I read the Sea of Blood rulebook and i'm not really pleased about the changes, i think its now very difficult to win for the Overlord:

- the overlord can't use Overlord cards in lieutenant encounter

- the Overlord does not begin with a free lieutnant

- he has to destroy 5 cities to win before the endfight

- hereos can change there hometown

- Rumors have now good rewards ( examples: 2 items of your choice, the Overlord can't use upgrades and move lieutenants for 3 weeks, all two-handed runes are now one-handed, undying works only on blank, monster category costs 10 conquest more to upgrade, heros conquest value is permanently reduced....

- good new skills

- the divine favor rule: for every full 25 conquest tokens the heroes conquest total is below the overlords total, each heroes conquest is reduced by 1, to a minimum of 0. Same rules goes for the opposite: the conquest value is increased by 1 if the number of the heroes conquest tokens is higher.

so all changes cause to the endfight in the overlords keep. hard to win.

A lot of the skills got taken away, like Knight and Leadership. Perhaps that balanced things out?

Malachnor said:

I have also seen the rule book and all of the cards, levels, etc. In my opinion the game is going to be harder for the heroes. They get the same amount of gold as before, but now have a lot more they need to spend it on (cannon/ship upgrades, as well as repairing the ship), not to mention that a lot of the really powerful skills have been removed.

The plots are easier for the overlord to complete and the final battle has been made much more difficult.

Everyone gets their own opinion though.

Yeah the end fights look a bit tougher, so do the avatar upgrades.

They als "fixed" the obsidian shackles plot. There is a plot that has the same feel (no extra win condition, but a lot of hero annoyances). But this time getting the plot out simply gives the avatar an extra monster in the shape of the dark queen. So no more randomness, this plot really toughens the avatar fight 100% of the times.