I've played it once so far with the full hero complement (Syndrael+Avric+Leoric+Jain with 'traditional' roles). I am sorry for the rant, but I don't see how it is winnable for heroes if the OL is not doing anything stupid.

Basically, if I were an OL, I would have kept sending goblins for the Caravan site - I get 1 fatigues token even if it gets smashed, and if it survives - 2 more tokens next turn. With their birth rate of 2 and scampering, shouldn't be particularly hard.

Now barghests have +2 health (which is a boon by itself) and an effective movement of 5 (if you account for expand). This is at least as fast as the fastest heroes, without HF/fatigue usage. Now the map is a simply circle, so I can just keep running from heroes, getting at the opposite side of the map. Of course, you could use HF/fatigue and manage to get a strike or two, but I don't see how this kills 4 barghests with +2 HP in 3 turns (because then goblins establish at the Caravan site). And this doesn't take into consideration any OL cards/monster attacks even.

The only sensible thing in I see in this scenario is to get 1 clergy ('cause you gonna loose anyway) and collect all search tokens.

Please tell me I am wrong and this scenario is not heavily OL-favored.

Best strategy i can see at a glance is for heroes to rush Goblins and eliminate them (with that party composition it should be possible - terrible rolls aside), The goblins re-spawn end of round so will in most instances sit there getting mulched without ever doing anything if heroes are present.

First hero Turn Syndarel pops feat and use it with Loeric. Depending on goblin placement may be able to stamina move up and attack twice or may have to move+stamina attack once. Leoric, then stamina move and attack twice if range is good or move and stamina and attack once. Then Jain pops feat and scoots up and attacks twice (once from feat) Avric is carrying acolyte as he has no range weapon and wont be killing goblins.

Alternatively send Jain Fist with feat, then use Syndarel and see if you can position jain to abuse oath of honour to pop syndarel up.

Optimistically and depending on placement of goblins they may all be dead or severely depleted. If all dead press heroes on to deal with barghasts and spawning goblins, if not send appropriate hero to back up avric in wiping out remaining goblins then get back to business of killing spawns.

You will just have to deal with barghast attacking or running away as it comes up - the priority here are goblins for me, keep them under control and you can keep the barghasts running or wear them down.

Alternatively you could play cagey and let the OL advance goblins to the camp site, yeah, he gets 1 stamina token at the end of his turn but if there are 4 heroes all the goblins should die quickly and then he is in the same boat of spawning 2 at the end of turn.

Either way make goblins die fast then kill re spawns fast

Unlike first blood in shadow rune though the OL gets a very realistic chance at this as the heroes have to be focused on pulping all goblins, even 1 or 2 getting by will cripple them quickly, but if the initial 5 are overwhelmed quickly the heroes can be reasonably happy to camp the lair and hunt down dead dogs at their leisure.

This should be the next campaign i play so i will let you know how i fare - although i imagine we will be using different heroes and classes.

Sounds like an idea, but my point is that OL can make this scenario literally infinite by running barghests in circles - and waiting while you fail to kill 2 spawning goblins due to bad luck. I don't see anything preventing him from doing so.

I don't have the book with me, but since you mention movement, I'll point out that with Jain and Syndrael, you have at least one turn where you can get more movement than normal out of 3 heroes... if Jain uses her feat, she moves double her movement, then attacks and Syndrael can bring someone along for a ride, and if that someone is Leoric, with Blast, you could lay down some hurt.

I don't have the book with me, but since you mention movement, I'll point out that with Jain and Syndrael, you have at least one turn where you can get more movement than normal out of 3 heroes... if Jain uses her feat, she moves double her movement, then attacks and Syndrael can bring someone along for a ride, and if that someone is Leoric, with Blast, you could lay down some hurt.

Yeah - I agree with that. Let's even pretend you kill all goblins on the first turn. Then OL on his turn runs all barghests to firepit/caravan. What are you going to do?

Pincer move is best option.

2 heroes back track to the fire pit (via caravan) 2 heroes push to the ruins and kill goblins and block barghests from running in circles.

Send avric and either Loeric or Jain hunting and have Syndarel be primary camper with the other supporting.

Its a OL favored quest, and a heavily favored one one at that, but it looks winnable for the heroes. The reverse of first blood really (but at least the heroes have a possible chance, unlike first blood where the OL is doomed).

Would love to hear other peoples experiences.

Well, we actually got split the heroes - Jain and Syndrael went collecting clergies, and Leoric + Avric went North. The OL simply stomped them with 4 barghests and scamped through with goblins. Jain and Syndrael didn't have a single attack, I think.

At least, we picked all the chests and 1 clergy, maxing out the gold.

I am surprised though that it looks like a balanced quest on the campaign tracker. Probably, OL is not playing full power on heroes in the intro, so they don't give up

I've done this quest many times, and I don't find it to be imbalanced. It is perhaps slightly Overlord favored, but heroes can certainly win.

As has already been stated, the goal of the heroes must be to cut their way through the goblins and then camp out their spawn location. Once two heroes have that secure, there is almost no chance a goblin will ever survive the full hero turn and be able to move. Then the other two heroes can pincer from both sides of the map to kill any remaining Barghests at their leisure. The Barghests will not be able to indefinitely flee the damage of heroes approaching from both sides, especially if they are ranged or have reach.

This quest is even easier if the party has a familiar like Wolf, Reanimate, or Brightblaze, as these can be left behind at the camp to kill the initial goblins that make it through.

The secondary objective should generally be ignored unless you have a really good ranged hero that can kill goblins entering the camp while simultaneously collecting the clergy tokens and you aren't falling behind on the journey to take over the goblin spawn point.

I have played this scenario as an Overlord.

Just to get this out of the way first, I so far have an extremely high win ratio, aside from first blood, I only ever lost three and a half scenarios, Acolyte of Saradyn included.

I played it against teo heroes, which may have something to do with it given that especially at the start, the new rules are very generous for the two hero party.

Still, the basic premise should hold with more heroes just the same.

Heroes can easily do a pincer move on the Barghests, goblins have only SLIGHTLY better spawning than First Blood.

My players decided to mostly let the goblins be and they still could easily beat the Barghests, within the time limit (four turns, you cannot gather the fatigue faster).

Pretty much any quest that is set up this way, with the overlord having to last X turns and the heroes having to defeat a monster or such is favouring the heroes.

And no, you cannot say "without fatigue and heroic feats" because those are there precisely for that purpose.

Any competenr hero player will make full use of their resources when the monsters are in their often suboptimal starting positions.

Barghests just do not have the staying power to last long enough unless the heroes play badly.

This is definitely NOT a scenario favouring the overlord.

We played it yesterday again standalone, 3 heroes, Syndrael-Leoric-Jain.

We didn't place any chests/clergies, as it didn't make sense. Jain was transporting Tyrus, to get the equal speed, and because she got stamina of 5 anyway.

So even despite our dice rolls were not spectacular, we've managed to kill all barghests in 4 turns I think - with finishing a barghest, dangling on 1 HP in last turn - so we could have killed them before.

With the way we played we would have got time perhaps for 1, max 2 clergies and no search tokens.

Thus, we'd be getting 25-50 gold instead of 125+ - which I doubt is worth choosing 1 out of 2 missions and denying extra XP for OL.

Bottomline:

Yes, it looks winnable for heroes, but I'd rather collect 1 clergy and all ST yielding 125+ gold and by cool stuff right off the bat.

Sorry for hijacking the thread, but as it is related to winning: does the whole cardboard-tile count as victory-area or just the single tiles, where the cart is painted? (Same for putting the monks by the fire)

When victory conditions are related to an area, it usually refers to that entire tile...

Ok, thanks!

Thus, we'd be getting 25-50 gold instead of 125+ - which I doubt is worth choosing 1 out of 2 missions and denying extra XP for OL.

Bottomline: Yes, it looks winnable for heroes, but I'd rather collect 1 clergy and all ST yielding 125+ gold and by cool stuff right off the bat.

You'll notice that as a trend: Yes, you can "win" the quest, but depending on what you get as reward you may rather just get as much gold out of it as possible.

OL earning an extra XP is no match for heroes getting a lot of gold, with which they can buy much better equipment to crush monsters with. It's part of why Treasure Hunter is such a strong class, IIRC.

That is definitely why treasure hunter is such a powerful class, playing a campaign as one now, we are intro and 2 other missions in and with a very good result on our last mission but losing the first 2 our party has almost 1000 gold worth of items, in the last mission alone I took the entire search deck and an additional item from a secret room.

I've lost it as an Overlord, so it is possible for heroes to win it, and it creates a big difference from when the OL is the winner !!

Just to note:

Descent tracker site until today shows 62% winrate for the heroes :). Granted, I dont think there are many stats gathered there.

I never played this campaign, such a shame. But I do feel I could win this as OL >:D

The value is based on ~650 games. Should give us a fairly good idea.

And yes, it's definitely win-able for the OL.

1 minute ago, Sadgit said:

The value is based on ~650 games. Should give us a fairly good idea.

great! how can i see the amount of games?

Just look at the numbers directly above the red-green column.

Hmm.. you mean the red green bar showing the ratio? Can't see anything there. Would oyu be so kind to screenshot it?

3 minutes ago, Sadgit said:

Ah I found it, I was looking at the campaign page. Turns out there is a stats page. Thank you!