I believe have narrowed it down to either The sorcerer King or the Great wyrm.

I want my main efforts to be in the dungeons rather than on the campaign map and were thinking that either of these would be an good choice?

Krede said:

The Sorcerer King is relatively weak on the map and very, very powerful in the dungeons due to the large amount of threat he has (+10 at the start of each dungeon and 25% extra per turn). He also upgrades Eldritch cheaply and Eldritch have easily the most powerful and most useful silver upgrade bonuses as well as being easily the most common Bosses and most common available choices for monsters.
Generally I don't advise playing the Sorcerer King for very new groups because the heroes tend to get discouraged by the everwhelming feeling of being battered badly. But because he is weak on the map he is also not the best Avatar against veteran heroes. Either way, it is still your choice.

The Great Wyrm is relatively weak in dungeons but is able to always progress due to his bonus CT (each chest) and threat (each coinpile). Beasts are his cheap upgrade path and they are weak in dungeons because most of their spawns are not one-space monsters and can be difficult to spawn in the small dungeons. With his good Treachery choices (cheap events - crushing blow and danger) and strong beasts (soaring razorwings) the Great Wyrm tends to have strong support for the basic Lts and thus be string on the map - although his stronghold position is bad.

From what you say you will want the Sorcerer, but just beware on your heroes behalf that you will hit them harder than usual for the first half of the campaign. They will spend a lot of time battling discouragement, but if they can hang in there they should crush you eventually, even if you have a much better CT scre overall.

If you do pick the SK, you might want to consider starting the campaign at Silver level instead of Copper, since that's when the campaign is about on even footing and your hero players won't be quite so discouraged.

I'm running a campaign as the Great Wyrm and really like him. I even upgraded Monsters first and haven't regretted it yet. Even though most of the creatures in dungeons aren't heavy in monsters, a lot of the Level Leaders are, and it's paid off there. I also like the extra CP/Threat bonus he gets from Treasures/Piles, as it gives me a slight boost to when the heroes blitz the 2nd or 3rd level.

-shnar

Thanks for the advice guys... I'll go with the SK. They are four against one!, and I don't master any of the evil combos and dirty tricks yet... so I'll take all the help I can get in the dungeons.

I think that to little challenge will discourage my Heroes much more, than them having their butts handed to them by my raging hordes!!..