https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/10/28/tainted-and-foul/

Must have an error in it... how can we have sixteen miniatures with 6 reanimates, 3 bones horrors and 3 broodwalkers..

But otherwise, this expansion seems very cool. I really like the new monsters and effects

Must have an error in it... how can we have sixteen miniatures with 6 reanimates, 3 bones horrors and 3 broodwalkers..

But otherwise, this expansion seems very cool. I really like the new monsters and effects

Wow, these new monsters sound really bad ass! The regenerating Reanimates seem rally powerful and a unique threat to any hero party that deals damage through small increments over time, such as a bardic Dissonance, or powerful hero auras like Andira Runehand. It also makes getting weapon upgrades early for all your heroes pretty critical, because either you smash them to bits in a single mighty attack, or they just shrug off the hit completely. My guess is the Act I versions have 3 life, so its at least doable for a starting weapon?

Really high numbers and swarm are icing on the cake. They definitely seem 'strictly better' than a lot of the monster groups currently in the game.

I worry it does make certain classes that are already pretty bad even worse, like the Spiritspeaker, and make classes that are already good even more essential, like the Disciple.

The new Broodwalkers seem wicked sick as well. If I understand correctly, if a hero starts next to one of these things, your movement is cut down to 1! Yikes! If the hero is surrounded by water spaces, then they can't even move! Even worse, if you end your turn next to a master you're dead, since its pretty much lava.

So many possibilities with these guys, and you get 3 of them. Imagine these when combined with immobilization and possession effects... Boots of Iron are starting to look better.

I also think adding these monsters to the overlord arsenal is also going to further start favoring heroes with reach and ranged weapons.

I also wonder about the new Tainted feature.

It says you can only recover hearts from untainted heroes, but what counts as effects that are 'from a hero'? Does a hero using a health potion on someone else count as 'from a hero'? What about an Insight token? Apothecary potion? What about an item, like an action from a Staff of Light? The Manor's Heart? If you spend a surge from Avric Albright's heroic ability to heal yourself is that healing coming from Avric or yourself?

What about an Overlord plot card that heals the heroes, such as Demon's Bargain from Gargan Mirklace's deck? Do they not work at all? Is the overlord considered 'tainted'?

I think the tainted cards specify that you can't recover wound from other sources while knocked out. That is, the means by which a KO hero gets put back on the map are limited:

-Stand up action: NO

-Health potion: NOT FROM A TAINTED HERO

-"Prayer of Healing" or similar skills: NOT FROM A TAINTED HERO

-Heroic Feat: YES

-Revive Action by another tainted hero: NO

-Revive Action by a non-tainted hero: YES

However, tainted or not, recovery while you are standing seems not to be affected.

EDIT: Also, I don't know how you'd get 16 minis from those 3 monster groups, either. That does seem to add up to 12.

I think the tainted cards specify that you can't recover wound from other sources while knocked out. That is, the means by which a KO hero gets put back on the map are limited:

-Stand up action: NO

-Health potion: NO

-"Prayer of Healing" or similar skills: NO

-Heroic Feat: YES

-Revive Action by another tainted hero: NO

-Revive Action by a non-tainted hero: YES

However, tainted or not, recovery while you are standing seems not to be affected.

Ah, good catch Zaltyre. In my excitement I missed the part about 'while knocked out'.

Still, why do you think giving an adjacent knocked out hero a health potion wouldn't work? It does work in normal circumstances. How do we know whether the healing from a health potion counts as being 'from a hero' or not? If it does count as 'from a hero' do we know if the healing is occurring from the administering hero, or from the healing hero?

Why would Prayer of Healing from a non-tainted hero not work either? Bardic Song from an untainted bard? Why only heroic feats like Rendiel's?

You're right. All of those "NO"s should probably be "NOT FROM A TAINTED HERO." I got excited too. Post edited.

A health potion would definitely be "from a hero." The hero using the action is the one who it matters whether they are tainted or not.

Wow, these new monsters sound really bad ass! The regenerating Reanimates seem rally powerful and a unique threat to any hero party that deals damage through small increments over time, such as a bardic Dissonance, or powerful hero auras like Andira Runehand. It also makes getting weapon upgrades early for all your heroes pretty critical, because either you smash them to bits in a single mighty attack, or they just shrug off the hit completely. My guess is the Act I versions have 3 life, so its at least doable for a starting weapon?

Really high numbers and swarm are icing on the cake. They definitely seem 'strictly better' than a lot of the monster groups currently in the game.

I worry it does make certain classes that are already pretty bad even worse, like the Spiritspeaker, and make classes that are already good even more essential, like the Disciple.

The new Broodwalkers seem wicked sick as well. If I understand correctly, if a hero starts next to one of these things, your movement is cut down to 1! Yikes! If the hero is surrounded by water spaces, then they can't even move! Even worse, if you end your turn next to a master you're dead, since its pretty much lava.

So many possibilities with these guys, and you get 3 of them. Imagine these when combined with immobilization and possession effects... Boots of Iron are starting to look better.

I also think adding these monsters to the overlord arsenal is also going to further start favoring heroes with reach and ranged weapons.

I also wonder about the new Tainted feature.

It says you can only recover hearts from untainted heroes, but what counts as effects that are 'from a hero'? Does a hero using a health potion on someone else count as 'from a hero'? What about an Insight token? Apothecary potion? What about an item, like an action from a Staff of Light? The Manor's Heart? If you spend a surge from Avric Albright's heroic ability to heal yourself is that healing coming from Avric or yourself?

What about an Overlord plot card that heals the heroes, such as Demon's Bargain from Gargan Mirklace's deck? Do they not work at all? Is the overlord considered 'tainted'?

I agree that new monsters feels superior to some others, but I dont think that Spiritspeaker would become worse. Cloud of Mist will just remove any damage capability of minion Reanimates wich makes them nothing more then a meat shield. The only problem is inability to remove terrified condition, but again Broodwalker need to throw two surges for this to work, and you have stone skin wich can help to prevent damage completely, it is not 100% effective but is still good.

Also broodawalker are easy to kill, they have ony 1 gray defence die and need to stay in melee to work against heroes well, in act two they will crumble in one or two attacks each, this is very doable.

EDIT: sadly there won't be new heroes and OL classes, wich makes this expansion a little bit onesided (monsters with quests), this makes me sadpanda

Like most people I am also excited about this new expansion and the new monsters, altough I would have certainly liked a couple new hero classes.

When reading the article a question came up in me, a question that may sound dumb, but I have to ask it, since as I've heard: "Don't play the game as intended, play the game as worded"

So here it goes:

Master broodwalkers have the passive Hive Defense ability: "Heroes treat each space adjacent to this monster as a Hazard space". Hazard spaces are equivalent to Lava spaces according to the SoN Rules Guide. The base game rules state that "a figure entering a space containing lava immediately suffers one damage". Note that it doesn't say moving into a lava space. In comparison: "Moving into an adjacent space costs one movement point".

Now, the question is, if a (master) broodwalker moves next to a hero, is that hero considered entering a hazard/lava space? Look at it the following way:

1. State A: The hero is standing X spaces away from the broodwaker, in a space with no special terrain.
2. The master broodwalker moves next to the hero.
3. State B: The hero is standing next to the broodwalker, and because of the Hive Defense ability in a hazard/lava space

The hero certainly didn't move into a hazard space, but the transition from A to B could be interpreted as entering a lava space, and if so, the hero should suffer one damage.

I know that what I'm saying might be a bit of a stretch, but I'd like to hear your opinions.

" In addition to a complete one-act campaign , new Event cards, and new Shop cards, this expansion increases the overlord player’s forces with sixteen sculpted plastic figures— six reanimates, three broodwalkers, and three bone horrors . Unlike other expansions for Descent , Mists of Bilehall is primarily focused on the overlord player and includes no new heroes or hero classes . "

System failure. Reboot.

Winnetou, it does not count as entering. Figure enters space only as a result of it's own movement, no relative theory here.

Even some kinds of self moving doesn't count as 'entering space', for example Astara's heroic ability allows her to place her figure in space, not enter. But greese trap from Basic 2 or Dark Charm from Basic 1 can move heroes and it will count as entering space. At least this is how my gaming group understands it

So, I would say no, heroes wont suffer damage when Broodwalker enters adjacent space

Thanks for the answer Vancheng. At first I interpreted it just like you, but I couldn't find the definition of entering as a result of movement anywhere, and that got me thinking.

Not to overcomplicate things, but "remove and place" abilities do indeed involve "entering." The differences between that and vanilla movement are

-You do not "move" into your final space, just enter it

-You do not "move into" or "enter" any of the spaces between where you start and finish (during a move action or similar movement, every space you go through is entered and moved into.)

However, tis true- spaces only get entered by you when your figure gets put in a new space- not when other figures move around you.

I agree that new monsters feels superior to some others, but I dont think that Spiritspeaker would become worse. Cloud of Mist will just remove any damage capability of minion Reanimates wich makes them nothing more then a meat shield. The only problem is inability to remove terrified condition, but again Broodwalker need to throw two surges for this to work, and you have stone skin wich can help to prevent damage completely, it is not 100% effective but is still good.

You're right about Cloud of Mist remaining good, but when I was referring to the Spiritspeaker becoming worse because of the Reanimates, I was speaking specifically to :

- Shared Pain being useless against Reanimates

- Tempest being useless against Reanimates

- Poison being useless against Reanimates

Basically any class that relies upon doing smaller amounts of damage over multiple targets, bypassing defenses, will have major issues contributing.

No condition removal for Broodwalkers is just yet another factor.

Meanwhile, the Disciple can use skills like Divine Fury to power up a weaker hero and make them more likely to defeat a Reanimate in a single strike.

On the flip side, it does make a generally poor mage class like the Hexer a little more valuable as he can help weaker heroes push their damage into lethal with Hex tokens.

Also broodawalker are easy to kill, they have ony 1 gray defence die and need to stay in melee to work against heroes well, in act two they will crumble in one or two attacks each, this is very doable.

EDIT: sadly there won't be new heroes and OL classes, wich makes this expansion a little bit onesided (monsters with quests), this makes me sadpanda

Broodwalkers crumble in one attack in Act II? Hm.. your heroes must be on steroids,. Anyone using Act I weapons are likely looking at 3 attacks+. Maybe with the best weapons in the game like the Dragontooth Hammer you could do it in one attack, but even then you'd have to roll max damage.

I always prefer high health pools on monsters over better defenses, as you can count on them to soak attacks much more reliably.

These monsters look extremely strong, especially if you want to block up paths. I guess their only downside is that they are relativly slow, so you probably can stay away from them relativly easy.

I'm really curious about the Act I version of the reanimates, especially about how many HP they have. But if they really got 3 HP and their abilities remain unchanged, I guess fighting them is kind of suboptimal. Cool abilities that let the hero players move monsters will be extremely viable against them (and especially in this campaign), leading to different builds on some heroes, which is always a good thing, as it mixes things up.

I hope the fact that we only see Act II monsters is an indication that the one-act campaign will be an act II campaign. Although I know that FFG usually previews monsters in their Act II version, one can always hope .

Just to add on to Zaltyre's answer (it is correct, but I'd like to elaborate), entering a space describes any event in which a figure resolves an effect of any kind and is now in a space which it did not occupy immediately previously. This can even be removed from the map and then being placed down in the same space directly after: if it left a space and then wound up in a space, it entered that space. It doesn't matter what form of movement it was, or whether it did so on its own or was forced by a foe or other effect.

So, afaik if hero is defeated in lava/hazard then he places his token in the closest space winthout lava/hazard. But what if this Broodwalker comes to the token. If that hero would want to make a stand up action, he'll be immediately defeated, right? I mean it's not likely that all 4 heroes would die and lay close to each other, but that could happen. And in that case you just move Broodwalker and heroes would never be able to stand up again?

Chramy, maybe It's my experience, but yes it is what we encountered across few games, heroes oneshoting dragons etc. In our last game warrior twice rolled 7 damage in act one. Maybe Im a little overreacting with one attack kill, because of bad recent experience =)

I prefer to kite heroes as much as I can, avoiding open fights, because they tend to devastate everything pretty fast

Looks great. If only my game group hadn't disintegrated.

I've learned that Descent is easier to organize, and have more fun with with just three players. One OL, and two players controlling two heroes. That way, if the OL is beating up one hero, you don't have a person freaking out or feeling picked on.

It's hard to find four players for the heroes, that are good sports and understand the competitive nature the game should be played in.

-Cursain

I've learned that Descent is easier to organize, and have more fun with with just three players. One OL, and two players controlling two heroes. That way, if the OL is beating up one hero, you don't have a person freaking out or feeling picked on.

It's hard to find four players for the heroes, that are good sports and understand the competitive nature the game should be played in.

-Cursain

And you can have "guest" players jumping in and out as they please, taking an existing character.

True.......but chances are the competition won't be as fierce because the walk on will not be as emotionally invested as players who have attended the campaign from the prelude.

If you're doing it for fierce competition then yes.

I've learned that Descent is easier to organize, and have more fun with with just three players. One OL, and two players controlling two heroes. That way, if the OL is beating up one hero, you don't have a person freaking out or feeling picked on.

It's hard to find four players for the heroes, that are good sports and understand the competitive nature the game should be played in.

-Cursain

I agree. A four hero game, with 2 players only is really better. That's the way I've been playing (actually one person = four heroes, sometimes)

I've learned that Descent is easier to organize, and have more fun with with just three players. One OL, and two players controlling two heroes. That way, if the OL is beating up one hero, you don't have a person freaking out or feeling picked on.

It's hard to find four players for the heroes, that are good sports and understand the competitive nature the game should be played in.

-Cursain

I agree. A four hero game, with 2 players only is really better. That's the way I've been playing (actually one person = four heroes, sometimes)

This is a somewhat mixed bag for me. Especially the first games and the later games were your heroes have a lot of skills are imo harder on the hero player controlling all 4 heroes, because he has so much (or so much new) to remember compared to the OL. Combined with something I've read a few times and start to see myself, namely that small mistakes are more problematic on the hero side, I feel like the hero side is a little bit harder to play in a 1v1 game with 4 heroes throughout the campaign. What's your opinion on that?

I myself like the challange and happily play the hero-side, but I know I would feel somehow a little less engaged in these games on the OL side and would point out some mistakes to the hero player to even the playing field.

With 1v2 I think the whole thing gets much more managable, however it only adds one more brain to the hero side and makes it possible for the OL to listen in on the strategy discussions, so I guess the team needs a few games to cope with that problem.

As OL I found games against 4 heroplayers the hardest so far, because details almost never are forgotten and 4 people are activly plotting against you. Then again I only played 2 encounters vs. 4 players so far.