I've been reading through all the available Plots and Avatars and can't seem to settle on which I'd like to use for the upcoming Advanced Campaign I'll be running with my friends. I was just curious if anyone had any particular Avatar/Plot combos that they were particularly fond of, as well as any strategies for achieving victories in the campaign.

I choose them randomly. It is more amusing and it will give you the opportunity to learn. However, I think that the Sorcerer King is the best Avatar, as he has "snipers" and "arcane energies" avatar upgrades.

Sorcerer king is definetely not the "best" avatar but you will realize that each avatar has it's weakness and pros. Sorcerer is the strongest in the dungeons with his threat machine but the weakest in the map since he has by far the worst location being in the lower part of the map and miles away from any town.

But you will find out that the game is won on the map and not on the dungeons. As many say the dungeons are only there to fuel your war with CT and if you are a hero to fuel you with money to fight the Lt's where the real battle will be.

Demon Prince seems to be the strongest in the map so he goes for ascension most of the time and with his 10 treachery upgrade and cool Lt can really demolish.

Spider Queen has a good position being close to the best town in game (with by far the best skill set to train) frostgate and is on the up Part of the map has more town and if you use that with her upgraded beasts amazing trap ability and her cool unique Lt she is a power to be reckoned but only in the hands of a veteran overlord.

The beast lord well i still haven't find a use for him since his ability is weak since at best you will gain half of the amount of threat by cheap spawns that the sorcerer king wins and his location even though not as bad as the sorcerer still isn't good as you have the big 5 defense town which you gain nothing and riverwatch that is a turn away from tamalir and not to mention you give the players the opportunity to stock on weapons every time they visit to defend it.

The great wyrm is interesting but also with a bad location on the map. Extra Ct from chests will give him a big boost and even if you are giving minimum Ct in the dungeons he will eventually pass in the front of the race fast. 4 threat from every money marker means he has also about the same ability as the sorcerer since 2 money markers in every dungeon means 8 threat on each dungeon level and since the average is about 10 rounds in each one he is also a very good beast in dungeons. He has the best treachey upgrades with 10 for event and also beast upgrades that are the best in the game since where the game is won (Lt battles) the beasts matter. overall he is a great avatar.

And finally the titan. well not much to say about him. haven't really played him since he seems to be REALLY weak on my eyes. Has the worst treachery upgrade 10 monster 15 event 20 trap. The worst ability by far. (Upgrade a dice in MASTER monsters? Really? that's all? how many master monsters you are going to get anyway? Okay in gold level i get one extra gold dice but the game has already gone the heroes way by then) And you must upgrade humanoid which is by far the worst upgrade. Humanoids have by far the lowest appearance in dungeon leaders and minions in dungeons and no appearance at all in LT minions hence his unique LT that is kinda a joke since even with silver humanoid 3 minions will be squashed by any competent group.

As about the plots ascension seems to be the best by far since any competent OL will raze cities something that in any plot you should be doing so why not gain 5 Ct on the process? And even though 4 razed might seem hard it still gives you one more winning chance.

Shackles. Well you can certainly harass players but it will cost you heavily in CT that you could have been spending in monster upgrades and treachery. But you can give it a try.

Eternal darkness. A joke. A miscalculation from ffg or a writing from someone drunk. So you must carry about 4 quest items around the map with your Lt's who should be sieging cities instead of running around the map and in order for you to make these items appear you must also pay CT really? And if the heroes have any brains at all will intercept one of your LT win him and grab the item from him and put in a safe in a town. Not to mention that in order to get the items to your keep since their spawn locations on the map are limited you HAVE to cross tamalir with the quest item in hand so i fail to see how this can be achieved with the heroes intercepting you multiple times. You might as well forge the whole plot thing and go raze tamalir.

But keep in mind that all this are kinda advanced tactics since i won 2 times with sorcerer king and ascension (and no siege engines upgrade, don't ask why i) which is by far the weakest combo (excluding eternal darkness) in game since no one really knew the game and the OL tends to squash the players are the errors from the OL are more forgiving.

So in my mind anyone expect the titan and eternal darkness is a viable path to do, but you are free to experiment since the learning curve of the advance campaign is pretty long.