Ok so as the Titan, turns 1-3 are moving Alric toward Tamalir. Turns 4-6 are placing siege tokens. Assume the avatar took Siege Engines. So now by turn 7, the OL will have a 1/3 chance of winning the game each turn. Clearly the heroes cannot allow this most basic of strategies to be played. How do they stop it? Sir Alric is a 4-30-5, with Regen 5 and 5 dice on his attack. Plus he has 7 decent minions. That is killer.

In that much time, I count the heroes could reach maybe 4 dungeons to crawl them, and maybe beat them, maybe not. But they'll come out of them with a copper each on average, and not enough gold or time to spend visiting markets or training grounds. So they clear the 4, have some decent copper stuff, and race home (flee a dungeon) to fight Alric before he gets to roll for his surges.

Who should win that battle? I cant think the game is that easy, but he seems like a hard leader to beat.

If the heroes race home (via fleeing a dungeon) their turn ends... at that point, do I have this right?

- The heroes flee. This puts them in Tamalir, each w the option to restock as part of their final dungeon action (the transport back to town and the restock are part of the dungeon turn). They then declare they've fled, the dungeon is crossed off, and the game week ends.

- A new game week starts, in which the next siege token goes on first, then the OL gets to play, and can attack the players before they get to take their turn - or before they can heal.

- But if he doesnt attack them, then what can the players do? Do the players have to declare the "Move" action in order to attack a LT, or can they take a recuperate / train action in Tamalir, and still attack in the same turn?

- Does attacking the LT in the city the heroes are in, count as their "single party action" or can they do that, then take their normal move afterwards?

Thanks!
-mike

Also... does the LT attacking the players in a city they're both in - take up the entire LT's turn, or can the Overlord order his Lieutenant to siege, but also attack the players?

poobaloo said:

1. The heroes flee the dungeon- They all go to Tamalir and can choose to restock before declaring that they are "fleeing"

2. New week starts- The OL gains conquest, the LT can choose to EITHER add a Siege Token OR "Move" and thus encounter the heroes

3. The heroes declare a "move" action- They can use the VISIT circumstance in Tamalir and encounter the LT (in any order)

4. To encounter the LT, they must take a "Move" week action and "End their movement" in the same location as the LT. See number 3 above.

Hope this helps!

The Heroes can win. My group once defeated three out of 4 Lts that were sitting on Tamilir right at the transition of Copper to Silver.

Big Remy said:

Indeed. Due to some inept play on my part, and a bad rule mistake that set it up, I lost two of the three family Lieutenants, escaping only with Alric, while in bronze but over 200CT (we passed 200 in a dungeon and the heroes fled back to Tamalir to break the seige before I rolled for the win). However thats at the end of bronze which is the relative best time for the heroes. At the relative beginning it is significantly harder. Turn 7 is likely to be fairly early on in Bronze unless the heroes have been pushing too hard in dungeons and conceding CT hand over fist. The heroes will be unlikely to have had an opportunity to Train much, if at all, nor will they be likely to be heavily stocked with bronze treasures. OTOH the OL is unlikely to be heavily stocked with Treachery (which is what makes the most difference in Lt encounters).

If it is only Alric, then the heroes, unless they have been very unlucky with treasure draws, have about a 50% chance - if they play extremely well. Any mistakes and a TPK is quite possible. If the OL has managed to both upgrade monsters and purchase an extra Lt or two (and get them to Tamalir) then the Heroes are in fairly deep trouble as successive Lt encounters will be painful for them.

This is a significantly worthwhile OL strategy for winning the game, though not much fun (it kills the campaign in its infancy). It is not by any means guaranteed to succeed however and a significant blow to the OL if it fails. IMO though, it is the most likely 'thing' to 'break' RtL. Having said that, so what? The heroes lost, start again with a new group, and maybe a new OL (player or Avatar), there will still e lots to explore and enjoy in this game.

It is better to kill a campaign soon than to drag a defeat out - if the Heroes let the OL upgrade the beasts of Alric sitting at Tamalir, or even buy treachery, before driving him off, then they clearly do not play well.

Also, don't forget that Alric can be dropped on Tamalir on turn one, using the Transport Gem. So, the Heroes have like three turns to stock up and kick his behind.

All true, but if Alric is there ready to drop the hammer you might as well take a shot at him. If you TPK, you're back in Tamilir and if he misses his raze roll, you get another chance at him.

Xandria said:

How are they going to stop it? - assuming a competent OL. THink they can bust Alric before that they have conceded 25-30CT in the campaign? Or that the OL will let them even get a shot before he has an upgarde or Treachery? It might mean a few extra weeks before the fight, but it will still be relatively early in the campaign.

Corbon said:

It depends on the setup of the heroes, how well they do at getting initial treasures, what skills they start with, how well they roll against Alric (or how poorly he rolls against them) which encounter setup is drawn etc..... There are so many variables at work in this game that you just can't predict what will happen. Don't forget the party can purchase the defense upgrades for Tamalir giving them a few turns to go treasure hunting. First round of copper treasures and some power potions and the heroes can usually put some hurt on Alric.

I'll agree with Xandira (as usual)... if the campaign looks like its a bust for the heroes, then concede the game and start a new campaign. Switch heroes, skills, Avatar, plot etc... even change out the OL player. Its a game. A game that pits a single player against up to 4 others. It's not chess, it's not chutes and ladders, and it's not a Puerto Rico or Settlers. There is no formula you can just apply to Descent. It's a game that rewards planning, deviousness, strategy, tactics, reacting to unforseen circumstances, making the best with what you have, and praying to Lady Luck.

Just try to have fun!

I agree with Oboewan .

There is no formula for this game and luck has it part.

LT can be beaten in the Bronze level but needs some planing and cautious playing.

And since these are encounters and the OL does not get threat per round and not any OL cards (except the ones he starts with because it is a LT encounter) you can play it safe. Use a LOT of dodge and a LOT of aim.

You need him to retreat. Not kill him. Well, we all want to kill him, but if you just frighten him and play it safe, you still get to send him home. In the meantime you crawl another dungeon and get stronger. And if he tries it again then maybe you could kick his behind, being more powerful now.

It is possible. And there is no "real" rush in the encounter so play it safe.

Worst case scenario, you start again :-)

Lieutenants are all bark and no bite. They look scary and players often avoid them but, truth be told, there isn’t much to be scared about.

By the end of week two the heroes should have at least one dungeon under their belt and this should be enough to equip a party with the gear necessary to drive off, if not kill, a Lieutenant.

I’d actually like to see a match-up between a Lieutenant and a group of heroes with starting gear to see how it goes. I bet it’s a lot closer than most people would guess.

Actually, one guy from the old forum played this situation against himself several times, awarding a few treasure draws and potions to heroes who face an Alric who TransportGemrushed Tamalir... the fight is possible, if not easy, with some 60% success rate at driving him off, UNLESS you let him get beasts to silver of course.

Actually you certianly can beat a Lietenet at Copper. The game I'm playing in our PC's took on a Lietenet who was sieging Greyhaven and they didn't want to lose out on the city. One our PC's was Laughin with the Bear Tatoo facing off aginst one of the Farrows (The magical one). He grappled down the Farrow and then the PC's ganged up on the overlord inflicting enough wounds to kill him. Of course it was made easier because we also had some useful feat cards that got the ball moving and we blew a few to pull it off.

As for our Overlord, he house ruled feats are gained from Glyphs and can be carried outside of dungeons. But to limit the number of feats, if you go through the feat deck it dosen't reshuffle until the next phase (The Feat Decks are reshuffled once in silver, once in gold), meaning that PC's won't have an endless number of feats. But since we're currently over 100 in total CT's at the moment and less than half way through the feat decks then I don't see anyone running out of feat cards easily.

Iuz said:

Actually you do.

Page 16 of the RtL rulebook. You gain threat as normal in Encounters, and in addition if you have bought any Treachery you can get cards to use with it.

Big Remy said:

Also- in case you meant differently Luz- the power card the LT starts with is automatically put in play.

Hey.

You are right Big Remy, he does get normal threat. Sorry for the mix-up. And it is on page 14 and not 16 :-P

Also Oboewan I did not get it wrong, just too bored to write the whole details :-) Yes he gets the one for free and he can use treachery to buy some more, one time use, OL cards.

I have some more questions though just to be sure I have cleared some stuff and we all agree on them. A is the most important. The rest are details pretty much but what the heck...

A)

On Alrics card it says: 2 Beastmen, 2 Razorwings, 2 Hell Hounds and 1 Sorcerer. This is the number of the creatures the LT can reinforce. That means that this is the number he can at any one time have on the table, or is this the total reinforcements he gets?

For example he reinforces 1 sorcerer. The sorcerer dies. Can he then get another one? One sorcerer is the total number of sorcerers he can reinforce in the whole encounter, or the number of sorcerer he can have in the game at any one time?

B)

The Lt enters the encounter with no minions at all, right?

C)

The OL buys cards with treachery. So the ones with treachery cost he selects them from the trachery deck. He can also buy two other cards at the cost of one treachery. Does he get to select the two other cards from his normal deck?

Cheers

About questions A and B...

As I understand it the OL starts the battle with the LT and all his minions present.

He can then reinforce as many as he likes as long as the monsters he reinforces with are in the minion list.

That is what I believe.

That's right for A and B.

As for C, as long as the two cards from the normal deck are the same type as the Treachery point its legal. So if you have 1 point of Trap treachery, you can get a single 1 Point Trap treachery card or 2 normal trap cards.

Iuz said:

As many as he likes - in a single turn? So if he has 21 threat, he can reinforce three 7-threat-cost monsters (provided they're on his card) all in one turn, or is it a one reinforce per turn deal?

-mike

poobaloo said:

Straight out of the rulebook p14:

Reinforce ability

allows the overlord to place a new monster (or monsters)

of the listed type off the board, but next to one of the exit

spaces of the map (see “Exit Pieces” on page 32).

poobaloo said:

The only 7 point monsters I can think of are demons(at least that you can reinforce). I beleive that there are only 1 or 2 demon figures, so he can't ever have more than that many on the map. The figure limit still applies in encounters.

The person who pointed out that lieutenants are more bark than bite is correct. I normally overlord, but for this particular campaign I am playing a hero. We have killed two lieutenants (with only two copper treasure - in game week 3 I think). We killed Alric and the demon prince specific lieutentant, one after the other. Most lieutenants do pitiful damage at copper. For example the demon guy rolled a white, yellow, green, and blank which is anywhere from 0-8 damage, probably averaging around 5-6 or so (with 4 armor on a tank, thats only 2 damage). I will admit our new overlord player did not do so well and probably should have ran away with both of the lieutenants. Once he brought them in range we killed them in one round and I think he was expecting to be able to run before they were killed. With liberal use of power potions and fatigue it was not too difficult. He used crushing blow in the second encounter (but had a back up weapon) and I forget what he did in the first (he only had one treachery and no other upgrades - as demon lieutenant is 16 conquest to purchase). It also helped that he had the yeti (immune to fear) and weapon mastery skill (two free surges) so that the fear did not matter, and spiritwalker helped as well.

I agree generally that Lts are more bark than bite. However if they have an up[garde, particularly Beasts, they can be quite nasty. 2 Silver Razorwings can block off a corridor nicely, trapping the heroes on many maps (and they can shift to block a different corridor easily) and if the heroes cannot pot at least one per turn (due perhaps to limited range damage dealing capabilities) and still push forwards then a smart OL can walk over them. Silver Razorwings at Range 5+ (Soaring, and you don't want your ranged guys in the front line if you can help it) are not that easy to kill for a early bronze party, especially if the monsters target the ranged heroes first and can get rid of one early. Unless the party has Telekinesis or Acrobat, the Melee heroes are out of the fight (except to attempt to guard the ranged heroes) and the shooters/magic users limited to sniping only at the Silver Razorwings. Whose numbers steadily increase.

The best early win for an OL is Alric to rush Tamalir, not arriving until Beast have been upgraded, and the next 10CT should be spent on an event Treachery. In the first 3-5 weeks OL should be able to get to 25. Then just got to get to 35 before the fight. If not achieved withdraw and come back, this time with extra Lts.

That probably means dragon Avatar since that is the Beasts 25/Events 10 combo IIRC.

The Lt should never be anywhere near the action.