Will these new sets replace what I JUST bought?

For the most part, yes. The figures are all updated and the art is all updated, but only a few so far have demonstrated actual changes, so you can probably just play with what you have, and make notes if there are any changes.

Yup, hard decision but I'm going to sell my newly acquired D1E set. I'll just take the money and put it towards D2E stuff and be consitent from here on out. I might miss out on a hero or monster but I have a feeling the new stuff will make up for it.

Off to eBay or Craigslist now I suppose to roll the dice. :/

I like the fact they are updating them, everyone seems to think a number of the monsters are broken. Some are useless while others are overpowered. This is why i never bought them personally as i read a number of people call them game breaking.

So its nice that they are getting an update, it will fix the overpowered/underpowered heroes and monsters for those who already own the 1e while giving those of us who dont own the 1e monsters/heroes an opportunity to pick them up.

Meanwhile the models get upgraded, so they will fit in better with the more detailed monsters of 2e.

The way i see it, everyone wins Then again i am biased in my opinion(who here isn't?) as i don't own the 1e monsters and i am looking forward to picking these up.

That said i can see why some people (1e owners) would prefer ffg release new monsters entirely.

edit: Chachi beat me to this barely !

The update does say " Many of the heroes and monsters included in Hero and Monster Collections are updated versions of heroes and monsters previously only available in the first edition of Descent.". So there will also be some new heroes/monsters packed in there to give further incentive to 1e owners.

what are some of the broken ones in your opinion?

uhm - several come to mind... .

Nanok is above average with a Black DD and a general surge on every attack, above average stamina, good health and 4 MP

Landrec the Wise comes to mind with ok fatigue, general surge, 5crit heroic feat. (i know he is slow and i know he defends brown, but that 5 crit feat did cost me a lot lieutenants)

Mok comes to mind resetting fatigue and health as he heals everyone else. his heroic feat is ALSO quite strong (also i would not call it broken, its more of a combination of a strong passive + a strong heroic feat)

Shilouettes heroic feat is REALLY strong (combined with a thief or treasure hunter), which really fast tends to bring the balance to the heroes in gold terms, without really focusing that hard on loot. im not calling her imbalanced per se, but the combination with the treasure hunter is just really strong and she doesnt have that much of a downside.

what are some of the broken ones in your opinion?

uhm - several come to mind... .

Nanok is above average with a Black DD and a general surge on every attack, above average stamina, good health and 4 MP

Landrec the Wise comes to mind with ok fatigue, general surge, 5crit heroic feat. (i know he is slow and i know he defends brown, but that 5 crit feat did cost me a lot lieutenants)

Mok comes to mind resetting fatigue and health as he heals everyone else. his heroic feat is ALSO quite strong (also i would not call it broken, its more of a combination of a strong passive + a strong heroic feat)

Shilouettes heroic feat is REALLY strong (combined with a thief or treasure hunter), which really fast tends to bring the balance to the heroes in gold terms, without really focusing that hard on loot. im not calling her imbalanced per se, but the combination with the treasure hunter is just really strong and she doesnt have that much of a downside.

When it comes to the Conversion Kit, with every crazy hero ability comes a balancing act on the other side:

Monsters with the Stealthy ability add a necessary 3 range minimum to hit from Melee, and +3 to hit from Range, meaning most Scouts and Mages will have to rely on the other classes to reliably defeat these monsters.

A surprising number of monsters have a substantial amount of Pierce to them, getting crazy with up to 3 and 4 in Act II. Bear in mind, most of these things with Pierce come in packs so they can prey on single heroes rather handily, no matter how nice their armor is.

Then there's Sorcery , a monster ability that basically gives free damage in exchange for excess range (It works the other way around too, not that it comes up too often). When you can convert two or three excess range to pure damage, heroes don't tend to last long.

Fire Breath is found on a few nasty monsters, which basically spreads the damage in any four spaces you choose -- it doesn't have to be a straight line! -- using one attack to hit multiple heroes. In fact, Belthir's Cry Havoc and the Blood Ape's Leap Attack can be really hazardous, moving their speed and rolling Blue/Red/Red on every hero they come across is extremely effective.

Undying adds insult to injury, especially for high HP enemies like Ogres or ranged nuisances like Skeleton Archers and Sorcerors. The heroes spend a lot of effort to whittle down/chase down these monsters to kill them and surprise! They're immediately replaced by a minion at full health, disrespecting group limits.

I'm not sure you realize, but a lot of the bigger baddies have Surge: +3 Damage , which basically adds a maximum roll of a red die to their damage total: Given that most heroes roll Gray/Gray or Gray/Black, that still averages out between two and three shields respectively: A simple surge can crush most heroes' defensive rolls, unless they start getting lucky (When luck gets involved, all bets are off).

Knockback can get crazy, as a monster can spend a surge to put a hero anywhere within three spaces -- including behind him -- and easily separate him from his group.

The worst of the bunch has combinations of those abilities:

- Hellhounds are a nightmare with Fire Breath AND Pierce 2/4

- Deep Elves and Wendigoes are frustrating to hit by anyone, especially in maps where the OL has to cart a relic off the map to win.

- Chaos Beasts can steal attack dice/abilites from heroes' weapons using Morph AND apply Sorcery to them! I've been on the receiving end of a Blue/Red/Red Melee Sorcery 3 attack; Thirteen damage; enough to kill almost any hero in a single blow from full HP.

- Sorcerors have Sorcery 2/3 and the leader has Undying. Summon can get out of hand when able to move slow monsters much faster than the heroes anticipate.

- Ogres are a surprise: Surge for +3, Surge for Knockback in both acts, 12 health AND Undying? Sure, he only rolls a single gray die, but the master basically has 21 health and barely loses anything in the process.

- Kobolds. Don't take 'em lightly: 6 Health that splits into two 4s, and you get them in superbowl-sized attendance. Very easy to overwhelm heroes with them if they remain unchecked.

So yes, heroes have it pretty good on some of their characters, but they're hardly 'broken' in the face of some of the monsters you have at your disposal. There are ways around everything in this game, you simply have to maximize your strengths while covering your weaknesses as best you can.

not sure morph does take the abilties from the weapon - as far as i am concerned it only takes the dice...

not sure morph does take the abilties from the weapon - as far as i am concerned it only takes the dice...

i'm sure it's not, and thoses are not so powerfull, usually they dies before having a chance to hit !

I can concede that it may not take the weapon's abilities, but it's still powerful, especially when you can throw in OL cards to make it worse. Any OL worth their salt would do everything they could to allow the heavy hitters to make use of their attacks before dying and getting reinforced, be it by strategic monster placement during setup, OL cards or even Lieutenant Pack abilities.

I do suppose that the grass is always greener on the other side:
OLs complain Nanok is busted because he has a free surge, a black defense die and can no-sell one of the OL's attacks, a Treasure Hunter-class Silhouette can garner mad treasure in an encounter and earn monstrous amounts of gold using her Heroic Feat.

Heroes complain about monsters having abilities like Stealthy or Undying and having numerous monsters in a group with Fire Breath and high amounts of Pierce , or spending most of their heroes' turns to fell the Master Ice Wyrm in their path, only to have it immediately reinforce at the start of the OL's turn.

Neither side has it horrendously bad, but neither side has it overbearingly good, either.

well it has something to do with the heroes quickly evolving out of control of the overlord without doing anything more than bein present.

kill them every quest - they loose interest in the game and whipe alot.

let them have 1 or 2 quests, they grow so hard out of control you can hardly do anything about it.

In my experience, they too often grow out of control, and cannot be stopped at all; alas

In my experience, they too often grow out of control, and cannot be stopped at all; alas

This is true currently. However i feel this can be combated if the campaigns were made in such a way that gave the overlord more monsters to dish out pain with and/or make the objectives more difficult to complete as the act progresses. That would effectively help scale the overlords powers with the rise of the heroes abilities and gear. This could potentially make the game a bit more linear (unless there are a lot of quest choices for each step of the act(think LOR act 1)) - but it would definitely help this issue that does often arise.

That said making a campaign balanced like that would be difficult and require a lot of play testing to achieve.

In my experience, as overlord, I generally win the first few quests easily, but then towards the end of act 1 start losing. Then act 2 starts, I start winning again, and start losing towards the end of act 2. Whether or not I win the finale depends on quest order and how essential the ones I won/lost are.

Yup, hard decision but I'm going to sell my newly acquired D1E set. I'll just take the money and put it towards D2E stuff and be consitent from here on out. I might miss out on a hero or monster but I have a feeling the new stuff will make up for it.

Off to eBay or Craigslist now I suppose to roll the dice. :/

Hopefully it still has some value now the remakes have been announced!

Definitely number one for the wishlist is Nanok of the Blade cause he is definitely a pastiche to Conan the cimmerian which is one of my favorite fantasy characters. Lord Hawthorne and Red Scorpion would be awesome too.

I'm sure all the Conversion Kit heroes and monsters (IE, all the original 1E stuff) will be released through these packs. It seems the intent is to allow those who didn't have 1E to get access to them (with some minor changes for balance or whatever).

I only wish the quests were made available separately for those that didn't need the minis.

I don't think so. Most likely there will be 7 up to 8 boxes with all monsters but some heroes will be lost (1 healer, 2 scouts, 5 mages and 8 warriors) and most likely, because of the new design line, the "non humans" ones would be lost, and I'm really ashamed about this.

Now, I can't wait to see the new Challara and her new heroic feat, Ispher (even if I don't think he will come back), Steelhorns, and Vyrah

We need more votes for Nanok, Hawthorne, Red Scorpion, and Non-Human heroes! C'mon guys!

Non-humans heroes first.

A transforming one, with his morphed figure, challara with a feat that allows brightblaze to do a breath of fire attack, and werewolves monster that can infect heroes and summons other werewolves when heroes dies !

Non-humans heroes first.

A transforming one, with his morphed figure, challara with a feat that allows brightblaze to do a breath of fire attack, and werewolves monster that can infect heroes and summons other werewolves when heroes dies !

i have the feeling these sets had always some sort of theme, the oucast one had many "old" heroes, and so on, so maybe stellhorns, ispher are in the same set. and maybe in the later sets we will see also new monsters and maybe some new heroes......

( as for stellhorns, i really think as a fanfavorite she will be back)

but after gencon we will know more, may some little news bit from origin next week.

I really want to see Mordrog remade. I like Orcs and we don't have an Orc Warrior currently. Either that or some new Orc Warrior in one of the upcoming expansions.

Pathfinder Durik is an orc warrior.