Josiah Leis
United States
Merino
Colorado
I spent 100 GG and all I got was this stupid overtext.....
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If you are looking for part 1 of this campaign, it's here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/523665/down-with-sean-th.... This session report will be a much more summarized version to fill in the gaps about what has happened in our 2nd session. This is partly because our 2nd session was several months ago, and partly because I didn't take very many notes for it. We've also had a 3rd session which I will try to get around to posting sometime to, although it will probably be in a summary version like this, and not as detailed as the 1st. Eventually I will try to go back to the more detailed format. Just as a quick note, the players are:
Sean: Overlord
Me: Runewitch Astarra with Quick Casting and Ishper with Born to the Bow
Roy: Landrec the Wise with Wind Pact
Richie: Laughin Buldar with Weapon Mastery (sometimes played by Roy when Richie is absent)
Introduction
When we last left our intrepid group of heroes, they were well ahead of the overlord, blitzing their way through the early levels of the campaign. Bad luck and inexperience combined to give new overlord Sean a rough time of it. Though he had 2 LTs in play, he still hadn't upgraded his monsters to Silver and heroes were already pretty well equipped and starting to seek training.
The heroes were leading 45 to 18 in conquest and had not yet spent any of their experience. They also had 3125 gold in their treasury and a small collection of potions between them. They had just finished the 2nd level of the dungeon at Gate to the North (currently week 5 of the campaign) and were about to enter the 3rd and final level of that dungeon.
Session 2 Summary:
The heroes cleaned out the bottom level of the dungeon they were in, claiming 7 Conquest while only losing Ishper (+3 to the OL). They also managed to snatch up 650 (Treasure Pile & Last Level Leader) coins, but spent about 125 on healing themselves and another 1000 on the Enchanted Boat before fleeing. The lack of hero deaths was mainly due to terrible rolling (lots of misses) and terrible luck on Sean's part (got Runewitch down to 1 wound but failed to kill her before she hopped back through the glyph). At this point it seemed the heroes strong lead from the first session was going to continue.
A couple of encounters....
In the next week Sean spent no XP as he had decided to save for a monster upgrade (something he should have done earlier, but his inexperience played a part in the delay), while the heroes headed to Dawnsmoor where Alric was stacking up siege tokens against the city. They had an encounter along the way with Kobolds of all things, in the Ancient Grove. The fact that trees were impassable on this map meant the Sean was able to easily clog the paths to the exit spaces with hordes of the little monsters.
The heroes foolishly underestimated the effect of that many Kobolds with their leaders high command rating. Even though several Kobolds were killed on the first turn, the survivors still managed to kill Laughin for 5 conquest (he had a curse on him, a gift from a Master Dark Priest I believe). Landrec took down their leader on the next turn, scoring the heroes a total of 400 gold for the encounter (leader kill included), but the heroes were kicking themselves for their lack of caution around the deceptively well-commanded little humanoids.
After this the heroes assaulted Sir Alric. The battle ended with a victory for the heroes, with Sean slowing the heroes down with his minions and getting some shots in. When he ran out of minions though, Alric abandoned the siege and fled. The heroes collected 275 gold, but gave up two conquest in the battle due to Runewitch Astarra's death.
While in Dawnsmoor Laughin and Ispher both trained a single black trait dice, while Runewitch bought the skill Acrobat. The next week they went to the dungeon at Flametail River, intent on refilling their coffers.
A very short dungeon.....
The dungeon level drawn was Mask of the Monster, which features a Master Beastman boss with a very special mask. More importantly though, it contained a monster grouping that included a Nage, whose grapple stopped the Acrobatic Runewitch Astarra in her tracks.
With no way to reach the back half of the level without try to kill the Naga, and Sean having loads of minions (including a spawn he played on his first turn), the heroes simply snatched a Glyph and 1 treasure pile before fleeing, though they managed to do so without any deaths.
Much buying and killing.....
The heroes then traveled down to Riverwatch to do a lot of shopping, purchasing several copper items and numerous potions. The next week they attempted to travel to Vylenvale to stop Lord Merrick Farrow from besieging it. On the way they had an encounter with the Hammer Brothers Mox and Pox. It was an easy victory for the heroes, with Landrec's Staff of the Grave playing a pivitol role. It was proving to be a very valuable assest, despite its curse. Not only was it extremely deadly for a copper weapon, its ability to ignore Undying was proving very critical in several situations.
After completing the encounter and arriving in Vylenvale the heroes attacked Lord Merrick Farrow. Sean underestimated the speed with which the heroes could move, and left Lord Merrick too close. It started with Ishper and Runewitch managing to clear a path by killing several skeletons between the heroes and Merrick. That was followed up with an advance action with fatigue + a Vitality potion by Laughin, combined with a Hurry feat card meant that Merrick soon traveled 6 spaces backward, thanks the Hammer from the shop. Landrec then battled and finished off Merrick before Sean even had a turn. The loss of a Lieutenant was a huge victory for the heroes and a staggering loss for the overlord.
Time for a big dungeon before silver monsters....
The following week the heroes moved to the Guardian Hills in order to enter a Rumor dungeon from a Rumor they'd purchased earlier in Tamalir. The name of the rumor was X Marks the Spot, the reward of which is that the heroes can look through the current treasure deck and take any item they wish.
This wasn't really a very good rumor, since it was already mid-way through copper and the heroes already had pretty good equipment. But Ispher was severely lacking, since no two-handed ranged weapons had been found by the heroes yet, either in chests or in shops. Since his Born to the Bow skill required a two-handed ranged weapon to be utilized, the heroes really wanted to get him one. Plus it was obvious that it would be the last dungeon before the Overlord upgraded his monsters, so the heroes wanted to make the most of it.
The first dungeon level was Fire and Ice. I don't honestly remember much of what happened on this level. The heroes walked away with 1300 gold from it (2 treasure piles, 2 level leaders, a chest and 2 master monsters) and the Gauntlets of Power, as well as 7 conquest (Glyph and 2 level leaders). But the overlord did manage to get three kills, including Runewitch, Ispher, and a cursed Landrec for a total of 8 conquest before the heroes moved onto the next level. I do remember as the heroes we worked very hard at avoiding any equipment loss to one of the bosses' Frost abilities, un-equipping our Copper equipment and such when we had Frost tokens on us. I also remember very foolishly being caught with several of us grouped up for the Fire bosses' flame attack.
After this level we decided to break for the session. It would be nearly 4 months before we got a chance to play again, and next time it would be without Richie as he had to leave for college :(.
Session Summary
The heroes still strongly had the lead after this session, and had clearly done better in it. But Sean had improved a lot from the 1st session, managing more hero kills. Still he was learning some painful lessons, such as not to put his LT's too close to the heroes (R.I.P. Lord Merrick). But with enough conquest to upgrade eldritches after this dungeon, and a full 3 levels to mess with the heroes instead of having them flee at the first sign of trouble, Sean was poised to make big gains in the next session.
I remember Wind Pact having an incredible impact at times, it's made Sean discard his Dark Charm at least two different times at the start of a dungeon that I can remember. He's really adjusting his tactics though, making sure to play important cards before level transitions so as to avoid having them discarded. I just wish it was on Runewitch and Quick Casting was on Landrec. In hindsight I still don't know that Runewitch should have taken Quick Casting, since I knew I'd build her as a runner and not a DPSer, which is Landrec's role. He'd benefit greatly from the skill, while she only rarely uses it and it doesn't have a very big impact even if she did.
Also the lack of two-handed ranged weapons has been really annoying for Ishper with his Born to the Bow skill. I don't think this rumor would have been worth it at all, were it not for our need to get him something that wasn't one-handed or a shop weapon. And of course as Laughin continues to get more and better equipment to go with his Weapon Mastery, he cuts through the pathetic copper monsters with ease. Landrec is also very deadly, his cursed weapon well worth the drawbacks, especially since it ignores Undying. I'm sure once Sean has Crushing Blow it will be his first target.
Hero conquest gain this session: 29 + existing 45 = 74 total
Overlord conquest gain this session: 24 + existing 18 = 42 (32 unspent)
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I spent 100 GG and all I got was this stupid overtext.....
