Hi there!

Since i got the Highland expansion the game session is pretty much reduced in a race to get the Arknell ; what do you think about that? If anyone got spells to prevent that all of my sessions finish with someone that reach the crown thanks to the Arknell!

Just checking but you are drawing the Relic for defeating the Eagle King at random, right? Unlike vanilla Dungeon rules which allow the character defeating LoD to choose (not that we ever played it that way mind you) his Treasure.

Acquisition is always nice, Transference if you're not using an insta-win ending (which sadly tends to be most of them except Crown of Command, might just sneak in with Crown and Sceptre). Or you could hover around the Portal of Power so that when the person with Arnkell reaches the Plain of Peril, attack them and take the Arnkell for yourself .

lost.prophet said:

There was no race yet in our games for the arnkell, except that i went into the highland, but was drewing some nasty cards, so i was walking out of that region.

I have still a lot of doubts about the highland vs the dungeon.

The question for me is: is it really worth to move into the highlands... ( or can you stay there so you can still win?)

Characters who are moving into the dungeon gain a lot of experience there.

But Highland has a lot of objects and other stuff. This decrease the chance to level up your character.

I still need to check this out anyway, but would be nice to hear some stories from other members here..

Arnkell is a good Relic for a speedy run to the Crown and in 50% of the cases it resulted in an early win around here. But there are many odds against that, itìs like playing Russian roulette. Trying to beat the Eagle King early on in the hope to get the Arnkell out of 4 cards is a daring thought; if you don't draw the Arnkell you increase the chances for the next Character who gets to the Aerie... maybe he will get this Relic in your place. You always take some risks rushing for Arnkell.

My group plays with hidden ending and this discourages early attempts to reach the Crown or to skip the search for a Talisman. We never saw a growing interest for the Arnkell. Highlands are a good place to visit in the early game or when you've just gained some extra power. You can easily get Objects, Gold and Spells in the Highlands with less danger than in the Dungeon. It's also a good place to plan and prepare a counterstrike against the game's favourite Character. Once I was deprived of a victory because the other players cycled the Highland deck until they found the Gong of War. I reached Valley of Fire with a weakened Priest and at the very last turn I was summoned back by the Sprite and killed on the spot. Very sad, the Priest could have won that game (and deserved it after killing the Gypsy while both were in Toad form).

I like the Highlands because they are exactly between the main board and the dungeon in terms of good & bad cards; they add some extra choices and chances, they are a place to push your luck in drawing that gives more rewards than the board with less danger, but still they don't make you level up faster as the Dungeon tackled at the right moment. In the Highlands I'm always able to find the Gold that I need and strongly consume.

Another trait of my games is that we seldomly play with all corner regions. If we're 4 or more we do, but in 3 players we use only the board and one corner. Otherwise, one of the regions will surely be set up just to draw a couple of cards and Characters/Reaper tend to be lost.

The_Warlock said:

Thanks for the answer

Oke, so it is worth to go there if characters are around strength 5 or 6.

You can draw more cards there than the mainboard and it is less dangerous than the dungeon where you can easily get crushed by a lot of enemies.

There are some characters who can benefit from that region. spell casters like the philosopher or apprentice magician can benefit from the waterfall by using their ability there. Highlander can draw more cards etc

I think that if characters has reach strength 8 a 9 or maybe 10, then they must go to the dungeon, unless they choose to move to the inner region. depends on the ending.

This sounds like a good strategy.

i will try it in our future games.

The mainboard will not see many action then we already drew not so many cards on the mainboard in our last game, because we where for most of the time inside the dungeon region.

I use hidden endings too: that scares a bit characters from using the Arknell at the early stage!

If your character is weak you'll be surely beaten by an enemy on the crown because you are going to lose also all of your followers .. but it's still attracting to win the game using the Arknell!

In my games happens often that a character teleports on the crown, find the Hand of Fate ending (i translated it from the italian,dont know if right) and automatically wins using a ... i cant find the english name, it has a four leaf clover on it ( Highland got some of that pretty object!)

lost.prophet said:

You mean Hand of Doom and the lucky Charm

Velhart said:

It may be worthy to try some draws even in the early game, when you don't have that much Str/Cft or Objects. Trinkets can be taken even if you don't already have a Mule or similar, so you won't venture there without capability to carry what you find. There are some enemies that can put you in danger but there are also ways to heal. The only thing that can scare you are the bad Events and toading chances. With the Highlands we often have at least one Toad per game. On the main board (Outer Region) a Toad can easily avoid damage, but in the Highland it's quite easy to find Enemies, at least one since you draw more cards.

Velhart said:

Spells abound in the Highland. Almost every Character will be able to get some there. Cards like Spellweaver, Spellstone and Guru are among the best Spell boosters around.

Velhart said:

The Dungeon is the place to boost stats, Highland is the place to find Gold and gear (Objects) while still fighting average Enemies. Main board still gives you the more valuable Objects and lots of "services" (shops, healing, fate).

Another thing to consider is that in the Highland there are almost 50% Str 50% Cft Enemy cards, with Craft Enemies averaging on Cft 4 and Strength Enemis on Str 3. It is a good place for Craft Characters in general.

We had pretty much the similar problem that when using one of the extra boards people tended to get to spread out and everyone was just "farming" highland and when they where strong enough to take eagle king went for it to get arnkell.

the solution to this was when we implemented the alternative rule of dungeon/highland where you must move forward all the time in dungeon/highland until you declare that your are fleeing and must then move backwards until you are out, then you can go in again. This made dangerous spaces in the expansions much more likely to happen and people tend to be more hesitant going into highland/dungeon.

Try it it's much more fun

Now that i have shown my opponent about the strategy with the arnkel card, i can be sure that the Highland will be very active in our next game.

There are some interesting objects to get there, and the draw 2/3 card spaces makes it worth to travel there.

Especially if you combine it with dragon scales. Then the only reason to travel to the mainboard is to selling stuff, getting healed or maybe something else.

Hmmm... Yesterday we played Base+Reaper cards only+Dungeon, 6 persons. Game lasted 3 hours, including timeout for pizza Then I thought for myself, what would happen, if we would add dragons (and highlands)? Wouldnt it be to much game mechanics instead of simple game?

Maybe we will try Base+Reaper+Dungeon+Dragons on 3 players game first. Will see, how this mechanics will work.

gedasm said:

If you add the Highland expansion to your game, then characters have one more region to travel too.

The game is still simple.

But the dragon expansion has dragon tokens, and that;s a new mechanic to the game.

I find out that it is not really a big problem to draw dragon tokens. It's easily done and fast.

But sometimes i still forget it, because i grab quickly the dices to move my character haha

In my last game, i won with the Martyress, because i found the special arnkell card in the highland, and kill a dragon lord right away in the inner region.

She was not so strong, and maybe i have stay to long in the Highland, but i found some nice objects there.

Highland is a place to find lots of goodies, but gaining level ups goes slow.

The biggest problem for me is that my games tend to only have 2 people, 3 at the most; the group experience is not present.

Thusly, as a result, as most alt endings revolve around a group of at least 3 or more, it's really pointless to use them at all.

I'm also debating if I should just ban the Arnkell and Cloak of Feathers altogether. With the regular rulebook ending, it's really, really cheap. Should I?

TalismanAttack said:

Well, a game can quickly end if someone gains the arnkel earlier in the game, and you play with the normal coc ending.

Only the portal of power stands in your way, and maybe the sentinel if you don't have a axe. But this will change with a endboss

In my last game, my martyress has a lot of difficulty to past the portal of power. I could not roll below seven with 2 dices . And each time, she grew weaker.

But i think you should not ban those cards out of the game.

Both dungeon and Highland can give the character a chance to land on the endspace in the inner region.

People who fall behind can still win with those cards if they are lucky.

Talisman is all about luck.

You could try it first, and see if you like it or not.

PS: Because of arnkell, this makes it more interesting to go into the Highland