What's everyone's favorite Overlord Avatar?

Thus far I'm considering taking the Titan. For the location. And you know what they say about choosing an avatar, right? Location, location, location. The Shadow Peaks are centrally located, only a hop and a skip from Greyhaven, and 5 from Riverwatch, 2 cities you want to try to raze fast. Every other avatar ends up sticking you in a corner somewhere. This means...

If you ever flee a battle, your LT is a few weeks out of play.

Getting to a good city early is slow.

The chance of fortifying a dungeon, at all... is low. You're just too far from Tamalir and the hero party at the start.

If you start in the south, they'll go north, if in the north they'll go south, and avoid you. With the Shadow Peaks, you can quickly surround Tamalir from 2 directions.

The drawback to the Titan of course is that his monster treachery is the 10. That sux, cuz you dont really need a lot of monster spawn cards. 1 would do just fine, maybe 2. But you do want to have those events and traps for the rages, +10 threats, and CB's. Getting humanoids at 25 is nice, but really the monster upgrades occur so rarely, and then you want to catch up the other 2 categories anyways that it doesnt seem to really matter where the 25's and 30's lie.

Is it worth it?

To take someone stuck off in a corner somewhere - to get Event and Trap treachery at 10 and 15?

The Great Wyrm seems the ideal treachery avatar to take, but starting in the Mountains of Despair, you're always going to be so far from the cities north of Tamalir. And then you cant take your special LT till gold phase.

-mike

So far, I'm pretty fond of the Titan. His ability hasn't shined that much yet, but I also just got Silver Humaniods. What I like about him, is that you can focus on whatever monster group you like. You don't have to take humaniods because they are cheapest. If you want those eldritch, take 'em. In fact, Eldritch and two Monster Treachery for the Skeleton assault party could be really dangerous to the heroes I think. His creature upgrade isn't really worth much imo, unless you use Bleached Lizards Dungeon Loadout.

I like the versatility of the Titan, and as you say, having his home just next to Tamalir isn't a bad thing!

After having used a Humanoid spawner with Kirga in the Hero party I am really not a fan of humanoids. Boggs the Rat skill aquired and you'll never spawn again... at least not usefully!

Spider Queen is tough for the heroes later - not matter how good they get they will still equally vulnerable to traps and she will have plenty of traps, have them whenever she needs them, and dish out plenty of damage with them. I haven't played all the Avatars but playing against her I suspect she is the best Avatar in terms of maintaining parity in Dungeons throughout the campaign - beasts are the most alround useful spawn type as well IMO with something for all occasions and a good representation in the 3 base Lieutenants troopers too. Apparently SPider Queen is really crap in the final encounter though, so I guess her plan is to not let things get that far.

Sorcerer King is probably the easiest to play - lots of threat and Eldritch are the most common in the dungeons, and easy to use spawns as well. I find it the most boring Avatar though, one dimensional tactics and not so much planning or thinking required.

The Great Wyrm has awesome Treachery and his special helps a lot if the heroes are doing well and times are tough for the OL - and if they are not too, it always applies, unlike some of the others.

Haven't played the Demonlord but he has a slightly less good treachery allocation, and a much less useful special IMO. Eldritch creatures if thats your style (and probably the most efficient due to the high proportion of them in dungeons).

Overall, I think the Spider Queen is the most fun - she needs, and rewards, planning, tactics, surprises and cool moves. The Sorcerer King might be the most efficient with Eldritch, excellent special and good Treachery.

I played a quick game with Spider Queen but didn't really get much of a chance to use her as we lost some players and decided to restart with a new group.

Right now we are powering through with myself as the Titan,

And I'm really liking him, I have been doing heavy humanoids (even with a Kirga on their team) I currently have Gold Humanoids, and a spawn of a master Beastman or Ferrox with the Titans bonus Die and a the (I think) Doom Card, they are rolling 3 gold dice, I've been able to take out Kirga with one roll of the die

The daemon lord is one of the best avatars, because he has the best lieutenant (thanks to his minions). As the final battle, and gold levels do not favor the OL, the daemon lord is the one with the best chance to blitz by razing Tamalir early on, or achieving his plot.

Dribbler said:

That should be 1 Gold and two black/one silver, not three gold. Neither the Doom card nor the Titans Bonus Die upgrade by level.

A competent hero group with Kirga or Boggs in the party should see you spawning maybe once in three dungeon levels within range to actually attack a hero (with the almost entirely slow, melee-only Humanoids). Sure its awesome when you can get a spawn off (Gold Kobolds swarming with Red+Green and 14/3-ish toughness!) but its dreadfully frustrating to go through entire dungeons without a single spawn opportunity...

The Spider Queen in contrast should have started with her Special upgrade that puts two traps aside for any-time use and is guaranteed to have an opportunity at any time she needs it to play her Dark Charm, Crushing Block etc(until they have been used of course). So even if the heroes flee in the first level, she'll still have an opportunity to use her goodness. Put out a Trapmaster card (her equivalent of Doom) and her basic, boring little pits are doing 3-7 (nearly always 5+ and usually 6+) Damage ignoring Armour.

The key is that the heroes can ruin the Titan/Beastmans offensive capabilities in a Dungeon with good play. They can't do that to the Spider Queen. If your hero players aren't that good then the Titan Beastman can do great things though...

I prefer the Avatars that take up more than one space.

I've played (and won) using the Demon Lord. The Avatar-specifc upgrades and such aren't terribly useful until final jeopardy, but his inherent abilites can really frag up the heroes (Fear 5 especially)

In my personal view, I like an avatar that dwarfs the heroes, making them look pitiful and insignificant next to my majesty as I crush the life out of them with a mere wave of my (insert limb name here).

I'm going Great Wyrm next time

ColdStone said:

Heh, you just talked yourself into this, right?

Corbon said:

Are you sure? IIRC, the titan duplicates the best power dice of a masterm onster, thus he'd get +1 gold on gold master beastmen. I think it is the beastman lord bonus (+1 black dice on beastmen) which does not upgrade.

Galdred said:

*nods* I don't have the card in front of me, but Titan is add an extra powerdice to the best that the monster is capable of.

Galdred said:

You are right. I stand corrected on this one. Sorry.

So it should have been 2 Gold and a black for the Master Kobolds and just a Black for the normal Kobolds. Hmmm, nasty little Masters aren't they!