We did the Into the Dark quest from the base game, souped up with the new rules and additions. 2 heros bravely entered the dungeon. Sir Valadere, with Blessing (giving him the Aura ability), two extra points of stamina, and the ability to regain one stamina when declaring an Advance action; and Battlemage Jaes, who came with Fire Pact, +1 armor against magic attacks, and the new familiar, Furr the Spirit Wolf.
Valadere picked up a suit of Chainmail, a simple Sword, and opted to try out the new Throwing Knives to give himself some ranged options. Jaes purchased Leather Armor, and the Mage's Staff to take advantage of Fire Pact's abililty to set his targets on fire when using a staff weapon.
I customized my deck with 4 points in Traps, Threats, and Spawns, mostley removing the Dodge and Aim cards, and replacing them with super ones like Danger, Elite Beastmen, and a host of new traps. Let the game begin!
The first room was an easy mop-up, as you'd expect. The heroes handily destroyed their opposition without losing a single wound! Sir Valadere was running rampant with his fatigue-centered abilities. For one fatigue, he would have gained two power enhancement dice on the next attack. Ironically, he never used it, opting to spend it on extra movement while doing Battle actions for double attacks. Jaes quickly cleared the other half of the room while his spirit-wolf companion harried the survivors into the corner. I discarded a few cards for threat, luckly drawing into the Danger card, immediatley giving me 10 additional threat.
As they wandered the empty room, clearing treasures and activating the glyph, I deployed Trapmaster, making my traps cheaper and more effective, and a host of Kobolds in the area behind them. This was the beginning of the end. Two master Kobolds came with the Tricky ability, making my traps 2 threat cheaper in addition to Trapmaster's 1 threat discount and +2 damage. The heroes were convinced I was going to go trap-crazy at any moment (which I would have loved to), and one of them back-tracked to clear out the pesky Kobold swarms.
With little life and no armor, they fell like leaves before his assault, and any who dared to attack him immediatley lost half their health to his Aura. Furr the spirit wolf aided him, tearing into the Kobolds like a beast among teddy bears! Fortunatley for the heroes, we had read up on the fact that every elite, red monster kill rewards the hero with 50 gold! The heroes were becoming quite rich at this point.
And here's where, in my opinion, the game turned sour for them. I played the Sloth power card, forcing the heroic party to lose one Conquest point every time they returned to the town! This card is amazing from a OL's perspective. Valadere the Kobold-slayer scoffed and used a glyph anyway, purchasing Dwarven Fire-bombs, and returning at the first glyph of the dungeon to mop up a second set of Kobolds I spawned!
Split up across the dungeon, the other hero opened the door to the easternmost chamber alone. And the end was decided. Skeletons and hellhounds descended(haha) upon him, dealing little damage... until a pair of master Razorwings spawned, and began stunning the heroes every turn before retreating to saftey. An ogre reached the poor, isolated Battlemage and tossed him over his shoulder, boxing him in with an elite Beastman and friends who had spawned. Brave Sir Valadere was left alone on the other side of the dungeon, harried by the Razorwing's stun and finally torn to peices by a Beastman party.
Having started with 5 Conquest, and gaining only 3 from one glyph, the heroes were defeated. One trip to town put them to 7, one Battlemage's rolling head put them to 3, and Sir Valadere fell to two maximum-damage rolls by a pair of beastmen. They really, really should have stayed together and ignored a few Kobolds, as in the end, I never even played a trap! Evil triumphs again!
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And finally, a Coupla Things from the OL's perspective!
We browsed the Skill decks and saw them with new eyes. There are several that are a little glaring. For example, there's a trio of cards that offer +1 armor against Melee, Ranged, or Magic attacks. These are obviously skewed! While Melee attacks are extremely common (and deadly), and Magic attacks appear on the higher-tier monsters, the +1 Ranged armor skill is utterly garbage. The dragon and hellhounds have Breath and Peirce, making this basically +1 armor against Skeletons and Manticores. I'm sorry, but looking at the other skills you could have drawn, I'd feel ripped off. Moreso if I paid 1000 gold for it!
And Furr the Spirit Wolf... here's a can of worms. As a familiar, he's invincible, and can move 4 squares through any figure. He attacks every turn with a white die, which ignores armor. And since it wasn't mentioned in the rules, we assumed a magic die can be a ranged attack. He has a one-sided chance to miss, but otherwise offers one to three damage, ignoring armor, every turn.
The heroes were convinced that if they made it to the last room, they could simply run from the terrifying, named Giant and let the dog kill him!
Which is true! The giant has about 12 wounds, useless armor versus the ghost dog, and only runs 3 squares! The dog would eventually tear him apart without him ever getting near the heroes. Yes, spawn cards could slow them down, but the big, named boss could go down to an invincible puppy between 4 and 6 turns, or at the very least be horribley maimed by it. Furr the Spirit Wolf is now one of my most feared hero skills.
And finally, the card Fire Pact had us wondering. It states that your "Staff" attacks cause Burn. Right. But what constitutes a "Staff?" I'm quite sure the "Wizard's Staff" is a staff, but what about the Walking Stick? It's obviously a staff by picture and function, but does it require the name "Staff" in the title?
While everyone complains that it's impossible for the OL to win, I crushed them easily again. I'm not going to play this game again without 3 heroes, or drawing 1 card vs. 2 heroes.
Sadly, every one of the new cards is cut with a different die. If the decks are squared, I can see plainly where and when the new cards are coming. Not such a problem with the skills, as they tend to be fanned out for selection, but it also affects the Item decks. This is the same problem that happened with the Doom expansion! What the hell people! I mean, I just leave the decks a little sloppy on purpose, fixing the problem, but REALLY! CMON!
Overall though, an awesome expansion, and we havn't even made it through two entire rooms yet! Let alone Ferrox, Golems, Rolling Boulders, Scything Blades, Dart Fields, Mud, Lava, and a whole ton of Overlord replacement cards! I'll definatley be lobbying to get this on the table soon.
Edit: What's a Duskwing?
Last edited on 2006-10-30 21:06:27 CST (Total Number of Edits: 1)
Posted Mon Oct 30, 2006 8:55 pm
