We don't know if there's anything we've played wrong, but the following situation has appeared in our first campaign and is going to break the game apart!

Since the third dungeon, I, the Demon Prince, upgraded my "beast" category to Silver, and decided to send Lady Eliza to harass the heroes while Sir Alric and Lord Merrick Farrow continued razing cities and founding Temples (we were playin "ascension" plot).

In the first encounter against Lady Eliza, the heroes where mercilessly butchered. Only one managed to flee. It seemed nearly impossible for the heroes to defeat her. They've have good copper weapons and equipment, and each had traind 1 black die on his most important trait, so they weren't helpless at all. In fact, until that last dungeon, the heroes had gathered more conquest than the overlord.

The thing I'm trying to say is...

is it normal that an encounter with a lieutenant being so difficult?

If the Overlord attacks the party on the step 3 of the week turn (overlord actions) and slaughter them, does this means that the party misses his turn entirely?

What keeps the overlord from taking Tamalir down if he sends there all his lieutenants at this point of the campaing?

A full party kill just sends the party to Tamalir. So they get their normal Step 4 and are fully healed. If you have two extra lieutenants and one category of silvers, then sure, you have a shot at taking the capital. Don't be shy, let your OL flag fly!

If you have two lts and a silver category, they should have more than just one black die though. What's the Conquest score at?

I had the same problem with my group, they tried fighting the starting lieutenant and just got slaughtered. They have since gotten some better weapons, so that might help if they try again but I still think that the lieutenants are very VERY powerful.

Just the point I was trying to make in the previous post. What stops the OL from taking Tamilir if, you he can speed up the siege process, heroes attack only one Lt in a week, and heroes deal with pain and suffering at the hands of the LTs?

Somehow, everybody always misreads that FAQ. It says:



It says they can only encounter one lieutenant at a time, but it doesn't say anything about only one per week. As soon as they finish fighting the first lieutenant, they can immediately attack the second one.

The point of this question was to make it clear that the lieutenants aren't handled as a single encounter, with both lieutenants appearing at the same time, on the same encounter map.

Is this true? I thought a total party kill ended the heroes' turn immediately with no further effects?

You are right, my situation is a bit different than explained. You don't have to attack more than one Lt (actually you don't have to attack any but just to clarify I understand the rules.) My point was if you're trying to rid the city of multiple LTs, and let's say you die during the second Lt encounter your turn ends . It's another week tacked on the siege. And none of the siege tokens are removed.

Where we are in the game, I suspect that the OL could walk his three merrick leiutenants to Tamalir, and lay seige.

He has seige engines, he's upgraded his arcanes to silver.

We have some copper treasure, and each have a skill (except for one who has two black dice in melee because he's the character whose melee dice up his armour.)

There are so many trees in the encounter maps, that it's nearly impossible to get the archer or magic user into the fight, so it's down to the two melee characters, and even with free healing between encounters (for those of us who die) he gets so much more power, and it's so concentrated, I fear we shall not live through a full seige.

Tell my wife I love her, and that I died defending what is right against a tyrant. Tell my children not to be swayed by his purty alters, that he's evil and evil must not be suffered to live.

Did you buy the other two lieutenants with your starting XP? If so, that's not allowed.

Yeah, it does sound a little vague. The TPK rules that say the hero's action ends assumes that the heroes are actually taking their action. I take it to mean that they won't lose their action that they haven't started yet. It doesn't say explicitly what to do on a TPK on the OL's turn.

Not quite. The Party's week is over as per the rules on page 10:
Total Party Kill
If all heroes are killed during an encounter, the encounter ends
and the hero party marker is moved to Tamalir on the Terrinoth
map board. The party’s game week action is over, and the
overlord has scored a resounding blow!

This means that the heroes go back to town, but their week has ended and a new week begins.

As a result of that they also get:
Party Recovery
At the end of every encounter, regardless of the outcome, the
following occurs:
Any heroes who fled or were killed during 1. the encounter
rejoin the party.
2. Heroes who were killed return with full wounds. Heroes
who were not killed are not automatically healed.
3. All heroes are restored to full fatigue.
4. All heroes may drink any number of potions and use any
healing items they wish.

So to sum up, on a TPK, all heroes end up in Tamalir with full wounds and fatigue and a new week begins. They do not however get to activate their "ending their week on a city" clause.

Will do. Eventually, the OL will wane and there will be time to get revenge in your name on the next one.

Also, buying 2 LTs, siege engines and getting one silver upgrade to eldritch is a lot of CP. Did the heroes keeping dying a lot in one dungeon when they should have run? Did they not try to take on the LTs earlier in the campaign?

I'm curious to know.

We have a very squishy archer, and he tends to get dead. I think this is our first error, as we're thinking in terms of non-RtoL Decent, where dying is fine, so long as it's not your last conquest token.

We didn't take on the LT off the bat, we got some equipment from the first dungeon, then went. died miserably, then spent experience, and tried again. Now I think we can take a Lt, but not necessarily 3 at a time.