Alright guys, I've had enough of the meddling heroes having their way in our campaign. They've had 2 wins in a row and are starting to get cocky. Its time they were put in their place!

Next time we meet, we will be doing part 2 of The Cardinal's Plight. In this encounter I will have access to 3 Open Groups in addition to Zombies. What open group monsters should I pick to really put the hurt on these medelsome little goodey two shoers that are getting between me and world domination?

Thanks!

Need much more information first. CK or no? Number of heroes, classes and skills gained? Equipment? OL cards added? Since you're asking about E2, have you played E1 already? If so, what cards did you end with for start of E2?

Lets see… Its still fairly early in the campaign. Only First Blood and The Fat Goblin were played previously. The hero's group consistsof a Knight, a Diciphle, and a Wildlander. So far the extra Overlord cards I've picked out for myself are Blood Rage and Dark Fortitude (going up the Warlord deck).

Heroes currently have equipped: Leather Armor, Iron Shield, Ring of Power, and 2 Stamina Potions.

Part 1 of Cardinal's Plight didn't go well for me. None of the Zombies made it out before Lord Merrik was defeated, so I will only be starting with 1 master Zombie in the room with Koth.

Hope that helps

BTW what is a CK?

Conversion Kit.

Three heroes only then, with four I would've said go for Shadow Dragons, a pair of them can block the path out of the Chapel. With no other zombies, you have your work cut out, hopefully you have Word of Misery waiting, use it on a turn when you have Frenzy to give a second attack to the master zombie, ideally with Critical Blow + Bloodrage to boot (and Dark Fortunes to reroll misses). Four attacks, even with each successful hit doing effectively +1 dmg (since Koth has no stamina, WoM gives fatigue, which turns to dmg), unlikely you'll get him in one turn, but at least you get the master Z back each turn. Don't forget Grab to Immobilize Koth.

They don't appear to have any improved weaponry, but TBH, I've never played D2 without using the CK, so I'm a bit rusty on vanilla monsters. Shadow Dragon is still probably a good bet, they don't have any means to create surges other than rolling them, so its survival chances are nice, plus you do get the master, which has Fire Breath. I really like Web Trap myself, when I last played Plight, managed to Immobilize two of the three heroes on the first turn, effectively making them skip their turn (they had no ranged weapons).

Looking over the available stuff without CK, looks like it's Barghests, Flesh Moulder and Goblin Archers, out of which Barghests would be an easy pick for them, then you just have to decide between FM and GA.

If you have the Lair of the Wyrm expansion I would sugest Fire Imps in the place of Goblins. If I had my book in front of me I could give you a better army setup, but Spiders are very useful (again not sure if they can be in that battle 99.99% sure they can) since the master spider forces stamina loss when moving adjacent to it. Plus poison is always a good DoT. Dragons are always a good go to, but you are only getting the one Master SD so you need to be careful with it. Also, place the key in the room that has the key on the left in the far back (saying that the enterance tile is facing up). They have to work their way through a room full of monsters to get to the key.

At least according to the list of available monsters per encounter PDF, no Cave Spiders in CP2, though could pick Bane Spiders if you have CK. CP2, according to the list has "Building, Civilized, Cursed and Dark" keywords, while Cave Spiders have Wilderness and Cave.

and what about demon lord's ?

if you put one in front entrance (with 1 space) and 1 at the other side of tile chapel (one space away from the altar), if heroes want to avoid them and go to the altar, they will suffer lot of damage from Aura 1 ?

I played with Barghest in the upper room.

Then i had some Flesh Moulders in the left room with the hidden key token and had Shadow Dragons in the bottomright room with the other hidder key token.

In the closed room i had 1 master zombie and 1 minion zombie.

In the bottom right room i placed the Dragons on the far side of the room, so that attacking them would take to much time and effort.

The fleshmoulders i spread in a line of 4 blocking the way to the token.

They had to rush to the tokens, because i was punishing the cardinal hard.

This meant that my dragons were unharmed untill the lockeddoor opened.

As soon as the locked door opened I dashed my dragons straight into the same room as the cardinal.

Blocking the path for him with my massive base. I also sent the remaining fleshmoulders that way, healing the dragons every chance they got, stalling the heroes from killing the dragon to unblock the path for the cardinal.

I have to say i was extremely lucky with some terrible attribute tests that the heroes rolled for the altar.

But in the end i easily killed the cardinal this way and even managed to drop a hero or 2.

Key to this mission is to save your 2 monstergroups until the locked door is opened, then make a run for it to block every single possible path the heroes have for getting to the cardinal. Pittraps and Tripwires also come in handy because of this.

And save your Dark Charm in case you need it to move a hero out of the way so your dragon can expand into a good spot.