Yep! Last night was the night, and I have to say... despite mentioning in a previous post that I thought it sad my weekly highlight should be this introduction of my mates and I to the game, I can safely say I'm proud to be that very geek!

We all had a great time. The only snag is they're all Role Players, so of course my biggest fear was that they wouldn't be able to shirk their D20 origins and get in to the full swing of what is essentially a brilliant dungeon delving adventure of turn based co-op strategy. (I was the OL, of course!) Though swiftly my fears were abated, and quicker still the mantra of ' This is not an RPG ' could be heard drifting between the hammerings, blastings, choppings and occasional swearing of my meat-shield minions.

Even better I must have been doing something right, since they began to develop at first a trepidation, which gradually developed in to a justified wariness and loathing about my threat gathering, monster spawning turns. A proud achievement indeed for any aspiring OL!

Admittedly we just had a fun time. We got through the introductory quest ' In to the Dark ' and come the end they'd got in to the swing of time management, inventory equipping, action announcement and all those other little nuances. I'm ashamed to say I lost that little encounter, but I'm not entirely suprised. They're an intelligent bunch, so they picked up the tips quickly.

Come the second quest, however, I achieved two hero kills and even managed to split up the party with some timely spawned Bane Spiders. While I initially thought they were a little weak, the poor Mage I webbed for six turns straight really didn't think so, especially when companion mage turned around a blasted him under the influence of that delightful 'Dark Charm' card. Sadly we had to end it part way through, before they even aquired the first heart in fact. I was quietly confident I could have tipped the balance with the few more turns...

I definitely feel that the OL needs to be on top of the entire game: Character Abilities, Item Cards, Dice Averages, Treasure, Weapon Affects... I'm determined to absorb this mighty stack of info to better combat the stinking hordes of theiving adventurers sneeking down within my lairs. All in good, murderous fun of course!

And finally to my question: what with reading through the forums and some of the brilliant house rules that certain people have come up with, I'm thoroughly looking forward to OLing an RtL campaign in the future. And the group are certainly in favour! I'm going to be picking up WoD very shortly, but do I need AoD as well for a functional game of RtL?

I'd just like to know what some of the more experienced players think, because it ain't cheep... and right now, the Fruday night entertainment is coming out of my back pocket, so I'd love some advice about what the first two expansions really bring to the table... though I apologise in advice, since I'm sure this topic has been done to death already!

Thanks very much in advance, and catch you all later! - Chrome

The Road to Legend should be playable without any other expansions, though it will utilize any expansions you happen to have.

The Well of Darkness expansion includes replacements for JitD cards that were changed by errata, fills an important monster niche with the Ferrox, and fixes a skew towards magic weapons in the treasure decks by filling in enough melee and ranged ones to even things out.

The Altar of Despair expansion includes more new monsters and mechanics than WoD, and looks to me like it probably boosts the overlord's power more than any other expansion, though I haven't actually played with it yet.

The Tomb of Ice expansion introduces feat cards for the heroes; there are no official rules for integrating them into Road to Legend at this time, though various people have tried, with varying results. This expansion also seems to have several things specifically designed to hurt melee heroes, such as the Ghost ability and some very weak melee treasures.

Ah! Thanks very much for the quick reply Antistone.

Yeah, we noticed the horrendous skewing towards magic items. Well! In which case, I think I probably will purchase WoD followed by RtL. It seems worth it simply for the errata and game balancing that's going on. And that should do for a few months until I once more recieve that annoying itch to burn a little more cash

We shall see!

Well, Altar of Despair allows the OverLord to field some of the most dreaded critters, including the Dark Priest, the Deep Elf, the Troll and the Chaos Beast. Well of Darkness just gives you Golems (cool mini, crappy stats) and kobolds (whee, little feeble munchkins), and those Ferrox.

Both expansions give you treachery cards, both give treasures. Still, plan on getting both.