ok, finally found my first real 'broke' situation.

Take a party, any party you like. Give them any skills and upgrade you like up to 150XP worth. Gve them any equipment you like from the Silver or Bronze decks. Spend any XP you like on Tamalir upgrades (not that it matters really).

Now, the party is at Tamalir. Slaggoroth is within 3 trails of Tamalir and attacks them (special ability: if within 3 trails of the party may immediately move to their location).

It is Silver campaign, Beasts are Gold, Spiders have the queens special Spider upgrade (Pierce 2 and Burn). The OL has 4 Trap and 2 Event Treachery.

When Slaggorath (Trapmaster) attacks the OL pulls a hand of 1x Crushing Blow (1G), 1x Danger + 1x Rage (1G), 2x Pit trap (5 damage ignoring armour) (1P), 1x Dark Charm + 1x Crushing Block ( 3-7 damage ignoring armour) (1P), 2x Spiked Pit (3-7 poison Damage, ignoring armour) (2P). Thats 19-31 damage that ignores armour and does not require a monster.

Slaggorath hides at the back. She has 3 Master Bane Spiders (13W/4A, WGGAu, Poison, Web, Pierce 2, Burn) and 4 normal Spiders (12W/3A, WGG, Poison, Pierce 2, Burn), all Move 7. The spiders cover the exits 2-3 deep, usually at least partially in Trees so they can't be area affect killed or killed from a distance (except Spiritwalker).

Unless the party can force Slaggoroth to flee she can, and will, attack them every single week - she moves faster than they do! She can guarantee 1 or two kills, usually get three and unless the party is very good and very careful, is very likely to get a TPK! Every week!

My party wasn't great, but it wasn't that bad. Talia and Landrec are the best Tank and best Mage respectively. I had Spiritwalker on Landrec, Leadership, Telekinesis, WindPact (usually getting rid of the Crushing Block as it is the most effective blocker and combined with Slaggoroth can last-minute block an exit in front of a Runner) and virtually every useful bit of Silver gear one could ask for. Acrobat on the runner is the only thing missing, but that would just lead to the runner being trapped to death instead of blocked. All except Landrec had both Silver and Bronze upgrades (Landrec chose Spiritwalker instead, specifically so that I could have the opportunity to go after Slaggoroth). Most were fatigue upgrades except a Wounds upgrade on Corbin - in this case wounds would definitely have been better, but probably just dragged the pain out over several turns instead. All of the party except the Runner (Mok the Feeble with Wind Pact) one shot even the Master spiders - if they get to them.

So what to do?

With a bit of fortune I got my runner out both times we played this. The first was one of the water filled maps and the spiders were screwed, unable to get to the party. Two Master spiders only covered one exit and they couldn't shoot through the trees at the party. The rest were unable to come at the party due to more water. OL never got in a shot, but still killed Corbin through Traps and badly wounded Talia.

Second time was a more 'normal' map. A pair of slight errors by the OL leaving two cross-corner gaps to slip through for my runner and with Slaggoroth not deployed in a tree let me get my runner able to slip past two spiders until blocked by a third and Landrec (with Silver runes/staves and +6 surges/Sorcery) battle through the runner (Spiritwalker) with the Silver Breathe Rune (low damage, but have to get through the blocking spider unfortunately), then get in a third attack from a Guard (Leadership) - all three attacks used potions or fatigue to have 3 gold dice (max 3 dice in this map). The heavies moved to block off between the spiders and Landrec and be in position to assault next turn. I did 25/60 damage on Slaggoroth (and 3 Burn, which did no damage) and my runner with an Invisibility potion and a dodge was in the clear with only Slagoroth herself blocking the exit (she is surprisingly only 1 space. No heroes were equipped with weapons except Landrec (with the breathe rune, so unable to hit himself) and he could only hit the least important (positionally) hero Corbin (he even avoided the dark charm too!).

When the dust cleared Corbin was alone (Talia and Landrec throughly dead with OL attacks spare and Talia's Special no-tokens shield CBed. Corbin was a dead dwarf walking, especially as he missed with his knockback hammer (silver, so extra knockback from surges to move spiders) on his advance-for-the-exit action the following turn, but it didn't matter because the OL still had enough guaranteed damage from Traps left to kill him (unless he dodged 2 pits and most of the CrBlock). My runner escaped, largely because we were still at Tamalir so the OL didn't care if someone got away.

Note that the party has virtually all the critical skills (Spiritwalker, Telekinesis, Leadership, Wind Pact) and one shots all the monsters except the Lt. I had almost every piece of useful silver of bronze equipment. I had plenty of potions available and used up 3 on my first turn out of 4 heroes. Didn't really get a second turn.

The question for the forum is, what could any party do here?

1. Slaggoroth can move faster than any party, so hits every single week .

2. The amount of damage that she can hand out with treachery alone is staggeringly painful - and there is little the heroes can do to prevent it.

3. There is nothing the party can do to prevent at least 1, probably 2-3 heroes dying every single encounter, if not all 4. The treachery hand is that deadly. In addition, there will be a CB effect every week (I can live with that but it is on top of everything else and means things get worse rather than better)

4. It is very very difficult for the Heroes to actually get at Slaggoroth herself, because the Spiders block the access very effectively - all the more if there are trees on the board.

This is the first time in RtL I've looked at a situation and not been able to think of a way out. Maybe someone else can?

For the record I conceded the campaign for three (four) reasons.

1. The OL is going to win anyway through his whatsit thingy with the Scrolls.

With a weak party (no range character and a feeble (if irritating to the OL) second Mage/Runner) and a bad start (after carefully planning a dungeon pullout leaving the OL just short of upgrading in early Bronze, I pulled the Lost encounter when heading to the last-chance-before-upgrade dungeon and the OL got to upgrade anyway. Add that to approximately 16 bronze treasure draws before a single useful item (wow, amazing, another Ranged weapon... hey look its that same crystal trinket in the market as the last three weeks... etc etc) this party has been battling behind the 8-ball for a loooong time now.

2. Frankly, fighting Slaggoroth every evening we game has gotten boring already. And thats after just two fights!

3. We want to play with some of the ToI characters anyway

(4.) I won the first campaign as OL so now its 1 each.

Reasons 2 and 3 are the most important, especially 2.

There have been a lot of views but no ideas or advice???

I think a lot of people are discouraged from posting by such huge and detailed situations. Its hard to be sure you're taken everything into account.

I'd agree with you on your decision to abandon the campaign. The only things I can think you could have done to change your situation is kill or make the Lt retreat. Since it sounds like you thought that was impossible then I think the only other choice would be to keep having your runner escape and making your way to a couple of unexplored dungeons and trying for some more exp and loot. At silver, you'd probably have too many people dying on your way to a dungeon though so that before you knew it it'd be gold and then you'd be facing the avatar.

Just start over. If the game is no longer fun than you aren't playing it right. Declare it a loss, let the victor celebrate while you tear down the current campaign and then setup again. Don't let him get Shaggoth either, make him play a different OL if you must.

.

Neostrider said:

Sorry, for putting out too much detail.

Basically, this is the first case I've found in RtL where I can't see any way out, can't see something the heroes could do to avoid this.

Short of being so much better that they can deny the OL enough CT to get about 160CT worth of upgrades (25+25, beasts to Gold, 20 Acidic Poison, 4x10 Trap Treachery, 2x15 EVent Treachery, 17?-20 Slaggoroth), the heroes will be faced by this situation in every campaign*.

I'll simplify it.

A Lt that attacks the heroes every single turn who can guarantee to kill two of them (almost always over 24 pts damage through armour just from the traps, + Dark Charm and CB, + a hard hitting cast of monsters), and has a very good chance of getting one or both of the other two , with no risk whatsoever to the Lt. (The heroes just can't get to the Lt due to all the spiders in the way blocking the map routes). To be honest, Beasts don't really even need to be Gold, nor is Acidic Poison necessary. Both just make killing off the last hero or two easier.

I'm asking anyone who can think of any combinations, resources, or things the Hero party could do that prevent this problem (solve it for more than a single turn or two). I can't think of any.

The challenge is, give yourself any party of heroes, any upgrades available in Silver, and any equipment short of Gold treasures, and tell me how you could get though this encounter with a reasonable chance, short of drawing a fortunate Map.

The too much info was basically me saying I had all the usual suspects (skillwise) that really help in Lt encounters. But they don't help enough in this circumstance. I was trying to demonstrate the depth of the problem so as to weed out any not-really-useful-advice answers.

*Every Spider Queen Campaign that is. Mind you, she's comfortably the best OL anyway, before I found this little problem...

Yeah, I was sad this one sank as I was interested in what people would come up with.

My first thought is 'How is Slaggoroth getting enough threat to pay for all this?' Sure he could get a lot of it through discards, or by choosing Danger instead of Crushing Blow, but most Lieutenants go down in two or three rounds in my experience.

EDIT: Didn't read second comment, I'm sure what I said was irrelevant.

EDIT 2: Wasn't too irrevelevant. Yeah, I'll try this tomorrow.

inle_badger said:

He's got one Danger already. The best prepared hero parties will be forcing him to discard another card for Threat through Wind Pact, or he can do it voluntarily. The SQ gets a discount for playing traps. Slaggoroth comes with Trapmaster.

Slaggoroth can play most or all of the (space) Traps in the first Hero turn, before he even gets any threat from his own turn!

If the Heroes are still a functioning party by the End of the OL's first turn, its a moral win for them almost, but it probably just means they have been ultra slow and ultra cautious and haven't really progressed other than to give the OL 4 extra threat.

EDIT: In the OL's turn, he will rake in quite a lot of threat just from the combat dice if the Spiders are Gold. Or merely a nice amount of extra threat if the Gold and Yellow (Slaggoroth's battle action with 2 yellows per attack IIRC) Dice all roll 3 damage instead of 3 Surges, which is worse!

Hi,

Corbon said:

Don't be! I thought it was great to read all the details. which made understanding the situation a lot easier. Not that it helped me in coming up with a solution though...

EDIT: Somehow, your answer above regarding the threat didn't show for me before answering this, so you may ignore the following. I forgot about all the discounts the Queen gets.

The only thing I don't really understand is how the OL gets all the threat to play all the traps. Danger allows you to play 2-3 traps on the hero's first turn, which might or might not be enough to kill one (if the hero has a wound upgrade and drinks a potion, the traps need to do at least 19 damage to kill him!). After that, there should still be three heroes to be able to attack and get rid of (nearly) all the spiders. Next turn, the OL should only be able to play 2 more traps max, which shouldn't be enough to kill more heroes.

But it's hard to theorize on such a battle without having the map and the actual cards in front of me, so I might be missing something here...

-Kylearan

Hi,

Corbon said:

Well, that one is easy. With the Crystals of Tival (there's more than one there, correct?) and an Amulet of Healing, the party will survive their first turn and will be able to get rid of nearly all the spiders...which should be enough to win the encounter.

But while that might solve your challenge, it doesn't solve the real problem realistically...

-Kylearan

Kylearan said:

Sort of. Amulet of Healing should be removed from RtL Treasure decks? (or is that the Silver version of Crystals of Tival?)

As for the Crystals (and the Amulet possibly), that depends on the interpretation of when you can use them. The way we currently read it is that they can only be used immediately after equipping, ie not part way through your turn, which means they have much less chance of saving a trapped character. At best they will see the trapped character quit his 'turn' early and bunker up, which merely gives the OL more time to use his monsters and other cards (Dark Charm, CB) to lay in the hurt. While Slaggoroth continues to Battle away at the Webbed characters safely from beside an exit space...

Still, they'd help a bit, for one week at least. Even if they solve the immediate problem though, that doesn't pass the challenge as you have to face the same thing next turn without them now.

BTW, with deep deploying spiders and scattered trees, its quite possible that the heroes seriously struggle to clear very many spiders at all in their turn, even with one-shot kills.

Hi,

Corbon said:

"Greater Healing" and the like should be removed; the Amulet is fine.

Corbon said:

Hm, I don't have the cards in front of me so cannot really comment on that. But even if you're right, you could still equip it part way through your turn using 2MPs, correct? Although it would reduce much-needed movement...

Corbon said:

I know, and even assuming the party has exactly this equipment would be far-reaching...

Okay, one more. There are several shields that you can use to cancel wounds, even those that ignore armour. Not sure how many there really are, but equipping two of them per hero while moving, plus a healing potion per turn, might help out too. Although it's still probably not enough...

-Kylearan

Just a thought... does the Spider Queen's ability mention traps in encounters? Isn't it dungeons only, or am I thinking of a different ability? I'd forgotten about Trapmaster though.

If the first hero moves and becomes trapped, then goes again and gets trapped again but not killed, can't they then stop and let the other heroes move up to protect them. Might cripple two heroes without killing them, but keep the Conquest and keep the other two fighting. Healing potions would help. Ghost Armour with a fatigue potion....

All just thoughts which you've probably already tried. I think you should email Immortal who's an old hand at testing encounter situations.

Kylearan said:

In my understanding, the crystal is removed at the start of the hero's turn, and takes effect before anything else. Sort of in the same way the OL plays power cards. So seeing as you can change equipment for free at the start of your turn, just equip the crystal, and on a subsequent turn discard it for it's benefits. Same as with the other versions of this treasure. It cannot however be used in the middle of the same turn it is equipped, or immediately after equipping, since it has to be discarded at the start of a hero's turn.

Also, I would like to comment on the OP, but there are so many factors, I might lose myself and send this chain on a tangent.

One thing which stands out to me is the fact that the heroes can always transport to Tamalir, so if Slaggaroth was just following the heroes around then she'd be in a pickle when they transport after a dungeon from one corner of the map into the center. I gather from the post that she may have just been sitting on Tamalir and causing havoc. In that case, the only solution is an encounter, which the details I can get into one at a time, so if you'd like we can tackle them fairly quickly and find out truly what may or may not be broken.

Telekinesis and a couple fatigue potions on Runemaster Thorn would be a good start, but that's because Telekinesis is broken.

Thundercles said:

Heh, yeah, at this point the advice for any situation can be "I think Telekensis will solve all your problems".

SkittlesAreYum said:

Just like in real life.

First off, there is a slight ambiguity in whether or not the Overlord's usual 8-card hand limit is in effect during Lieutenant battles - ie. is he even ALLOWED to take more than 8 cards? If so, it would have small ramifications, as your scenario calls for him taking 9, although this could still be achieved with the otherwise useless Eldritch Lore upgrade. It's a question I would definitely like to see addressed though (and have thus far forgot to put in the unanswered questions list).

Secondly, I recently played a game as the Spider Queen, and certainly found that Slaggorath was getting trounced in every fight. However, we use Randomized Treachery, which means I couldn't pick precisely the cards I wanted (notably the Poison Pits) every time around. Again, that's not a huge deal though, as most of the important cards (pits, block, dark charm, danger) are from the standard deck anyway. Also, we were playing only with WoD treachery cards - the 2nd Poison Spikes might be the key to pushing things over the top.

The main things that occur to me are:

1) Abuse of Ghost Armor + Fatigue Potions + Leadership - by moving the Ghost Armor around in clever ways, the Heroes can usually spread out the damage sufficiently that it's really hard to actually get a kill.

2) Nanok. Again, always a solution. He has ridiculous armor and can STILL wear the Ghost Armor. He can pretty much rest every round without much fear even with spiders around.

3) Tiger Tattoo. Make one of your tough characters (especially Nanok) immune to the pit damage. Even if the rest of the party dies, Nanok alone can easily defeat Slaggorath in a one on one.

4) Using movement to unequip weapons. Every hero can spend 2 movement at the end of their turn to take off their weapon to thwart Dark Charm. Of course, this still makes Dark Charm very useful, since you get this effect just by holding it, but it can be worth it for the Heroes.

Otherwise, just careful tactical positioning to prevent any one character from taking too much damage. The spiders' strength is also their weakness - although they make it very hard to attack Slaggorath directly on the first turn, it's not hard to block them with Nanok so that no one takes any damage even if the Heroes have to move very cautiously on the first round (passing Ghost Armor around and such).

Upon further reflection, I think the following simple recipe actually pretty much guarantees everything is fine for the Heroes.

All it takes is: Tough Guy (preferably Nanok) + Tiger Tattoo + good weapon + Mirror Shield and a few Healing and Fatigue potions, and 3 other random characters, who between them have Telekinesis and Leadership. If the Tough Guy is NOT Nanok, you must drop Crushing Blow, otherwise dropping anything is fine (probably a Block).

The idea is that Tough Guy simply slowly advances, blocking the spiders from reaching the others and slogging towards Slaggorath (since he has 16 HP, 2 blocks are insufficient to kill him and he is immune to the pits), spending 2 movement to take off his weapon at the end of every move (he can even equip Ghost Armor while moving to soak the Crushing blocks this way, and then re-equipe his armor if he is not Nanok), while constantly getting insta-rested by the Leadership character. He'll also have a shield or two re-equipped at the end of every round, and Mirror Shield means even the potential piling up of Burn tokens isn't a problem. The other characters simply NEVER MOVE, and stand there with dodge orders on. On some maps, the spiders may be able to slip by Tough Guy to get at the others, so they will take a few hits (but of course they're dodging and each have a shield or two equipped), and then they just counter by sucking the spiders out of trees with telekinesis and kill them without having to move (and of course unequipping their weapons to avoid Dark Charm again).

Anyone see any major flaws with this plan? It seems fairly ironclad to me.

The_Immortal said:

Thanks for a definite plan which has a (small) chance of working.

In this case the OL will need another green Treachery to get the second crushing blow (or have less threat to play his traps). First attack from a spider will CB the Mirror shield. I know, because thats what happened. My opponent is no gumby! Still, at least we are pushing the requirments for the OL up.

Remember that the Spiders are attacking with WGG, Pierce 2 and Burn (average about 9 damage incl Pierce per attack), masters (x3) adding Web and Au. Even Nanok with extra dice (armour), a shield (the other shield lost to CB) and Ghost Armour will slowly wear damage from those attacks. With Mv 7, every spider will be able to rotate in and out to attack, despite trees or mud. remember also that is the heroes are going slow, Slaggoroth can simply reinforce a Spider per turn and continue to whittle/slow Nanok down - or build threat and add gold dice to successful attacks. If he doesn't make it, the rest of the party are dead in the water. Note also that with the Mirror Shield gone, a single non-miss from a Master Banespider (out of 3) will allow Slaggoroth to Battle vs Nanok from the extreme rear. So there will be a lot (7-9 per turn) of attacks with 9-12+ damage each going in, especially if the rest of the party are basically hiding.

I found Telekinesis not to be that useful - it requires LOS and with the amount of terrain in many outdoor encounters, narrow paths, and large spiders blocking views, it was only really useful to help the heroes cross the starting tile before they began their turn. I believe the same problem would hamper Runemaster Thorn. It isn't even easy to Teke a spider out iof the way - unless the OL screws up they will only be able to be pulled forward, towards the heroes which doesn't in the end help much. Put some figures out on a map and try it.

The Tiger Tattoo would help a lot, a skill I did not (yet, the party's next stop was the Silver Legendary Dungeon) have.

The unequipping weapons is a no-brainer (it means Wind Pact can be used to discard either a CB or more likely, a Crushing Block (which can completely block an exit in conjunction with Slaggoroth, not to mention the damage).

Slaggorath has 60 wounds in Silver (armour 5+?), so it will take several rounds of combat to take her down, if you can get there, even with a beefed up melee fighter. This is not yet Gold where heroes are doing 30+ damage per hit - around 20+ is a bit more normal, so 3-4 good hits minimum will be required. If she flees, she will be back in two weeks (unless the heroes are working in the far south, but unlikely as they will be worrying about the Silver Legendary Dungeon and the SpiderQueens plots, which are more likely to be in the north/east) at the most.

Still, summary, best idea so far would be Nanok with Tiger Tatoo, 4-5 Black/Silver dice, Ghost Armour, Mirror Shield, another Treasure shield, RoP, Grinding Axe, SIlver Hammer, 2 Healing and one Fatigue potions. Actually, probably replace the RoP with the Bag of Holding (thats an 'other' right?) and have the Crystals of Tival and similar available as well. Add Wind Pact, Telekinesis and Leadership to the parties skill list.

When I tried it my Ghost Armour was wasted (although the OL declined to drop traps on him, probably due to this, and he ended up escaping) on my Runner (who with a dodge from Leadership and an Invisibility potion was ignored totally) who got into position for Spiritwalker to have a go at Slaggoroth.

Talia with Plate armour, Mirror shield (until the first CBed attack) and RoP (Armour 6+2pt shield) blocked access to Landrec (Spiritwalker, trying to take out Slaggoroth) from the spiders but she got slaughtered with enough spare spider attacks to take out Landrec as well.

Spider queen gets only two green treachery, ever. This means to get 2 crushing blows, she won't have danger or such.

Xandria said:

RIght you are! That helps with the total costs too.

You can supplement the Mirror Shield with Ox Tattoo to avoid web altogether.

If Nanok has all 5 dice (which he will), Ring of Protection and the Enduring skill, then he has 9 armor. This means the regular spiders aren't hurting him at all, and the Masters only on a lucky roll. In addition, he has 9 Fatigue (+4 from Copper and Silver Secret master, +1 from Tiger Tattoo) which is being restored every turn for free by Leadership. At Silver, Slaggorath does less damage than the Master spiders, so the Battle attacks aren't really a concern. If Nanok's second Other item is the Elven Boots, let's say he Advances every turn for 6 movement, 4 to move forward and 2 to remove his weapon - he doesn't even have to use Fatigue for moving. There is no way the spiders are going through all 9 of his fatigue and actually touching his health. If he loses enough of it, he gets insta-rested; if not, he gets a Guard order and kills a second Spider that turn. Reinforcing spiders isn't a huge problem, since as long as Nanok is always moving forward, there's only so much space for the blocking spiders to stand. As Xandria correctly points out, there's only 2 points of Green treachery, so if there's 2 Crushing Blows, there's no Danger and not enough Threat to play the traps (which means the rest of the party can move to strike on the first turn after all).

Of course, this is perhaps just a tribute to Nanok and his ridiculously overpowered armor; however, I still think there are still other options, but they are much more tactical and less formulaic and therefore harder to describe concisely.

The_Immortal said:

Fair enough.

Nanok with +3 dice, Enduring and Tiger Tattoo. Equiped with Ghost Armour, RoP, Elven Boots and Mirror Shield. Ox Tattoo as well preferably.

Well, at least we've made Slaggo flee once after a grinding bash. As long as we are not operating in the north/east we won't have to do it again next turn (without the Mrror shield which got CBed).

Thanks.