My board game group is about to start a Descent campaign, we'll be using the base game and the Road to Legend expansion. We're all seasoned gamers and I'll be running the Overlord and like to make sure it's challenging. We've played the base game twice and are planning to start a RtL campaign this week. So mainly I'm asking for advice on picking an avatar, plot and upgrades. Which ones should I avoid, which ones are useful etc.

Sinivar said:

First, the Advanced Campaigns are just that Advanced Campaigns. You probably don't have enough base game experience to get he most out of RtL yet, but as long as you go in with a learning attitude and can accept that it might at times feel hugely imbalanced (it isn't as unbalanced as it will appear to you, but it does take skilled players to play it well and it is very unforgiving), you can still have a lot of fun.

My first, best, advice, would be to go back and play the base set until you have done all the quests at least once. Play with a different set of heroes every time, so you get some idea of hero strengths and weaknesses, party balance, skills, equipment and also the OL cards. Also, rotate the OL player around the group - you will all learn a lot more about the game and the capabilities by playing both sides occasionally.
In Advanced Campaigns, the hero decisions drive the engine of the game. Thus they need to be paying close attention to the strategic 'campaign' plan and options. Many (most?) newer players will tend to get caught up in the tactical in-dungeon game, which is merely the workings of the engine, not the actual driving decisions. Thus, while they are learning and paying close attention to the pistons driving, wheels revolving, motor turning over, they aren't watching the road and they drive smack into a tree or off a cliff. Heroes, in particular, need to have the in-dungeon tactical game into their comfort zone already so that they are able to keep the bulk of their attention on the strategic plan and strategic considerations. The should be constantly modifying and tailoring their tactical plan to fit the strategic requirements.

Having said that, you are still free to jump in the deep end! So assuming you do that, continuing on...

My second piece of advice is for the heroes to do some decent research. You are going to play a game that takes 60-100 hrs. Decisions and mistakes you make in the first hour will still be hurting you after 50hrs, so you are well advised to try and learn from other people's mistakes rather than make all the obvious ones...
If each player spend 1-2 hrs reading here and on BGG, then they spend another hour or so discussing what they learned and what they think it means and what their strategies should be - before and after making up their party, then they are far more likely to enjoy the game and get a great experience.
Heroes should have an understanding of their own capabilities. They should have an understanding of their potential upgrade paths - what are the good skills for which type of hero, where are those skills found, etc etc.
Heroes should have an understanding of the OL's upgrade path. What threats does the OL have for them. What nasty upgrades will he aim for early, and what does that mean for the heroes - will they be fighting monsters with 30 wounds and 6+ armour soon? How hard will Lt fights be? How many Lts can the OL throw at them (or move around the board to seige cities). How can the OL win the game (and what can/must they do to stop him)?

My third piece of advice is for the OL. Don't start with the Sorceror King. He is one of the weaker Avatars in fact, but he is very very strong in the dungeons, against weaker or new hero players. The OL doesn't win the game in the dungeons, he wins on the Map, but new players don't understand this and they get very demoralised easily by how strong the SK is in dungeons. Getting pounded is fine when you know it will end, and you will get your own back, but when it seems to go on and on and on for 40+hrs and you don't know it is limited it is very morale sapping.
The Demon Avatar is the strongest, so probably best not to start there either. The Spider Queen feels like the weakest, but is actually one of the strongest, especially against good hero players, so might be better left for a later campaign when the heroes are veterans and the OL needs more tricks up his sleeve. Any of the others are ok, although the Titan can be very rough on the Map and win very early n if the OL focuses on the Map and plays smart.

Plots are actually slightly less important IMO, others might have better ideas there (BGG should have some decent analysis I'd expect).

My fourth piece of advice is for every player to have a copy of the FAQ and read it every night, then sleep with it under his pillow.

Whatever happens, I'd expect your first campaign to be a crushing OL victory and for the heroes not to get too despondent, but to discuss what they learned (especially strategically) and how to improve. Possibly repeating the research then, as more of it will 'make sense' and stick in the mind better.

We do a wide variety of gaming, the idea of the advanced campaign appealed to us but spending 1-2 months gaming once a week to get that familiar with everything before doing the advanced campaign won't happen. That's why we're not playing with the extra two expansions, and kind of why I made the original post. I do appreciate what you have mentioned, although some of it doesn't seem clear on the 'why' aspect of things yet. We've only played the base game so far, and it seems that once the heroes get silver chests they don't have any trouble killing things, and once they get gold ones they're almost unstoppable. I haven't seen the advanced campaign rules and stats in action yet to get a good idea of how it'll run though.

From my first two reads through the RtL rulebook these are some of my first impressions, are they accurate?

Heroes will gain usually 15 XP for exploring a normal dungeon (1 Glyph and 1 leader on each floor, so 5xp per floor), although some floors will have 2-3 Glyphs so that could get up to 21+. It seems to me they'll mainly focus on alternating between dungeons and training/buying in the early copper stage, and gradually shift some of their focus to dealing with the overlord's actions as the game progresses.

The main source of XP for the overlord seems to be from killing heroes. The weekly income for the OL seems mainly there to keep the heroes from sitting around too long (unless the OL manages to raze a city or three), but I don't expect it to make or break the game, especially if, as I expect them to, the players keep things moving quickly. Also, the dungeons don't seem like they'll last long enough for the OL to get through his deck and reshuffle it to acquire XP that way.

Am I missing anything important with regard to gaining XP?

Heroes gain 1 XP for entering a new dungeon, 2 for first/second/encounter level boss, 3 for Glyphs, 4 for third/final/leutenant level boss, meaning they get an average of 20 XP per dungeon.

The Overlord gets his XP from killing, 1 X passing weeks +1 for each destroyed city, extras depening on avatar/plot.

DON'T let your players choose their characters. They must randomly draw them (or choose among randomly drawn), that's a very important piece of balancing in this game, since heroes are NOT balanced in the least. My first campaign experience was with chosen heroes and we pawned the Overlord so much that he abandoned in mid-Silver Campaign.

On the other hand, feel free to choose your Avatar as you like (they're fairly overall balanced). I like The Spider Queen and The Great Wyrm the most, but The Titan is the strongest on the map and The Sorceror King is probably the best in Dungeons. Plans should be taken based on the Avatar. The Beastmen Lord and the Titan are strong on the map, so you should choose either the Plot that requires razing cities or that of gaining the objects around. On the other hand, other avatars (Spider Queen and Sorceror King) enjoy gaining the early bonuses of the other plot the most (especially because the last plot card gives you a chance during the final battle). The Great Wyrm and Daemon Prince are fine with almost everything...just remember to base your strategies on what plot you've chosen.

One more note: the game gets much more interesting with the other expansions. Really, WoD, AoD and ToI expansions don't add that much complexity to the game, just a few more interesting options, which give great depth to the game, so don't be afraid to use them, since things won't get that confused. ToI even adds some dungeon levels, a Rumor and a few outiside maps and encounters. On the other hand, Sea of Blood offers you a big deal of new dungeon levels you can mix with RtL ones (and those dungeons are probably even better designed) and new Rumors (which is nice). SoB also has slightly different rules for playing the final battle between the OL and the Heroes and a balancing rule for when the campaign gets "unfavorable" to one side. I know most people don't like that rule, but I personally love it. It also tends to prevent pawned heroes from discouraging that much in the beginning. As for the final battle, SoB one gives a chance to the Avatar (the Avatar really has no chances in RtL, on my opinion, except perhaps for the Deamon Prince and the Great Wyrm), but needs some tweaking if applied to the Beastmen Lord (otherwise, he'd be invincible).

Hope you enjoy your first campaign!

switch overlord role or at least get your players to read the rules and faqs. don't assume anything and read the descriptions carefully. our group made a lot of mistakes by (wrongly) interpreting rules that weren't even there to begin with.

Sinivar said:

Fair enough.

I would strongly repeat the car analogy though, mostly for the heroes. The 'action' in the game is tactical, just like the basic game (there are subtle differences). But the overall game is a big strategy game that gives meaning to the tactical game. Running the tactical game is important, but you have to know where you want to go and how you want to get there, not just focus on making sure you engine turns over smoothly. The heroes need to use their tactics to advance their strategy.
Be aware of driving along with your head under the hood making sure the engine doesn't seize up, and then hitting a tree or going over a cliff because you were on teh wrong road and not even watching it.

Sinivar said:

That seems to be a reasonable overview. One very important thing for the heroes to understand is that they have the power of choice. They do not have to (and often should not) complete a dungeon. They can flee, and particularly early on, should flee quite often. The OL's power increases through a dungeon (as he collects more resources each turn and they accumulate, even if he spends some of them) so the later/lower levels will often cost the heroes more than they will gain.
Make sure the heroes have at least heard of Blitzing.
A few groups make a philosophical decision to avoid blitzing. They usually move on to other games swiftly. FFG gave the heroes options for a reason.

I noticed on BGG you asked more about direct OL strategies.

It is a little more complex to explain, but just like the heroes, the OL should know what he needs to do to win, and be focused on achieving that.
You can win by Tamalir Raze, Plot victory, or Final Battle (Avatar vs 4 heroes - trust everyone, the OL won't win this way almost ever).
Both Tamalir Raze and Plot Victories are usually achieved by the actions of Lts on the Map board.
But to progress, the OL needs to earn CT too, and most of your CT comes from killing heroes in the dungeons.
So you need to balance strnegthening your power in dungeons with strengthening your power on the Map (more LTs).
Treachery can be used by Lts to make them very powerful, so is important for the Map game and only occasionally useful in the dungeon game.
Monsters are important, but different clases of monsters have different strengths - Beasts are best on the map, and Eldricth in the Dungeons.
OL Keep location makes a difference as any Lts that flee from a fight will return there - a keep that is a long way from anywhere weakens an OLs chance of doing well on the map because fleeing takes his Lts out of action for several turns.

The best I can say as OL strategically is to know your upgrades, know what complements each other, know your plot and Avatar options and try to pick synergistic upgrades.

Oh. Both sides should check the stats etc.
Heroes are used to having three skills from the start, and killing almost every monster with one attack. Well, this time yhey start with only one skill, which is a startling in power, and the monsters can be upgraded and be a lot tougher. Many monsters will take more than one hit to kill (especially once they are upgraded) - which means double or more resources, even though it sounds like not much!
The heroes will progress too, so over time they will kill even very tough monsters very quickly, but the equation will change repeatedly through the game.

I appreciate all the advice. One thing I am a little unclear on right now is how does the OL's hand of cards work for Lt fights if playing without the other two expansions? (ie using 'Simplified Treachery', the description under simplified treachery only mentions dungeons, not Lt encounters)

Sinivar said:

Use Simplified Treachery in the dungeons.

For a Lt fight use the normal Treachery rules. Note that non-treachery (normal) OL cards can be selected and they cost half a treachery point each. So, for example, if you have one point of each treachery type you could put in your hand a Rage (event), Aim (event), Dark Charm (trap), Crushing Block (trap), and two spawn cards (probably of your upgraded monster type). That gives the Lt a lot more options!

RtL pg 16
Second, the overlord gains access to a small number of cards in an encounter when a lieutenant is involved . He automatically puts into play, for free, at the start of the encounter, the Power card named on the lieutenant card under the portrait (for example, “DOOM!” for Sir Alric Farrow). In addition, if the overlord has any treachery, he may spend it on a hand of cards.
Each card added to his hand in this way costs its normal treachery cost. Additionally, two cards without a treachery cost can be added to his hand for one treachery of the correct type (although Power cards can’t be added to his hand at all). Cards in the overlord’s hand may be used normally during the encounter, either played or discarded for threat. However, each card is a one-shot opportunity: once a card has been played during an encounter, it’s gone for the rest of the encounter.

Yeah I have the RtL rulebook, but without access to the other two expansions I have no idea of how Treachery normally works.

I don't believe you can use spawn cards (even coming from treachery) during Lt encounters, but for sure you can discard them for extra threat...

It is perfectly legal to use spawn cards in Lt. encounters in RtL, but not in SoB.

There is even a FAQ or GLoAQ clarification for the use of spawn cards in that circumstance.

REAAAALLY interesting...Do you have a link to such FAQ or GLOAQ?

Well, the GLoaQ thread is right on top of the first page of this forum, the entry should be there. It didn´t make into the FAQ yet, though.

In addition, the use of spawn cards is not explicitly exempted in the treachery rules for Lt. encounters. Only power cards are explicitly forbidden to be selected and used.

eNTi said:

I wish my group did this!