I have some questions after a brief first play of the very basic introduction mission.

Q1: One thing that disappoint me a bit playing 2nd ed (at a first glimpse) is that it isn't as progressive in terms of progress unless you play the campaign.
The whole feeling of exploring a dungeon, tile by tile, looting many treasure chests to find gold AND new cool weapons seem to be missing.

(There is onle one single "draw an item" card in the search deck and the number of search tokens are so laughable few and 99% of them are only single use potions, and the gold gained on them is also useless unless playing campaign)
Also, beating tons of monsters seem like a missing concept now that you only input set groups of monsters at a time. Instead of fighting hordes of minions for xp and gold/items and occational big beasts.

What I just want to know is, if I want this feeling a bit more, even tho I just play a single mission with my group, is there an expansion that will help this? I heard there is one expansion that let you explore and reveal tile by tile and make the need for an overlord unecessary. But is that the best bet?

Q2 : I have a question about the familiar made by the necromancer! He seems very overpowerful, at least at a first glimpse.

it is stated a familiar can only be activated once, and make a movement action. And other actions if stated. Does this mean that "1 familiar activation = 2 actions" as with any other activated unit?

And that the familiar will be able to activate a movement action and one attack action on the very first turn that it is summoned after the player has ended his hero actions..?

Also, when the necromancer buy the skill card "Fury of undeath" it states (spend 1 special action) "Exhaust this card to activate your Reanimate. Your Reanimate still activates this turn as normal"
Does this mean it can move and attack for a total of TWO times in a single turn?! (once for exhausting the card and one because you activate it normally later)

I'm confused as to what they really mean with the term "activate" as I find it unclear if you are supposed to read "activate" like - when you are given 2 actions to do stuff, or if activate in this scenario just means one single action...
(I would hate if familiars could move twice and attack twice in a turn due to this combination :S)

Q3 : Just a quick question about setting up the map, you are supposed to tell the players about win/loss conditions... right? Otherwise it's pretty clear that the overlord will win by just rushing to the objective to win unless the players know how to stop it since it can really go super fast with cards like dash and so on.

Q4: When playing the Epic variant, this left a bit of a bad taste in our mouths the first time around. It's very annoying and time consuming (not to mention confusing) for a group of new players to have to read through all the skill cards and all the shop item cards at once just to set up the mission... especially since players don't really understand most of the concepts of the cards anyways, making most of their choises turn into "well this just looked cool I don't know..."

I think this is a pretty lazy (to be honest) and boring way of implementing some progressional content to your one-shot non-campaign missions... it's just "well here you go just pick some stuff" instead of adding something like, more loot on the map or a chance to buy stuff and skills during the mission to make it a bit more streamlined. I don't know, maby it's just us but we felt it could have been done in a different way, since just playing "vanilla" without additional skills and items was very bland since you didn't find anything new and interesting on the map anyways and we wanted some extra stuff in the mix.

Not to add that the first step (every hero get 3 points to shop skills and 150 gold) seemed extremely unbalanced towards the overlord! All players get new gear and super good skills, while the overlord just got 4 points to spend on cards... 4! And still there are other cards in the deck so there is a big chance you won't even get any of your picked cards! Especially since players now might run around with an extra gray defence die and new combo wombo tactics to kill you before you might even have a chance to move your monsters on the first turn.

Q5: Necromancer card Undead might states "Exhaust this card when your Reanimate attacks a monster. This attack gains +1 <3"
Does this mean you exhaust it right before rolling die? And can't be sure if the card will benefit you or not (since you can miss completely)

Q6: There is this overlord card that states "Play this card when a minion or master monster is defeated to place a fatigue token on the map in that monster's space. At the start of your next turn, place that monster on the map within 5 spaces of where it was defeated. At the end of your next turn, remove that monster (and the token) from the map"

Am I allowed to use this to keep a key monster from ending a scenario? Like if the scenario states something like "If monster X is defeated, the heroes win!" So yeah, am I allowed to be that dirty and extend the mission further?

Q7 : Does Blast "stack"?

Let's say I have 3 monsters in a line adjacent to my hero and he use an attack that targets all 3 of them that has blast. Does this mean that the middle enemy suffers damage a total of 3 times due to the splash effect..?

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Well, these are my (and my groups) initial thoughts from a very shallow dive into the game. We are looking forward to more sessions and I am absolutely certain I will be back with more thoughts and questions.

Right now tho, we really just want some nice guideance when it comes to expansions! I have explained a bit what I want to have from an expansion so I hope there are good options out there for us!

Thankful for any answers in advance =)

Q1: If you don't like how the core game of Descent plays, then I suggest looking at the Road to Legend app (Steam/Iphone Appstore/..). No other expansion will fix this issue.

Q2: Yes, it does mean that (but reanimates aren't that powerful in late-campaign)

Q3: Yes, all information in the quest book is available to the players, heroes are allowed to read the book whenever they want

Q4: Epic play, in my opinion (I've only played it once), allows seasoned players to play some one-off matches in an ideal situation (they get to pick their items, instead of having luck during the campaign decide this) or allows new players like yourself to get a feel for the class/hero they might want to play in an actual campaign. (So you don't get stuck with a class/character you realize you don't really like after 3 quests)

You can find some topics about expansions in the sticky post at the top of this forum

As an addition to the answer to Q1, you might want to check out the physical co-op expansions Nature's Ire, Dark Elements, and/or Forgotten Souls. These have a good deal of exploration in small areas which involve fighting a large number of monsters (in a small set of monster groups) and getting loot more frequently.

Atom4geVampire:
Wow ok So familiars can actually (on a single full turn) move several times and attack several times? Whilst I understand it might be less good later on, it sure seem like a super solid safe way to shred away early-mid tho.

Being able to resommon a meat shield that can move twice and attack with a good amount of die! (blue + red + yellow (one extra yellow with a skill card)) is quite insane! As you can just stand back and send him forward with little risk really.

I just think it feels a little weird that the words "exhaust this card to ectivate your reanimate., your reanimate still activates this turn as normal" means for quadruple actions in a turn

Q2: Familiars activate once, either before or after the controlling hero's turn, and in the case of the Reanimate, you get one move action (as per familiar rules) and one attack action (as per Reanimate rules). And yes, if you use Fury of Undeath, you effectively activate the Reanimate twice. Once either before or after the Necromancer, and once as an action by the Necromancer. And for each activation, it gets one move action and one attack action. This also have some other fun implications .

Q3: Nothing in the rulebooks or quest guides are secret to any of the players in any way, unless noted. You should make a habit of reading the entire quest guide through for each encounter, aloud, save the narrative bits (which are called upon as introduction, ending, special events, etc). It's imperative that everyone knows what's going on, or the game would be incredibly frustrating to the ones that have no idea what's going on.

Q6: No. The encounter ends when the monster is defeated, and in order to play the card, the monster must be defeated. However, since the monster was defeated, the encounter ends, and you cannot play the card.

Q7: No. Blast just extends the attack to also hit adjacent figures (remember, figures , not heroes, not monsters, figures; everyone can potentially get wrecked by this; there's such a thing as friendly fire!).

As for Epic Play, you shouldn't play more advanced Epic Play until you have an idea of what you're doing. The game is very much made to be played as a campaign, and the sense of learning the rules as you go really needs to happen in order for the players to really grasp what's going on or how to play. The upper levels of Epic Play are called "Advanced" and "Expert" for a reason, it's not something you should start with, because you'll end up with exactly that situation that you're experiencing; not knowing what half the things are or what they do.

As for the lack of a feeling of progression in Epic Play, I can't really relate. They're really intended as one-offs, and if you want to play several maps in a row, just play the Campaign. The different ways of feeling progression, that is, in-encounter and as part of a campaign, would really be quite mutually exclusive to eachother, and would warrant a different game entirely. I don't think you can really do both in this format.

And yeah, Descent is a massive bundle of rules and it takes quite some time to iron it all out. You'll have "Aha!"- and "Ooooooh."-experiences almost every game. Pay attention to wording and the sequence of events, and make sure that you've read through the rulebook a couple of times. And even then, you'll probably constantly forget small things and need to check up on them for quite some time. Don't be afraid to ask around here; I'm pretty obnoxious with my own questions, but thankfully there's some members with the patience of saints (such as Zaltyre) that probably have explained the same things eighteen times to different people already. It's especially awkward when you ask questions that are already specifically addressed in the FAQ or in the Rulebook, and you just missed it or forgot. Oops. It takes a long time to know the game as the back of your hand.

You'll probably get into the habit of jumping over small things, pretty quickly, such as the OL rolling defence at the same time as the hero rolls to attack. Don't. Fight it tooth-and-nail, because it'll come back to haunt you later. The sequence of events is subtly important for various reasons, and you need to be in a mindset where you notice these if/then/or:s, such as with Q6.

My final advice is to go into the support section of Descent on the FFG site, and download the rulebook .pdf, and print an extra copy. Hand it to your players, and ask them to collectively keep track of the rules, and not to do underhanded ****, and remind you when you miss rules, and be a good sport and remind them when they miss theirs. It helps tremendously if several people help, and if several people can quickly reference relevant sections, instead of passing the original rulebook around the table. And always remember that if you're the Overlord, you are the enemy. You are not the Game Master or the Dungeon Master. The game is oppositional in nature, but you're not the one to make special calls or the one to fudge dies. Try to murder them to the best of your ability, but everyone trying to murder eachother by the book really gives the best experience and prevents bad blood from building up.

Edit: Are you, by any chance, Swedish? "Ishinken" would mean "The Ice-bucket" in Swedish, so I thought I'd ask.

Edit 2: Nvm, saw your profile. Swedonian confirmed.

Atom4geVampire:

Wow ok So familiars can actually (on a single full turn) move several times and attack several times?

No, they can move once, and depending on what familiar it is do one (or no) other action. However, with Fury of Undeath, it can do this twice. (As Luckman explained).

Zaltyre: now that the app is out, I think the Co-ops are a bit of a waste of money.

Q7: no, each monster can only be affected by the same attack once.

While many people prefer the app to the coop expansions, I still think they offer different experiences. The original question expressed displeasure with the campaign format-the app still has that, while the coop sets are more of a "single outing" format.

Ok, I interpreted it as a comment on the fixed layout and fixed monsters the quests have, which the app 'fixes' better than the co-ops do. (+the app and its first two campaigns are free, and readily available)

Well, just try the app too, it's free !!!

Coops adventures have a good dungeon crawl feel, with random loot and exploration, but have limited use of content. Every adventure only use a specific amount of tiles and only use 4 monsters types, but the coops are designed for a single session to play in mind.

The app has a good use of the game content (using all monsters in the core box and you can add even more with expansions for example), have a small sort of exploration (think in a traditional quest, but with hidden information behind the doors)v and make use of the open groups system to randomized some monsters encounters. The app have the exactly same campaign structure from the book campaigns, but with more random options for the adventures in the side quests.

I have some questions after a brief first play of the very basic introduction mission.

Q1: One thing that disappoint me a bit playing 2nd ed (at a first glimpse) is that it isn't as progressive in terms of progress unless you play the campaign.

The whole feeling of exploring a dungeon, tile by tile, looting many treasure chests to find gold AND new cool weapons seem to be missing.

(There is onle one single "draw an item" card in the search deck and the number of search tokens are so laughable few and 99% of them are only single use potions, and the gold gained on them is also useless unless playing campaign)

Also, beating tons of monsters seem like a missing concept now that you only input set groups of monsters at a time. Instead of fighting hordes of minions for xp and gold/items and occational big beasts.

What I just want to know is, if I want this feeling a bit more, even tho I just play a single mission with my group, is there an expansion that will help this? I heard there is one expansion that let you explore and reveal tile by tile and make the need for an overlord unecessary. But is that the best bet?

And this is why I was so bitterly disappointed with Descent when I first bought it some time ago, leading me to give my set away...

Now, thanks to the RTL App ... I'm getting the "Dungeon Crawl" campaign experience I wanted! Although my wallet is taking a beating as I frantically purchase every expansion/add on I can get my hands on!

Seriously - download and try the App ... it's what you're looking for.

I have some questions after a brief first play of the very basic introduction mission.

Q1: One thing that disappoint me a bit playing 2nd ed (at a first glimpse) is that it isn't as progressive in terms of progress unless you play the campaign.

The whole feeling of exploring a dungeon, tile by tile, looting many treasure chests to find gold AND new cool weapons seem to be missing.

(There is onle one single "draw an item" card in the search deck and the number of search tokens are so laughable few and 99% of them are only single use potions, and the gold gained on them is also useless unless playing campaign)

Also, beating tons of monsters seem like a missing concept now that you only input set groups of monsters at a time. Instead of fighting hordes of minions for xp and gold/items and occational big beasts.

What I just want to know is, if I want this feeling a bit more, even tho I just play a single mission with my group, is there an expansion that will help this? I heard there is one expansion that let you explore and reveal tile by tile and make the need for an overlord unecessary. But is that the best bet?

And this is why I was so bitterly disappointed with Descent when I first bought it some time ago, leading me to give my set away...

Now, thanks to the RTL App ... I'm getting the "Dungeon Crawl" campaign experience I wanted! Although my wallet is taking a beating as I frantically purchase every expansion/add on I can get my hands on!

Seriously - download and try the App ... it's what you're looking for.

Welcome to the club

I found some more questions I should ask before putting some more thoughts about the game down so those that want to answer them can just do that and be done with it

Q1 : Can the knight use his starting skill on familiars made by the necromancer?

"Choose another hero within 3 spaces of you who has a monster adjacent to him. Place your hero figure in the closest empty space adjacent to the monster and perform an attack with a Melee weapon against that monster."

I guess anything that can target or effect a hero can affect familiars similarly.

Q2: The knight skill

"After defeating a monster with an attack using a Melee weapon, exhaust this card to move up to you Speed and perform an additional attack."

can be used infinitely? (as long as you pay an exhaustion for it)

Is it legal for me to - example - use my heroic feat as Grisban "Use during your turn to perform 1 attack action. This is in addition to your 2 actions on your turn." , kill something then keep "Jumping" from enemy to enemy as long as I keep killing them? (enabling wiping out all opponents in one turn)

Q3: If I'm using defence training

"As long as you have a Shield equipped, add 1 additional brown die to your defense pool (even if this card is exhausted).

When you would exhaust your equipped Shield (such as to use the Shield's ability), you may exhaust this card instead."

and a shield that exhaust, can I combine these to reroll a defensive roll twice? (I get attacked and want to exhaust my shield to reroll my defensive die, but exhaust the skill card instead of the shield itself. Still unsatisfied with the result, I try to reroll the die again but this time I exhaust the shield itself)

Q4 : Do you think the Epic rules are fair..? (advanced in particular, it just seem like players getting 3 xp and 150g is WAY more of an advantage than the OL just getting 4 xp points to buy skills)

While I think this is an interesting concept, because basic play is so bland and boring, it just feels like it need some tweaking perhaps?

Maby it's not possible to apply this to the introduction quest at all and not meant for it, since you can wipe the overlords Ettin in the very first round without no effort at all, or second turn even more easily and he can't even lift a finger lol!

Q5 : Can large figures abuse their "expanding base" as much as possible? If - let's say - frenzy is played on an activated large monster, can I utilize it's "extra move step" twice it I do it like this:

Move 1 step, expand so that I get one extra free step. Attack a hero, move one step and expand resulting in another "free step", attack my second time, then move the rest of the movement point(s) and get a third "free step" when I expand my monster!

Q6 : I'm assuming this one is self explanatory, but it has not been stated anywhere. If I buy an armor/shield item, some of them have a colored die icon on it's right side. Does this mean, that as long as I have this item equiped I get to add that die to all my defensive rolls in the future? (Having chainmail equiped makes all your future defensive rolls with 2 gray die)

-------------------------------Ok now on to some initial thoughts after a little bit more gameplay---------------------------------------------------

Well I guess I just look for that "sit down a couple of hours, have a progressive game of increasing challenge" like Runebound for example.

The whole idea of starting out small, then increasing your characters strenght and customizing it through somewhat randomized events and loot is just too thrilling.

I have tried to find this fix through games like Doom and imperial assault and they have done quite a good job although I felt Doom was largely unbalanced and IA was great but I want more down to earth sorta style with fantasy instead of high tech stuff.

I know 1st edition descent was very different and more fleshed out and had more loot and content to browse through per mission than this.

I kinda feel like FFG lately has stripped their products to their bare bones on several occations to just give room for more fast expansions.

Which is kinda bad IMO as you are pretty much just buying the base of a game and everything else has to be bought for your customize preferences.

I'm thinking of DungeonQuest in particular where the game it's based of is insanely more fun (swedish board game "drakborgen") and you can even hint mechanics in the core game that are off and out of place due to more content planned ahead and the variety is suffering hard in it's original game box state.

Ofc I don't bash too much on Descent 2nd edition now even though it might sound like it, I think I will appreciate it once I find my right expansion and once I get more used to it.

1) Yes, the Reanimate (F-Reanimate if using the handy d2e card viewer ) is a familiar that is considered a hero figure. (Not all familiars are)

2) No, if a card says you need to exhaust it, then after you use it, you turn the card sideways and can't use it until your next turn (when you refresh your cards).

3) No, see above for the reason, if you've exhausted your shield to use the reroll ability, you can't use it until your next turn.

4) Can't comment, but it seems in line with what the normal amounts of xp/gold would be after 4 quests for both sides. The fact that the heroes can cherry pick their equipment is compensated by the fact that the OL can select cards for this encounter specifically as well, instead of normally buying cards that need to be useful in a variety of quests. Also, I forgot to adres this last time: " And still there are other cards in the deck so there is a big chance you won't even get any of your picked cards!"

When the OL buys new cards, he is allowed to remove other cards from his deck (to a minimum of 15) so the chances of drawing a certain card should be fine.

5) Technically yes, however: if you declare an attack you must be able to perform it from your unexpanded space. So for example, a shadow dragon can't move one step, then expand to attack a character 4 spaces away.

6) Yes! If a die is present on armor it gets added to your 'defense pool' for all future rolls.

Initial thoughts) Progression comes from playing the campaign version. You get stronger during the campaign after every quest. (rewards, shopping step, spend xp step,..) But you aren't really going to get stronger during a quest. (which seems what you are after)

I have written 3 quests which are available in the Quest Vault which try to be more a dungeon crawl style game than heroes v overlord strategic tests. Head over to the other forum and look for the solo series quests. They are designed to play solo or with a group and no overlord (but there is no reason why you cant play with one). They work on a room by room encounter progression and not a whole map available at once.

Death Keep - this one is complete with 2 encounters now

Spiders Lair - this has an unpublished encounter 2 in testing and will be re-released soon

Fire Caverns - is a shorter quest which i have not yet though of an extention to

I think it is important to know what you can expect from Descent 2ed and what not. D2e is heavily based on the campaign-mode and the options to play individual missions (even in epic mode) are kind of stale to me. D2e is simply not Boardgame-Diablo where you kill lots of monsters and get instantly loot and XP. Instead, you play a mission (which is a lot about strategy, not monster mashing) and get XP and gold afterwards. So it takes some time until you see the progress. After 2 missions you should have gained some skills and items for every group member.

I can only confirm the recommendations of other people. The App and/or the three co-op expansions change this play style completely and this may be more rewarding for you.

I found some more questions I should ask before putting some more thoughts about the game down so those that want to answer them can just do that and be done with it

Q1 : Can the knight use his starting skill on familiars made by the necromancer?

"Choose another hero within 3 spaces of you who has a monster adjacent to him. Place your hero figure in the closest empty space adjacent to the monster and perform an attack with a Melee weapon against that monster."

I guess anything that can target or effect a hero can affect familiars similarly.

Q2: The knight skill

"After defeating a monster with an attack using a Melee weapon, exhaust this card to move up to you Speed and perform an additional attack."

can be used infinitely? (as long as you pay an exhaustion for it)

Is it legal for me to - example - use my heroic feat as Grisban "Use during your turn to perform 1 attack action. This is in addition to your 2 actions on your turn." , kill something then keep "Jumping" from enemy to enemy as long as I keep killing them? (enabling wiping out all opponents in one turn)

Q3: If I'm using defence training

"As long as you have a Shield equipped, add 1 additional brown die to your defense pool (even if this card is exhausted).

When you would exhaust your equipped Shield (such as to use the Shield's ability), you may exhaust this card instead."

and a shield that exhaust, can I combine these to reroll a defensive roll twice? (I get attacked and want to exhaust my shield to reroll my defensive die, but exhaust the skill card instead of the shield itself. Still unsatisfied with the result, I try to reroll the die again but this time I exhaust the shield itself)

Q4 : Do you think the Epic rules are fair..? (advanced in particular, it just seem like players getting 3 xp and 150g is WAY more of an advantage than the OL just getting 4 xp points to buy skills)

While I think this is an interesting concept, because basic play is so bland and boring, it just feels like it need some tweaking perhaps?

Maby it's not possible to apply this to the introduction quest at all and not meant for it, since you can wipe the overlords Ettin in the very first round without no effort at all, or second turn even more easily and he can't even lift a finger lol!

Q5 : Can large figures abuse their "expanding base" as much as possible? If - let's say - frenzy is played on an activated large monster, can I utilize it's "extra move step" twice it I do it like this:

Move 1 step, expand so that I get one extra free step. Attack a hero, move one step and expand resulting in another "free step", attack my second time, then move the rest of the movement point(s) and get a third "free step" when I expand my monster!

Q6 : I'm assuming this one is self explanatory, but it has not been stated anywhere. If I buy an armor/shield item, some of them have a colored die icon on it's right side. Does this mean, that as long as I have this item equiped I get to add that die to all my defensive rolls in the future? (Having chainmail equiped makes all your future defensive rolls with 2 gray die)

-------------------------------Ok now on to some initial thoughts after a little bit more gameplay---------------------------------------------------

Well I guess I just look for that "sit down a couple of hours, have a progressive game of increasing challenge" like Runebound for example.

The whole idea of starting out small, then increasing your characters strenght and customizing it through somewhat randomized events and loot is just too thrilling.

I have tried to find this fix through games like Doom and imperial assault and they have done quite a good job although I felt Doom was largely unbalanced and IA was great but I want more down to earth sorta style with fantasy instead of high tech stuff.

I know 1st edition descent was very different and more fleshed out and had more loot and content to browse through per mission than this.

I kinda feel like FFG lately has stripped their products to their bare bones on several occations to just give room for more fast expansions.

Which is kinda bad IMO as you are pretty much just buying the base of a game and everything else has to be bought for your customize preferences.

I'm thinking of DungeonQuest in particular where the game it's based of is insanely more fun (swedish board game "drakborgen") and you can even hint mechanics in the core game that are off and out of place due to more content planned ahead and the variety is suffering hard in it's original game box state.

Ofc I don't bash too much on Descent 2nd edition now even though it might sound like it, I think I will appreciate it once I find my right expansion and once I get more used to it.

Q1: We've been playing it wrong at my table, but yes. Familiars that are treated as figures counts as heroes in most ways; "They may be targeted and affected by monster attacks, hero abilities, and Overlord cards that target a hero."

Q2: The card is exhausted, and does not renew until your next turn (unless some other effect calls for renewing the card(s).. So nope, can't be used indefinitely. Don't worry, though, wiping out all enemies in one turn will happen. I say, as I grind my teeth, because I'm the overlord.

Q3: Unless I'm misunderstanding the question, yes. If you have a shield that you can exhaust in order to reroll your dies, you can instead exhaust Defence Training. After that, since the shield is not exhausted, you can still exhaust your shield in order to reroll your dies.

Q4: Well I can tell you that if anything, the rules are slanted in favour of the heroes, rather than the Overlord. Remember, in Campaign play, everyone almost always get 1 experience, whether you won or not, and the heroes get money from the things they looted no matter what. For most of the game, this gap would probably be bigger than this, so from that perspective, it's pretty fair, yeah. That being said, the introductionary quest is probably a bad choice for an Epic Play game, since it tends to be very lopsided (likely intentionally, since it's a short introduction without major rewards).

Q5: Yes and no. As a large monster, you must be able to declare why you are interrupting your movement, and in order to interrupt your movement, you must be able to perform the action you are interrupting your movement for. So your example would not work, since you can't interrupt to attack, since you're not adjacent yet, and any benefit from expanding would be lost if you were, anyway. However, assuming you do move into range first, you could use Frenzy to effectively reach a little further, yes, since you can do more interrupts, even if you have to be adjacent first.

I hope that explanation made sense.

Q6: Yes. On defensive items, the listed dies are added to your defence. It's in the rulebook, pg. 11, Shop Item Card Anatomy.

And about the initial thoughts, I do agree with the general sentiment regarding expansion content and how the base game could probably feel bare-bones. I really do recommend getting one of the larger expansions, or maybe two of the smaller ones. That being said, it really sounds like what you should be doing is playing Campaign, since it really feels like you're progressing. My only annoynace is that the narrative aspects of the main game is really missing, but it actually gets better and better (Labyrinth of Ruin is slightly better at this, and Shadow of Nerekhall is excellent, with some background on how the heroes got started on this adventure, some background info, etc; it was really neat).

That being said, I might be dead-wrong. I'm loving Descent 2nd Edition, but it is also the first game of this type that I've played. Now I want to play Drakborgen.

I think it is important to know what you can expect from Descent 2ed and what not. D2e is heavily based on the campaign-mode and the options to play individual missions (even in epic mode) are kind of stale to me. D2e is simply not Boardgame-Diablo where you kill lots of monsters and get instantly loot and XP. Instead, you play a mission (which is a lot about strategy, not monster mashing) and get XP and gold afterwards. So it takes some time until you see the progress. After 2 missions you should have gained some skills and items for every group member.

I can only confirm the recommendations of other people. The App and/or the three co-op expansions change this play style completely and this may be more rewarding for you.

"Boardgame diablo" hey, I like that description. Ok thanks

For my Large miniature example, let me explain what I mean in detail:

I activate one Ettin (the only one I have) on my turn as an overlord.

I play the card "Frenzy" on him, enabeling him two attacks and one movement action.

I move the figure one step, and "enlarge him" because when I do enlargen him, I come adjacent to one hero (I use my enlargement move to "save" an extra move point later on during my turn when I want to use my second attack)

I perform my first attack against the hero, then move away from him towards another hero using one step, and using the enlarge move, I come adjacent to that hero aswell.

I perform my second attack against the hero.

I now have movement points left, and move as far away from both the heroes as possible! And when I spend my last movement point, I enlarge myself once again so that I get as far away as I possibly can.

Ok man nice to hear ^^ I have played tons of games like these and I am really looking for games very similar to Runebound in the aspect that once you start out you are basically "level 1" with no items, and you fight monsters in increasing difficulties to get both more items and more skills at your disposal.

A game that can be played at about 2-4 hours max but maby as a bonus even allow campaign like this game has (but that is not necessary to me)

Drakborgen is one of my fav board games of all times. It is a very rare find nowadays I bet... and there is even a newer version out there that isn't very good.

Trying to find Drakborgen with it's original expansion today seems very hard indeed...

DungeonQuest is a very watered down version of it and I was very disappointed with it in every way and form. I thought an old game made by basically nobodies could easily be beaten in quality if a grand company specialicing in boardgames could try and make their version of it, but the version they provided was not only grossly unforgiving and unnecessary hard, it also lacked content and depth.

Anyway, here is a glimpse of the mostly unknown gem
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/73510/drakborgen-ii

[...]

... and "enlarge him" because when I do enlargen him, I come adjacent to one hero ...

And that's exactly what you can't do. You cannot enlarge yourself to become adjacent in order to attack. In order to interrupt your action and thus enlargen, you must be able to declare your action and be able to perform it. Since you cannot attack, since you are not adjacent yet, you cannot enlargen. You must first become adjacent, and then declare your intent to attack, at which point you interrupt, and then enlargen yourself as part of the interrupt, and then perform the attack. Thus saving you.. nothing.

You cannot expand as part of an interrupt to attack, since you cannot attack, since you are not adjacent until after you've interrupted your move. But you cannot interrupt your move, because you don't have anything to interrupt it with.

Does that make it clear?

What you can do is to move within one space of the opponent you want to attack, end your movement (thus losing all your remaining movement points) and then expand into adjacency. While this would not save you any movement points, one important aspect of the shrink/expand mechanic of large creatures is that you only count as entering the space which you entered, not the spaces into which you expand, meaning that it can be used to avoid certain "when a monster enters a space adjacent to you" effects, such as Shiver 's Hero Ability or Thaiden Mistpeak 's Heroic Feat.

[...]

I perform my first attack against the hero, then move away from him towards another hero using one step, and using the enlarge move, I come adjacent to that hero aswell.

[...]

Provided you originally moved into adjaceny and then expanded to attack , instead of as in your example, expanded into adjacency as part of an interrupt to attack (which you cannot do), this would be completely legal, as long as you, again, either end your movement (rather than interrupt) and expand, or interrupt only after becoming adjacent and then expand.

Again, the core of the issue is that you cannot expand unless you end your movement or interrupt your movement action, and you cannot interrupt your movement action unless you can declare what you are going to do beforehand, and you cannot declare actions you cannot take, and you can only do a melee attack if you are within melee range.

That being said, some large monsters have reach or ranged attacks, which means that they've got a lot of leeway in where they can stand in order to perform an attack, making it easier for them to pull shenanigans when it comes to expanding. This does include the Ettin, to a degree, since he can attack from an extra square away ("within two squares"), meaning that he could declare an attack from one square away (instead of being completely adjacent), expand into adjacency, attack, and then move.

I only just remembered that ettins have Reach, as I was writing this, and that this would somewhat change the scenario presented, but I hope it's still clear.

DungeonQuest is a very watered down version of it and I was very disappointed with it in every way and form.

Does that sentiment include the "Revised Edition" that is currently available from FFG? It seems pretty abandoned by FFG, though, having no expansions or anything, and the last news being from 2014. Strangely, it's clearly a Runebound game (using the same heroes, ostensibly set in the same world, etc.) but it's not presented under that label on the FFG site. You actually have to press "Others". It's weird.

You explained very well and I understand your points made.

Yeah I say the same, it looks very abandoned. You can see that with the lack of expansions too, that it didn't catch on so to speak. I don't mind really, I don't think much can salvage that mess of a game in all honesty. It was a nice try but I think it fell way too far from the tree.

Maby they just want it to... "fade awaaay" under the Others section, sorta like Doom did