Ashrian's heroic ability is that all minions who start their turn adjacent to her, are stunned. I've tried to read the rules the right way, upside down and sideways, but I can't find any way around this. Is there something I've failed to discover, that cancels heroic abilities? As the Overlord player, this ability annoys me no end, and so many campaign scenarios have become unbalances because she can just show up and hold two, three, even four monsters at bay while the others mop up with the one or two I have left…

Two things of note:

1) A minion monster has to begin its activation before Ashrian's ability kicks in, so if you can find some way to move Ashrian with another monster (say, for example, an Ettin with Throw or any monster with Knockback ) then you can get her away from your monsters before you activate them and avoid the stun.

2) Stun only removes one action. After the stun token is gone, the monster can use it's second action freely. A lot of new players get this wrong and think that it removes the figure's entire turn, but that is not the case. FFG has clarified this in the official FAQ.

So even if you can't move Ashrian, just activate the heaviest hitting monsters first, lose an action to Stun and then use the second action to beat the crap out of Ashrian. Per the rules on page 15, heroes who are KO'd cannot use abilities, so the rest of your monsters will then be free to act with both actions.

And, of course, keep in mind that master monsters are not affected by her ability, so if you really need to step up and take her on, send in a master. If it dies you can (probably) reinforce it next turn anyway.

O-kayyy…

Well, it seems that should do it. We're playing the last act II scenario plus the finale tomorrow. Will try it out then. Thank you