Sea of Blood Lt. Encounter Siren

By PASTORJK2, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

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I want to know if I somehow misunderstood the setup rules for encounters. I drew Clear Sailing as the encounter which puts the ship directly in the middle of the map sailing southward. The rules indicate that swimming figures are placed along the sides of the map, as long as, they are atleast 5 spaces away from The Revenge. So, I placed them along the south side with The Revenge sailing towards them (6 Skeletons, 2 Master Skeletons, and 2 Bane Spiders from Hordes of the Things). Does sides mean the east and west sides or all cardinal directions? My problem started as soon as I was out of fatigue and missing the Siren Song rolls. Obviously, as soon as this started to happen, I began to lose mad hitpoints from Nara the Fang and Varikas. Both had 4 armor, so I ended up losing 3 fatigue for each space up to a total of 12 wounds per turn because of Running (Varikas had Tiger Tattoo giving him 4 speed). They were both dead within 2 turns. My cannons never were able to hit because the Siren swam north onto the bow of the ship, made her way to the aft, and swam away calling to my heroes the whole time. How do you defeat such a devastating creature? All she has to do is declare a Run action giving her 10 spaces of movement, which hardly any hero can catch, let alone attack. Then, the heroes will eventually run out of fatigue and begin dying as a result of the song. They can leave the encounter, but then the Siren is able to continue sieging the city.

It seems like cannons aren't worth it. The overlord can position his minions, so that they never come under fire. What do you guys/gals think?

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PastorJK said:

I want to know if I somehow misunderstood the setup rules for encounters. I drew Clear Sailing as the encounter which puts the ship directly in the middle of the map sailing southward. The rules indicate that swimming figures are placed along the sides of the map, as long as, they are atleast 5 spaces away from The Revenge. So, I placed them along the south side with The Revenge sailing towards them (6 Skeletons, 2 Master Skeletons, and 2 Bane Spiders from Hordes of the Things).

1. Does sides mean the east and west sides or all cardinal directions?

2. My problem started as soon as I was out of fatigue and missing the Siren Song rolls. Obviously, as soon as this started to happen, I began to lose mad hitpoints from Nara the Fang and Varikas. Both had 4 armor, so I ended up losing 3 fatigue for each space up to a total of 12 wounds per turn because of Running (Varikas had Tiger Tattoo giving him 4 speed). They were both dead within 2 turns. My cannons never were able to hit because the Siren swam north onto the bow of the ship, made her way to the aft, and swam away calling to my heroes the whole time.

3. How do you defeat such a devastating creature? All she has to do is declare a Run action giving her 10 spaces of movement, which hardly any hero can catch, let alone attack. Then, the heroes will eventually run out of fatigue and begin dying as a result of the song. They can leave the encounter, but then the Siren is able to continue sieging the city.

4. It seems like cannons aren't worth it. The overlord can position his minions, so that they never come under fire. What do you guys/gals think?

1. There are 4 sides to the map...

2. If you go into an encounter without being well stocked up with potions (fatigue potions in particular against the Siren) then you deserve everything you get.
It is also not particularly difficult to get in a rest order for some heroes - either heavily armoured heroes with shields up, or weker heroes being protected by other heroes and the LOS blocking masts.

3. Primarily, by using a Web weapon to stop her running away. Other than that, she is actually rather weak and vulnerable herself. Her strength is the skeletons, once they are silver - they punch reasonably hard and are cheap to replace.

4. Unless the OL is Captain Bones (final battle is ship vs ship) then yes, cannons are a waste of space. You need one good one, mostly, to give you a 'threat' capability at long range on islands (mostly to enable you to knockback anything standing on a glyph).
If the OL is playing 'nice' then apparently cannons can be fun. Yeah right - if the OL is playing 'nice', I'm not interested im spending that much time investment. 'Fluffy' games are fine occasionally, but not for a 60-100 hr campaign! STill, each to his own...