1. Dragon
2. Beastmen
3. Demon

(Only have JitD, WoD and RtL)

Non-RtL:

1. Beastmen

2. Manticore

3. Naga

RtL:

1. Manticore

2. Naga

3. Razorwing

Beastmen got nerfed in RtL, while Razorwings got a nice boost. Manticores just have so many cool abilities, and Nagas too. But nothing beats Quickshot combined with a Rage card

One of the most brutal plays our group has seen (I wasn't OL) was turn 1 OL spawns Lone Manticore, attacks, then plays Ambush for another round of attacks. That killed 2 heroes in the first 1.5 rounds.

1. Ferrox! My hapless heroes have learned the fear the sight of this card. Great melee damage, Bleed, Leach, good hit points, soo happy!

2. Beastmen! Oh how I love thee, I loved them just in JtD with well placed command auras backing up my other monsters, but in RTL! As soon as I could I upgraded Humanoids to Silver and Gold (haven't gotten to Diamond yet..) And have just caused havoc with this wonderful little monsters! A spawn of these in the Caverns of Thull took out every one of the heros except for their tank. <3!

3. Dark Priests. Range! Damage! Threat! These guys have it all! And as I level them up... They have More of it! oh and Black Curse = win!

Dragons are most certainly the number one monster. However, I have not run into a spawning card for dragons, so they are yours to command only when the dungeon level/encounter calls for it. As for spawnable monsters, i believe kobalds are overlooked as favorite quite often. 1 kobald by himself is definitely not a force to be reckoned with, but a large group of kobalds can be a serious thorn in the side of heros. The majority of monsters in this game are meant as cannon fodder. Kobalds fit this category perfectly. They are cheap and numerous. Swarm ability enables their attack to increase while surrounding and essentially blocking the movement of a hero or access through a hallway. Lets not forget the trickster ability of a master kobald either.

Kobalds are definitely in the top three spawnable monsters, as well as the new wendigo and shade.

1.) Ogres - the look on the players face as they fell a master ogre just to see it come back is priceless

2.) Dragons - the classic scaly beasty baddy; I love using them but I wish their were more scenarios where the dragon actually had lightning breath I hardly ever get to use that template

3.) Bane Spiders - I use the master spiders with the normal ones with devastating effects: my party always dreads it when I use them because they normally get webbed and poisoned so much they just run away when they die and respawn

It doesn't matter which expansions I use these three will never change except for maybe a chaos beast instead of the dragon I like their malleability

I only have the base and the Well of Darkness, and we havent played any of the Well of Darkness quests yet, so....

Sorcerer....hmmm, i heart the masters, getting to add +4 damage is magicaly delicious.

Razorwings....being able to fly in and do some damage and get out fast out of the LoS, ready to do it all again next turn.....as long as they survive.

Beastmen......a group of spawned in beastmen right around the corner that a hero left in a blind spot....hello beastmen, bye bye hero

After only playing a few days with the base game i would have to say my favorites are the master beastmen. I love placing these guys in packed room and exploiting their command ability.

No doubt its:

1. Deep Elves (just like their sneaky, deadly blow, style of play)

2. Dark Priests (just cool, and deadly)

3. Shades (these are hilarious!)

Hi,

Sausageman said:

A skeleton has a 11% chance to do 1(!) point of damage against a hero with armor 5, which a tank usually has. In other words, it needs approximately 108 skeletons to kill a tank with 12 wounds. So what is beyond me is how anybody kills a tank using skeletons with ease?

-Kylearan

1. Blood Apes! -these are just too cool, leapin' around & monkeying about, i love 'em!

2. Sorcerers. They don't just look evil...

3. Ferrox. oh so sweet.....

I really dig it that everyone is choosing these totally different creatures! speaks in favor of the game ! Not to mention our local groupthink .....

Vanilla Descent:

-Beastmen

A beastman war party alpha striking a hero is usually enough to send him to the grave, and the masters are really great

-Manticore

Most of the times they survived long enough to be activated, they were able to deal a killing blow

-dark priests

Nothing like a monster that earns more threats than he costs

RTL:

-Ferrox

These guys have the best anti tank capabilities when you lag behind

-Razorwings

Great for hitting the squishy heroes hiding behind

-beastmen

command on the masters is the single best skill in the game

-dragons

Too bad there are no more dungeons with them. Their DPS output is awesome.

Most useless monsters:

-Golem

He is very good at taking punishment, but he lacks a serious damage output, and is completely overpriced (3 treachery? I hope it is a missprint...)

-bane spiders

Too big to spawn where you'd like them to be. They hardly pose a threat. The web is ok though

-Kobolds

They are too slow to contribute until you upgrade them to gold

Monsters with the best potentiel (RTL)

-Hellhounds

Horrible damages at copper, but their damage output at diamond is mad. They hit almost as hard as a dragon and can be spawned

Kylearan said:

Why are people hating on the poor skelly's? Sure, it takes luck with skeletons to bring down the 5 armor tank when using copper level skeletons. Of course, everyone in the party would have to have 5 armor to make that matter, unless the overlord has some sort of obsession with only killing the toughest hero. And the master skeletons with the added pierce and the added power die dramatically increase the damage to the tank. And the tank can't reach the skeletons because they move too fast for his wittle feetsies. And the added time it takes the hero's to backtrack and kill skeletons which get behind them, adding spawn time to otherr monsters.

Often, when I'm playing overlord, I don't even bother touching the hero(s) with the highest armor. I pleasently ignore the four conquest value and stick with the 2-3 chars. Then when the tank gives the ring of protection to the 3 cp chars, I might go after the now slightly less armored tank.

Did I mention the power of crushing blow from skeletons? Cheap spawn, range shot, little extra xp to get rid of that annoying plate mail = dead tank.

Skeleton's are clearly better at killing hero's and annoying hero's than Kylearan is letting on.

-Puer

I don't understand why people don't like the kobolds. They are great threat generators (maybe more so than the dark priests) as they have the swarm ability. Upgraded to silver with 5 non kobolds on a target, you can hit and run with kobolds rolling red, yellow, and 5 silver dice. You may do a lot of damage, or you may get a lot of surges. And because they are weak, you get a lot of them to do this with. Their biggest drawback is their movement, but it makes sense because they can deliver a lot. Heroes tend to leave them alone because they don't consider them a threat. Swarm is fantastic.

SqueezeBox said:

They could do good damage if they could survive, but their low HP means that a blast will insta kill them, and their low movement means that not all of them can reach a hero the turn they are spawned. Hero will ignore them only if they are too far to achieve anything.

I guess I've only played in the copper campaign where they really don't have massive damage output yet. But even so, you just have to space them enough where they can put a blast to catch them all. Plus with other minions around, they usually have to keep track of those first. And even better when you have a bunch of trap treachery

indeed, the trichery discount is very nice, making it better to keep the master kobolds safe and away from the battle to benefit from this bonus.

SqueezeBox said:

Swarm does not upgrade with levels. That would be 5 black dice or a total of 5 power dice upgrades (eg a Gold dice and a Silver dice, 2 Silver and a Black etc), not 5 Silver dice. So they are not even close to as as good threat generators as you seem to think.

The coolest thing about higher level (Gold/Diamond) Kobalds is that Blast and Breath weapons really struggle to take them out in one hit. So the swarm is back, and deadlier as well!

Hi,

Puer said:

a) I don't hate skellies. Where did I say that?

b) As I said, you need over 100 skeletons on average to take down a 5 armor tank. Possible with luck, sure, but not realistically.

c) Of course I also ignore the tank as often as possible, but the poster I replied to specifically wrote he would "kill the tank with ease", which is nonsense.

d) Of course skeletons are great for killing and annoying heroes, I use them alot myself. But again, I replied to someone who stated he could kill tanks with them.

Sorry for not using quotes more sophisticated in replying, but I tried that, the forum software didn't like it at ate my post. Bah.

-Kylearan

I thought I was clear with silver level kobolds, not silver level campaign. Ah well. Though a lot of people don't like to upgrade humanoids, so that may not be a real issue. I do like to do it because even on a blast, needing 8 or 9 wounds to kill one silver kobold is difficult at copper campaign.

#1: Beastman – nothing beats their pound for pound damage. The fact that they’re one square in size aids in maneuvering them around the map toward vulnerable heroes.

Kylearan said:

The only way to get a tank 5 armor in Copper level before you get the plate mail is to take Brother Glyr or Corbin (who only would need 8 hits to kill at that rate), or give him the Ring of protection, which is a big waste, if you ask me.

So tanks generally run around 4 armor until they are upgraded with equipment; but by that time, the skeletons are also upgraded (and Sausageman specifically said "in the very first dungeon level"; leading me to believe that there was no ring and no Plate Mail).

In addition, skeletons rarely come around without Master Skeletons as well; which will average 1.5 extra damage per hit, due to having higher pierce and an extra power die. If you can get some command on them, then they are bumped up even more.

Even so, they shouldn't be killing a tank with ease. But since when do the dice do what they are supposed to? It is well within the realm of possibility that a bunch of skeletons could have killed a tank with ease; not that they will do it every time, but they are certainly capable of it.

In current campaign, in which I'm playing Sorcerer King, my favorite are:

1, Dark priests, which one player described as being more powerful than heroes. Three regulars and two masters killed entire party in two rounds.

2. Skeletons.

3. Shades: ghost, stealth and pierce 3 (silver-level). Nice.

Hi,

Joram wrote:

> "So tanks generally run around 4 armor until they are upgraded with equipment"

Even then, you need approximately 30 skeletons on average to do 12 wounds. Even assuming there's one master skeleton involved and the tank has already been wounded by a trap or something, you still need roughly 20 skeletons to finish him off. I don't consider this to be "with ease", although I know I'm splitting hairs here. What I'm trying to say here is that skeletons are great monsters, but not against tanks as Sausageman tried to portray them.


> "But since when do the dice do what they are supposed to? It is well within the realm of possibility that a bunch of skeletons could have killed a tank with ease; not that they will do it every time, but they are certainly capable of it."


Aye, I can agree with that!


-Kylearan


P.S.: Again, sorry for not using quotes, but the forum ate my first three tries. Looks like you cannot use QUOTE more than once?!?

SqueezeBox said:

Umm, you were clear, or at least I was under the right impression that you were talking Silver Kobolds not Silver Level. But Silver Kobolds still only have basic Swarm capability while doesn't give them extra Silver dice for each fellow mobster (not a typo) but a single upgrade/extra dice. I've had a great deal of fun with Gold Kobolds (now they can pack a punch! - Red/Green + Swarm (+ a speed boost)) in very early Silver. Needing 14 odd wounds to kill (after the 3-4 armour IIRC) is near impossible for bronze Breath/Blast weapons, and often fails with 2 shots even. I think it may have even been the straw that broke the camel's back when a Kobald swarn swamped a Mage (after surviving the double blast) then a Ranger on consecutive turns without losing a Kobold and started rushing towards the embattled Fighters. The party fled the dungeon (first level incomplete) and conceded the campaign!