Tomorrow I'm playing Price of Power as Overlord against a really strong group of heroes and I'm a little torn on the decision of an open group/influence effect on the second encounter. The first encounter seems really easy to win as overlord, i figured I would choose green rifts and put them in the two closest tiles to the heros, with elementals as my open group to give them some real trouble. For the second encounter there are really 3 choices that I'm torn on:

1. Which color rift to put on the map if I won encounter 1. Green seems like the the obvious choic for me, but Blue also seems like it could give the heroes hell.

2. Which open group. I need something strong so I can knock down each hero for the one influence, or able to helm me defend the ritual stones for the other. I'm really leaning towards Crow Hags because I feel like the death omen ability could really be useful. , I also like lifethrist, but they dot really hit too hard. I will probably use flock of ravens on one of my ironbound at the beginning just because they hit pretty hard and it's an extra guy to attack with.

3. Influence effect. I can see advantages for both, but based on the strength of my heroes, I'm not sure either are really doable for a win.

The group consists of Sir Valadir as a champion, Logan Lashley as a treasure hunter, High Mage Quellen as a Geomancer, and Elder Mok as a bard. They've unfortunately been gettting really lucky in the shop and have some terrible stuff for me like the Bearded Axe and Magma Blast rune.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I want to destroy them.

Up front, I must admit to having never played this particular quest.

1) Your hero's attributes tally up as [w m k a]:

Yeah I think Mok is using melee. One of the reasons I was considering the green power for the rift on the second mission was that it would give me some chances to at least reinforce my open group. My heroes easily get distracted by killing my monsters. Also i really want to win this one because it's the last before the interlude and I have a rumor out that if we go into the interlude without playing it I get a relic. I have another rumor card like that in my hand too I was thinking of playing when we traveled. The probability squares are great though thanks.

I was also thinking that a lot of the damage could come from the changelings. I have a couple of the master changeling cards to use this round from the incident and the intro.

Remsmber that a corrupt citizen card is gone for good if your changeling dies while it is in play. If this is an important victory for you then by all means bring the firepower.

Changelings are surprisingly durable monsters and can do some damage- but without surge:damage they aren't my attack choice usually- I use them to position and inflict bleed.

That's the one where they either have to destroy the pillars in a certain amount of time, or kill Trystayne?

The second encounter is really a race quest for the heroes. They need to destroy the pillars in order to not risk the first influence effect going off before they do it. You use the Ironbound to protect the pillars and the open group ( I used the Ariad Agent with it) to run interference.

The real purpose of the Changelings though is not to run damage, but to use the Hideous Laughter Effect to disrupt the attribute tests. It makes it even harder for the heroes to stop the ritual.

But then you can have Trystayne appear as the second Influence effect. And let me tell you, he can do a whole lot of damage in a big hurry.

All in all though, what influence effect you pick as the OL really hinges on if you believe you can slow the heroes down long enough or if you believe you can do enough damage to them. If you think you have a better shot with either/or that's what you should go for.

Price of Power is very heavily Overlord favored. It is almost impossible to lose Encounter 1 as Overlord, so you should have that locked down.

As for encounter 2, it is made much easier due to the very helpful rift placed in the center tile. I would go with Green personally as many heroes will likely fail the test, particularly with a master changeling on the field. They are forced to spend time in this tile to complete their objective, no matter which one it is.

I am personally in favor of the "Surprise!" influence effect, because Tristayne's presence makes it that much easier to complete the encounter. Even if they anticipate that it is Surprise! they still have a tough attribute test to pass to reveal it.

Defeating heroes isn't very difficult with a powerful open group and continual changeling reinforcements even if they are well geared.

So I won both encounters and the heroes only got like 2 search tokens. Unfortunately they got a search card from the travel step and it was the treasure chest. The probability square helped a lot for my decisions but I almost lost the first encounter due to double failing the lore check on the last scholar, but the heroes didn't take my advice and just go for the search tokens. The extra round gave me a lot of extra damage on the heroes, which helped a lot in the second encounter. I ended up going with crow hags after all which netted me the win because when the mage helped up the fighter he was in range of 2 crow hags and rolled only 2 hearts for the stand up. 2 turns total on the second encounter.

Oh and at the start of the first encounter I caused Quellen to blow his heroic feat by Web trapping right after he took the first stamina to move. Mwahahaa!

Thanks for all the help.

Yes, that's why Crow Hags are so OP. It doesn't really matter how powerful the heroes are, if there are too many of them, the heroes won't be able to heal, even on KOs. It's a literal board lock. (It's also why i will never entertain the idea of them ever being used in any non-solo games.)

That being said, when I soloed this quest, the first encounter was incredibly easy. I basically ran Ravaella up to the room with Trystayne on turn one and then flooded the room with images. The handicap to his MPs allowed the heroes to come in and beat him up before he could escape.

The second encounter was alot more epic and was where I realized just how much burst damage Trystayne can do. It's really not hard to achieve victory with "Surprise." Even so, not revealing the influence effect gives the heroes a sense of urgency, which makes for a smart OL capitalizing on mistakes.

I wouldn't say the crow hags were op. I would say that they made death more meaningful. I've been really struggling against this group because they one shot nearly anything I can throw at them. And then if I do get to attack the bard just wipes it all away. If I hadn't been smart with when I rushed the hags (after the heroes were down), they wouldn't have lasted a round.

Unfortunately, you're running up against some of the best heroes Stat wise in the game and they've taken some of the best classes that match up with them, though I am not familiar with how Sir Validir works. I sympathize with you as a fellow OL.

Sir Valadir gets a free surge and his heroic ability gives him a free attack and full stamina. He's not who I would choose probably but the champion class is powerful with the free shield or heart. I'm currently trying to figure out a strategy for interlude 2, but considering it's basically a straight up fight I'll be hard pressed to getc the requisite 13 points to win. I'm leaning towards changelings for one open group and am unsure with the other. I have 3 cards to play for the master changeling. Probably gonna use the one that gives them more defense.

I dont like where this thread is going...

I dont like where this thread is going...

Overlord thread stay out of it...mnmoneil is my fighter/bard player.

This isn't IA. All the information is open and available.

That said, heroes, give you OL a chance to surprise you!