As the OL, what are your strategies? I usually play my spawn cards as soon as I get them, and I typically don't even bother using my aim/charge/etc. cards unless it's a good monster or a crucial attack (i.e. one that will kill a hero). I can usually save up enough threat this way so that when power cards come up, I can play them quickly. When I have multiple power cards from which to choose, I play the cheapest one, so I have some threat left over to psyche the heroes out. I also save my traps until I can chain them together for an instant kill (i.e. exploding, door, crushing block, then poison spikes).

What do you guys do when playing the awesome side?

My playstyle boils down to a) stalling and conserving resources and b) playing things in quick succession to maximize the hurt.

So, I play conservatively, threaten, harass with the critters I got, and when there is an opening, I go all in, spawning, using cards, dark-charming...

In vanilla Descent, I also spawn frequently, for the spawns are simply the best cards there, no question; though, I tend to save up the better ones (beastmen, dark priests, ferrox) for opportune times, and use the loser spawns to delay.

As for power cards, they are a valuable source of threat; I pick carefully which to play and which to drop, as for example Hordes of the Things and Brilliant Commander simply don't pay off if not used early. Check out the level - if all the relevant critters are already masters, drop Brilliant Commander anyway. If you really could use those two spiders to buy your leader time in the last room, get the Hordes.

As for Aim, Rage, Dodge, Charge - you do well to use them only when it matters, they can be a threat drain otherwise.

Gust of Wind and several others get simply dropped most of the time.

As for Treachery, some of the spawns are excellent: Legion of the Dead, Elite Beastman War Party, the other dark priest spawn... don't forget the Troll, too.

As for traps, you cannot go wrong with Poison Pits and another Dark Charm.

I have found Hordes of the Things and Brilliant Commander to be pretty worthless. They cost way too much compared to what you get. Gust of Wind is pretty stupid too, considering most of the time my friends never attack further than 5 spaces away anyway.

I should probably try keep away more...I usually just rush my guys in and attack (if they're melee).

This is a great question as I'm a new player, its great to pick up some tips. I'm the only one that plays as the OL and found it quite hard the first time as didn't want to play too aggressive. Shame as would like to play the hero part too.

I bide my time. I take a good long look at the map (be it RTL or non RTL) and evaluate the best way to spring a devastating series of blows on the heroes all at once.

In RTL, I usually use the first level to stall the heroes in order to get two power cards in play for use in the second and third level. I particularly like Evil genius and Trapmaster as the benefits of these cards are significant. I use monsters and spawn cards to stall the heroes for as long as possible to cut through my OL deck and get to my precious power cards.

In the second level of the dungeon I try and grab a couple kills while building my threat. I try to stall, but not as much as I did in the previous level. I look for vulnerable heroes and capitalize when the opportunity presents itself.

In the third level I bring the pain. I am constantly spawning and dropping traps as well as exploiting every weakness the party has. I stack bleed on tanks and drop traps. I focus fire casters with skeletons and wizards. I take master kobolds and hide them in distant corners of the dungeon for no other reason other than to decrease the cost of my traps.

If the 3rd level is a rumor, I can usually get 20 conquest in that level alone. If the 3rd level is a rumor, my players often say “screw it” and run away… but usually not until after a couple deaths.

One thing that took me awhile to figure out (which was probably obvious to most of you) was to not let the heroes use their guard orders if possible. When I first started playing I would just run in a week figure to get rid of a guard order and then bring in the big guns. I've realized if I just pull back a little and set myself up for the next turn it slows the heroes down, and they realize that their guard orders aren't nearly as effective so they don't use them as much. No use giving them a free kill on my turn.

At least with my group this has been very effectvie.

Gust of wind has two uses in particular:

1) Allows you to spawn monsters (los is reduced, so you can now spawn in more areas), and

2) Allows you the opportunity to shoot at people sitting on guard orders without them being able to shoot first.

That being said, the levels are too small in RtL for it to be effective, so I usually take it out of the deck with the one avatar upgrade.

ANYWAY, on to strategy:

1) Resist the urge to play spawn cards right away. I feel it's much better to save up for a power card like Doom, Trapmaster or Evil Genius (or, if you have Trechery, Dark Armour) THEN lay on the spawns. The only exception is if you know you can SERIOUSLY hamper the heroes, of if you know they will backtrack to deal with your spawned monsters, buying you more time to burn through your deck.

2) Playing a single card is seldom as effective in playing multiple cards in close succession. Spawn monsters? That's okay, but spawn a heavy hitter who then charges double movement and has an aimed attack (particularly if that aimed attack has sweep with an extra power die from doom) and you're talking about a tactic that can be instant death for one or more heroes!

3) Time is the heroes' enemy more than the monsters! Every turn they spend farting around means more threat and a smaller deck for you! Do everything you can to throw off their strategy for the turn. They usually discuss it openly right in front of you, so wait for them to say something that you see you can interfere with (my favorite was the turn where my brother spent all his mage's fatigue to move so he could do a battle action, and on his last point of move I dropped him in a pit :-D)

4) Let him come to you! This is sort of a 3b, really... The more time the heroes spend moving, the less time they spend attacking. Letting the heroes take battle actions against your monsters means you can usually kiss those monsters goodbye!

Hope these tips are helpful! I remember there used to be a strategy guide for heroes, and another one for the OL in the support section for Descent. Are they still there?

The one thing I learned to live by is simply this;

"Threat tokens in the hand is worth more then the threat tokens sitting on the table."

By that I mean I save my cards untill I absolutly need to discard, And I always play cards when I can. My players learned fast to gleen all the threat tokens they can from me...

Don't forget that many monsters can 'kite' the heroes by moving, shooting, and withdrawing. Always cycle your monsters so that all get a shot in, if possible at all. If there is an elevated space in a good position, all your skellies should take their shot from it. Preferrably with a master beastman standing right behind them, yelling orders.

Even useless critters like base kobolds can 'loiter' - stand on stuff, block LoS (take that, Thorn!), advance behind the party to threaten or eat an attack...

In vanilla Descent, spawning is of paramount importance, and unless your spawn would be totally pointless, play it. You can usually garner enough threat from the turns when you can't meaningfully spawn, from the cards you discard, and from attacks to play most of the stuff you want. Throwing five spawns into the dungeon is methinks better than waiting five turns for Doom. Evil Genius is most often worth saving for, unless the level nears its end, though.

The main benefit of discardable cards in hand is that the players don't know how much you have.