Rope
The ropes are used to swing across the water to board another ship. When a figure mans a rope, he rolls one red die and one yellow die. He then moves directly out from the ship’s side (as shown in “Example: Swinging on a Rope” below) a number of spaces equal to the rolled range. The swinging
figure may pass through figures and ignores any effects from terrain passed through. However, the effects of any terrain the figure ends his swing in
still takes effect. If a figure or movement-blocking obstacle is occupying the space that the figure ends his swing in, reduce the rolled range until the figure lands in an unoccupied space.

The bold statement seems to indicate that you go out directly from the side of the ship so I would say no that you can't swing towards the bow or the stern. Directly out can be taken to place a restriction on the direction. Swinging to the bow or stern wouldn't qualify as "directly out" from the ship's side.

Winaran said:

Since adding a dice is explicitly considered identical to upgrading a dice, we play that removing a dice is explicitly the same as downgrading a dice.

I have a question, me and my friends are playing now copper level campaing (I'm Overlording, total CT is 125) but my friends are complaining terribly on the game (I kinda kicked their asses on 3rd Island while having silver beasts, my Avatar is The Count and I have leeching, iron skinned razorwings). Right now they have 52 CT and I have 73, is this common? I mean kicking party's butt so soon and hearing enormous amounts of complains from the loosing side? Or it's just my friends?

Yet another thing, how exactly does appraiser work? I mean does a character with appraiser have to open a chest/look through market to make it work? I guess he have to open a chest/look through market to draw additional item and decide what he wants, am I right?

Winaran said:

Not sure about SoB but my guess is it's probably similar to RtL, in that the game favors the OL in Copper, it's about even in Silver, and favors the Heroes in Gold. You're almost to Silver (one more dungeon probably) so have them stick it out and they'll stop complaining.

-shnar

Well 1 or 2 dungeons should advance campaing one level that's true, still I don't know how to make them believe they still have a chance but I hope I will come to an idea

I was wandering also, if Runewitch Astarra have had her skill limited (from 6 spaces of glyph activation to 3) does also Kirga (the guy who makes spawning harder) also have limited his skill (like from 5 spaces to 3 or something)? I'm asking because he is kinda annoying

Winaran said:

You aren't even far enough ahead for divine intervention yet. It's nothing to worry about. In RtL the standard was for the OL to have x2 the heroes conquest in copper level. Tell your friends that this is not balanced around both sides getting the same number of conuqest. The OL is expected to get more.

And no Kirga's ability still goes to 5 spaces not 3. And yes it is very common for the OL to be ahead in conquest, especially at the Copper level. Remember Conquest does NOT determine who wins, just who has the most XP for upgrades. It is very possible for the heroes to win the campaign despite being far behind in conquest for its entirety.

Well for me it is clear that CT does not mean victory (they only help achieve it).

But I also have to ask again for Crushing Blow, how exactly is it changed? I read here that there should be only one CB in campaing treachery deck but then I hear that they don't have chance because I can get to use it once (they rather assume twice) per dungeon (although I didn't have any treachery yet). Is usage of CB somehow limited?

Crushing Blow is limited in the campaign game in that you can only have 1 copy of it in your deck. That is the only limitation.

IF you manage to cycle through your deck over the course of a dungeon and IF you manage to get Crushing Blow out twice, then yes you could use it more than once in the dungeon, but you are only allowed to add one copy of it to your overlord deck.