hi,

we're currently running a SoB campaign, still in copper but we think, we will loose soon.
here is our setup:

the heroes are:

• Runewitch Astarra
• Lord Hawthorne
• Mordrog
• Shilhuette

overlord: master of the hunt
lieutnants: the siren, darkwind
plot: the one with the lighthouse and the runekeys.

currently we had a fight against the siren....the OL was nice enough not to run away, he sacrificied the siren...but normally he would have been running around on the sea map with the siren and the heroes will not even have a chance hitting her.
same with the second lt., darkwind? how will you ever have the chance to kill him?
speed 7, ability to run...he will send is minions and stay out of range of the heroes...and slowly the heroes will consume all of their potions and have no chance to attack darkwind....

even the location cards are annoying....we had yesterday the "wild vortex", stones directly beneath your ship, if you roll a 1 or a 2 on the red die, the revenge is sunk after the first round....a chance of 33% for immediately loosing the encounter?? wtf??
we read the rules, the FAQ, everything, but i think we made no mistakes the way we played it...but this is really lame that a single die roll determines the outcame of an encounter....

any other experiences?

does any group of heroes ever managed to win a campaign in SoB?

BigYogi

Yes, the LT encounters are broken. Not as broken as they might seem at first, but certainly not tested properly. In copper the heroes should never engage a LT, its just suicide. In silver the heroes should be able to force a LT to flee if they have upgraded their ship properly and gotten some items with LT encounters in mind (web is nice against the Siren). What seems like impossible range in copper turns out to be not that far in silver.

The main problem however is not that the LT always win (they wont), it is that they can always flee. Unless you have Thorn to web them on turn 1 they can just run away and move a single step on the map, returning to restart the siege on the next turn. If the overlord tries to win through sieges, it will be hard to stop him (probably not impossible, but not a balanced game at all).

As for the maps themselves we are playing with a house rule called Fight the Current which fixes them pretty well. Simple version: When a hero uses the captains wheel to move the ship sideways he may save any unused movement (after limitation for sails has been counted) in order to fight the current. If he is still at the wheel when the current moves the ship he may cancel the current with his saved movement, on a one to one basis. He can only counter current going sideways and any unused saved movement is lost at the end of the turn.

It allows the heroes to navigate some of the crazier maps, as long as they have someone strong at the wheel.

Honn said:

how would you ever engage darkwind and fight him? he can sit at the edge of the map and send his flock of razorwings...and maybe sometime finish a hero when the hero is low on hitpoints...i don't understand how to fight any LT effectively.
and i guess we have to fight them in copper before the LT's get the keys to activate the lighthouse...

Unknown said:

sounds like a nice way to handle the currents. i'll think about that.

one thing you must go and buy is the shark tatoo it is so usefull,also we found the shop item hammer that does knockback usefull,our main melee has both and used these to knock siren onto our boat where we killed her in a single turn,next turn we would of moved off teh map so we was very lucky.

Saving certain feat cards for LT encounters can be very useful also. Carried by Air can get your heavy hitting magic user out to the Siren, and Feats like hurry will allow your melee to slap her an extra three spaces with a knockback weapon (or at least damage her some more). The Siren is an odd LT, very easy to kill, just very hard to reach. I don't really have any experience with any of the other LTs though, the only Sea of Blood campaign I played in the heroes didn't make it much past Copper.

BigYogi said:

Havn't had a fight with Darkwind, but from pure looks he is the worst LT because of soaring minions, so I can't say much about the balance in that fight. But as for the Siren she is fully doable, but not in copper unless it is at the very end. You do need to stop the OL, but you just don't stand a chance at the beginning. You need upgrades to the ship and some good items and skills before you go after them. Do some dungeons and rumors (don't give away to much at the end, flee if you have to), get some cannons and train a bit, then go after the Siren. By that time you should at least be able to make her flee, with feats you might be able to kill her.

wblackthorn said:

the shark tattoo will really help a lot. but if you don't draw it at the beginning, it's hard to get...

The swim rules coupled with sharks are really unforgiving, entering the water, and staying there for more than one turn is death.

seems so....currently we stopped our SoB campaign and wait for a new FAQ or try to house-rule the encounters...

Not that I even own SoB, but could the designers' inention have been that the Lieutenants are designed not to be killable in order to act as a timer for the endgame? The heroes seem to have a gentle start without any time pressure from Lieutenants, can raid single level dungeons and concentrate on mainland dugeons. Once the game kicks in, they need to start taking three level dungeons and sailing everywhere at speed in order to finish the campaign before the Lieutenants finish it for them?

Or is this being much to generous to FFG and its playtesting?

One of the bigger problems with the LT encounters is the fact that there is absolutely nothing that stops the OL from the "sit and wait" approach, combined with the way LT's flee only one space back, basically means that not only is the OL rewarded for sitting on his ass doing nothing but gain threat (while in most cases, the players have little choice in the matter), but has an extremely small penalty for fleeing at the first sign of the encounter going **** up.

On the flip side, the OL does have access to The Kraken, the worst rules bodger in FFG history.

Whoever playtested Sob should be fired.......out of a cannon......

Shouldn't the Fleeing Lieutenant go back all the way to the OL Island ? I thought it was so....

Ivan Kerensky said:

Not in SoB.
SoB pg18
Fifth, a lieutenant may flee off of the board through an edge of the map just like a hero. Doing so ends the encounter in a party victory a nd the overlord immediately moves the lieutenant one trail away as if it had moved . Any Quest Item the lieutenant was carrying is left behind for the heroes to take.

yes, and this is the real bad thing. and if you have the plot with the lighthouse where the heroes and the OL have to collect the keys on the map, it's really a pain in the a**...