Because you cant format anything on these new forums, I'm including the link to BGG which looks a lot nicer:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/374953
Session 6: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/370926
At the start of the session
Lord Hawthorne. Skills: Tough, Mighty. Equipment: Shadowblade, Plate Mail, Crystal of Tival, Crystal Shield, Ring of Quickness. XP: 71
Vyrah the Falconer. Skills: Tiger Tattoo. Inner Fire. Equipment: Great Bow, Magic Bow, Chainmail, Falcons Claw. Traits: +1 Black Ranged. XP: 56
Andira Runebound. Skills: Blessing, Prodigy. Equipment: Heavy Leather Armour, Sunburst, Cone of Fire, Mana Weave. Traits: +2 Black Magic. XP: 41
Landrec the Wise. Skills: Spiritwalker. Equipment: Wizard's Robe, Staff of the Grave, Ghost Armour, Ring of Protection. Traits: +1 Black Magic. XP: 76
Party Equipment: Guide, Karak's Map, ~2000 coins
Overlord Avatar: The Titan
Plot: Ascension
Overlord Upgrades: Siege Engines, Sir Alric Fallow, Lady Eliza Fallow, Silver Humanoids, 1 Event Treachery, Focused, 2XP
WEEK 17 continued
Dungeon Level 2: 33B - Down the Drain
I had modified this level based on the work being done by some of us on the FFG forum (
http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?e...
), so the level leader was a Deep Elf. “Shellis is a Master Deep Elf with 2 extra wounds and is immune to Pierce.”
This level is a bit odd. The water can be entered by the heroes but not by the monsters. And it doesn’t say anywhere that the water can be jumped over, only entered. And entering the water ends your turn. Very odd and counter intuitive – I think the level needs a rewrite.
We played it as written (apart from the leader change); heroes could enter the water but not jump over it, and it could not be entered or jumped by monsters. It was an interesting level – because I had changed the leader to melee only, he couldn’t do anything until the heroes tried to cross the water. So I had him hide round the corner, and then when the heroes ended their turn, he came out and attacked. Since the rules say that you end your turn when you enter the water, we ruled it at the time that this meant the heroes could not go on guard, since their turn ends immediately they enter the water. However, subsequent reading of the Guard order leads me to think we got this wrong, and the heroes can place the guard order, and then move.
So, as it was, I managed to get a couple of hits in, and thanks to a rage card, Shellis attacked twice and would have killed Lord Hawthorne if I hadn’t rolled a miss!
I also messed up an opportunity to do the party some serious damage with Dark Charm. I waited for an opportunity (and had been since the start of the last dungeon level), where I could charm Andira and use her breath attack to hurt multiple party members, but she was always in just the wrong place. So, half way through this level, I thought I had it. I put the breath template on the board and realised I had miscounted – I was only going to get one of them! Rats. Now the heroes know that I have Dark Charm in my hand, so they adjusted their plans accordingly. In fact, Andira was spending 2MP each turn to unequip the rune.
Eventually, the level was cleared. I did manage to kill Andira. The heroes activated the glyph, killed ..... and found some coins, potions and a pack of holding in the chest. The party were quite badly wounded, Lord Hawthorne just about surviving on 2 wounds. The heroes seemed to want him to get killed, since getting him back at full health was better for them than me gaining 5XP for killing him (he had a curse token)
Dungeon Level 3: 16C - What Lies Beneath
I tried and tried to kill off Lord Hawthorne. I figured this was too good an opportunity to miss. Whilst I wasn’t keen on him coming back with full health, this was my chance to earn 5XP. But I kept failing. I dropped him down a pit, but he rolled the blank and avoided it. I attacked him with something big, and rolled a miss. I even got around to playing my Dark Charm but that was shrugged off. Not my night for dice rolls (although the heroes had their fair share of misses too). In the end, I did kill him and got myself 5XP.
The big news of the night however was that Crushing Blow came out to play, and for a mere 4 threat, I destroyed Andira’s Cone of Fire. As some of you may know, I have been rather vocal about this particular Overlord card on other threads, and how stupidly broken it is and how it ruins games. However, I didn’t feel guilty about using it because the heroes have been really lucky with their skill / equipment draws so far, and all the people who think Crushing Blow is ok as it stands have a very good point that this is pretty much the only way that the Overlord can rebalance things when the heroes get the equipment which is a bit ‘too good’
Whilst I agree with this point of view, I can also see that if an OL buys Crushing Blow very early in the campaign, and then buys the second one soon after, he can keep the players very short on equipment. I have read other forums where this has completely ruined the game, and it seems that a number of Overlords choose to restrict the use of this cards because it can easily ruin the game.
Anyway, I decided to use it, since I’m in a position where I need all the help I can get, but when I did, I let my players make their own opinion about it. When I said to them that the item was gone for only 4 threat, and all it needed was for me to score a hit with any kind of attack. When I explained to them also that the next time they attack a lieutenant, I can choose to start with the Crushing Blow card in hand and use it straight away, they all agreed that this card was completely stupid and we need to do something about it next time we play a campaign.
What it did do was to eliminate a huge headache for me. Having Andira doing on average 14 damage with a breath attack meant that my minions were just getting wiped out before I could do anything with them.
In clearing out the level, the heroes gained 7 more XP (leader and glyph). I gained another 3 for emptying my deck of cards. The heroes left the dungeon with a mimic still on the map, since there was no point in killing it (It arrived through a trap card that I played from an encounter tile, and did not count as a chest). They chose to stay at the dungeon location and not return to Tamalir.
CONQUEST: Heroes: 103, Overlord: 13/71, Total: 174
WEEK 19
Overlord gains 1 XP and finally succeeds on the roll to raze Forge! Woohoo! +5XP
I used my turn to purchase the plot upgrade card 'Temple of Waves', placing it at Forge
Eliza then moves to Red Echo River, Alric moves to Riverwatch.
The heroes moved to Frostgate but got lost on the way.
CONQUEST: Heroes: 103, Overlord: 19/77, Total: 180
WEEK 20
Overlord gains 2XP. Eliza moves to Tamalir, Alric places a siege token on Riverwatch.
The heroes try again to make their way to Frostgate and have an encounter along the way. Sanguine has come back from the dead to haunt them again at a quiet pond location. Tune in next session to find out what happened.
CONQUEST: Heroes: 103, Overlord: 79, Total: 182
End of session:
Lord Hawthorne. Skills: Tough, Mighty. Equipment: Shadowblade, Plate Mail, Crystal of Tival, Crystal Shield, Ring of Quickness. Potions: 1 Health, 1 Vitality. 1 Curse token. XP: 83
Vyrah the Falconer. Skills: Tiger Tattoo. Inner Fire. Equipment: Great Bow, Magic Bow, Chainmail, Falcons Claw. Traits: +1 Black Ranged. Potions: 1 Health, 1 Vitality. XP: 68
Andira Runebound. Skills: Blessing, Prodigy. Equipment: Heavy Leather Armour, Sunburst, Cone of Fire, Mana Weave. Traits: +2 Black Magic. Potions: 1 Health, 1 Vitality. XP: 53
Landrec the Wise. Skills: Spiritwalker. Equipment: Wizard's Robe, Staff of the Grave, Ghost Armour, Ring of Protection. Traits: +1 Black Magic. Potions: 1 Vitality. XP: 88
Party Equipment: Guide, Kerak's Map, 5,450 coins
Wounds: Landrec 12, Vyrah 11, Andira 12, Hawthorne 20.
Overlord Avatar: The Titan
Plot: Ascension. Dreams of Power, Temple of Waves (Forge)
Cities Razed: Forge
Overlord Upgrades: Siege Engines, Focused, Sir Alric Fallow, Lady Eliza Fallow, Silver Humanoids, 1 Event Treachery, 21XP
Notes: There was a huge amount of misses rolled tonight. We should have really counted. It was probably about 40% of all attacks were misses. I think the number of misses on both sides cancelled out in the end, but when I missed it always seemed to be at a time when I would have killed someone.
Also, this is the first session where the Overlord got ahead on XP. I got 19, they only got 12. Although, they are in an encounter where they will probably get 2 more.
But, more importantly, I have razed a city, I have used Crushing Blow and I no longer feel that things are pointless
Whilst the heroes have lots of spare XP, they dont have enough cash to actually make use of it all, and they will be spending the next few game weeks travelling to a secret location and training up, giving me time to gain more XP, buy another upgrade, and possibly even raze another city.
The more we play, and the more other forum threads I read, the more we need to change for next time we play.