymore ... Beffudle does the same in better ways, as a basic card ! If Wicked laugher was at 1xp, it could worth the try sometimes, but 2 xp ? And it needs to buy 2 other card from the Saboteur class ? Seriously ?!? Web trap does nothing if heroes are lucky and exploding runes is useless ... Forget it !

I was thinking of using Wicked laughter as well as Beffudle for a total overkill on tests, but you are probably right, not worth the money on Basic 2.

However, I see most players (myself included) tend to value web traps and imploding rift. However, in time, such decks become dull, and I would love to see effective Overlord deck without them. I only miss Chains that rust in my collection to try the double servant deck.

Since it's nerf, I totally forgot about Unholy Ritual, thanks for reminder, I will try it again

As for Divearse means, I purchase it only near the end of the camping.

In fact, Wicked laughter cost 4 xp, and really, this card is a joke as for it is not strong enough.

Personnaly, I play all my games as Overlord without having Web trap ou Imploding rift, and I win. Concentrating on Rise again and rune of the phoenix with Basic I and Rylan Olliven's plot deck to be sure having the surge for fire breath with dragons, hellhounds, and whatover, and heroes will eat the ground everytime. A good hero must have dust in his mouth ^^

On 2017-03-09 at 9:45 PM, rugal said:

Web trap does nothing if heroes are lucky and exploding runes is useless ... Forget it !

Wicked Laughter can help you with that

I basically disagree with you on Wicked Laughter, but then I'm a sucker for all cards of this type regardless of cost anyway. To each his own I guess.

However that's not really why I was responding here, I was just thinking about the "if heroes are lucky" part in the above quote. The game is still very luck-based, and I think it can be a setdown to not try to exploit weak attribute values from your heroes. I think you could pick Basic at the core, and slowly build your deck so that it doesn't rely at all on any failed attribute test from the heroes, by sideing out Dark Charm and the rest whenever you get the chance. So basically, an entire deck of direct effects that does not require any test to be made, with for main advantage that you know exactly what the card will do when you draw it, without the "ifs" and the "maybes". There are enough cards to allow you us to build such deck. However, that's not to say that I think it would be a good thing to do, mainly because there so many other random components in the game. A good exercice for thought, I guess.

I know this is not what you meant, I was just taking a tangent here that I came to think of.

For the record I no longer use Web Trap to catch "the most heroes possible" but generally only on one hero (with low Might obviously, unless Solidarity is played), which makes the card way more reliable. I never buy Explosive Runes these days.

if you think Saboteur is bad as a class, good luck with Punisher