I'm in the middle of the Copper tier of my first campaign session. I am the OL and am winning by a large amount of CT. I'm using Sorcerer King and already have upgraded my eldrich to Silver, given my Sorcerer's the blast 1 ability, and Skeletons the "marksman" boost.

Two questions:

1. In your opinion. do the players stand a chance against Sir Alric Farrow at this point?
2. In general, regardless of my specific scenario, how likely are heroes to actually be able to defeat Alric in the Copper tier of play? How about the other Farrows?

Lt's power is always at its maximum just as a campaign play switches levels (or the start of copper). Once the party starts picking up some useful equipment then they can be more than a match for Alric. I'd wager that a green party might have difficulty with Alric using only shop items and starting skills, but by the end of copper, they should be able to kill him if he's dumb enough to stick around for the fight.

jwdenzel said:

1. Well...in the middle copper it's still hard to defeat a Lt, except if the heroes have the right stuff. They have to go to Market as soon as possible and often, in order to purchase some good weapon. And, of course, they MUST be balanced (1 melee tank-hero, 1-2 good ranged, 1-2 great magicians). By the way....it' will be an hard battle in middle copper!

2. Yes, They can (see above)! Alric is not the Dragon Dar Hilzenord...!!

I complete my answer 'bout the Farrows in middle copper...

Well...Merrick is stronger than Eliza, IMHO...but it always depends on the OL's strategy.

Merrick: with his 15 Threat and his skeletons, he can hit very far and reinforce well his crew. And if the OL has already upgraded his Eldritch monsters to silver, the truble for the heros becomes higher!

Eliza is still a bad guy (ops, girl!)....but she has the Hell Hounds minions, which are often too weak at copper! On the other side, she benefits very much from the presence of the Nagas....so, if the OL has upgraded the Beasts to silver, the Encounter with her becomes suddenly a nightmare for the party!

We killed Sir Alric Farrow in the middle of the copper age.

Our OL had used the Gem of Transport as one of his starting upgrades to teleport Alric straight on Tamalir. We then built the city walls up to 7 and scrambled to find better weapons and get an upgrade before fighting him. We did finally face him just before he'd be able to roll for the win with 2 dice upgrades each (except me who had taken Inner Fire instead) and almost all the best copper weapons: Dragontooth Hammer (not better than a plain shop axe against him, as he has Ironskin), Dwarven Bombs, the cursed Sword, and of course the Staff of the Grave.

When we had dispatched all of his followers while being only lightly wounded, Alric probably should have fled, but he didn't want to give up his position as he'd be able to roll for the win if he beat us. He probably also overestimated the power of his Regeneration 5 ability. In any case, he stayed one turn too long, and by avoiding any X-roll in the last turn, we killed him.

jwdenzel said:

1. It depends on which heroes, their skills, any upgrades they have, their stock of potions, their acquired treasures and stored Feats. It will also heavily depend on which terrain area is drawn for the fight. In other words, sometimes yes, sometimes no.
SIr Alric is not particularly assisted by Many of the OL upgrades. He has only one upgraded minion, and blast is easily negated by trees. A decently set up hero party should be able to take him.

2. Quite likely. IMO late copper is by far the best time the heroes have to beat Lts. Once the Lts get a large treachery hand of cards they become much, much tougher.

The Hero's wasted my Lt pretty quick in cooper, they are not as touch as you think.

I once tested the 'Turn 1 Transport Gem Alric to Tamalir' scenario with a large number of different parties to see how often he could win. It was about 50-50.

Otherwise, Lieutenants are generally very easy to beat in Copper level. If the Heroes can't, best to just put them out of their misery and raze Tamalir for the win. The sorcerer king in particular is very weak on the Overland map, so he really shouldn't have strong lieutenants in the first place.