Borrowing others' classifications:

Mage: Landrec w/ Prodigy: 4 surges on a magic attack? That means guaranteed blast with the town blast room; that's good.

Ranger: Kirga w/ Master Archer: Kirga is a solid archer. Doesn't have the fatigue or speed to keep up with the "real" rangers, but his spawning ability can make up for that.

Tank: Tahlia w/ Tiger Tattoo. Tahlia is a keeper. My usual complaints with her, speed and fatigue, are offset with tiger tattoo, If a different hero picks up leadership, she'll be a handfull.

"Runner": Steelhorns w/ cleaving. I use the term runner loosely, his speed is only 4 afterall with low fatigue. He will be interesting to see in-game. Cleaving with a reach weapon may make his skill more useful, 3 fatigue may not.

I see the parties biggest weakness being their low speed; especially landrec. In my mind's eye I see him dying and being unable to return to the action for several turns. Assuming we can keep him alive his automatic-blast can give the overlord a headache, once he dies though... I dunno...

As far as additional skills to pickup, leadership and spiritwalker are no-brainers. Vampiric blood, and weapon master might also be good.

What do you think? Is this a terrible party?

If you have the ability to choose your party, I probably wouldn't go with Steelhorns. Take Hawthorne or Nanok as your tank.

Also, you have no Runner, which is pretty important in RtL. If you have ToI, grab that wolf riding hobbit guy. Speed of 6 with Invisibility is pretty impressive.

-shnar

How terrible they are depends on the other choices that were available for heroes and skills.

Steelhorns, IMO, is one of the worst warriors out there. And he's definitely not a runner.

We are starting a RtL campaign soon, with a very similar party-

Landrec

Tahlia

Sir Valadir

Vyrah the Falconer

I"m concerned that Vyrah's familiar, Skye, will be less and less useful as the campaign goes on. Actually I'm sure of it.

If you are able to choose your characters and you are looking for the most overpowered party it is:

1) Nanok (Best warrior in the game)

2) Tahlia (One of the best warriors in the game)

3) Varikas the Dead (One of the best warriors in the game)

4) Jaes (Best mage in the game)

OL does not stand a chance against this. Nanok saves party money because he doesn't need armor. Jaes can wear regular armors AND has the biggest mage armor value in the game. Tahlia's hero ability gives her a chance to achieve one of the best combos in the game. Varikas is just **** good. That's why we pick our party members randomly.

Your party is pretty decent. Tahlia is good (as explained above) and Landrec is ok. Kirga and Steelhorns are both quite terrible characters but hey... Now the OL has some chance to win, too. ;-)

I don't think Kirga's spawn reduction ability is anything to scoff at.

We finally played the first session with this party, things went pretty well.

We moved to the Thelsvan Highway, encountering the hammer bros on the way. The locations abilites had us suffering two wounds when placing an order. We were also ambushed. Heroes who failed to roll their way awake just dodged to wake up (suffering two wounds, which would wake them up anyway). We failed to kill one of the brothers twice (undying can be a moral breaker.) We then fled since our heavy hitting heroes were getting low on health.

We then entered the dungeon. First floor was the collapsed towers. Things when well, tahlia spent the first few turns in town shopping, and visiting the temple. Kirga's skill was very usefull since all the rubble makes covering LoS tricky. We then called it a night. Didn't draw what the next floor would be, the OL did get evil genius into play. No one died (yet) so we're currently ahead in conquest 6-1 (which is really meaning less at this point)

We randomly picked this party, I don't remember which heroes we rejected. The four piles were strange, the pile we chose tahlia out of had 2 other beefy melee people in it, the stack with steelhorns had the teleporting mage (thorn something?), and lyssa. We choose him since we didn't want lyssa, and took landrec out of a different pile. We don't like having two mages; the last time we tried the campaign was a disaster for the heroes.

Being ambushed in encounters seems to not have much effect, since the heroes can punch (red dice attack) each other awake. The encounter location essentially negated Tahlias skill. On the plus side being ambushed removed the trees from the starting tile (they were covered by the campsite.) The party shows promise so far.

Best party for my money would be....

Nanok

Tahlia

Varikas

Kirga

If you can get Prodigy for Varikas early it will make up for his die shortage and with his first die upgrades he becomes an unbelievable mage.

Wulf

Best party for my money would be....

Nanok

Tahlia

Varikas

Kirga

If you can get Prodigy for Varikas early it will make up for his die shortage and with his first die upgrades he becomes an unbelievable mage.

Wulf

snacknuts said:

Sleeping heroes have 0 armor and you always have to roll every attack die, so punching with a melee character is a bad idea. Even a punch without power dice won't always be your best bet, since you'll be doing 1-4 damage if you wake them up. You could instead kill the enemies and block line of sight to your sleeping friends.

James McMurray said:

In the hammer bros encounter, the two monsters are too tough for a single hero to kill by himself in a single turn; At least for our town weapon toting crew. A single red die will usually do less damage then a monster rolling his full compliment too. In our scenerio, the ogres not only rolled the red "punch" die, but a green, yellow, and black as well; and that's not including any threat the OL wanted to spend to add/upgrade more power dice.

It seems to me, being ambushed really on takes a few attacks or health away from the party. It would be more interesting to me to drop the sleeping aspect and instead have the heroes skip their first turn (monsters would go first).

As far as encounters in general, I'm looking forward to Sea of Blood. I image there's no ambush type situation since the first few turns would start with the two ships approaching each other. Since it is a "stand alone" expansion, meant to be played without the tiles and tokens from RtL. I would bet that it doesn't include a encounter starting/ camping area tile, or any of the outdoor tiles that RtL does.

snacknuts said:

They've already confirmed that there are no outdoor tiles, nor any outdoor encounters like RtL. *ALL* of the encounters in SoB are on the boat out in the ocean. So there's no such thing as camping-ambush, though there might be something similar in the boats, as in the enemy boat is closer than the heroes thought...

-shnar

Beware those advocating overly heavily armoured and overly melee based parties.

These parties have significant weaknesses in vanilla, which the people advocating them don't seem to be able to exploit within their own groups, and these weaknesses are massively compounded in RTL.

It is even more important in RtL to cover definitely 2 and preferably all three bases in equipment type. Particularly in early/mid bronze and early silver the OL silver, and then gold, upgraded monsters can be very (impossible) to take down without good weapons. Unlike vanilla, shop weapons simply cannot cut the mustard against upgraded monsters. You must have good treasure weapons (not more than 1 level behind the monsters unless at late gold when the heores have many dice upgrades and can afford some silver weapons against diamond monsters) for at least 3 if not 4 of the party.

Further, a runner (with low CT value) is of immeasurable value in RTL, far more than in vanilla. When the party is struggling through a dungeon and about to flee the runner can skip ahead, earning 3 CT for a glyph, possibly picking up something (Gold, treasure) on the way and giving up at most 2CT in return.

A party of slow behemoths might be difficult to kill (but much less difficult once monsters are upgraded) for the OL but the OL will get many more resources against them and they will get far, far fewer resources and have to waste a significant portion of their treasure draws.
They are an idea worth doing, until their weaknesses are exposed, in vanilla, but criminally stupid in RtL.

The party posted is very very strong. Only Steelhorns is not an A grade hero.
There is no better all-round tank than Talia (Nanok has some claims, but needs a lot more initial work and doesn't output as much - ie he is a weaker starter. Cash is not a significant barrier for a starting RtL party - you'll recover enough cash on the first dungeon level alone to have any shop items the party could possible want). Aim for the Knight/Unmovable combo, possible with a speed increaser
There is no better mage than Landrec. His high fatigue is valuable, his extra surges invaluable, his low CT value and 12/0 stat make him quite reasonable in an expendable sort of way. Aim for Spiritwalker and Quickcasting and he will clear levells on his own on turn one by late silver. Carthos is also very useful, but I prefer Landrec.
There is no better archer than Kirga. Aside from being one of only a few 3trait/3skill rangers, his antispawn ability is one of the best in the game and as a 16/1 for 3 CT he is practically a tank. Keep him with 1H range weapons and a shield and he is often tougher than many tanks (and can wear the heaviest armours as well!) Silhouette is the only other archer that comes close to him IMO and trades toughness and antispwn for speed and flexibility, so which is better depends on the rest of the party. Rapid fire and fatigue upgrades are the key for this guy.
Steelhorns is the weaklink and should probably be turned into the support character. He should get Leadership and Windpact for support and probably weapon mastery (for use with reach weapons that use ~~=+2-3 damage) and maybe cleaving to be the 'chaff sweeper'. I would have chosen Thorn in this group. He makes a good runner with his teleport ability and high fatigue and has a low CT value. Quite often he should be able to get to an advanced glyph on turn one, often including making an attack. And if there is any place that backup is most useful for equipment, it is magic, because it has so much variety. But that one is very much personal.

No one out there would choose Karnon as tank??

Karnon is the most powerfull tank in the game! He has also a good speed (4) and a good fatigue value (4), and if well equipped with a decent armor and a strong melee weapon he really becomes a "dead machine"!

If the party wants more melee power during the battle, what an awesome tank-team would be Karnon and Nanok!

For the second line, Okaluk and Rakash, would be a good choice: they have a great speed value and the Stealth ability, so they could defend well the back of the group keeping the position and then run to rejoin the compaigns went ahead. But they absolutely need a good armor...

To complete the party, I'd like to choose a great mage: Mad Carthos.

Mad Carthos is very weak (only 8 life points), but in a party like this, he can safely stay behind the two tanks, giving his magic contribute to the battle! He can hit (better if the target is far away) then run away in the safe zone behind the first line (with his 4 MPs he can easly do it). So, I think that he ALWAYS should be the last hero to move during the exploration of a dungeon or in the middle of the battlefield...

So, my ideal team (and I think that my next upcoming campaign will have rigth this one!) is:

1. Karnon: main tank: his only mission is to hit and to destroy.

2. Nanok of the Blade: adds power in melee and, if upgrades his melee trait during the course of the campaign, he becomes the strongest character in the game (and the cheapest too, since he hasn't to purchase any armor!)

3. Okaluk and Rakash: a good second line (Okaluk must upgrade his ranged trait as soon as possible, in order to became a good alternative for the distant attacks)

4. Mad Carthos: the magic side of the team...

Karnon is in our group, and he's definitely a beast with the walking stick. We just found a great copper sword, so we'll probably get him a morning star or shield to use when he doesn't need the reach or needs to punch through a heavily armored leader.

TheHunterBoy said:

Karnon has two significant weaknesses. First, he is a 16/1 for 4CT - thats overpriced and a good OL will take advantage (this is exacerbated by him being too fast to wear the heavy armours). Second, he is unable, ever, to add dice with fatigue (as in, after the attack has been rolled when he is 1-3 damage/surges short of a kill). 5 dice is ok, but the amount of time you need the fifth dice exactly, and therefore save a single fatigue, is significantly less than the amount of times you need 1-3 extra damage/surges from a single added dice.
Neither of these are 'huge' weaknesses, but they do combine to mean that there are almost always better tanks overall.
Further, if he is the only tank in the party you end up with a generally under-armoured party as you have no-one capable of wearing the very heavy armours without losing speed.

The idea that Nanok adds power in melee is laughable. He is a weaker melee character than any with 3 dice. Further, his 'cheapness' (not requiring armour) is pretty much irrelevant in RtL as most of the game will be played with Treasure armours on most or all characters. Effectively, Nanok really allows a party 2 additional potions over the course of an entire campaign. Indeed, not being allowed armour can actually be a minor disadvantage later in teh campaign if you pick up a lot of armours that have both good defensive properties and other nice bonuses. For example, I've used the Robe of Kellos (? Gold mage robe) on a tank because he had all three bonus melee damage 'other' items and I wanted him to use the Beastman Fetish as well.
Nanok's main advantage in cheapness is in vanilla (when you get a lot less items as well), and chiefly consists of allow 2 other characters to equip chainmail.
All that said, Nanok is still a very good character and can become a great one with the right skills etc. It's just not as a melee specialist or early on that he shines.

Nanok (though not as the melee specialist, but as a tough tank (ghost armour, Taunt, etc, or as a very tough runner) is an A grade hero, as is Carthos and O&R (though only as a runner, you still need a ranged specialist really). Karnon is B grade though.

Top team IMO:
Talia
Silhouette/Kirga
Carthos/Landrec
Nanok/O&R/Astarra/Jaes... maybe Thorn

Critical skills:
Leadership, Wind Pact

Extremely highly recommended:
Rapid Fire, Quick Casting, Spiritwalker, Acrobat, Tiger Tattoo/Swift, Cleaving/Knight

Btw, i would only recommend going with one of these sorts of power parties if you've played a bit and the heroes are really having a tough time of it, if the party is already walking over the OL, you don't have to go all out on the power gaming, you can mix it up a bit and try some other interesting characters. Whoever you go with, just make sure you have at least 1 of each weapon type user, and a runner can certainly be invaluable. I would not recommend heavily investing in the same type of weapons/armor, you likely won't find enough of the right type of item to be useful, and end up wasting too much stuff. There's certainly a few characters that are much too underpowered that I would suggest avoiding (like those with 1 die in each trait, unless they're a good runner), but there's a good number of heroes that are certainly playable.

My current party is using Karnon, along with another melee hero, and from my experience he makes a mediocre tank, but a strong hitter. Due to a severe drought throughout the campaign of melee weapons (along with armor, all I could ever seem to draw, if I was lucky enough to get a draw at all, was ranged and magic weapons and some other items), Karnon was stuck with both shop axe and chainmail until late silver, after the legendary dungeon. It wasn't great, but somehow he still managed to hold up his end compared to shiver wrecking things with his staff of the grave.

Corbon said:

Corbon said:

I disagree 'bout the two weaknesses of Karnon: he remains a good fighter and with a good weapon he can make a destroying damage...

He was born to be a TANK! No doubt 'bout this (what else could be a giant Jeti??!!)...and his high conquest value, in RtL, is not a real matter (no real difference between a 3 or a 4 conquest value hero in a such long campaign game)

BTW... other 2 heroes of Corbon's ideal team are the same than mine: Nanok (or Okaluk) and Carthos.

Well...Nanok WASN'T BORN to be a melee fighter, I agree, but he is the best one in the game to take advantage from melee upgrade...and the destiny of a melee champion, sooner or later, is TO BECOME a TANK! So, I always would put him in my team...

Carthos is a real good mage, maybe the best one in the game, and his upgrading could lead him to become, during the course of the adventures, the most powerfull among the heroes (all we agree on this point, I think..). His critical point: TOO weak (for this reason I consider him a "second line" character, able to stay behind a good wall of fighters, and ready to hit from the distance with some magical rune)!

An interesting issue could be "the fourth" hero: I think this basically depends on the line the team wants to follow. So, if they want to be a "melee commando", they need a "third tank" (Lord Hawthorne could be the right choice for this purpose; another one good hero in this rule could be Tahlia). This could be a way to interpretate the play: hit rapidly, hit with heavy hands, and be sure to kill everything when the attack is over! Of course, with a team like this, you could have a lot of weaky points: no one hero with a good range ability, for example (but you can always hit the far targets using the magic weapons of Carthos, a good solution in the small dungeons and in a several encounter locations). And another really hard matter to solve comes when the "melee" group is battling against the Spiders and their blocking webs...

But the "Melee Commando" solution COULD BE a interesting solution (with some high risks...).

Another solution: Kirga as "fourth"! With his high ranged trait, his high speed, and his great ability to contrast the spawn (especially in the small campaign dungeons), Kirga could be a very good "second line"...even if, IMO, I prefer as "fourth" character an "hybrid one": a charcater that could be a fast runner, a good melee/ranged fighter, with an unique ability. And the right choice could be Okaluk (and Rakash): a perfect, customizable, second line (he can become stronger in melee OR in ranged attacks, during the campaign).

A third way: the "fourth" could be another mage....and, for this purpose, the best should be Andira Runehand! Again, it depends on the tactical choice of the group: if the party wants to split its power between the "melee" and the "magic" traits what a great combination could be Karnon as the main tank, with Nanok on his side, and a very strong magic second line formed by Carthos and Andira!

In conclusion, this is the greatness of this awesome game: every single choice has a different tactical outcome, and eache one could be right or wrong at the same time!

So, summarizing my very personal opinions: the best teams for me could be...

1. Karnon, Nanok, Carthos, Okaluk (great mix: high power in melee attacks, magic solutions for the distant targets, fourth hero "customizable" and very very fast!)

2. Karnon, Nanok, Carthos, Kirga (as above, except for the higher attitude of Kirga for the ranged attacks)

3. Karnon, Nanok, Lord Hawthorne/Tahlia, Carthos/Andira (the "Melee Commando"!)

4. Karnon/Lord Hawtorne, Nanok, Carthos, Andira (the "perfect split")

P.S. No mention to the skills: I completely agree the choices of Carbon and the others in the forum....