Hello,

I could use a little help here. We have started playing RTL and I am playing as OL. The champions managed to get into SILVER - and now things are starting to get nasty both for the heroes and for the OL.

They have a really nasty character - The Dwarf ( brother Glyr) and he has some cool stats. 5 armor + grapple + taunt. One extra shield that cancels 2 wounds and it;s immune to poison, pierce, breath, etc.

He really makes my life a hell. I was considering buying some treachery to add a new trap card - and play a dark relic on him ( the one that reduces your base movement to 1 and you cannot declare run), but even then, he would move 3 spaces, instead of 5- and 8 when he declared run. This would slow the heroes down, but I am not sure if it;s worth it.

Any suggestions on how to kill / slow / get rid of the dwarf ?

The bear tattoo skill card should be removed from the game, so no more grapple for him.

Grubsnik said:

This is fine if you didn't start your game with it before the FaQ clarified it's removal. For those of us who did allow it's play, most of us don't want to start up an arguement with the player who uses it, or worse, just because the rules were changed from the way the original release played. As well changing it at any time after Copper is pointless as it will have already drastically altered the way the game will play through, removing it now before the game is done would just be pointless and stir up issues.

On the other hand, now that I have seen how powerful it is I know why it was removed (though I made a ruling that Grapple didn't affect Ltn's or level Leaders to keep some balance). When we start up our second campaign, I will remove Grapple (Telekinesis wasn't in use so I removed it, and all the OL treachery cards listed).

It is fine to say "remove it from the game" if you aren't playing with the person who's using it and they've been using it for awhile, try after it's been allowed through most of the campaign and all you can do is hope your player will be reasonable and accept it (though since you'll have to allow a "trade" skill card, beware, he'll probably choose something just as bad).

True that, given those restrictions you are stuck in a tough position. What Avatar are you playing and what upgrades have you purchased thus far?

Moshuromania said:

Now to the strategy part since I am pretty much in a similar boat (only mine has 8 armor against ranged and magic, and 11 against melee, as well as Ironskin).

I am using the Beastman Lord as my Avatar, so I don't have to worry about sniper skeletons or I'd have been really screwed. I use one of the furthest creatures that won't make it to the heroes and is fine for a sacrifice to block LoS to my hero groups Tank, effectively cutting off Taunt, this allows me to make a series of ranged attacks past both the monster and the Taunting hero. As long as that monster doesn't get killed by a guard order you are guaranteed to kill any use of Taunt. It forces you to expose your troops a little more than you like but if you have enough monsters and can get in the hits and a kill it's pretty much worth it.

As to Grapple, always look for the route with the shortest amount of spaces to pass through near the Grappling hero. Use lesser and sacrificial monsters to fill these spaces (1, 2 or 3 is what you'll need depending on how many spaces you have around to play with). This helps if you have several masters or more threatening creatures on the board. The heroes will likely use their guard orders for those more threatening opponents so if you send in lesser monsters to fill the spaces you'll be grappled, and you have enough movement you can move over the Grappled monsters and easily bypass this defence.

The players will look for ways to counter both of these but each has worked well to date. I can say, Kill that Dwarf before his armor gets higher, if you have the expansions with Treachery "BUY CRUSHING BLOW" you will need it, as long as it doesn't run you an arm and a leg in CT. Also if you get a chance to have multiple Command with high damage creatures, use it, it will penetrate his armor like a hot knife through butter. Command is pretty much the only thing the Tank in my group is afraid of.

wonderful advices, thx a lot guys.

I have read some guides on the net, of ppl actually explaining their tactic. one would be to block LOS to the taunting hero, and therefore you cannot taunt, and a nother good strategy would be to exhaust the movement points of attacking monsters and therefore attack the desired hero.

I am also considering the trap card ( permanent - until the hero dies) that limits the movement speed to 1 ( in the case of the dwarf 3 with his special ability). will keep u guys posted. Thx for the feedback.