Yesterday, I hosted by monthly "Game Night" and we sat down to start the Shadow Rune campaign.

Let me say this first, the afternoon was great.

We had two new players jump into the hero slots so we only had time to run through Firstblood, and all of The Cardinal's Plight.

The heroes are:

Nanok/Champion, Eldar Mok/Disciple, Jaes the Exile/Runemaster, Lindel/Thief

Lindel is a beast in the fact he tests all ability checks with 2 grey instead of 1 grey + 1 black.

I lost Firstblood, and all of The Cardinal's Plight while using the Basic II deck + Blood Frenzy.

I lost Encounter 1 in Cardinal's Plight because I allowed the heroes to retake their entire 1st turn as I was basically coaching them in tactics, and what not to do and I didn't want to discourage anybody from playing the game. Basically I kind of put my kid gloves on for that first encounter. I took Shadow Dragons as my open group.

First, let me say that Eldar Mok's heroic ability hampers an OL's planning capacity considerably. The ability to look at the OL's hand, know all the cards and pick the best one, while sharing all the information to the other three heroes, is very handy

Pit Mok's heroic verses an OL's Basic II deck and it made the challenge even harder since Basic II is a mix of circumstantial cards.

In The Cardinal's Plight encounter 1, Lindel managed to quickly find the key that opened the door on hero turn 2, and since Merrick failed his first raise dead attempt I managed to only get one zombie off the map before the scenario was lost.

In The Cardinal's Plight encounter 2, I chose Kobalds, Shadow Dragons and Ogres as my open groups. Kobalds were placed at the entrance.

I almost killed the Cardinal with the master +1 zombie before the door was opened but things started slowly spiraling down hill from there on.

Mok used his heroic to strip Reflective Ward in both encounters. That sucked.

I rolled quite a few X's (misses) during encounter 2, especially when it mattered. I couple times I managed to surge with the red dice when attacking with the red dragon, but the blue was an X ;(

This hero make up is pretty solid imo. I honestly feel that if I had the Basic I deck during encounter 2, I would have won the scenario.

I laid out the basic I and II cards and compared them side by side.

1. Dash is > Blinding Speed by far. Example, spawn a zombie in the library while the door is closed in Cardinal's Plight Encounter 2. With Dash you can open the door, move and attack. With blinding speed you could open the door and move, or open the door and attack.

2. Dark Charm is huge compared to Mimic and/or Reflective Ward

3. Word of Misery > Sign of Weakness

4. Befuddle is very circumstantial

5. Dark fortune is HUGELY missed in Basic 2.

6. Frenzy > Flurry. You get two Frenzy's and you don't need a surge to use it. That's a pretty big deal when rolling a red + blue dice and aren't relying/hoping on surge to use your card.

More to come.

Basic II deficiency (Endurance):

If the OL finds him(her)self in a quest where reinforcements are limited, or not allowed, sometimes slowing heroes down is the only hope an OL has.

Slowing heroes down can be done one of five ways:

1. Blocking a doorway/hallway with monster

2. Knocking them out

3. Stunning/Immobilizing

4. Knocking back, throwing, or swallowing

5. OL forcing fatigue.

In last night's experience, Basic II had some problems in Cardinal's Plight because I was stuck with two befuddles doing nothing, mimic wasn't that great at helping me delay the heroes, sign of weakness sat in my hand because the heroes didn't take a rest action, I couldn't use Flurry when it mattered because I didn't surge, blinding surge wasn't that helpful because I still had to take a Move action to use it.

Having three cards that were pretty much worthless, and Eldar Mok knowing what the majority of my cards were made the fight an uphill battle.

The lack of dark fortunesque cards really hurts this deck IMO. Even if I took Beastmen to counter that in some scenarios; it would be restricted to minions.

In racing quests, such as Fat Goblin encounter 2, not being able to depend on Blinding Speed hurts.

Quite a few of Basic 2's cards allow the OL to draw a new card if heroes pass an attribute check. This is nice, but I prefer to have cards that I can rely on. Also, drawing a new card generally isn't going to give me what I need.

Maybe Basic I seems better, but I seem to have cards to use more often with Basic II then Basic I. Also, may of the Basic II have added bonuses that are made to win against certain classes already. Uncontrolled Power is BOSS! I kept a hexer at bay all of an epic. It was amazing.

Getting Overwhelm to go off is hard and risky, but if you can... <3

Mimic makes my heroes question if looting is worth the dive. And, for real, what is more funny when a mimic running around with a secret passage in it's stomach >D! Getting a search token to run away from the heroes is a great way to stall out greedy heroes. If they really want it they have to expend at least one action, if not more to catch it.

After playing Warlord OL set, I feel Flurry is much more fair. Imagine with me, a ravager beast attacking twice, Frenzy, Blood Rage and Rise Again. Following turn, attack twice, Frenzy again and Blood Rage. You need the god hand for this, but it still can happen (and has happened for me). At least Flurry there is only one and the OL has to spend a surge to do so. You get a monster a minimum of two hits in (more with more cards or abilities) which should be enough.

I feel the same kind of fairness was needed with dash vs. blinding speed. I still get allot of millage out of Blinding Speed and I get the harass my warrior to do so! >O

Out of all of the cards, I miss my Dark Charm. There is nothing more hilarious then to watch the healer hit himself or the warrior come blazing with his Grinding Axe on the scout (and the hero plead with the dice to miss) >D! But that is only one card vs. all of these other cards I find better, or the potential of better.

There are others but I am tired and lazy. Hopes this helps the Basic II case.

PS Pit trap is horrible. I hate it.

You're right Kunzite,

My main concern right now is completing the campaign. If we complete it and the players next want to play an ultra competitive campaign, I'll break out Basic 1 and punish them. The decision to play Basic 2 ultimately was to get everybody excited to play, and complete all the quests.

Your gentle, and glove wearing OL

-Cursain

First and foremost, you do not need to perform a move action with your monsters in order to use the extra movement points granted by blinding speed; consider it exactly the same as when players use stamina to add movement points to their movement pools. Matter of fact, these movement points even slither around immobilize and its restrictions, allowing you to use them to move.

Other than that though..

All in all I think the greatest strength of Basic I is that it's split right down the middle with ridiculous strength, and overwhelmingly situational mediocrity. I have no difficulties dropping both Tripwires, Pit Trap, Word of Misery and Poison Dart to keep the deck lean and mean. With Basic II? About the only card I feel 100% justified in killing is Sign of Weakness. MAYBE Mimic (but far be it from me to deny the opportunity to have treasure run away or kill people).

I really feel that they are both very powerful.. But in your case, you are going against not only the dream team of character picks (Nanok, Lindel and Mok), but also two characters (Lindell and Mok) who heavily negate the test and combo-based nature of the Basic II deck. Even Nanok can potentially ruin your attempts to Mental Error a massive firebreath off of him by deciding that he doesn't want to be affected by this attack.

The single most important factor of playing Basic II is making sure your heroes are least-equipped to handle the attribute tests you are going to throw at them. Especially if the archetypes that are targeted by certain cards are particularly weak in those testing stats. You do not want to be throwing 50%+ chances of failure before Befuddle on every play.

And you, as the OL, can and SHOULD choose your basic decks AFTER the heroes have claimed their heroes. Not joking. If they are getting the "dream team" then you need to get what will work best. And warlord. Not joking. un-errata warlord is cheep and VERY powerful. We even have Plot decks coming out that mess with things outside of quests (see Zacherith's Plot deck).

And I'm not even sure Basic II is playing with the kiddy gloves. My heroes have not had, but one, steam-roll in their 9 quests we have played in this campaign (this is not counting the epics we have had) while I have had two, of the three wins, be steam roll fest. I really feel it's working for me.

Would I take the Basic II if my heroes choose characters that nullify most of the bonuses that are given? NO. They try to play around me, I will pull old faithful back out and run them over with something they didn't expect. I will still wish there was one Frenzy and Dash was dumbed down (it only seems fair) but with beasts to push my guys out of the way and heroes getting 400+ gold a game, forget it.

I guess it's all play style and strategy. Both bring something good to the table.

On a side note, I would like to bring up a fact about treasures and heroes having gold. They are subject to what the deck gives them. If crap is coming out of it, it won't matter how much gold they have! Also, say they get lucky (my heroes certainly have), at some point they will get to their zenith of best equipment. What does this mean for the OL? They, the heroes, can't get any better, but you can. While the heroes will hit a ceiling for best things, the OL will always have access to bettering them selves.

I know it's OT, but since we are talking about deck building... I needed to throw that out there.

I still hate pit trap...

The Cardinal's Plight/Encounter 2 wasn't a blow out by any means. It took about 3 1/2 hours to complete. The heroes escaped with 1 wound remaining on the Cardinal.

I had a complete blast, and so did the heroes. Honestly, I'm sticking with Basic 2 so my conscious stays clean. I'll throw in my second blood frenzy, drop those Befuddles and have a hay day regardless.

Cheers

-Cursain

I am looking forward to playing Basic II in Shadow Ruin. It will be great to revisit an old haunt with new cards <3

My opinion is that it depends from the heroes group. For example, a group of really powerfull heroes well build would be too strong to fight on weapons only, ant then the basic 2 proposes another gameplay and play with the heroes' test and players' fears. When they will do something, they will be punished, more with punisher deck.

But in another case, Basic 1 is better if the team is well rounded for tests but not on fights.

and finally, Basic 2 is better to go to punisher than basic 1.

I felt that the basic 2 deck cards where too situational at times. I would often find myself with a handfull of cards yet none of them could aid my evil plans. Found myself missing "dash" quite often as well.

Ok, Dash is so much better then blinding speed, hands down, but there is a physiology behind it that feels more evil. You put the weight of your success on the failure of the warrior. And when he does, even half way, it throws off 1/4 of the team. It it no longer about you so much as me playing a card as it is him failing the attribute tests (and most warriors will fail at least one, if not both).

But that's just me.

I can relate to that. But! Dash is simply put just better. Probably the best OL card in general.

Moving 4 space is not excatly the same as moving again.

For exemple, big monster will gain 1 movement point in some chances cases.

I think one of the most important things about Blinding Speed is that what the OL gets out of using it is not a Move Action, but simply Movement Points. Meaning you can still move a monster that's been immobilized. Also noted is that monsters with speed <= 3 can get more MPs out of Blinding Speed than they would with Dash (If there's a Warrior).

I think what I've noticed about Basic 2 vs Basic 1 is that Basic 2 has the potential to be stronger than Basic 1 in some certain circumstances. If you're looking for reliable power, go with Basic 1, if you like living more dangerously, go with Basic 2

Basic 1 has Dash, Frenzy, Dark Charm, and Dark Fortune and that's about it. I'm with Sym on this one - those 4 cards are killer and rest are filler. Basic II has it's utility spread out pretty evenly; its spread out so evenly, in fact, that I'm finding it difficult to pair down my deck pre-quest.

I disagree with his assessment of Mimic tho. It's the only thing in the game that goes directly after the heroes' gold. I think it's the best card out of both decks. If you gave me a deck with 4 Mimics and whatever else you felt like for the whole campaign, I would win the Finale 95% of the time.

Jee

I have had quests where the heroes will avoid the treasure due to mimic, and then regret it when they do search. I threw a run-a-way mimic at Sarena and killed her (also a quest I won, but that was because of Kobolds). After the soreness was relived, the heroes and I had a good laugh. It was the very same run-a-way mimic that has a secret passage in it.

There is Uncontrolled power, telling heroes they can't do their awesome abilities.

Grease trap is fantastic. I love it. Moving becomes a hazard in a way pit trap can never measure up to.

Overwhelm is great coupled with allot of monsters.

Dirty Fighting is a basic card giving surges.

Mental Error is a basic card giving a +2 damage!

And Reflective Ward is great for after a hero is knocked out, stand up and swing again. makes their hit just as deadly for him. If they are fresh from a KO, it should be enough to land them on their back again.

Out of all of the basic two cards, mimic and reflective ward are their bane. They will be the first to say they dislike these more then anything else. You also have Blinding speed and furry even if they aren't as good as their counterparts. FFG where smart enough to not leave us without those vital elements. Basic II has so much to offer.

Agreed. I actually think Blinding Speed is about as good as Dash, functionally. Perhaps its because the warriors I play it on have yet to pass both tests consecutively, but 4 MP is almost always > Move Action unless your entire strat is built around 5 Speed Monsters. No argument about Frenzy vs Flurry tho.

Uncontrolled Power has been a threat to my relationship . My fiance is playing a Hexer and that card seems specifically tailored to make her pull her hair out. It gets less effective in Act II tho, when they have ALL the surges in the world at their disposal. That's actually how she managed to power through it - gear and build for SO MANY surges that I couldn't possibly use them all. I'm seriously considering taking the cards out of my deck because they aren't as effective as they used to be.

Grease Trap beats the pants off any trap that comes in Basic I. And its hilarious .

Jee