Last sunday we had our first session with the new Sea of Blood expansion, and naturally, some questions came up.

1. The Mistress of Serpents' Keep.

The keep blocks the only way to the eastern Secret Training area, which is almost sufficient to prevent the heroes from recieving the copper level training (the other location lies at the end of a secret trail; the nescessary upgrade costs 2500 gold and 5 XP). Is this really intended?

2. Figureheads

What happens when the heroes purchase a second figurehead for their ship? Does it replace the first one or do they get to choose each week?

3. Cannons

Can the heroes buy more cannons than they have room on the deck (initially, you can place only four cannons on the deck); choosing which cannons to use at the start of the battle? Can cannons be sold?

4. Lieutenant battles

This is the big one. In SoB, the Overlord can no longer use treachery in Lt encounters. Further, a fleeing Lt only moves one trail away from the encounter location. Now, considering that most Lts don't have any minions and that they do not have a ship, it seems that there is no reason for the overlord to actually try to fight the heroes. Without minions and treachery, it is a simple matter of action economy to realize that the Lts don't stand a chance. Fleeing, however, is trivial, since an Lt without a ship can simply be placed at the opposite edge of the map right in front of the ship's bow. That's too far away to reach even for the fastest heroes and it is impossible to get the Lt in the firing arc of a cannon in one turn since the ship cannot turn. And since the penalty for fleeing is neglible, why not?

As soon as there are two Lts on the map, it will be nearly impossible to prevent them from razing cities - and completely impossible as soon as there is a third one.

Yes, I know there is a plot similar to Eternal Night which requires the Lts to carry quest items, but since this plot is - again - almost trivial to foil, which Overlord in their right mind will ever choose it?

Thanks in advance;

Darastin

Darastin said:

You can go through the keep but you may not enter it as will all other avatar lair.

Also, IIRC RtL's secret trainers were both inaccessible without the upgrade that lets you travel either on secret paths (the map?) or one water (the boat?). So this seems fitting

-shnar

As for Canons, I would assume that you can NOT buy more cannons than your ship can carry, and that you can sell them back for 1/2 their purchase price. Just going off of gut feeling though

-shnar

shnar said:

you are right!

jealous! where did you pick it up at?

HellBoundOL said:

I am guessing at Essen...

yeah people have it, BGG has pics up of the contents looks good cant wait to play

Is there anything of use in Sea of Blood to people who don't have time to play the campaign game other than Nara the Fang (ie for use in standard Descent scenarios)?

Wouldn't think so. Maybe the new skills.

There is one new dungeon tile that is very interesting, the tight corner one. Would only be useful on home-made adventures, but has a lot of potential.

You could also do some interesting custom stuff with the sea map, i.e. boat skirmishes or island hopping. But other than that, probably not much use outside of the Advanced Campaign (similar to RtL, not much there was useful outside the Advanced Campaign).

-shnar

There are rules in SoB to use the new skills for vanilla descent, so I guess it could be interesting for vanilla players wanting to try some new skills. For the rest, you get some new map pieces, and you could always use the some of the props for custom made maps.

TeufelHund said:

Not really no...

Seems that I have to wait until the actual release for the more complicated issues, but nevertheless: Thanks for the replies so far.

@HellBoundOL:

Yeah, Malachnor picked it up at Essen. Unfortunately, he forgot to look for the Promo heroes... *sigh* Hmmm... Tobin the Marksman on a Hawkeye Cannon... scaaaaaary

@TeufelHund:

Most of the new skills should be useable in vanilla Descent (except Gunner, of course - it even says so on the card).

Darastin