For those Warhammer Quest ACG Vets, any general advice?

Seems a lot harder with 4 players than 2.

It seems like you want your Warrior to Fight, your Scout to Explore with both Healer/Mage Aid. Do you have the classes in an optimum seating pattern?

We've thought about two house rules to help with game enjoyment.

We got crushed on the "medium" scenario... The Mistlands.

1 - Allow the use of more than 2 success tokens.

2 - Let the party go in any order you want instead of just clockwise.

Play the game in whatever way is fun for you. Personally, I think your house rules are good for toning down some of the tougher scenarios. They're simple things that give the players a slight boost without making things too easy.

Additionally, I think house rule #2 is good for helping you keep that adventuring atmosphere so that the game does not feel as much like an optimization puzzle.

I think some of the difficulty might have changed subtly from WQ:ACG because I always felt that 4-player games were easier than 2-player games. Wait, I take that back. If you wanted to play as the Warrior Priest and Ironbreaker, 2-player games were more manageable. If you wanted to play with either the Waywatcher or Bright Wizard, you needed to play in a 3- or 4-player game so that you had the Warrior Priest and Ironbreaker on the team, too. But then again, this may speak more to balance between heroes than balance between hero numbers.

Anyway, I finally got my copy and have decided not to wait for Christmas, so I should have more relevant comments in the coming days.

@Budgernaut --- I consider us decent decision-makers but playing as-is, there's really no room for error, ya know? I don't mind losing but you need to feel like there are multiple ways to solve the puzzle (e.g., non optimal plays all the time).

On 11/17/2018 at 1:09 AM, IceQube MkII said:

We've thought about two house rules to help with game enjoyment.

We got crushed on the "medium" scenario... The Mistlands.

The medium scenarios are designed to be a reasonable challenge, but not overwhelming, to a seasoned group (~50% win rate, at a guess, maybe a bit higher). New players will naturally have more of a challenge as they learn some of the interactions, so I wouldn't expect to win the first time through.

I can now comment on HoT. I thought The Goblin Problem was rather easy. I played a two-hero solo game with One Fist as my Warrior and Ashrial (spell check?) as my Healer. One Fist took the Berserker upgrade route and Ashrial became a Disciple. Despite being a two-player game, neither hero ever took enough damage to need the +10 health. I was kind of shocked about that. When Splig came out, I decided not attack him unless the location had 8+ progress tokens on it because that would avoid the whole Splig discard issue.

Now, having played WQ:ACG before, it could be my experience that made things easier, or I may have still inadvertently missed some rules, but I think one of the things that really makes it easier is being able to upgrade some action cards in the middle of the quest. If I couldn't throw 3 dice at the final location to make sure it stayed fulyl-explored, and if my Berserker-Warrior didn't have 3 dice to go to town on Splig, I think it could have been much more difficult. Now I need to play some of the other quests to see how those compare.

The Goblin Problem is among the easiest of the bunch, but definitely Garret is spot on here: timing is key, and deciding what to upgrade first, not only in reference to your hero, but also thinking about the impact your upgrade's having on the whole party. I'm around 70-30 at the moment (in general; breakdown of different scenarios is a bit varying clearly), but yeah, it's a good challenge, but not uber-frustrating

I played The Goblin Problem again. I was teaching the game to my wife, but she fell asleep during the first round so I finished the game by myself. This one was more of a nail-biter. I had Astarra and Tetherys as my heroes. The inability to target more than one enemy was difficult. I guess I really love Warriors. Once both heroes upgraded their attack actions, though, things got more manageable. The heroes got to the red spot on the peril track, traveled to the Brigand Camp (thus discarding the two enemies that appeared in the shadows after the Peril phase, and proceeded to fully explore the location and then defeat Splig in one round due to the critical success exploding dice mechanic. Tetherys got 3 on the location, then Astarra got 6 on. Then Tetherys got 3 wounds on Splig and Astarra rolled 8 successes, putting the last 7 wounds on Splig. It shouldn't have been so easy.

I think this game solidified in my mind how critical it is to upgrade the right card. In my case, it was obvious I needed both heroes to get better attacks because there were 7 enemies in play when it was time for the first upgrade. I think that was in part because of the hero combination I used. If you don't have a dedicated Warrior, somebody (if not all heroes) will need to upgrade attack first. If I'd had a Warrior, I probably wouldn't have been so swamped with enemies and would have been able to upgrade a different card.

Tomorrow I'll play a different quest ... unless I'm teaching someone new again.

From your description it seems it is very easy to make it more difficult to defeat an easy scenario: get the heroes random (probably 2nd step), but, more important, get the action upgrades random (the 1st among 8 class cards, the others among the remaining ones in the class) 🙂

Would you like to try and give us your impressions? I liked a lot your analysis of your 2 games 🙂

What I found... 2P (since both guys get to go twice... action, rest & +10 HP) is rather easy.

It seems like the attack upgrades that allow for AoE (multiple targets) are way better than the super damage dealing one since you need to clear minions otherwise you get overwhelmed.

Also, it seems like you need to pass the Party Leader each turn to optimize your turns. Aid seems to be the most important action because the "+2" is the only way to guarantee consistency so usually (attack, explore, aid, aid - no order).

When you can trade explore progress to prevent enemy spawns, you should do it. LOL - you almost always need to prevent spawns is a good play. And you really need to push explore.

2 minutes ago, IceQube MkII said:

What  I found... 2P (since both guys get to go twice... action, rest  & +10 HP) is rather easy. 

I find this interesting because a guy on BGG said two player games were harder in this one than in WQ:ACG. But I think you may be right. I need to get a 4-hero game going.

3 minutes ago, IceQube MkII said:

Also, it seems like you need to pass the Party Leader     each turn to optimize your tur  ns   .

You can only pass the part leader token if you travel, which is distinct from during the travel phase. In other words, you must have fully explored the location and choose to travel to the next location in order to pass the party leader token. Just entering the travel phase is not enough to allow you to pass the party leader token. It seems that this was partially a thematic decision because it means that each location will have a single hero as the party leader for the whole time the party is exploring that location. I mean, it does seem kind of funny to keep passing the torch while exploring. But mechanically, I think this really simplifies game play conpared to WQ:ACG where it changes each round.

2 hours ago, tibia said:

From  your description it seems it is very easy to make it more difficult to defeat an easy scenario: get the heroes random (probably 2nd step), but, more im  portant, get the action upgrades random (the 1st among 8 class cards, the others among the remaining ones in the class) 🙂

Would you like to try and give us your impressions? I liked a lot your analysis of your   2 g  ames 🙂

Seems like quite the challenge! I may try that the next time I play The Goblin Problem.

@Budgernaut - right on travel. We had a mission that let you pass the torch (Mistlands?) every phase... haha, of course, the leader forgot about other things which may have made the scenario easier!

Regardless, while I love Arkham Horror LCG, I want more expansions for HoT... I laughed so hard for like 2hrs as our butts were getting kicked. The game has so many rule nuances that you need to remember!

I just played Battle in the Mistlands with 4 heroes. It was definitely harder than The Goblin Problem. During the first game, I didn't read the scenario ahead of time, so when we got to the first spot on the Peril track, we had no progress tokens on the location so we couldn't upgrade our abilities. It made the rest of the game feel a little hopeless. When Kari died and we were still on location 2, I scooped.

During the second game, I had all the heroes blitz-explore the location to make sure we got the upgraded action cards. Since I knew this was an enemy-swarm scenario, I upgraded everyone's attacks. I should have chosen different ones, though, because it would have been nice if Kari Wraithstalker and Landrec the Wise could have targeted multiple enemies. In the end, Avric Albright and Kari Wraithstalker fell in combat, but Landrec and Syndrael defeated the vile necromancer, Ankaur Maro.

I don't think I'm very good at this game and don't think I can really give good advice. I'm kind of afraid to try the medium difficulty scenarios after having such a rough time with Battle in the Mistlands. Granted, I did win, but when 2/4 heroes are defeated, it doesn't feel like a win to me.

On 11/19/2018 at 7:18 PM, Budgernaut said:

I don't think I'm very good at this game and don't think I can really give good advice. I'm kind of afraid to try the medium difficulty scenarios after having such a rough time with Battle in the Mistlands. Granted, I did win, but when 2/4 heroes are defeated, it doesn't feel like a win to me. 

You are building your own fantasy adventure story, two heroes sacrificed themselves for the benefit of others, and the goal was achieved. You won in my book, however there is room for improvement to try and defeat with all heroes intact. I always tell my own story as i play which helps make it fun win or lose really.

We finally got to try again (4P). Haha, reading is fundamental!

1. We absolutely crushed The Goblin Problem.

2. We beat the Foul Ritual and everyone survived but we took heavy damage. Based on wording, I think if you kill Reeda, then she's removed from the game (sorry, haven't been keeping up with the Nemesis discussion). "Aid" and rushing to explore locations was the key.

We've definitely gotten better at the game. We love Arkham Horror LCG (it's more complex and better story) but HoT is faster. If FFG is reading, please make campaigns and expansion heroes (I can't see why guys can't upgrade to at least level 3 or gain mounts or more permanent items).

Hehe - hopefully the 2 Challenging Missions will be enjoyable!

On 12/17/2018 at 8:34 AM, IceQube MkII said:

We finally got to try again (4P). Haha, reading is fundamental!

1. We absolutely crushed The Goblin Problem.

2. We beat the Foul Ritual and everyone survived but we took heavy damage. Based on wording, I think if you kill Reeda, then she's removed from the game (sorry, haven't been keeping up with the Nemesis discussion). "Aid" and rushing to explore locations was the key.

We've definitely gotten better at the game. We love Arkham Horror LCG (it's more complex and better story) but HoT is faster. If FFG is reading, please make campaigns and expansion heroes (I can't see why guys can't upgrade to at least level 3 or gain mounts or more permanent items).

Hehe - hopefully the 2 Challenging Missions will be enjoyable!

We've had a hard time with the medium level quests. Can you describe specifically what strategies you have found useful?

We haven't tried the medium yet because our one guy had to study to past his radioactive medicine exam for the army.

In general... (4P)

1. Upgrades... Fight: It's usually better to upgrade for multiple targeting (e.g., area of effect - AoE damage). A mega attack overkilling a minion is a waste. You just can't take bonus damage when have too many guys on you.

2. Aid is the best action in the game. Your Scout and Fighter need to be doing explore/damage-dealing at +2 as much as they can.

3. Our rotation usually went Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Scout (you want the Scout to have least amount of baddies on him) because you need to be pushing Explore. Getting to the boss quickly... you just don't want to go deep in the enemy deck because the baddies usually get stronger.