We started our 2nd run of Mist of Bilehall last week.

In the first run, as Overlord, I completely stomped my group of 4 heroes. They were a bit of a fresh group, many never played, so it was kind of expected. But despite the fact that I didn't went full ham on them, they lost every single quest.

After this attempt and after receiving Chains that Rust, I thought of starting it over as a full-length campaign with my more experienced group.

These guys have a few campaigns under their belt and know what they're doing.

So far, it's 3-0 for me again. While they do require more thoughts than the other group, it just seems like it's impossible to get through the Taint.

If one of them goes down, the spiral to defeat begins really quickly.

I was wondering if others had similar experience ? I feel like Tainted Card plays a major role into this, and while they are required to actually win those quests, I feel like they are a bit overdoing it.

I'm currently thinking about triggering the taint only when they recover, instead of upon getting knocked out. So at least they could stand up, or get healed by a tainted hero on their first time.

What do you think about this? Would it be too big of a shift ?

I have played through a Mists campaign, and I'm afraid I must agree with you.

If the Overlord is skilled, this is a *very* difficult campaign for the heroes.

The first quest is pretty balanced. I'd say its about 50/50 odds either way.

However, once the Overlord gains access to his open groups, the Bone Horrors, and really powerful lieutenants like Zarihell, it goes downhill for them fast. Some of the objectives are extremely difficult, such as the portals one, and yes - the tainted mechanic can be savage.

If you can down the healer, and then separate, immobilize or block the heroes trying to revive them.. well its basically GG at that point.

Separate, defeat, block, isolate.

Its a hard problem to fix. The heroes can still win, but they have to bring their absolute 'A' game.

They also need to build a team that emphasizes resiliency and stickiness over the raw speed and damage that works well in other campaigns, so that they don't go down in the first place. The bone horrors and broodwalkers can wreck the heroes' formations and positioning, so abilities that help you teleport back to the safety of friends are a *big* help too.

Condition removal is also no longer a luxury. The terrify condition is brutal for both heroes and monsters alike, and frequently applied in this campaign... I think the fact that 3 of the 4 hybrid classes in Chains That Rust offer powerful Condition Removal abilities is a clear indication of how essential it is in this campaign.

Also remember that heroic feats that can revive yourself or other heroes are excluded from the Tainted mechanic - this makes some feats much better than they are normally!

I'd say at the minimum to help with balance, let the losers pick the next quest in the chain. Its a small benefit, but its something!

Man I'm almost through SoN and my group is stomping me. Sounds like MoB and CtR will be a nice change.

I also found that mists is tough for the heroes- but for an experienced group, it really challenges them to adapt their playstyle and build choices. For Overlords who have learned to stall or play cautiously, it is also a change- for the first time, going for the kill is a consistent objective. I like Mists (and Chains) because they offer something really new to the Descent environment.

I cannot, however, argue with statements about Zarihell's power. All the lieutenants in these expansions are formidable, but radial terrify is a whole different beast.

We haven't finished this yet.

But before going into it, I warned the players that this would be a tough one.

As the Overlord I simply refused to use any plot deck, and asked the players to think very carefully about the team composition, and I think they made good choices.

So far, they won the intro (it was very hard, they'd lose if I had another turn), and I won Song of Bones (?) easily, they felt a bit disappointed as they realized there was nothing they could have done to win there (in their opinion, of course). So it's 1-1.

I hope it gets better, as it sucks when the campaign snowballs one way or the other and you see a bunch of people starting to give up not interested in the game...

Curious now, what's the party?

Not sure if the question was to me, but this is what they have:

Corbin - Marshall

One Fist - Beast Master

Laurel of Bloodwood - Bounty Hunter

Elder Mok - Spiritspeaker

Corbin is really hard to drop (and most missions deals with dropping the whole group).

Mok simply has some crazy fatigue regeneration (which makes his Healing Rain possible, sometimes 2/round).

One Fist and Laurel are both dealing lots of damage.

They got lucky on both missions, as the dude playing One Fist managed to pull the Treasure Chest on both missions (he got Incendiary arrows (not so good) and a trident, which is perfect for his heroic feat).

The only thing they lack, in my opinion, is blast damage...

http://d2etracker.com/campaign_overview.php?urlGamingID=108843130

I don't mean to rain on your heroes' parade, but one fist cannot use the trident MP during his heroic feat:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/201340-shards-of-everdark-hm-pack-announced/page-4

Also, I can see Laurel the Bounty Hunter being super deadly. Not a bad party- they've got to be smart, though.

so, interrestingly, there's no mage !

I don't mean to rain on your heroes' parade, but one fist cannot use the trident MP during his heroic feat:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/201340-shards-of-everdark-hm-pack-announced/page-4

Also, I can see Laurel the Bounty Hunter being super deadly. Not a bad party- they've got to be smart, though.

That reads like such a weird judgement to me, considering how his heroic feat is worded. You'd think that he'd be able to spend those movement points immediately, after concluding the previous attack, but before continuing onto the next attack that he just gained. It's not even like it'd be tremendously broken or anything, so it's just odd.

I don't mean to rain on your heroes' parade, but one fist cannot use the trident MP during his heroic feat:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/201340-shards-of-everdark-hm-pack-announced/page-4

Also, I can see Laurel the Bounty Hunter being super deadly. Not a bad party- they've got to be smart, though.

Now that's interesting! I didn't know that...

That being said, though, I think I'll let it pass and allow him to use it that way, he was so happy when he pulled it out of the item stack (I got all the expansions, it's a pretty big stack). On the last mission he managed to kill a skeleton archer due to it, I don't think it's a big deal.

Thanks for sharing though.

It's not a huge deal. As corny as it sounds, the most important rule is to have fun.

I don't think I can stomach how that sounds, but it remains true.

We started a Mists of Bilehall campaign last week, and currently its 1-1.

First off, playing with 5 heroes, and no changes on the OL side to compensate.

Heroes won the introduction (barely.. Serenas heroic feat bought them an extra turn), but lost the next encounter.

We are about half way through "Troubled Waters" with one portal 'disenchanted' and 2 heroes tainted. Over all it has been a slow brutal slog through this encounter, and unlike the previous one, I don't think the heroes have really made any mistakes.

They even kept the party together after the shadow Walker was lashed all the way to the door to the well (using the First Legion plot deck with Rise to the Challenge, heroes killed the master bone horror and ended up with 2 minions with lash as a result. One moved in, frenzied and threw the healer and shadow walker into the middle of the sludge, second one grabbed the shadow walker and threw him to the door.... Zarihel then attacked him without leaving the room).

Party used pets to cover the healer from future lashes (reanimate and wolf), and managed to get the shadow walker out without dying.... Lyssa the battle mage died as a result, but was revived by a cross map 'radiant light', and then sprinted back to the party.

Heroes have disenchanted one portal (not closed) but have 7 souls on the map. Zarihell is sitting at 2hp left, in the middle of the swap, with one hero dead at her feet and the other 4 surrounding the pit.

I worked out a couple of ways the heroes can win, but is looking pretty grim.

Over all, bone horrors are BRUTAL. I was a little worried the heroes wouldn't even make it off the first tile in this encounter.