2 lieutenants are hammering at the walls of tamalir in our current campaign. Heroes are soon to arrive to town(fleeing from a dungeon). The next week we(heroes) expect tamalir to be fully besieged, meaning the OL can roll to raze it the following week. We plan on attacking one lieutenant then upgrade the walls. My question is this:

1. Are we allowed to attack the lieutenant(s) and then take a recuperate/train action? From the rtl book I understand it the way that the heroparty needs to use the move-action to actually being allowed to attack the lieutenants.

Moneseki said:

you are correct. Attacking the Lts is a move action and therefore the heroes cannot recuperate or Train in that week, but only 'visit' the city buildings.

In our campaign, the OL used the transport gem to transport Krieg to Tamalir(Tamalir have 4 ltnts pundering the walls). Krieg decided to attack the heroes, and was killed in his attempt. Heroes dont have weapons with "ignore undying ability"(dont have the expansion pack). Krieg dead and back to OL keep means there are 3 ltnts(the Farrow family) left in Tamalir. OL didnt decide to finish his turn yet, and we are continuing next monday.

1. Seeing we as heroes are in need of attacking the lieutenants, I am wondering who of the 3 Farrows are easier targets?

2. And also, Lady Eliza Farrow adds +2 to the range and damage of all friendly figures within 6 spaces. Does that include herself as well, or is she excluded from this buff?

For purpose of firepower: We are at copper campaign. OL has no treachery. Eldritch are upgraded to silver, and OL has skeleton snipers.

Hawthorn with 3 armor, 6 fatigue, wielding Dragontooth Hammer or Crystal Shield. Skill is taunt. Normally doing 8-10 damage with pierce 2.

Silhouette with 3 armor+ghost armor, 9 fatigue, wielding Dwarven Fire Bombs with shop shield. Normally doing 6-8 damage with option to spend fatigue

Mok with 0 armor, 6 fatigue, wielding blinding light(for stun). Normally doing 1-2 stun tokens or 3-6 damage

Trenloe with 4 armor, 5 fatigue, either wielding knuckle dagger with shop shield or borrowing Dragoontooth Hammer from Hawthorn. Having the Knight skill he can eventually do 3 bleeds or 3 attacks doing 6-8 damage with pierce 2.

To me Lady Eliza seems most squishy. with 20 wounds and 5 armor. Also, all monsters she get are copperleveled. Next I am not sure. Both Farrowbrothers seems though. Merrick himself seems weak(25 wounds and 4 armor), but combined with his starting figures it will take a long time to get to him Alongside with15 starting threat could mean 5 normal skeletons and since they are all upgraded it will take several rounds to get to Merrick. Alric is stronger(30 wounds, 5 armor and immunity to bleed and pierce), but has weaker forces and he must always into melee attack.

Some hints and advices would be welcome. I`ll have nightmares the next week thinking of the upcomming fights....:-D

I'd probably go Eliza, Merrick, Alric. Haven't had a whole lot of experience with any of them, but I seem to recall that the most dangerous part about Merrick is that he can use all that threat he starts out with to either spawn more creatures or roll a hojillion power dice when attacking. For both him and Eliza, I think that if you can use the trees for cover and then whittle down the spawns, you're in good shape. The characters themselves aren't too bad. Alric, on the other hand, is really hard to kill, and hits pretty hard, too.

A lot will depend on the area draw, though. When my heroes last fought Merrick, who, as memory serves, has a bunch of ranged minions, they drew the "Marsh" area, or something like that, which means that every space on the map adjacent to water (and there were plenty) requires an additional movement to move into. Ouch.

What treachery does the OL have? Merrick's power level hinges on how he can spend his 15 free threat. Since nobody has Wind Pact, he's got free rein.

Moneseki said:

Just a note, if Krieg died, he's dead and gone out of the campaign for good, no respawning back at the OL keep (that only happens if Krieg fled).

-shnar

shnar said:

Err, that's his special ability...
Krieg the Relentless is only placed in the graveyard if killed with an attack that ignores the Undying ability. Otherwise, he returns to the Overlord's Keep at the start of the next week.

Oops, my bad, nevermind, nothing to see here...

-shnar

James McMurray said:

I think it was stated that the OL has no treachery... therefore the 15 threat wouldn't be used for much other than reincforcing. Given that Merrick's minions are silver level, I'd say Alric is probably the easier choice to handle between brothers. Eliza, then Alric, then Merrick if you can. If you can get the defenses upgraded and hit another 1 or 2 levels of a dungeon to get more $ or chests that might help too.

Good luck!

Slightly off topic here, but all to do with fighting Lieutenants..

Our campaign ended last weekend with Talimir getting razed, I as the Overlord timed my attack to hit just as we switched over to Gold level and had 3 Lieutenants at Talimir (Eliza and Alric Farrow plus Krieg).

The Heroes got back to Talimir in time to attack the lieutenants before I started rolling for destruction and managed to see off Eliza without any problem (it was very easy for them), then they tried the other two..

And were forced to flee several times before giving up and going off to train (giving me 2 chances to raze the city) and then coming back and again being forced to flee a couple of times before giving up and going to the Pub to get completely sloshed as Talimir burned around them.

I had all monsters upgraded to max lvl with eldrich being my chosen to hit diamond, but only a couple of treachery.

Anyhow, we're starting out a new campaign and in the interests of not getting smashed like that again I was wondering if anyone had any tips on when it's a good time to try and hunt down those lieutenants and if there are any ideas on how to get them killed before they flee, we're going to be playing this time with WoD and ToI so we don't have access to those webbing weapons people talk about.

Wind Pact is in the hands of Mok, but OL has no treachery. It seems like Eliza would be a good startingchoice for us. Guessing the OL will use brilliant commander to upgrade the naga, but really shouldnt be that much of a problem. But will she(the lieutenantfigure) recieve its own bonus(+2 damage and +2 range)? It looks pretty much like the commandability, but isnt exactly that.

We will not have the time for another dungeon. That is unless we want to risk a "razeroll" upon Tamalir(not going to happen). Our party has something like 2500 in cash. Our thoughts are to train the next week, give Hawthorn the Mighty skill(=+2 meleedamage) and Silhoutte the Inner Fire skill(+2 range +1 damage when making ranged/magic attack). Mok needs to recuperate at the temple, while Trenloe gets 2 more potions at the alchemist(there really are no way of increasing the alchemistlevel?). All heroes done, we also upgrade the walls, meaning the 3 ltnts need to spend another week besieging.

The comming week our heroes have some more firepower, and will first try to take out Eliza. Hopefully she dies or flees. From there on we can either attack another ltnt or visit the city + purchase the last wallupgrade. I realize we have not had many lieutenantencounters, and that I am pleased to see it comming. Even so, I am worried about the Farrowbrothers. Its upgraded skeletons/sorcerers versus razorwings(hard to take out due to soar and their higharmor, and they easily fly behind the tanks) with a stronger lieutenant. Sigh, I can hardly wait for monday.

twak2 said:

The heroes should try to keep the lieutenants as far away from talimar as possible at the start of Silver / Gold level so that they have some time to bulk up before having to face them. This might mean attacking the LTs before they've reached a city. Given that the SK keep is like 5 spaces away from talimar, they should be able to have several turns at gold before the LT train even arrives at Talimar. If LTs in Talimar are unavoidable, the heroes should teleport back to talimar and attack the LTs before the OL can upgrade all 3 types monsters since he only do one upgrade per turn ( impressive that you had 85 conquest laying around at the start of gold by the way). A gold Alric with 1 diamond sorcerer and lots of silver humanoids and beasts should not be difficult.

They can also work on their LT fighting strats. Unlike dungeons, in encounters it can be worth moving slightly slower if you can keep good position. Trees are your friends, especially against eldritch monsters. Dodge orders are excellent at lowering damage taken also. If you have a high armor hero with the Taunt skill and 2 shields equipped, he can do a great job of absorbing the early attacks of the OL before your team moves in and destroys them. Remember that Web and knockback can be abused against LTs that are not unstoppable. Also that power potions are not used up until the next attack, so you can drink one in round 1 of the encounter have have it ready for a big attack in a future turn. Speaking of potions, it is a good idea to try to have lots of them in a LT fight. Don't drink potions in the dungeon before the LT fight if that is what is takes. If you think the OL has a dark charm in his hand, spend 2 movement to unequip your weapons after every turn. This works even better if you have lots of sheilds to equip in their place.

The party can also look at getting skills that help in outdoor encounters. Wind Pact is an absolute must have. Skills like taunt and cleave are great for encounters. Skills that add range (to help his soaring monsters) or damage (killing things faster is always good). Even the conquest of the starting heroes is a factor. Higher conquest heroes tend to be tougher, so they will do better in an encounter.

You are doing spawn cards the same as the reinforce ability, right? That is the only other thing I can think of that can majorly help the OL if you play it wrong.

Am I the only one that calls it Tamalir?

James McMurray said:

IIRC, the folks at FFG do, too. Not sure beyond that, though.

James McMurray said:

I do, though I'll admit I gloss over the name. As soon as I see a capital T, a few 'a's and an L, my mind just thinks, "Tamalir" so I rarely notice others misspelling it, saying the name wrong

-shnar

Badend said:

Well we had an "incident" in the Fools Rapids legendary dungeon where the heroes handed me over 100 conquest in their bloody-minded determination to get free powerdice upgrades/skills. That took us into gold and then they decided to visit the secret trainer to boost their HP before heading back to talimir to break the seige.

Badend said:

Hmm.. we may have done this wrong, spawn cards don't just spawn? Do they need to wait a round and "run onto" the board like reinforcements?

twak2 said:

1. Your answer is right there. The heroes made not one, but two major tactical blunders (well, one blunder and one error) that directly contributed to not being able to defeat three Lts. The (main) problem wasn't really a big pileup of Lts on Tamalir being too strong, it was that the heroes screwed up, badly, twice, to make that situation substantially worse.
Well played OL, badly played Heroes.

2. Yes, you are doing it wrong I'm afraid.
See the GLOAQ on this site (stickied at the top of the forum). It is a collected list of answers and explanations by official FFG sources.
GLOAQ OP
Can spawned monsters in outdoor encounters be activated the same turn or are they treated as reinforcements?
They are treated as reinforcements in all respects. The normal limit of one spawn card per turn still applies. They do not get to move until the next turn.

Moneseki said:

Due to reallife issues we had to wait 2,5 weeks before we could resolve our besieged Tamalir encounter. And here are the results:

Gameweek 8: Krieg attacked and died. Eliza besieged Tamalir(3 of 3(siege engineupgrade) siege tokens placed) , Merick and Alric stayed in Tamalir.

Heroes trained in Tamalir: Inner fire to Silhouette, Mighty to Hawthorn, alchemist and market for Trenloe and Mok. Walls upgraded 1 level.

Gameweek 9: Eliza besieged(4 of 4 siege tokens). Merick and Alric stayed.

Heroes moved to Greyhaven, hoping for an outdoor encounter, which happened. In the fight, heroes easily smash all monsters but one. Last monster gets 3 stun tokens. From an earlier fight Mok has 2 remaining hitpoints and 7 poison. Hawthorn has 6 remaining hitpoints and 6 poison. Silhoutte has 6 hitpoints. Trenloe is almost at full health. While the last monster is stunned, the heroes kill each other, all but Trenloe. OL gets 9 free CT. When all but Trenloe is dead, he kills the last monster. Now party continues to Greyhaven, all heroes are at full health(Trenloe has 14/16 hp) and are ready to fight the ltnts.

Since heroes have Staff of wild, they head back to Tamalir the same week. There we attack the ltnts.

Lady Eliza Farrow: Expected to be easy with easy minions. Some bad luck in the start, heroes missed 2 out of 4 attacks. Eliza stays somewhat behind awaiting. Round 2 heroes eyes an opportunity to box Eliza in. 2 of 3 possible attacks need to kill a master naga and a hell hound. 2 is enough, and Eliza gets boxed in with few remaining minions. Desperatly the OL battles with his ltnt, hoping to kill Silhoutte which is already low on health. Silhoutte dies, but Eliza cant move far. In round 3 Eliza is nuked dead by Hawthorn and Trenloe. OL is angry with himself allowing the heroes to box Eliza in that easily, sending her to the GY. Heroes drink some healing potions and attack Alric

Sir Alric Farrow: Expected to be hard with easy and hard minions(soaring razorwings). Heroes dodge-guard themselves in trees. OL sends 3 minions to hero starting tile, attacking. Some minor damage is done. Trenloe clears groundminions, Silhoutte clears Razorwings. Heroes drive Alric back towards escapetiles, but he manages to reinfore with 2 sorcerers. Mok stuns the 2 sorceres. Silhoutte and Hawthorn move towards Alric, now having only 4 tiles to move on, but not being boxed in. OL has 4 curses, and need only 2 more to be able to battle with Alric and then move off the board and escape. OL hopes 2 attacks will yield these 2 curses. Alric battles, attacking Hawthorn twice. First doesnt produce any curses, second is a miss and Alric cant escape this round. Silhouette triggers her guard, spending 6 fatigue in total taking 8 wounds from Alric. Hawthorn battles, uses a powerpotion and 4 fatigue and send Alric down to 3 remaining wounds. Silhoutte battles, uses ring to drink fatigue potion then moves forward. First attack misses. second attack is just enough to kill Alric. OL is really angry with himself for letting two lieutenants die.

Heroes end their week in Tamalir, going to temple and alchemist, then upgrading the walls to its final level.

Gameweek 10: Merick besieged Tamalir (5 of 6 siege tokens).

Heroes took a move action and attacked Meric.

Lord Merick Farrow: Expected to be the thoughest fight since Eldritch was silver and starting with 15 curses. Heroes ordered forward cautiosly. OL did pretty much the same, probably frightened by the 2 other ltntencounters. Into round 4-5 most monsters were gone, and OL moved towards the escaping tiles. Heroes were only given minor damage, mostly thanks to guard orders and trees. Merick launched one attack, missing, before escaping. Tamalir was free of besieging lieutenants.

Analyzis: Skills like Mighty and Inner Fire helped alot. Resuting we more often oneshot the eldritch(skellies and sorcerers) without spending fatigue. Having the secret trainer fatigue-upgrade helped ALOT. Having potions available, especially fatigue and powerpotions gave us more options. Revealing these options to the OL actually helped us sometimes as OL feared the possible combos the heroes could make. Lieutenants without Treachery cards are not much to fear if the heroes come prepared. I am hoping to see some more ltntfights in some gameweeks, hopefully then when OL has treachery cards to his disposal.

My OL friend and I travel by car together for our Descentevents, and he was all but pleased this gamesession.....Nonetheless, we are all looking forward to the next session. For now, thanks for any advice given regarding getting rid of the ltnts besieging Tamalir. One big happy smile from Norway.

Moneseki

Moneseki said:

so was it ever decided if eliza got her own buff or not? obviously you must have come to a decision because you played it out, but is there a general ruling?

Eric! said:

Yes she does. Figures are always friendly to themselves, so she is a friendly figure within 6 spaces.

Lady Eliza Farrow adds +2 to the range and damage of all friendly figures within 6 spaces.

Compare with command, which definitely includes the sommanding figure
A figure with Command adds 1 to the damage and range of all attacks made by friendly figures within three spaces of it

Corbon said:

We ruled that Eliza does benefit from her own buff, yet none of us are really sure if that was intended to be. Corbons argument could be true, but my group consider the difference in the explanation between command and elizas ability to possibly show the creators intended it differently. As Corbon said the figure with command includes itself: "A figure with Command adds 1 to the damage and range of all attacks made by friendly figures within three spaces of it (including itself, and ignoring line of sight). If there are multiple figures with Command within three spaces of a figure, the effects stack (e.g., the figure would add 2 to the damage and range of its attacks if two figures with the Command ability were within three spaces of it)."

If the creators intended Eliza to benefit from her ability, why not use the commandwording? Nonetheless we consider(and experienced) her to be a very weak lieutenant, and concludes she should benefit from it, if not just to make her a little bit more threatening.

Moneseki said:

They did use the command wording. They just simplified it down - they have to fit the description on the card remember.
(A figure/Lady Eliza Farrow) adds (1/+2) to the range and damage of all (attacks made by/) friendly figures within (3/6) spaces (of it/).

"...attacks made by" is extraneous. Adding to the range and damage of a figure is exactly the same as adding to the range and damage of attacks made by a figure.
"...of it" is also extraneous. There isn't anywhere else that the 6 spaces could possibly be counted from.
"...(Including itself and ignoring LOS)" is extraneous. We already know that a figure is friendly to itself and therefore gets the bonus. We have the example of command for the idiots who try to technically claim that a figure is not friendly to itself - note that the 'including self and ignoring LOS' is in brackets (indicating an explanation rather than an additional rule). We don;lt need the explanation again as the mechanics for this are already well established.
The stacking section is extraneous.

The wording is "X adds Y to the range and damage (or damage and range) of all friendly figures within Z spaces."
Saying "X has Command 2 with range 6" might be shorter, but could actually be genuinely misunderstood. You have to wilfully misunderstand it as it is risen. Is she friendly to herself? Yes. End of story.