Yesterday we started our first RtL campaign and I have to say, it is brilliant. I love the small dungeon maps and the flair of the Terrinoth map. And writing a campaign diary seems a good way to learn about the rule mistakes which we certainly do. I appreciate all comments from the community and wish you much fun reading the diary.

The Heroes & The Overlord:

We have a very nice party draw. And we skills seem to match our wish list

Thorn - Inner Fire

Kirga - Alertness

Jaes - Knight

Tahlia - Leadership

So we start the game very optimistic and are quite certain that we will win the campaign. The Overlord plays the Sorcerer King Avatar and his abilities are amazing. 10 Threat to start the dungeon will give us a hard start in the game, Lawlessnes will also add some damage. We will see.

Week 1:

Sir Alrik moves to Bitter Downs and the overlord tells us that his evil master plan requires to raze some cities (and of course he adds the abilities of his lieutenant to show us that we can not avoid this. Definitly a strong monster, so we will need better weapons and travel towards Thelsvan highway. The plan is easy: We have great heroes, take the CQ lead, earn a lot of money and move to the large market of Riverwatch.

But everything goes wrong in this week. While we walk peacefully through the Snowy Woods (movement reduced) Throg and his bandits attack us. Our weapons are not good enough to beat the Ogre, so we decide to run... which on this map means walk away... so we start to avoid the ogre, it is good that the trees slow him and we walked out on the other side, killed his minions and escaped with a lot of lost wounds. And reviewing the encounter we decided to be very lucky that it was not an ambush

We decided to enter the Dungeon and our luck continued: The Throne room with a master giant, which we considered unbeatable for the moment. But two glyphs, two chests, 800 gold and another cooper treasure when you walk on the throne was very attractive. So the plan was to take down the minions, steal as much as we can and then run away. Jaes had sword & shield, because we considered the starting magic weapons too expensiv. And so Jaes and Tahlia took the lead as armor-4 tanks, after Kirga opened the door. Kirga missed, Thorn killed one skeleton on the throne and at the start of the overlords turn Tahlia jumped on the bones of the dead skeleton (got Belt of Strength) and attacked the master sorcerer who was standing behind. A good roll, but the undying ability brought him back.

We had good line of sight against spawns and Kirgas ability did the rest. If the sorcerer would have been dead there would have been no good span location. But now the overlord could send us a beastman war party right behing the throne. Kirga was doomed, but the damage done to our tanks did not kill them.

We put up a good fight, killed the minions, lured the giant out of doorway allowing him an attack on Jaes & Thalia, what allowed Thalia to move with guard around him and head for the last chest and the glyph. Still the overlord scored two more kills and we ended the week with:

Heroes 7 - 10 Overlord

(We did get the Staff of Punishment for Thorn and landed back in the capitel)

Week 2:

The overlord moved Sir Alrik towards Riverwatch and let Lord Merik follow him. The heroes on the other hand want to find an easier dungeon and walk to Starfall Forest (with no encounter) and enter the Dungeon of the Puppet MAster. Just a master sorcerer! and we start to celebrate until we read that there is another master giant. We take the rule book from the overlord and check if there are easier dungeons and see a couple of master beastman, master bane spiders... so we are just unlucky and we did not forget to tell the overlord again and again, that he must be playing bad if he does not win the campaign early.

We thought about not entering the dungeon, but this would the second dungeon close to our home city which would be closed. So we decided to fetch the gold at least and have a look how dangerous it will be to stay. We headed in, carefully with guard orders and the overlord decided to just block the corridor with the giant and wait. 5 Threat each round are a good reason to do so. But he let his Deep elf enter with the intention to kill, but was interrupted by Thalias Guard order. This ability is so brilliant and I think from now on the overlord will have a closer look at her range (can't wait to learn Swift). But the Deep Elf was not dead and he damaged Thalia a bit and gave her a frost token.

So our only problem was to kill the giant, a job for Thalia and her axe. She approached the giant, took all her power hit the giant for a couple of wounds ...and shattered her axe. Great Jaes gave he sword and shield and headed to town to buy a new axe, while Thalia hold position with a dodge order. We were ready to run away if the overlord adds strong spawns behind the giant. Our back was save from spawns, beastman would not reach us. But one of the spawns from the expansion (Dark Priests) did and took down Jaes.

He was damaged at the start of the dungeon and healing seemed to time consuming. Do you some times send the major part of your party to town for healing in the first round of a dungeon? Or does it pay off to stay a whole weak in town to heal 6 wounds for two party members?

We prepared to leave the dungeon, letting Kirga cover our back. And we just wanted to stay until we have to leave.But the overlord did not spawn, but played Evil Genius. We took down the giant to 4 wounds. And in his next turn, the OL spawned a beastman war party and attacked Thalia with everything. She had a dodge, 12 hit points and the giant shattered her chain mail... yes, I still had the one single frost token since 6 rounds. The beastman war party killed Thalia and the next round we killed all minions, Thalia came back to kill the giant and the sorcerer was no problem. We took the treasures and killed the sorcerer for our first dungeon victory. (and the overlord deck was cycled once early in this dungeon.

Well, not really a victory as the overlord was now in the lead with 26 to 13.

The next dungeon level was "Two by Two" - just a Master Naga. But we had to be careful. The overlord had 21 unspent CQs and 4 more would allow him to upgrade his eldritch monsters. We played carefully with some guard orders, healing in town and blocking every spawning point. But if your guard orders miss the weak minions can do some damage... and a charging master skeleton on rage running through half the map is able to kill Thalia (who had a new armor) and give the overlord the 4 CQs he needed. But the dungeon was quite simple, Thorns teleport saved a lot of time and we ended:

Heroes 18- 34 Overlord

We just wanted to look at the last dungeon and the first time, we had a real weak master monster. King of the Mountain, a Master skeleton with two undying rolls. We had to think carefully if we start the level, because the overlord deck was almost empty the second time. But we thought it could be as Kirga blocks all the spawn points which would have made the map difficult. And it was brilliant. We just took one early loss, from the master skeleton (using command from a beastman war party) and his high level to damage Thorn from really high range. and a beastman on charge finishing the job. But everythin else was killed without problem - and what was really fun, we pointed out at least three times that the overlord can not spawn at point where he wanted to spawn (yes, it was 2:30 a.m. ) because of Kirga or Line of Sight from far away . We took everyting, also the cooper chest at the end, which I thought would take to much time. And left the dungeon through the glyph to start in the capitel, what saved us the week which we would have needed to travel back.

Heroes 25- 36 Overlord

We ended the session for this day... but discussed the game...

Future plans:

For the overlord it is very simple, upgrade his Eldritch monsters and purchase a third lieutenant in one of the next rounds. He just was not sure which lieutenant is better. The third Farrow or the undying one. We discussed a lot how the battles against lieutenants work and if the hero party will win the battle or not... what is your experience?

The heores have a lot of nice options, basically because we have 3000 gold in our treasure and 25 XP for each hero. So we had acloser look at the skills which are available in each town - in particular in the north where his lieutenats are not.

To reach Forge we need the boat, but Unmovable for Jaes seems a good addition to his Knight Skill (2 fatigue for 3 attacks, 2 movement points, +1 armor and a guard token). Skilled is nice, but maybe it is better to buy fatigue at a secret training. Cautious is a nice skill as well, but improving our damage and number of attacks seems more important for the moment.

Frostgate is maybe the better choice for now. Tiger Tattoo and Swift are two very fitting skills. Maybe the Tiger Tattoo for Thalia, she is always a little low in fatigue because she needs one point for leadership every round And speed 4 is already good. And she is moving so much, that avoiding the damage from pit traps is a nice add-on. Jaes can make good use of the 2 points speed. So even with a better armor his speed would still be 5, which makes 3 for a battle action as Knight. Thorn and Kirga will maybe learn a new trait or we give MAster Archer @Forge a thought.

Questions:

I think we made one error with the market place. Each time a hero used a glyph to move to town we revealed two items for the market. Do I assume right that they are only refilled/changed at the start of each week?

Comments about the plans of course highly welcome

The next session will start in 4 hours

I am playing as Overlord in a Sorcerere king campaign. A couple of observations now that I am half way through silver:

1. You got the treaures wrong it is 2 for the week. Same for potions

2. Speed in the dungeon is essential. AS an overlord some cards in your deck are much better than others. Allowing your overlord to deck you is bad. Not only 3 conquest but all those traps and killer spawns available again

3. You will die lot in Copper. However knowing when to run will minimise this

4. The sorcerer king has a 2 upgrades which make the final battle hard. Phylactery and Soul Ward. The twins rumor is the only way of getting rid of these it is worth hunting for this as eliminating these upgrades will make the OL life very hard

5. Lieutenants are deifintly killable in Copper. You just need potions and a reasonalbe spread of treaures. Power potions and the axe are a good way to start. Not sure if you are playng with expansions or not but the treachery rules in the expansions make the lieutenants a lot harder and after upgrading eldritch this is the next most important

6. The OL should get snipers and eldritch upgrade. Try to make the eldritch upgrade the first upgrade when you go form Copper to Silver. One group of monsters ahead of the level is critical for good OL dungeon performace. ( ie eldritch silver in copper and gold in silver etc) Lots of the dungeons ahve skeleton minions and my players dread the site of eldritch creatures.

7. For the overlord the trick ( which I have not mastered yet) is balancing you above ground and dungeon performance. Your above ground performance gives you more options for an early win and dosnt risk the final battle

Hope this helps

I havent got to play this expansion yet, but man it sounds awesome!! I am trying to pace my self on what I buy to make the "newness" of the game last longer, and hopefully by the time i get around to buying the Ice Thingy One, there will already be another expansion out after that.

The campaign continues...

Week 3+4: "Failed their way to Frostgate"

We decided to move to the Gate to the North and use the treasures we find to train in Frostgate in 2 weeks. We did not meet encounters on the way and entered the dungeon "Down the Drain". The master was just Shellis the Skeleton. Not a giant - that's an improvement!!! So we entered the dungeon and learned in our first round who good the silver upgrade for the Eldritch monsters is. All skeletons and sorcerers were boosted and the Dark Priests which he spawned in addition as well. He killed Tahlia who was standing in front (failing to kill a sorcerer...) and earned "hundreds" of threat tokens with his dark priests. We decided to run, what we should have done right away.Jaes and Kirga used the glyph and Thorn teleported through the entire map activated the glyph (the OL did not like our LoS, but it was 100% ok with the Descent rules). Of course Thorn was killed, but his action gave us one more Conquest token than the OL got. A small victory...

Heroes 29 - 44 Overlord

Week 5-7: "The resque of Riverwatch"

We fleed from the dungeon so we had to go back to Tamalir and missed our way to Frostgate.That was disappointing as we had enough XP and gold, but did not manage the way to the training location. We had two possibilities now. Purchasing the boat ant train in the city "Forge" (Unmovable for Jaes) or move to Riverwatch which was under Siege of Sir Alric. We agreed to let the other two Farrows raze Dawnsmoor in acouple of weeks. Kirga argued that we -as heores- should defend the kingdom and protect the innocent people of Riverwatch, while Thalia said that it is just a city with not the best skills and improving our abilities is much more important. Kirga won and we started our journey to Riverwatch.

The Hammer Brothers tried to stop us on the first half on the journey - and increased our morale and our Conquest score by +2. The same was done by the Wild Hunt in the next week. Flawless victory!

Heroes 33- 46 Overlord

Next to do was the fight against the lieutenant - Sir Alric. And finally we found him in the Swollen Stream. Hellhounds and Beastman tried to do some damage first, but were no match. Razors and sorcerer seemed to be his private guard and protected him close to one exit. And we had to hurry, as he could bring in one sorcerer per round. The mud made it difficult, but we fought our way free, damaged Sir Alric with a guard order (after he had the chance to regenerate) and forced him to leave after single attack. Riverwatch was saved and the overlord what certainly kill his coward servant. (Later we learned that the OL is a week one, and he simply ordered Alric to do the same again...)

We were not sure about the rules about conquest t okens for lieutenant encounters. A fleeing lieutenant means it is a party victory, and under party victory you can find that you earn 2 Conquest tokens and 100 gold... but for normal encounters only killing the master means a party victory. So the rules were not clear and we ruled that a fleeing lieutenant is worth 2 Conquest tokens - at least if this ends a siege.

Heroes 35 - 46 Overlord

Week 8-11: "The heroes learn how to fight"

Definitly we were too weak. We could beat all basic monsters, but his upgraded Eldrichs were too strong. So we have to travel to Frostgate again. Until we reach it, Dawnsmoor will be raised and the FArrows will approach our hometown ... maybe. So we decided to buy the Staff of the wild. First station - Tamalir. 2nd station - Greyhaven. 3rd station Frostgate. Using this way, we only had to roll for green encounters (and nothing happened) and could buy some potions which we were running low of. In Frostgate we sold everything what was not necessary and Tahlia got a Tiger Tattoo and Kirga got an Eagle's Eye.

Thorn - Inner Fire
Kirga - Alertness, Eagle Eye
Jaes - Knight
Tahlia - Leadership, Tiger Tattoo

our equipment was good at this point. Jaes and Tahlia at Armor 5. Jaes with a Breath Rune, Tahlia still with an axe. Kirga with the Dwarfen bomb and Thorn with some staff (of punbishment? if I remember right). And to mention, we just had 75 gold left.

After long resistance in week 10 Dawnsmoor was razed and Lord Merick reached Tamalir. So we had to go back fast - as expected...

Heroes 35 - 56 Overlord

Week 12: "A glyph to Tamalir, please"

The fastest way back is to flee from a dungeon. So we moved to the Whispering Forest - on the way we heared about a rumor of a teleport item, hidden in Red Echo River - and entered the dungeon. We still had the impression that we are week, the game is unfair and unbalanced and that the victory is far too easy for the overlord. Not seriously but we had a lot of fun pointing it out. But we had learned in our last dungeon how easy we can be defeated.

We entered "The Mine". That was an easy one. Guard orders, carefull look for the line of sight, one lost hero due to a beastman war party behing the dungeon level master and we had one the level. The overlord had good rolls - the encounter marker damaged us and gave no benefit - but the monsters were to weak to stop us.

Next was the fountain of Life. The Master Beastman can not be killed without Knockback and Telekinese - so it was a free command and a good Melee attack all the time. We cleared the two sides of the upper half in the first round (did I mention that Thalias ability is brilliant and speed 4 makes it even better). Kirga the other side. Some fight against the minions, one dead Jaes after concentrated fire with a skeleton patrol and aim and charge on the Naga. But again a victory for the heores.

At this point we were already happy. Well everyone except Jaes. He died in both dungeons and rolled 70% Misses - I have never seen that before. But we had another possible dungeon draw "The Arena". And all the luck the overlord had in the first weeks of the campaign turned against him. This dungeon was amazing for us. Wih a good combination of guard orders we had a fast, save progress. The Overlord realized very early that he cannot really stop us here and his Master Ogre will not do much damage and only survive 1-2 attacks. So he concentrated all his forces on Jaes again. (Because Tahlia blocked LoS to Kirga for two Masters). All his minions jumped down for 2 wounds and attacked Jaes. He survived with one wound. We wanted to have a really flawless victory and somehow manage to save Jaes. Healing potion of course as first step. And the other heroes checked his way for traps. (They ended their movement between Jaes an the glyph, so Jaes never entered an empty field and we avoided traps. The overlord was angry - he wanted this kill!! And he got it with a last Skeleton spawn behind the ogre.

Still the dungen was brilliant for us. I mentioned the luck which we had: From the 5 bone tiles, 4 were treated as a chest after rolling a surge . After all the 3 levels and the 5 chests from the last level. We ended the dungeon with 5000 gold and few small coins. And we came closer to the conquest score of the overlord.

Heroes 56 - 68 Overlord

Future plan s:

We have to beat Lord Merick who is currently at Tamalir and just placed his first siege token on the city. We are not sure in which order the events happen now. We just left the dungeon and decided to end in Tamalir. Can we attack the lieutenant in the very same week?

If not, we will stand in the city. Can the overlord attack us there? (he is outside the wall and we are inside, I think he cannot)

So we could train a week in peace and at the end of the week attack him? or do we have to wait for the start of the next week?

Killed heroes in an encounter cannot come back. So what happens if all 4 heroes lose against the lieutenant ? I assume they are placed in Tamalir again and when can the overlord attack them?

And looking at the minions of Lord Merick, I think it will be pretty hard to beat him. He starts with 15 Threat (and one Trap Treachery) and all his minions on silver level. He can reinforce several (silver) monsters right away. It looks to me like a 50:50 battle. So that this lieutenant attack is a very good chance to win the game very early... that's disappointing. We have the most of the best copper treasures now and still our home city is not save when we are at home... (if we cannot attack him right away he will also add a monster treachery and we have to face a large skeleton spawn as well...)

Comments and answers are of course very welcome

Suggestions for Lord Merik:

Power Potions+aim

or

Power potions+guard orders from leadership and used immediately

BM Jaes's Knight ability will certainly help. You should attack him as soon as possible, and take advantage of trees.

Shakkar said:

You may already know this but the above comment seems to indicate an error.

Basic Rulebook Pg 12 (bold my emphasis)

• The overlord player may not place a spawned monster in a space to which any hero figure on the board has line of sight (see “Line of Sight,” page 9-10). Exception: For purposes of spawning new monsters, other monster figures do not block a hero’s line of sight .

The Sorcerer being dead or not is irrelevant to spawn locations as he does not block line of sight.

Very nice write-up, I am really looking forward for the next reports.

Some hints and advice:

When you win a dungeon, you are able to choose if you wish to end your week at the location of the dungeon or in Talamir.

Regarding lieutenant encounters: If the lieutenant attacks you while the OL turn, and you loose, you move back to Talamir, but go ahead. If you loose an encounter that the heroes started, and all heroes are killed or flee, the party ends up in Talamir, and the week immediately ends. And a fleeing lieutenant means you win the encounter, as lieutenants are the only OL monsters that are able to flee. Thus this option is not given for normal monsters in encounters.

When ending a week in Talamir, you should consider to buy a city upgrade. Temples are great if you move to town on a regular basis to heal yourself, and the town walls leave you some time when you are far away from Talamir and do not wish to go back immediately.

You HAVE TO get your copper level fatigue or life upgrade. If you miss this, and the campaign changes to silver, this possibility is lost for ever! And if you feel like you are well equipped and can face up most dungeons, you should go to the copper level legendary area.

And as Mr Craig H Whitehead said, always get yourself a good rumor. If you are able to make it through a complete dungeon, then let it be worth it. And rumors are excellent ways to harm the OL, first of all the already mentioned Twins Rumor, which will immediately give the OL a panic and make him purchase a lot of OL improvements he would normally save for later when he realizes that the final battle cannot be avoided. And conquest spend on those is less conquest spend on Treachery or Monster Upgrades

@MyNameSux:

You are right, we have to be fast, else he will spawn to many silver reinforcements. 3 strikes have a chance to kill him, so the OL will not risk them. Still it will be a difficult battle. If we can't manage the battle, Tamalir is lost. So we should do the best



@Corbon:

Thanks you corrected a major mistake which we made all the time. From now on the overlord will have a harder life. And he already announced to go for Dark Charms and Animated Weapons instead. Guess we will still not be able to walk through his dungeons.



@Argur:

Thanks for your post. And I agree with your suggestion about the Fatigue/wound upgrade. And the legendary area is a good choice - if we are able to do it. Silver dungeon leaders will be a hard match. But we will try if I can convince the other players that it is not so important to head back to Riverwatch every time...

The rule comments are excellent. Main reason for me to write the diary is to get rid of our errors But I have to ask some more questions.

Open questions (about lieutenants):

1a) The heroes just finished a dungeon and decided to move to Tamalir. Can the heroes visit the temple for a few wounds in the same round?

1b) Same situation, but Tamalir is under Siege by a lieutenant. Can the heroes immediately attack him or is their week ended?

2) The heroes are in Tamalir and a lieutenant is also there. Can the lieutenant attack the heroes (behind the city wall)? Can he place a Siege token AND attack them?

3) Can the heroes train in the city and at the end of the week attack the lieutenant?

Answers highly appreciated. All comments as well.

We are planning to do the next session soon. Hopefully at the weekend.

Shakkar said:

1a) from FAQ 1.4 pg 9

Q: When the heroes return to Tamalir after completing a dungeon, can they Visit the town?
A: Yes.

Note that this is only after completing a dungeon, not after fleeing from a dungeon.

1b) I'm not sure if there is a specific answer to this, but given that the heroes are permitted to do a Visit action (which is an 'at the end of the week but before the 'weeks turn' finishes' event, it seems likely that they may also attack a lieutenant who is seiging Tamalir.

As above, this would not apply to heroes who flee from a dungeon - fleeing being a 'turn ending' event.

2) There is no restriction on Lieutenants that prevents them form attacking Heroes that are within cities. I guess the heroes are just too heroic to be able to refuse a challenge!

However, note that there are two types of Lieutenant actions - Move or Beseige . If a Lieutenant takes a beseige action (ie, wishes to put a seige token on the city, then he cannot attack the heroes as attacking the heroes is only an available option at the end of a Move action. See pg 10 under 3. Overlord Actions.

3) No. Similar to the Lieutenants, the heroes can choose a Move or a Recuperate/Train action. Attacking a Lieutenant is only an option at the end of a Move action. Again, see pg 10 under 4. Party Actions .