Can you flip the reinforcement marker and spawn on the same turn, or does the reinforcement marker have to be face up at the start of your turn to be able to spawn.

quartersmostly said:

I believe you can spawn whenever it is flipped, which includes flipping and spawning the same turn.

Taken from the rulebook:

The Reinforcement Marker
In the Advanced Campaign, the overlord player is limited as to
how often he may play spawn cards. At the start of every
dungeon level, the overlord places the reinforcement marker in
front of him faceup (the side with the red eyes). When the
overlord plays a spawn card, he must flip the reinforcement
marker facedown. While this marker is facedown, the overlord
player may not play spawn cards. The overlord player may
spend 15 threat on his turn to flip the reinforcement marker
faceup. Otherwise, the reinforcement marker stays facedown
until the end of the dungeon level.

No restrictions on when you flip it over, other than during the OL's turn. So if you have the tokens, flip then spawn away. It's a good way to keep the party from getting too relaxed.

That's what I thought but i was just checking to make sure. One of the hero players disagreed with my interprutaion of the rules saying that it should count as your one spawn per turn otherwise you would never pay 15 unless you were going to immediately spawn so after the intial spawn the token is always face down.

Not always... it's a great mental game to play with the heroes.

If they're heading to the dungeon boss and you're sitting on 20-25 tokens, it might be a good idea to flip that thing over anyway. The heroes will notice and start playing either more recklessly to kill what's there before you add more, or more defensively "knowing" that more is coming. Even if you end up waiting a couple of turns to play that spawn card, you're still changing the pace of the game.

Also, you can leave it over, and do a nice surprise attack. Last session of play, my group finished off the 3rd level of the dungeon, and were arguing over weither or not to grab the last couple of treasures (one of our group is a loot fanatic). A couple of us were hurting, so just left leaving the other two behind. The OL then pulled a surprise spawn, and managed to kill one of the 2 that was left before the last person could run for safety.

It all depends on the situation.

I guess but it seems like a pile of threat should scare them enough. If I have have 25 threat that I am sitting on but I don't plan to spawn something immediately I want to hold on to it. I have many more options with 25 threat than I do 10 and the reinforcement flipped.

A related question... From that snippet of the rules, it doesn't mention anything about the "one spawn per turn" rule. Is that rule still in effect, or are you only limited by your ability to flip the marker?

Osaka said:

As nothing was changed in this regard, it is still one spawn per turn. The marker just makes harder to do as you probably don't get enough threat each turn to both flip it and do a spawn.

Brian