This quest really favor's the heroes. I thought choosing the Goblin witchers for my open group would be cool, cause splig is the lieutenant and the other monster group is the goblin archers. Not so much.....

The heroes are:

Roganna; stalker

Trenloe: Knight

Avric: Disciple

Augur: Prophet

Roganna kept setting traps and my weak reinforcement goblins walked into them, They found the key and she weaved through the witchers, got the key and ran to the exit.

I did manage to k.o. avric but augur stood him up and he used his hero power before she exited. Then used it again on his first turn he is fully healed as is augur.

I chose golems for encounter 2 but I think its a mistake, my archers are already beat down and merrick is standing by support pillars... We stopped after my first OL turn. Has anyone else played this quest?

I played that one 2x. Last time I played it I selected shadow dragons as the open group. It worked really well as there best guy was melee. Shadow really messed them up. They did not even get out of the stairway. That was a brutal quest for them.

Oooh , should have used them, I forgot about shadow. Oh well hopefully we will finish soon and I can give an update. I just feel like merrick isnt a big part of the game, cause he has to move to the pillars to end the quest sooner for the OL.

Merrick is a really important part of the game. You should have him near the pillar the heroes are closest too and use him to attack. His multi target attack can be brutal. If heroes waist time attack him its less attacks on your other monsters and he comes back end o of turn. Shame you did not do shadow dragons. With the confined area there its not that hard to force heroes to fight in the shadow most of the time. I think this was the most lopsided fight of the campaign for me. The really did not have a shot.

I haven't yet played this quest, but I'm sligtly confused by special rules - " At the start of each overlord turn, place 1 fatigue token in overlords play area. Then the heroes choose 1 facedown objective token on the River's Edge. The overlord reveals that token.. ."

Basically hero players can reveal chosen token at the start of OL turn without being next to it and spending an action?

Seems to me this rule makes things very simple for the heroes...

Yes but they are in the OL play area and are face down and mixed up. When the players choose which one they want, the OL then Places that chosen token onto the river edge. Players then must be adjacent to the token to reveal if it is the key or not(red or blue).

Hope that helps!

It definitely helps, and your explanation makes perfect sense, but I'm still trying to figure it out in the quest guide, because in the SETUP phase it instructs OL to " Collect 4 blue and 1 red objective token. Place them facedown on 5 of the water spaces of the overlord's choice on the River's Edge , 1 per space. "

So the game should already start with tokens facedown on the river's edge, there's no mention of tokens being in the OL's play area before players choose any of them. In addition, once a chosen token is revealed it's being placed on the Pond -

"Then the heroes choose 1 facedown objective token on the River's Edge. The overlord reveals that token and places it facedown on the Pond ."). Why is it placed face down on the Pond if it's revealed? Hero players are looking for red token (key), so if that token is not a key, there's no point of moving it around the map once it's revealed, let alone putting it facedown. If it is in fact a key, why placing it facedown on a Pond when players know it's the key - just so the players must spend additional action to reveal it again...

It seems to me this is either poorly concieved or written...

I didn't go back and read the set-up. my apologies. I believe your right it is poorly written. Splig threw the key so it makes sense why the objective tokens are face down at the set-up. So if they are searching around or in the water, to me for storyline purposes it makes sense that the players seen about where he threw it(which would be the OL revealing the token) and placing it facedown again does cause the heroes the spend an action to "search" and reveal again before picking it up with another action. Storyline-1. wading through the shallow water searching,2. spending another action reaching in and grabbing it.

Again I agree with you, poorly written.

The other thing to remember is heroes must complete this in 6 turns. OL wins if he has 6 fatigue tokens in play area. So the extra action causes more of a challenge to the heroes. If you had someone with a 5 speed and they could just run up, grab the key and run down to exit 3 turns maybe. I believe the challenge lies in the OL having the right open group and some cards to slow the heroes down, otherwise is not difficult on the heroes.

I see your point.. looking at it story-wise, it makes a LOT more sense

in truth I should have tested this quest to be able to judge whether this action (throwing the key) is indeed pointless... but I guess it must be there for a reason. Still I remain that this should have been explained a lot better in quest guide.

Thanks!

Upon further study...

It makes no sense for the key to move from the waters edge to the pond!

If splig threw the key and the heroes saw about where it landed why would it magically move from the rivers edge to the Pond.

Wow really escaped us during play.Good catch!

I am with you on being pointless at the set-up to have it on the river edge!

Unless the opportunity is there for the heroes to run up and randomly choose the keys location!

That is all I can think of as to why the did that! but again why move it to the pond, unless during playtesting it was too easy for the heroes.

Might be that Splig realized he didn't throw key very far ("but his attempt falls pitifully short") so he picked it up again and threw it the other way, this time slightly further, into Pond. Heroes noticed the move but still they have to draw near and actually search for it in the pond before running away...

that's the only explanation I could think of...