Hey Everyone,

Over the weekend my buddy and I played Death on the Wing for the first time. As background, we have already finished playing through base campaign with Alaric (disciple), Syndrel (berserker), Jain (thief), and Lorec (runemaster). This time we thought we'd try the other characters and the other classes, we also got LoR and Trollfens and are using their mechanics as well. Death of the Wing was the third quest we played in this campaign. Heros won Intro, lost Castle Danerion (when an ettin double double dashed, double furied to open a hole, and double threw Sir P into a gang pile of Volcrux Reavers) , and ended up losing Death on the Wing. Secret room has come up in every mission, and treasure chest came up in all three as well. Castle Danerion was a tight game and lots of fun, with the OL pulling out a victory on the last turn before the heroes won. Death on the Wing was a different story altogether.The characters, their equipment, and skills for Death on the Wing are below.

Widow (necromancer): immolation rune, corpse explosion, fury of undeath

Tomble (wildlander): accurate, eagle eyes, bow of bone, leather armor

Grisban (knight): oath of honor, advance, steel broadsword, wooden shield, chainmail

Ashrian (spirtseeker): healing rain, belt of alchemy, shield of light, leather armor, iron spear

The OL had:

Dark Power Plot Deck (Lord Merrick Farrow's): Dark pact, Dark mark, Grasping Grave, Masques (0 threat)

Basic 1 with two Web Traps added.

Encounter 1: open group - Arachyura

Arachyura are ridiculous. Their damage output for an act one monster is off the charts. First search token was Overgrown Chasm, which was too good to pass up. Heroes dove in and two turns later got Runeplate (went to Widow). Between the secret room detour, the boulders, and the spiders stalling, the heroes got through only after the entire OL deck had been drawn. Heroes win.

Encounter 2: open group - Merriods, placed master by entrance to right guard room, minion by the left.

Hero turn 1 - Elemental minion on the bridge is killed, 6 hearts put onto Belthir. All heroes still on bridge.

OL turn 1 - Elemental minion reinforces behind heroes uses water and earth to immobilize tomble and widow. Elemental master uses fire to put a couple hearts on grisban and ashrian, then earth and immobilizes ashrian. Merriod master gets frenzied, moves into the guard room, flails to hit both guards, OL rolls 5 hearts, drops dark might for a surge to seven hearts. One guard dies, the other gets 5 hearts. Frenzy attack finishes guard two. Minion Merriod gets frenzied, moves in attacks guard one, OL drops dark might, critical blow which kills guard three. Frenzy attack gets a critical on the dice and OL uses dark fortune to maximize wounds. Guard four has 5 hearts on him. Belthir gets dash, dash, attack final guard and OL uses dark fortune to maximize damage. Guard four dies. Heroes do not get turn 2.

As you can see, the second mission took more time to set up then to play out. Was there any chance for the heroes? Should we have admitted they had no chance with how long it took them to do the first mission? Is this a flaw in the mission or a design in the mission? Personally I am surprised that neutral characters like the guards do not get more health as the player numbers go up. Four players gives master monsters which insta-gib with ease. Also, for once, it would be nice if the heroes got an actual benifit to winning encounter one, instead of needing to win it to not auto-lose encounter two. It seems like winning encouter one rarely provides a benifit to the heroes. Some asymmetry to the mission design would be a welcome change where the winner gets something they can use in encounter 2.

As an aside, I was the OL for this mission. I just don't like that the heroes had no chance unless I purposefully held back in encounter 2.

Encounter 1: open group - Arachyura

Arachyura are ridiculous. Their damage output for an act one monster is off the charts. First search token was Overgrown Chasm, which was too good to pass up. Heroes dove in and two turns later got Runeplate (went to Widow). Between the secret room detour, the boulders, and the spiders stalling, the heroes got through only after the entire OL deck had been drawn. Heroes win.

Sounds about right.

Assuming you guys played by the rules and read both encounters beforehand, you should've realized that Encounter 1 sets up Encounter 2.

The Heroes got greedy in searching. As a consequence, the Overlord was able to draw their entire deck (pretty much winning Encounter 1). Understandably the heroes lost.

In our group the Heroes won. We skipped searching in Encounter 1, and went for the objective.

Sounds like the Heroes got a good treasure from the searching, so is that really losing?

Sorry, but you played something wrong in your castle daerion game, you cannot make an ettin either double dash, or double frenzy, as you can only trigger those cards once per triggering condition per turn, which I believe reads "On this monster's turn"

I was wondering about that "double dash, double frenzy" thing. Usually that just gives you one more movement action, or one more attack action.

If I had a mage in my group, I would sacrifice the shield of the dark god to get runeplate. Getting tons of loot but giving up the actual win conditions is a perfectly valid way to play when the actual objective isn't that important.

Seems like any time the OL gets their entire deck in their hand, it's almost a guaranteed win.

If there were more ways to influence the OL's hand in ways other than the OL playing cards at their own leisure, any quest like this one where Encounter 1 essentially has no bearing on Encounter 2 allows the OL to simply sandbag the first encounter and demolish the heroes in the second encounter.

The times Kunzite trounces us thoroughly, she often gets her entire deck in her hand in Encounter 1 while amassing threat and refusing to spend it in Encounter 2 (She had all of Belthir's LT deck before the Interlude). Then again, she has been rather insistent about keeping Unholy Ritual the pre-Errata version, so it's a hell of a lot easier for her to amass cards relatively quickly.

They errata'd it because it was overpowered pre-nerf, that's just a **** move =p.

Honestly, that's why the wildlander is so strong. Get Danger sense, when it becomes clear the overlord isn't going for the win conditions, or you have time and nothing better to do, start forcing card discards.

Sounds about right.

Assuming you guys played by the rules and read both encounters beforehand, you should've realized that Encounter 1 sets up Encounter 2.

The Heroes got greedy in searching. As a consequence, the Overlord was able to draw their entire deck (pretty much winning Encounter 1). Understandably the heroes lost.

In our group the Heroes won. We skipped searching in Encounter 1, and went for the objective.

Sounds like the Heroes got a good treasure from the searching, so is that really losing?

Yes we read both encounters before hand, as I said, this is not our first time through the game. We were both familar with the objectives. My point was the victory in the first mission had no bearing what so ever on the ability to win mission two. My issue was that the victory conditions and their effects should have read: heroes win - nothing happens, OL wins - heroes autolose, heroes win but stop to do anything other than run - heroes autolose. To me this is a bad mission design. Victory in encounter 1 should mean something, and it should be more than not autolosing the next mission.

If I had a mage in my group, I would sacrifice the shield of the dark god to get runeplate. Getting tons of loot but giving up the actual win conditions is a perfectly valid way to play when the actual objective isn't that important.

But that was incidental...he had no idea runeplate was up for grabs. If it had been his strategy I would have said it was a good move, but it was his consolation prize.

They errata'd it because it was overpowered pre-nerf, that's just a **** move =p.

Honestly, that's why the wildlander is so strong. Get Danger sense, when it becomes clear the overlord isn't going for the win conditions, or you have time and nothing better to do, start forcing card discards.

So we actually have a gentlemen's agreement not to take danger sense. Destroying the OL's hand seemed too spiteful. We are both experienced wargamers, having played a variety of different board and tabletop games over the past 25 years. We switch back and forth between playing the OL and the heroes and often times discuss the best moves for whomever with each other. In fact the turn 1 victory was in large part due to my friends input on monster placement on the bridge.

I am basically hearing from the community that the mission is designed in a way that nearly guarentees a win for the OL in encounter 2 with the party listed. So now let me ask you this, what house rules have people come up with that they feel improves this aspect of the game. Please don't bother with "it is just the way the game is designed, go play a different one if you don't like it". As I mentioned before we are happy to house rule things and the goal is to ensure a competitive experience in all missions.

Here's from OP: "Belthir gets dash, dash, attack final guard". This reads to me like you've played two dash cards on the same figure in the same turn, which is explicitly against the rules. Do you mean "move, dash, attack"? As far as I recall, Belthir can't reach every single guard (though he can reach some in 8 movement - ie two move actions). Perhaps clarify what's happened here.

I need to check myself - my recollection for death on a wing 2 is that reinforcements were end rather than start of turn - that would also affect what work the minion elemental was doing there. I could be wrong. I should remember: we played this at the weekend. Encounter 1 took nearly 4 hours - I went through overlord deck twice - but encounter 2 finishes within about 3 or 4 turns!

I played this recently as the OL against a 3-player group and my experience was exactly the opposite - it was an absolute give-away to the heroes. I read the mission, my jaw dropped, I read it again, played it, and it was just as bad as I imagined. On turn 1 they wasted the elemental and immobilized Belthir. I killed 2 guards on my turn. On turn 2 they finished slaughtering Belthir in maybe 2 or 3 actions.

Group composition matters. What skills and items the players have matter. If they didn't, what would be the point of levelling your guys? Therefore, some groups are going to find some missions trivial; other groups will find the exact same mission to be virtually impossible. A guy who can Immobilize - through an item or skill - is hugely important to any group, because many missions feature some type of race element. When your Berserker chooses Charge instead of Cripple, you're making a choice that may help you, and may cost you. But if there's one thing I've read about this game, it's that there are just as many people complaining that X is OP for the overlord as there are complaining the exact same thing is unbalanced in the heroes' favor. In the MMORPG world, "equal whining on both sides" is the standard judge of whether a power is overpowered; the same concept probably applies to the complaints here.

Encounter 2: open group - Merriods, placed master by entrance to right guard room, minion by the left.

Hero turn 1 - Elemental minion on the bridge is killed, 6 hearts put onto Belthir. All heroes still on bridge.

OL turn 1 - Elemental minion reinforces behind heroes uses water and earth to immobilize tomble and widow. Elemental master uses fire to put a couple hearts on grisban and ashrian, then earth and immobilizes ashrian. Merriod master gets frenzied, moves into the guard room, flails to hit both guards, OL rolls 5 hearts, drops dark might for a surge to seven hearts. One guard dies, the other gets 5 hearts. Frenzy attack finishes guard two. Minion Merriod gets frenzied, moves in attacks guard one, OL drops dark might, critical blow which kills guard three. Frenzy attack gets a critical on the dice and OL uses dark fortune to maximize wounds. Guard four has 5 hearts on him. Belthir gets dash, dash, attack final guard and OL uses dark fortune to maximize damage. Guard four dies. Heroes do not get turn 2.

Sounds like in general you guys broke some rules, and who knows how many more that aren't described.

-Multiple Dashes can't be played on one monster.

-Reinforcements are at the END OF OVERLORD TURN. Tomble and Window should not have been immobilized.

I'd suggest reading the rule book more thoroughly.

The hard part if your the heroes is to not only win the first encounter (not that hard), but to also grab all the loot from the second encounter and take the win - that becomes a challenge and usually makes for a very tight game !

Nearly anyone can toast Belthir in 2 turns(1 turn is certainly not unheard of), unless of course the rolls are not in your favor that day.

I played this recently as the OL against a 3-player group and my experience was exactly the opposite - it was an absolute give-away to the heroes. I read the mission, my jaw dropped, I read it again, played it, and it was just as bad as I imagined. On turn 1 they wasted the elemental and immobilized Belthir. I killed 2 guards on my turn. On turn 2 they finished slaughtering Belthir in maybe 2 or 3 actions.

Group composition matters. What skills and items the players have matter. If they didn't, what would be the point of levelling your guys? Therefore, some groups are going to find some missions trivial; other groups will find the exact same mission to be virtually impossible. A guy who can Immobilize - through an item or skill - is hugely important to any group, because many missions feature some type of race element. When your Berserker chooses Charge instead of Cripple, you're making a choice that may help you, and may cost you. But if there's one thing I've read about this game, it's that there are just as many people complaining that X is OP for the overlord as there are complaining the exact same thing is unbalanced in the heroes' favor. In the MMORPG world, "equal whining on both sides" is the standard judge of whether a power is overpowered; the same concept probably applies to the complaints here.

Well I'm going to play tomorrow night against a group of three heroes (including Syndrael). What I see coming is:

Syndrael uses feat- Ashrian and herself dash forward (as I don't have a minion elemental -> no way to block approach)

Syndrael hacks up Belthir just a wee bit

Ashrian goes for a treasure (perhaps even two)

Leoric fries Belthir for all it's worth

even before my first turn...

My only hope is that they give me some time because they are greedy or I can ****** a OL turn by winning encounter one.

Well I'm not exactly high-spirited thinking of tomorrow...

Sounds like in general you guys broke some rules, and who knows how many more that aren't described.

-Multiple Dashes can't be played on one monster.

-Reinforcements are at the END OF OVERLORD TURN. Tomble and Window should not have been immobilized.

I'd suggest reading the rule book more thoroughly.

That said, as mentioned, if the OL gets to draw his entire hand (10 turns) in Encounter 1, the Heroes messed up royally and should expect to lose the Quest.

While I actually appreciate bringing up mistakes to our attention, I have to say that your assumption that because we played some rules wrong, we must have messed up innumerable more incredibly insulting. While some people on this forum have been fantastic and discussed good points (whitewing and zooeyglass in particular), jnad83, you have been shockingly unhelpful to a new community member. Whitewing's argument on the use of "danger sense" was a excellent example of a good argument. He postulated that our group had to decide for ourselves if the OL wanted to be able to continue using these strategies that wildlander needed the use of this skill. Since then we have allowed the skill back in and it has increased the tactical nature of the game tremendously as the wildlander now has to balance action use of danger sense against search deck running. Zooeyglass pointed out politely that we were playing rules incorrectly. Any way the thread is pretty much dead, but I wanted to thank everyone that took time to help us understand the route our game took.

Well I'm going to play tomorrow night against a group of three heroes (including Syndrael). What I see coming is:

Syndrael uses feat- Ashrian and herself dash forward (as I don't have a minion elemental -> no way to block approach)

Syndrael hacks up Belthir just a wee bit

Ashrian goes for a treasure (perhaps even two)

Leoric fries Belthir for all it's worth

even before my first turn...

If you place the Elemental right next to Belthir, it would block their movement, keeping them from getting the treasure, though not necessarily protecting Belthir. On your next turn, you can move Belthir out of the way and then use Earth and Fire against the group which has stacked up to attack Belthir.

If you place the Elemental right next to Belthir, it would block their movement, keeping them from getting the treasure, though not necessarily protecting Belthir. On your next turn, you can move Belthir out of the way and then use Earth and Fire against the group which has stacked up to attack Belthir.

Well perhaps I'll try that. If the Relic is not enough spoils for them and thus they don't kill Belthir, it might even work.

Chances for Belthirs survival might not even be worse than when putting the elemental in front of Belthir, so they have to move around.

Thanks