OK, I need some input from the certified Descent gurus here on the following situation and how the heroes tried to handle it.

Party Setup:

• Nanok of the Blade . Skills: Enduring and Bear Tattoo. +1 melee die. Equipment: Ring of Protection and the copper knockback mace.
• Ronan of the Wild . Skills: Shadow Soul and Crack Shot (not sure about the name; the one that gives +2 pierce and some range IIRC). Equipment: Leather Armor, Rrystal Shield, Ripper, Hammer.
• Silhouette . Skills: Skilled and Swift. Equipment: Falcon Claws (Name? It's that one-handed ranged copper weapon that webs the target), Magic Bow, Shield and that copper armor wich gives +1 armor and absorbs wounds if you roll blanks.
• E... cant't remember the name . Some elf guy who can make a sweep attack for 2 fatigue. Played as a mage. Skills: Quick Casting and Tiger Tattoo. +1 magic die. Equipment: Staff of Strength (or Power? Copper staff with 1:1 surge-to-damage ratio), the copper wizard robe, the copper blast rune, the stun rune from the town shop deck.

Party Upgrades: Staff of the Wild, Magic Boat, Temple Upgrade for Tamalir. 62 Conquest tokens total, either 22 or 37 unspent XP.

The Overlord:

Demon Prince Avatar; Ascension Plot.

Upgrades: Focused, the +1 hand size upgrade, Silver Eldritch Minions, 2 Event Treachery, Lord Merrick Farrow (RIP), the Demon Pronce Special Lieutenant (again, can't remember the name but it's unspeakable anyways ), Translocation Gem (already used), Temple of the Waves (placed in Nerekhall). 110 Conquest tokens total, 36 unspent XP.

The party is in Tamalir, the special Lt. is in Vynelvale (2 siege tokens already placed). Nerekhall has been razed, Alric and Merrick have been killed. The heroes have already discussed whether to go to Olmric's Hut for the copper level secret trainig (probably sacrificing Vynelvale and perhaps even Riverwatch) or to chase the Lt. out of Vynelvale (probably risking to lose the copper level secret training due to the campaig advancing to silver level).

The Overlord begins the week and purchases Lady Eliza Farrow. The DP-Lt. places another siege token on Vynelvale. The heroes decide to go after him and move to Riverwatch, buying potions there (mostly Power Potions).

Next week, the overlord purchases Siege Engines, moves Eliza to Nerekhall and puts the fourth siege token on Vynelvale. The heroes engage the Lt. and get wiped out (15 CT for the overlord because the Lt. killed one of them personally).

Next week, Vynelvale falls to the demonic hordes. +10 CT for the Overlord; the campaign goes to silver level next week. The DP-Lt. moves on to Riverwatch, Eliza moves to Greyhaven. The heroes heroically - surrender.

Now, one of my friends thinks that the heroes had to engage the Lt. while I think it was too risky; getting the copper level secret training, some silver treasure and Rapid Shot for Silhouette would have been wiser. That meant sacrificing Vynelvale and perhaps even Riverwatch, but with the upgrades and some silver gear the Lt. would have been beatable. Eliza would not have been a problem; she's quite weak (especially since she has no Eldritch Minions).

Also, he thinks that the heroes were too weak. I think that the "mage" hero was weak but playable and the rest was quite good.

So, was the situation really that bad? Could it have been done better?

Thanks in advance;

Darastin

I think you're talking about Eagle Eye, Falcon's Claw (so close), Eliam, Staff of Punishment, and Kar-Amag-Atoth

Anyways, without knowing how the LT fight went down, I'm not entirely sure what the proper advice should be. Two event treachery is significant: what cards did you bring to the fight? I'm surprised the heroes were wiped out here, especially given Nanok of the 7 armor.

No, the situation was not that bad. It's clear that the general dungeon tactical abilities of your Heroes are simply rather low. First of all, Nanok is so overpowered at Copper level that the Overlord should not be able to outscore the Heroes 2-1 in CT with him in the party - ESPECIALLY if he was lucky enough to start with Enduring. So the considerable CT lead the Overlord had should never have emerged if the Heroes were skilled players.

Secondly, they planned their skills completely wrong, especially knowing they would have to fight the Demon Prince's lieutenant. Since his Demon minion soars, getting Marksmen and Inner Fire on the Mage and Archer is an absolute priority, in order to overcome the range. In addition, putting Telekinesis on Nanok is even better, simply moving the Demon out of the way (as well as solving pretty much any other problem the Heroes come across). Wind Pact completely neuters any Treachery cards that the Overlord gets in the Lieutenant battle. Instead Nanok got...GRAPPLE? Which is nearly completely useless in the Lieutenant fight?

So basically, if the situation WAS unwinnable, the Heroes certainly deserved it. However, I don't think that it was. They could have just ignored Kar-Amog for now, done another dungeon to get money, corrected their earlier mistake by picking up Telekinesis and Wind Pact in Greyhaven, easily booted Eliza while they were at it, and then eventually go take out Kar-Amog.

Heroes surrendering prematurely is also a huge mistake, and a function of just not knowing how RIDICULOUSLY easy the Avatars are if you can make it that far.

Not to be too harsh or anything. Descent and RtL are hard games. But there were definitely mistakes made here which pretty much entirely account for the situation.

I generally agree with The_Immortal, though not necessarily on exactly how the heroes should have preceded.

What I really can't figure out though, is why the heroes were so worried about Vynevale?

The OL doesn't get any extra weekly CT for Vynevale being Razed. The only really amazingly good skill there is Leadership (though several others are very nice), and that could still be got on completing the Silver Legendary Dungeon. Why was it so important? Riverwatch would have been annoying, but was by no means a guaranteed loss.

Thats bronze training is really quite critical. Heroes with a consistant level of 5-7 fatigue each can do some seriously nasty stuff when they need to. And the skills there are almost as important. Rapid fire for eth arcehr, with the Ripper having only 1/36 chance of missing, and there is your Lt killer right there.

@Thundercles:

Thanks for the names. I don't own the game and tend to memorize the cards and heroes I'm not using myself by what they do instead of their name. And some cards are in German so I simply don't know their English names (and the translations aren't always as close to the original as one might expect...).

On the Lt. battle: Well, I was also surprised that they went down that easily. I chose Poltergeist, Danger and Dark Charm for my hand. I set up the Lt. close to the exit (I couldn't afford to lose him too, and it's hard to prevent an unstoppable figure from running away - which I initially planned to do; I calculated that I could get both Lts to Greyhaven and roll once for a siege before the heroes could get their secret training. Thus, scoring 6 CT in the battle would have been enough to advance the campaign to silver level with a successful siege.) and his minions hid in the trees in the 4x4 tile in front of him.

I used Poltergeist to pull them out of their cover into easily attackable places (Rules question: Does the movement from Poltergeist trigger Aura Damage? We ruled that it didn't.) un-grapple the demon and move the sorcerers into firing positions. Ronan went down, the others killed the demon, but then a Dark Charmed Nanok knocked Eliam right into the Lts Aura (the blow itself was hard enough to kill him, but I decided that this was safer than having Eliam fry himself because even on a low damage roll, the Aura would have taken him out). Silhouette had tried to outflank the big battle, but was intercepted by a sorcerer and the master sorcerer; then "ambushed" by a reinforded sorcerer and finished off by the Lt himself; so Nanok was all by himself. While the Lt has trouble penetrating 7 armor, the sorcerers and a reinforced demon to that rather easily and Nanok would get zapped every time he closed up to the Lt. Fleeing was not really an option (I would have attacked the heroes on my turn, probably with another treachery upgrade, and score yet more CTs), so the player decided that Resistance Is Futile . I'm pretty sure I would have gotten him anyways; a soaring demon blocks the path quite effectively and both demon and sorcerers pack enough punch to bring even Nanok down before he gets the Lt.

On the other hand, I think the heroes lost too much time dealing with the demon. Perhaps they should have ignored it and advanced to the Lt. ASAP. That might have cost one or two of them their lives (Aura Damage from demon and Lt. - not deadly by itself, but makes them easy prey for anything else on the board), but put enough pressure on me to have him retreat.

@The_Immortal:

Well, Nanok may be tough but why attack him when there's three much softer targets that give only one less CT but take half the amount of firepower to take out? His Grapple skill proved quite powerful in dungeons, but he alone can't protect all other heroes. I only attacked him when he was the only target available; usually dealing no damage, only gambling for surges -> threat, but the Named Sorcerer from The Barracks and one of his minions managed to blast him to pieces. Sorcery + Command + Elevated hurts a lot.

The second set of skills was chosen before Kar-Amag-Atoth hit the board; they didn't expect to meet him so soon. I didn't expect it either; I assumed they'd power up before engaging him - that's why I bought Eliza and the Siege Engines: to get a shot at razing at least one city if one Lt is attacked and has to flee.

@Corbon:

Hmmmm... I alwasy thought Rapid Shot was best for Silhouette (especially with Skilled), but with Eagle Eye and the Ripper... not the biggest damage, but consistent and armor-piercing. Probably still not enough to kill Kar-Amag-Atoth at silver (80 wounds), but certainly enough to force him to retreat. I'll have to remember that

On losing Vynelvale and Riverwatch: Well that would have been three of the four cities I needed to complete the Ascension plot; but even with three cities razed the heroes would at last been able to chase all Lts away. What are three razed cities good for if I can't raze a fourth one?

Thanks for the advice;

Darastin

Hey guys, just wanted to say I can agree with Immortal a bit on this one.

The heroes should stray from a forfeit, seeing as how the game was intended for the long haul. I mean, the whole idea of accruing conquest is to see which side will have the advantage during the final battle. The OL will be handicapped if the heroes manage to remain at a 2 - 1 rate in CT. Severely handicapped if the Ct rate is even a bit favored towards the heroes.

In order to balance this, the OL has an alternative win scenario: The fall of Tamalir. In the case where the OL doesn't look to be owning the band of merry peeps, he can try a coup d'etat.

My point is, as long as the heroes make it to the Final encounter, the odds are more likely to be in their favour. I don't totally agree with the previous statement, seeing as I don't think the Avatar battles are imbalanced. If played correctly, the OL can still kick multiple behind. However, it does all depends on the overall campaign...

Re: Attacking Nanok

Indeed, quite correct - why attack him unless you have to? Therefore, the players should make you HAVE to do this.

Skills like Grapple or Taunt aren't the way to make you do this. The way to make you to do this is as follows:

Outside the dungeon, ASAP: You give Nanok +3 black dice (for a total of 5) and Telekinesis, and Ring of Protection.

Turn 1 of every dungeon after that: Everyone EXCEPT Nanok goes back to town and STAYS there. Nanok does the dungeon by himself. Telekinesis moves everything except the boss out of his way, he walks around getting the treasure, then walks up to the boss and kills it. Running out of Fatigue isn't a problem, since he can Rest whenever he wants because nothing can hurt him.

At Copper level, there are VERY few dungeon floors where there is enough firepower to threaten an 8-armor Nanok. And if you hit one of those, you can just run away. Nanok will die once over the course of the dungeon to Trapmaster + 2 Pits + Block and MAYBE once more to unusually bad circumstances (normally involving lots of Command from Master Beastmen). That's Overlord 8, Heroes: 17 in every dungeon (not that Conquest is the only measure, money is even more important for the Heroes).

The Heroes can do even better of course by occasionally allowing the other 3 characters to actually come in in situations where there is no danger and help speed things up, but it's easier not to make a mistake if you just always leave them in town.

So basically, if Nanok is in the party, the Overlord will NOT outscore the Hereos 2-to-1 in Copper. He will be hardpressed just to stay even.