Just as the topic says, I'm interested to know what the people on the forum here feel are the most useful, if not the best, treachery cards. I myself haven't had a tremendous amount of experience playing OL, so I'd love to get some ideas. For the moment here's the ones I find myself using most often:

Red:

Lone Assassin - I find the pierce 6 on the master deep elf an excellent way to get in some damage on the high armor heroes, plus the possibility of maybe destroying an item!

Dark Brothers - Master dark priests, pretty much powerhouses that give you extra threat, and will probably dish out some curse tokens on the heroes.

Lone Troll - Hard to get these guys into decent range, but if you manage it, this guy can dish out some serious punishment with Bash and Sweep, especially if you can play an aim card on it.

Green:

Crushing Blow - No explanation needed here, as it's pretty much a must have.

Ambush - If you wanna get in a few more attacks and maybe a kill before the heroes slaughter your monsters again.

Danger - I find myself often adding in one of these cards if I have an extra point of treachery left.

Purple:

These are the ones I have the most trouble picking from, usually I will go for the "interesting" traps like Drugged Darts, Scything Blades, sometimes Dark Relic tho I find that a bit costly depending on when you play it.

Legions of the Dead and the Shade spawn give really strong and fast forces for minimum cost.

Crushing Blow, duh.

Dark Charm is an almost guaranteed kill.

Danger is great for powering the rest of your turn, especially against really fast players that push ahead without giving you many turns to garner resources.

Elite Beastman War Party's 2 master beastmen can be terrifying if advanced in a campaign (Command 6... mmm...).

I've only ever OL'ed one vanilla game and then a campaign, so my choices are geared towards a campaign, where beastmen can be really buff and skeletons are scary. Not that I've ever upgraded humanoids, but if we play another campaign I'll pick an OL with cheaper humanoids and give it a try.

James McMurray said:

Not worth it in RtL, unless your players are weak, but SoB is much better for humanoids (in case you weren't aware). The dungeon levels often have odd bits of rubble etc perfectly placed to reduce anti-spawn options.

On topic, Poltergeist is really rather powerful (so much so that it was pulled from ACs). All those monsters that weren't quite in range? - well, now they are one closer, and the heroes are one closer, so two closer. That hero with Guard standing beside a pit? - oh, you mean in the pit without the guard! That hero standing on the corner blocking spawns in two directions? - guess he is only blocking in one direction now! That door the heroes just went through? Shut, with a spawn ready right behind it who can reopen...

I like Poltergeist a lot, especially in scenarios featuring bottomless pits, rolling boulders etc

Danger is simply a great card.

There are a couple of Powers cards that I almost feel guilty using as an OL because I think they push the game towards the "not fun" area for the players: Envy and Gluttony.

I'll start with Purple cards, since I'm most expert about them (playing the Spider Queen...).

Adding for 1 treachery 1 Dark Charm is something I'd probably do even for 20 XP. Dark Charm is simply amazing (especially in AC), beause it gets stronger with the heroes, so it remains an extremely powerful weapon even when the party starts to grow big.

For the same reason I love Animate Weapons. It's pricy (both in treachery and threat), but I really believe it's worth it. 4 self-directed (and disconted) Dark Charms. The party shall be very crippled after such a blow, etting you easy-kill most of them, if played with the right timing. It's also a very mighty tool to unleash when playing an encounter using Merick Farrow (who really needs all help possible,,by the way).

Since I play Dark Charm/Animate Weapons as MUST HAVE, this leaves me with just 1 treachery...I'd go for Poison Spikes fo a few reasons. First, I like space traps the most, since they can be played more freely tan other traps (like chest or Door Traps...especially the latter are almost useless in AC). Another reason why I like Poison Spikes so much, is that they cost only 1 more threat than normal Spiked Pit and it adds 1 point of damage and POISON. 4 damages (ignoring armor) with Poison mean the hero requires to heal 8 points to get back to normal...which is a lot by any standard. Also, pits can be used to remove LOS to heroes or at least to slow them by 2 movement points, which isn't half bad (it can litterally ruin a party's plans for 1 turn). During Lt encounters (where threat is a mayor issue, unless you're playing Merick) I'd even play (I'm actually going to play) two of this card. Wit Spider Queen and Trapmaster, it's even going to cost 2 (0 if you have spawned Cobolds!) for a whole 7 Poison Damage...Awfully powerful IMHO.

I also have a liking to the Dark Relics, esxpecially for the Iron Boots or for the Black Ring (played on a mage, of course...Black Ring on Landrek: priceless!)...Of course characters can somehow scowl them off, but a character with the Iron Boots will almost certainly require ANOTHER character to go to the shop instead of him. Also, removing a Dark Relic requires 500 gold pieces, which isn't exactly few money (2 less copper items or 1 less silver item). They slow down the party both in dungeon and campaign...I haven't used them still, but I really like them.

I also like Curse of The Monkey God, but it requires the party to open a chest AND you must have monsters around to finish the job. Good stuff to take time if you're about to finish your deck, but otherwise requires too good circumstances to be played effectively, hence I'd not add one to the deck. On the other hand, Dance of The Monkey God is much better. Players don't expect ALL THEIR HEROES to become monkeys at the start of some turn and since it lasts 3 turns, you have time to wreck avoc on the party. The downside is its awful treat cost (25 IS a lot) and it's even more unsetting treachery cost (leaving you no big choices). Again, I guess that it might play well with Merick Farrow Lt encounter...

There are other nice traps in the deck and Gluttony and Greed are a pretty powerful Power Card, indeed, but I'm not very keen to paying Treachery for Power Cards...I mean, the deck already has Evil Genius, Trapmaster and Doom...But if the party has the Alchemist skill, using Gluttony might be the only way to balance the game. Also, if you're having problems with finishing the deck, I imagine Greed may come in handy. But for 2 treachery...I dunno...I think I'd still go with Animate Weapons.

NOW let's move to Green.

As everyone already said Crushing Blow is very powerful...I might even consider spending 20XP for it. It's definitely worth 15, anyway. Especially if you consider it only requires 1 treachery. If I were playing an avatar spending only 10 for event treachery I'd definitely want 2 in my deck.

My second choice are of course additional Danger Cards...always useful.

A good alternative is also Spell of Frost. Additional tools to get rid of Heroes' tools are always nice.

The other very good card for green (as already said) is Poltergeist. Very messy and very disturbing. Powerful. And cheap. Good.

Dark Balm might be a choice of some sort for Lt encounters, otherwise it's almost useless.

Urgency is one of the few Power cards I'd gladly add to my deck. It really speeds the deck's drawing, especially if combined with Evil Genius and it means it guarantees xps for finishing the deck, all the while guaranting nice additional threats to play cards in hand. I like it. Might be an alternative to additional Danger cards...

Enraged might be nice if it weren't for its awesomely high treachery cost...still, I'd give it a try if I were playing the Great Wyrm or the Demon Prince.

Perhaps also Guiding Frces might be nice...combined with doom...empowered supernaturals and many, many Dark Priests...

Enpower is another card that might be nice for Lt encounters but otherwise far less useful than others.

If you go with Urgency, I guess that Time Slips Away might also combo with it somehow.

Weakness might be nice at gold campaign level...especially during Lt encounters...otherwise I wouldn't spend treachery on it.

FINALLY Red cards. The reason I left them for last is that the "best" red cards strongly depend on wether you're playing Vanilla or Campaign and which Avatar you're using.

Bane spider nest has the big problem of spawing BIG monsters with low Hp...by the way, with the Spider Queen, these things have Pierce 2 and Burn. placing three web tokens, three burn tokens and dealing pretty nice Venom damage the same turn you spawn them, means that even if they then get instantly killed, they'll have already dealt a very big damage to the party!

Dark Brothers' only flaw is a treachery cost of 2...otherwise, it's an unvaluable card. Dark priests are heavy-hitters and great threat generators on top of that. Having two Black Curses stack also means reducing for a while the party's offence potential. And Curse tokens on heroes always prelude to great xps. If you can manage to get 2 treachery points, go with them.

Dark masters is definitely worse...perhaps usable with the Sorceror King if they have blast...but sincerely I'd still go with the priests for the same price.

Dark Servant is the only red card you can play during Lt encounters...and a nice one, fortunately, since lots of creatures become MUCH better when turned into elites. Very powerful with the Titan (and his personal Lt). You may even play 2 during Lt encounters (provided you have at least 2 treachery). During dungeons, stick to spawn cards, anyway.

Death on the wings is very nice if you have upgraded bestials. Master razorwings have stun and great movement. Very annoying for the party, and very slowing.

The same goes with Dogs of War, godd if upgraded...perhaps a must with the Master of The Hunt, but 2 treachery cost is perhaps a bit too much.

If you're upgrading humans Drinkers of Blood is POWERFUL. Master ferrox are both solid and hard hitting. Heroes definitely hate them. And this card only requires 1 treachery.

Elite Beastmen war party is very nice if you have nough treachery to spend. They are very good damage dealers and combining Command instances can bring to crippling attacks. I'd definitely go with them if playing The Beastmen Lord, but I think I'd do the same with anyone else upgrading humans for less. Another reason I like this card, is it brings lots of monsters to the table for few threats. A very good deal, no matter how you look at it.

I personally don't like shades so much, so I wouldn't use Host of Haunts...but I guess other people might have good strategies with them, hence they might be a choice of sort...

Jungle Drums is VERY powerful if you upgrade bestials. Blood Apes are the second most resilient bestial creatures and master blood apes become awesome damage dealers once they get wounded, even without being able to use the leap attack! For 1 treachery and 6 threats it's very sweet!

Another very good spawn is Kobold Horde, expecially if you're a trap player. A discount of 3 is strong enough. Besides 9 models on te board is not something that can be ignored! They're almost sure to slow down the party by sheer numbers. I like them!

Lava Beatle Colony is another nice spawn if you play beasts. With all those blasts you're sure to put some pressure on the party, expecially with the Master's Burn ability and with the increasing Pierce ability this nice bugs get in Advanced Campaign.

Legion of the Dead is plain strong. Bringing to play 6 models (nice damage dealers on top of that), two of which are Undying, means slowing your opponent...for sure. A must have with both Cpt Bones and The Sorcerer King, probably.

Lone assassin might be nice for the Beastmen Lord, since he pays a lot for Crushing Blows and he's upgrading humanoids anyway...but I'd probably prefer 2 elite beasmen war parties...

Lone Golem costs 3 treachery and summons a NON-Master Golem. I say pass, no matter who you're using...

On the other hand, a Master Manticore for 1 treachery may be a nice trade, at least if you're playing with upgraded bestials. I think I'll try that one.

Exactly the same goes with Lone Naga. Master Nagas are strong because of Command and Sorcery mostly. I think it could be a nice choice.

Lone Ogre MIGHT be nice with the Titan. Otherwise i see it as useless. If it summoned a Master Ogre it would make sense, but like this it's much underpowered as for Lone Golem.

On the opposit Lone Troll is very powerful since a Master Ogre can easily kill a couple party members with a Bash attack (just be sure you play an Aim card before rolling the dice!).

Mother Medusa...if you like medusae I guess it's fair...I don't like them anyway. There's much better in the humanoid spawn treachery options, at least for me.

Master Wendigos may be powerful if you upgrade bestials. So unfortunate they don't have any ability that rises in power with the upgrades. But for copper campaign, if you have silver bestials, a prowling wendigo is a very disturbing enemy for the party.

I don't like very much Red Power cards. If you really feel confident of your killing ability, Wrath may be a nice add-on. Dark Armor and Unholy Swiftenss are also pretty good...but additional spawns (and very good ones as we could see) will do better work on my opinion.

Cards not mentioned that I feel are powerful:

Purple

Alarm (Chest Trap) - It makes it the overlord's turn. Need I say more.

Killer Chest (Chest Trap) - Not all that useful in vanilla except for a slightly longer delay over mimic. In the advanced campaign with upgraded humanoids means it's a free attack with an upgraded ogre and the possibility of screwing over the runner with it's knockback.

Frozen Path (Space Trap) - Placing the 2 x 3 ice tile with this is an awesome tactic and severely delays the heros.

Scything Blades (Space Trap) - Damage and Bleed in a corridor the heros have to go down. Use it on the first one into the hallway.

Green

Ambush - You get to use 3 monsters on the heros' turn. Make them count for something before they die.

Envy (Power) - Great only in vanilla really. Prevents the heros from trading items and giving that mage the blast weapon the warrior got.

Red

Dark Armor (Power) - This one card often keeps a monster alive when it shouldn't have. Better in the advanced campaign because of more bosses, but has it's uses in vanilla if the overlord looks at the types of monsters ahead of time in the quest guide.

Mother Medusa (Spawn) - It has quickshot and stun so can stun 2 people at once or stun one person twice. Play rage (or enraged) for optimal effect.

Unholy Swiftness gets a passing mention because I feel it costs too much treachery for what it does. It's still useful, there is no arguing that.

Also, Elric, Enraged only costs 1 treachery and 6 threat. How does it cost too much for what it does? Charge and Rage on one card is quite significant.

I find most of the treachery cards powerful, which is why I play with random treachery,(drawing 8 cards in random from the treachery deck, pick the ones I want and then discard in random the replaced cards from the base deck).

Monster(red) treachery is amazing, at times even bordering on broken: Jungle Drums costs only one treachery and so does Lone Troll, but they're both very strong.A strategically placed master troll(in conjunction with Charge and Aim) is capable of killing the entire party in one swipe.

I'll mention Legions of the Dead as well. A good card that can prove useful early on. 4 skeletons and 2 master skeletons are great for blocking hallways and sniping heroes from afar.

Solairflaire said:

Yeah, I actually forgot about the Scything Blades, which are pretty sweet, although I still find a Poisoned Spike trap more efficient in most cases.

As for the Frozen Path, I'm not really fond of traps that just slow down heroes...if they are unlucky, on top of that...when you kill heroes, they're slowed down enogh to me. The same goes with the Killer Chest...unless Ogres have been seriously upgraded, an Ogre is only a delay, that won't delay the party enough for my tastes, in most cases.

Alarm is sweet, but I don't like very much to add chest traps to the deck, since there aren't so many chests and you find yourself with cards useful only for discarding (the same goes with door traps. Some of them are very good, the matter is they don't see much use). Perhaps I'd play it with the Sorcerer King, instead of Explosive Runes.

My judgement is biased by the fact I use the Spider Queen and can add damage to damage dealing traps. Hence I try to get the best from my Avatar's ability, but on a general basis yes...Alarm may be nice.

Ambush is good, strange enough it evaded my sight...problem is that cuncurrency by other green cards is very strong. As for enraged, I suppose i read an uncorrect treachery cost. For 1 treachery it's definitely a massive weapon.

Envy is good in Vanilla, useless in AC, expecially when you can spend that treachery on something else.

Dark Armor and Unholy swiftness look nice to me too...especially if you're playing with upgraded humanoids who are substantially melee fighters in the vast majority. Perhaps more worth their cost for the Titan, since he really wants to get at least a couple hits with his master monsters and they should help. It's just I'm more propense to add (or upgrade) the spawn cards in the deck by red treachery.

Mother Medusa as I said, is good, if you manage to use Medusae well. For similar Stunning effects I prefer having 2 Master Razorwings, but I understand that if you're upgrading humanoids, a single Medusa may perform better. On the other hand, with Upgraded Humanoids, I'd definitely give priority to the Lone Ogre or the Elite Beastmen War Party or even the Lone Assassin. But as I said, it's just me who doesn't like Medusae. I'm certain other players may find them useful and powerful. It's just that kind of women...they're not my type.

Corbon said:

Yeah, I know, but I want to do something different. Last RtL campaign I played the Spider Queen and refused to siege Tamalir, knowing that it meant I would lose, because I wanted to see the final fight. If we play again I'll use humanoids whether it's in SoB or RtL, but we'll probably end up shuffling together all of the dungeons levels from both sets that we haven't played yet, so it would be mostly SoB ones anyway.

Elric of Melniboné said:

Too bad the FAQ restricts Crushing Blow to only one copy in the OL's deck for campaign play

TeufelHund said:

I agree, I love the look on the heroes' faces when I suddenly move everything in the dungeon. Sadly, the FAQ has expelled this card from the campaign

To Zealot12: That is exactly what we do also ! Draw 8 random cards (1/4 of the treachery deck) per treachery point and choose from that pool. This removes the necessity to ban some treachery cards or restrict them to only one copy. However we've dropped the random discard of cards from the Overlord deck for the moment as we believed that this was overkill. So I still get to choose which cards I swap out form the Overlord deck. However, seeing how our SoB campaign is doing, we might reintroduce the rule as it does add some variety (But I hate it when I realize that my sole Dark Charm is suddenly unavailable throughout a whole dungeon !).

Yea, I think drawing treachery cards in random is way more fun, not allowing the overlord to cling to/rely on an overpowered favorite and adds variety to the game, letting you as the OL develop strategies with underappreciated/lesser used cards.