My players are getting a bit discouraged. I have 4 event treachery and 2 summon treachery. So when we enter a lt. battle they are worried I am going to just crush them, especially with the demon lt. as I have eldritch at gold. I want to make sure I am doing things correctly.

So my first turn I summon dark legion, 2 master skeletons and 4 normal skeletons. I am able to do this with discarding danger. They are able to place close to the heros because of all the trees that are usually on the board. So with the normal sorcerors and demon that are already on the board, combined with the new skeletons. It becomes a very tough battle for them. Then you add on my second turn I summon another 2 master skeletons and 4 normal ones. It makes things really really tough.

Am I using the treachery correctly? Summoning monsters correctly? They are summoned the same as in dungeons and not by the reinforce rules, right?

Thanks for any help.

Brian

Woerth said:

No.
As per the GLOAQ spawns in Lt encounters ar treated as reinforcements in all respects. That means they must be placed of the edge and move on next turn only.
Q. Can spawned monsters in outdoor encounters be activated the same turn or are they treated as reinforcements?
A. 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

That is good to know, that will help some. Although, as we looked at things closer. The turn starts and before the heroes first turn, I discard danger and some other card. Then I cast ambush. I move the demon up and shoot their high powered damage dealer, move the master sorcerer up and shoot and another sorcerer up. This kills their biggest damage dealer almost every time. Leaving them in a very bad position to take out the rest of the creatures. Which allows me to summon the skeletons and have them ready to finish the players off.

Thoughts? Is this how it is meant to go?

Brian

Woerth said:

Wind Pact.
They must have it when you have lots of Treachery or they are screwed. Ambush would be eh card most likely t be removed I think - especially if you also had several Rages etc...

Because of high treachery Lt encounters, Wind Pact is the single most important skill in RtL You can get by without any other single skill, no matter how useful. You can't get by without Wind Pact.

If your heroes didn't figure this out earlier then they will probably lose but have learnt something.

They do have wind pact. They get rid of crushing blow. They believe that me destroying one of their items will result in nearly the same result, but with them having lost an item for the encounter and weakens them very much overall. By destroying the "tanks" armor I make him very vulnerable to the monsters and will be able to kill him in short order.

They are fairly prejudice against crushing blow. They think it is not only a powerful card, but it is also not a lot of fun. Is this a serious tactical error on their part? Or is crushing blow as good as they think it is?

Brian

If treachery is making your heroes miserable, try playing with random treachery. That's how we play. Draw 8 random cards from the treachery deck, choose among those 8 which ones you want,(making sure they don't exceed your curret treachery quota) then swap out in random the same number of cards from the base deck. This way you'll get to see more treachery cards in play, and won't need to rely on overpowered balance-disrupting favorites.

Woerth said:

Choices have consequences. If they choose to WP CB then they suffer the rest.

And yes, IMO it is a serious tactical error on their part.
1. They should have backup equipment. ANd it is only one item, if they flee the Lt then they have a month or more before that Lt is a threat again.
2. They are giving up their best hero dead (and gone) before they get a turn (Ambush) in order to not lose an item? They deserve to lose!
3. If CB goes off that is an attack they have not suffered damage from.
4. They should try Invisibility potions and dodge orders (ToI, if you have it).

On a related note: In the next session we are facing the first Lt. battle with a large Lt. involved (Kratz). If Kratz wants to flee, does he (or she?) have to move completely off the map edge (i.e. for 2 MP), or is it sufficient to move half the base off the map for 1 MP and the rest disappears, since half-off/half-on isn´t possible?

Parathion said:

1MP

RtL pg16
Fifth, a lieutenant may flee off of the board through an exit space just like a hero .

RtL pg15
A hero may flee an encounter by spending one movement point while standing on an exit piece . His figure is simply removed from the board. Such
a hero cannot return later in the encounter

Although it might be assumed that spending 1MP is the same as 'moving entirely off' (for 1 space sized heroes) it technically isn't exactly the same thing - it just happens to be the same in some circumstances. The actual requirement is to simply spend 1 MP while standing on an exit piece. There is nothing about getting entirely off.
That is, incidentally, also consistent with SOB where encounters end when any space of a ship leaves the map.

Thanks, I missed that part. Seems pretty clear.

Regarding the same battle, I am thinking about spawning (lots of) Kobolds. Would a soaring razorwing (or Kratz) add to the Kobolds´ Swarm ability? Probably not, because Soaring ignores adjacency.

Parathion said:

You got it...

Woerth said:

Crushing Blow is a powerful card, no doubt. But the heroes also have powerful gear. The right Gold item in combination with a given hero can make them nigh unstoppable, and if they get to keep that item forever, the game is pretty much over. It's a common psychological error to emphasize your opponent's power while conveniently forgetting your own, and then claim the opponent's power is unfair. It's especially common in Descent, where people have a tendency to forget that the OL is allowed to win , too. It's natural for the hero players to want to win, but to expect to win is wrong. That's not how the game is designed.

Crushing Blow (and Frost) is the OL's answer to powerful (mostly Gold) items, to allow him to level the playing field and get a few kills in once the party is fully geared. In Copper it may seem somewhat unfair, even in Silver if the heroes don't have the best gear, but in Gold it's definitely fair play. Used in Vanilla where the heroes can expect to have Gold gear by the end of the play session, it works much better. A reasonable OL will probably hold onto the card until he sees something he absolutely cannot let the heroes keep. One of the side effects of the Advanced Campaign is that each tier of gear is stretched out further than originally designed. It takes longer to get up to the good gear and in that time the heroes will more than likely see the OL use CB on their low-level gear and go "man, that's totally unfair!" The OL will play, and draw, and play the card because he has time to kill more than anything else. He knows he'll cycle the deck umpteen times before the heroes have gear that really calls for CB, so he plays it just to avoid the self-guilt of throwing it away all the time. The heroes' tactical response, as Corbon mentions, is to keep backup gear. It's not ideal, IMHO, but it works. It's a side-effect of the extended AC play that would be difficult, if not impossible, to avoid entirely, so I don't really blame FFG for sloppy rules ( this time. )

The moral of the story is that the heroes should re-evaluate their tactics. They're gunning for the obvious target when they should be thinking about what will actually hurt them. In the meantime, you can use their tactical ignorance to hurt them and rack up a few wins. This is what the OL generally does - exploit hero mistakes. The easiest way to teach the heroes about these sorts of decisions is to let everyone take a crack at being the OL. Of course, if you only play AC that could take a lot of time, so maybe you should try a few vanilla sessions. This is why some of us around here like to say the Advanced Campaign is for Advanced players, I suppose.