The beginning of my first Descent campaign

By RazR, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

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Hello everyone!
I've finally be able to play a sizeable chunk of the campaign (First blood, Castle of Daerion and Cardinal's Plight), which both my friends (as 4 heroes) and I (as OL) enjoyed immensely. Our common background is essentially Talisman and, in minor part, Arkham Horror, with a few of us having played Hero Quest in the past, and Descent really struck us as being a great game.
That said, as usual there has been a bit of grumbling regarding balance coming from the heroes' side, which only won First blood. In particular, in two situations some players felt that the game favoured the OL a bit too much.
So here I am: do you think that these two adventures and/or playing with 4 heroes favour the OL?
Important note: we did totally botch the use of Prayer of Healing, as both sides understood that it required one action to be used; which makes feel me bad, since this may have affected the outcome of Cardinal's Plight.
Anyway, this is more or less what happened during our games:
1. Castle of Daerion: in the first encounter I was able to kill 3 citizens out of 4, meaning that I had 3 zombies placed right next to the NPC at the start of the second encounter.
Thanks to very good attack rolls on my side and very bad armour rolls on theirs, I was able to deal 20ish damage to the NPC on the first round using the 3 zombies and the 2 ettins. Needless to say, I easily won the encounter on the second round.
2. Cardinal's Plight: I badly lost the first encounter, mostly because I wasn't able to pass the test to get zombies out of the grave; I also think that I misused my OL cards, rerolling attack rolls instead of characteristic tests to get some zombies. In any case, I wasn't able to get any zombie out.
That said, I was still able to win the second encounter; in my opinion, because of the following errors on their side:
a. The heroes didn't clear both rooms before opening the door to the Cardinal, which meant that I was able to place two Shadow Dragons on the turn they opened the door to the Cardinal.
b. The heroes opened the door to the Cardinal on their last action, leaving me a full turn with the newly placed Dragons before they were able to reposition themselves or kill at least one of them.
This allowed me to move the dragons out (using a lot of OL cards) and basically block the way out of the Cardinal's room with one of them; when in the end they were able to kill the dragons and let the Cardinal out of the room, I was able to attack him with a zombie respawned from the entrance and kill him with a Critical Hit OL card (since the Cardinal only had 4 hp left).
Thank you for any feedback/experience you will be able to share!
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Personally I rate Daerion the toughest for the heroes, impossible against a brutal OL. If he only kills 1 villager in E1, it in effect forces the heroes to skip their first turn in E2 (militiamen get placed in front of the heroes, but act after them) with the monsters right next to the militiamen, so heroes can't move and can't attack. Palamon usually dies turn 2 regardless of what the heroes do, Word of Misery + the lieutenant's Overpower and possibly master Ettin's Throw = cakewalk win for even a semi-competent OL.

Plight is another quest I'll always pick as OL if in the driving seat (usually right after winning Daerion), zombies, again with Word of Misery can really beat up Koth with ease.

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I thought that heroes could move through militiamen, since they count as friendly figures for them?

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RazR said:

I thought that heroes could move through militiamen, since they count as friendly figures for them?

Sure, but when the setup is:

K = Kobold

M = Militia

H = Hero

KKKMHH

KKKMHH
KKKM
Where do you go to??? Can't interrupt in a non-empty space, so you're stuck, period. Barring Tumble and Eagle Eye, but even then, master Kobolds at the front means you kill, it splits and the space is still filled. If you don't have either of the skills, heroes basically skip their turn, possibly second (if one comes, Palamon could easily be dead by then) as the Militia can't wipe out the Kobolds, who just move up next to them on the OL's turn…
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I understand, thank you for the clarification.

…I think that we will have to devise some house rules in order to prevent this kind of placement xD

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There's been quite a bit of discussion on Daerion over on BGG. Personally I'd like to see the Militiamen in the Throne Room (where the dead villagers from E1 are placed as zombies). While it would probably make little difference in the outcome (Palamon has a serious glass jaw), it would at least make the heroes feel like they got to do something instead of just watching the OL molest the NPC token. Might even be able to grab a Search token off the Stairs.