Cross Haven
United States
Texas
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This is a session battle report for Descent Road to Legend. We will be using the expansions Altar of Despair and Well of Darkness.
I will be using a battle report in the spirit of Bastirand‘s session reports. I also will be quoting from Oshio’s Player Strategy guide and Langeweile’s Art of Blitz. I will also adopt links to www.descentinthedark.com as that makes it easier to look things up.
So (+X) indicates Conquest Tokens CT for the heroes, [+X] indicates CT for the overlord.
Red highlighted text will be used for possible rule problems we had and blue highlighted text will mark personal comments.
Lessons in this Session
#1 Group Composition
#2 Starting Skills
#3 Starting Items
#4 Blitz Theory
Hero choices:
Player 1: Ronan the Wild, Tahlia, Mad Carthos
Player 2: Runewitch Astarra, Andira Runehand, Sir Valadir
Player 3: Varikas the Dead, Ispher, Sahla
Player 4: Nanok of the Blade, Lord Hawthorne, Steelhorns
Lesson #1 Group Composition
Each player will get three characters to choose from so you should be able to come close to an ideal party. All of these things should be fairly familiar to you. Fist cover all your bases, have at least one of each ‘type’ of character in the group. This ensures any treasure card you draw can be put to immediate good use. For tour fourth character, another tank tends to work best, as the other characters are fragile and make better targets for the Overlord.
Try to stick to characters with 3 dice in a single trait if possible, the more focused they are on one attack type the better. There are some good exceptions to the rule, like Nanok the Blade and Rowan of the Wild, but generally the 3 die characters are the best.
The overlord chose Spider Queen with Obsidian Shackles plot, first upgrade being Into my Parlor.
Anyway, next up: the skills.
Hero choices:
Player 1: (Ronan the Wild) chose Rapid Fire (Olmric‘s Hut)
Leadership (Vynelvale), Appraiser (Dawnsmoor), and Swift (Frostgate)
Player 2: (: Runewitch Astarra) chose Necromancy (Nerekhall)
Holy Aura (Vynelvale), Inner Fire (Tamalir) and Divine Retribution (Frostgate)
Player 3: (Varikas the Dead) chose Leadership (Vynelvale)
Tough (Forge), Wind Pact (Greyhaven) and Cleaving (Olmric’s Hut)
Player 4: (Nanok of the Blade) chose Taunt (Dawnsmoor)
Unmovable (Forge), Furr the Spirit Wolf (RiverWatch) and Water Pact (Greyhaven)
Lesson #2 Starting Skills
When picking your starting skill, keep in mind the skills you can buy in Tamalir: these are going to be much easier to get later in the game, so It may not be worth picking them up as your starting skill vs. a skill you can only learn in a far away outlying city.
I feel that Ronan received a very good draw. I would normally grab leadership but I chose Rapid Fire because Leadership also came up for another. Astarra had a mediocre pull. I chose Necromancy over Inner Fire because that is easily obtained in Tamiliar (Now I think I should have done something else.) Varikas had several strong cards including Cleaving and Leadership. Leadership was a easy pick since Varakis gets a free fatigue every turn. He basically gets a free Leadership every single turn. Nanok had a choice between Taunt and Unmovable. Taunt will be very useful late game on this tanking character.
Lesson #3 Starting Items
Another important point in outfitting your party is to buy them a good stock of potions right off the bat. This may not appear to be as good as the Ring of Protection or Ghost Armor you were eying, but ultimately it will pay off big time. Healing potions are nice, and we have all learned the awesome power of Fatigue Potions, but it will be the Power Potions that really shine early. Give your tank a nice Copper Weapon (or, heck, just an Axe,) down a Power Portion and a nice Aim ordered attack will fell a boss in one hit. These are going to be essential early game.
WEEK 1
[+1], Alric moves to Howling Giant.
Heroes train in Tamalir, revealing the market items Crystal Shield, Backbiter. The purchased market items plus the shop items bring the heroes to their current setup:
Player 1: (Ronan the Wild): (Rapid Fire); Wizard’s Robe, Iron Shield, Crossbow
Player 2: (Runewitch Astarra): (Necromancy); Ghost Armor, Mage Staff, Wizard’s Robe
Player 3: (Varikas the Dead): (Leadership); Leather Armor, Shield, Dagger
Player 4: (Nanok of the Blade): (Taunt); Crystal Shield, Sword
Hero’s current balance is zero.
Lesson #4 Blitz Theory
The following insights form the basis for this strategy and should be thoroughly understood to properly execute it.
1) Until well into the mid-game when the Overlord has some cities razed, the heroes control the XP progression because in the early game the biggest XP gain comes from dungeons.
2) You don’t need to gain everything possible to win, you just need to gain more than your opponent.
4) the Overlord becomes stronger over the course of a dungeon due to power cards, prepared hand cards and thread amassment while the heroes stay at about the at the same level due to having Tamalir options available right from the start.
The basic idea is to enter a dungeon, reap it of most of its benefits as quickly as possible then bolt it. This strategy can only be held for 4 dungeons (give or take one.)
Here is the typical paths that heroes take and what items they need to accomplish the movement.
Basic Path
Starfall Forest
Thelsvan Highway
Staff of the Wild 1500
Gardens of Tarn
Fate of the North
Blacking Swamp
Boat 1000g
Red Echo River
Blacking Swamp
WEEK 2
[+1] (2/2), Alric moves to Frostgate.
Heroes move (no encounter) to Starfall Forest (+1).
Starfall Forest Level 1 - What Lies Beneath #16
The overlord’s starting minions were Kobolds. I believe he was counting on trickery from his master kobolds to allow him to play his traps more quickly. It would combine with his natural bonus to traps from Tangled Web Avatar ability and Avatar upgrade Into my Parlor. The master Kobolds were placed on the key squares (glyphs/treasure.) The arrangement of bane spiders and other kobolds were to limit Runewitch Astarra’s one turn activation of a glyph (which can be done with an minion on top of it.) He even managed to thwart me from bursting his Boss on the second turn. I have to applaud his great setup for his first time being an Overlord.
I was okay facing Kobolds do to their inferior movement (3) and Nanok’s Taunt. Also, drawing Dungeon #16 is quite a fortunate pull for my first dungeon. This dungeon has the potential of draining a lot of the heroes funds. I had zero money and therefore little threat from this level’s boss who drains -50g per hit even if it causes no damage (like web.)
I adopted a formation that allowed Nanok to take the majority of the damage with Taunt. Despite that, I made the first mistake by grabbing a gold pile with Varakis.
Are you serious? I KNEW not to grab the funds till after killing the boss (head drops.)
Overlord again showed some ingenuity. He placed his kobolds in a manner that left his boss with one available diagonal of attack. That blocked LOS (line of site) on Nanok and depriving him of his taunt. He drains -100g from the earlier gold pile.
Overlord spawns more kobalts (he is getting bad spawn draws.)
I slay a few bane spiders and kobalts to open up the glyph for Runewitch to activate from 3 squares away (her character ability.) Conquest (+3 heroes)
The kobalts swarm Runewitch who barely survives the assault because of Nanok taunt. I quickly get Runewitch out of the dungeon and purchase some pots before the Boss plinks all of my funds away. Nanok beats down a master cobalt and a gold pile is grabbed. I know I cant leave money setting around so I use Runewitch to purchase an Elven Robe and Ring of Protection (perfect for Nanok).
The overlord was left with dwindling forces and I make a mistake. I place Ronan on a square that protects him from all the units on the board (taunt from Nanok) but leaves his back weak to one square. Seeing this, the overlord spends 15 threat to flip the eyes and spawn Ferrox. They beat up Ronan who tries and escapes but is taken to deaths door by a Into my pallor combo. I moved and got hit by a Crushing block, continue move and smacked into a pit trap. Out of fear I stay in the trap with Nanok protecting him only to have a Dark Charm end Ronan’s life.
Varakis kills ferrox only to have the moneys drained away from me.
Nanok slays the Leader by Varakis giving him Aim with Leadership. He guzzles a power potion and spends fatigues to upgrade dice. He even spends a movement point to change weapon to an Axe and slay the Boss. (+2 Heroes)
I grab a gold pile and activate the marks on my way to the next level. Of course we heal up a bit in town before moving on.
Starfall Forest Level 2 - Fountain of Life #14
It is the first time for both of us to play this map. Overlord chooses the Nagga grouping of troops. He leaves a couple of skellies trying to hold the treasure while clogging the area around the fountain with bane spiders and his nagga. I wish I had blast.
Nanok and Varakis Run up and block the front passage to the fountain. Runewitch and Ronan clean out both the side areas (they have wizards cloak and elven cloak.) to gain a Chest (350g, 1 potion and 1 conquest,) two gold piles and a potion. I am feeling pretty good at this point.
I move in and mop up some minions before getting grappled by the Nagga. I roll a miss with Nanok, Varakis and Ronan. With three heroes grappled and the Nagga with only 2hp, I move Runewitch Astarra through my grappled heroes squares to land on a square that was unaffected by grapple.
I think I can do this but please let me know if I miss interpreted the rules.
Astarra rolls a miss to beckon in the Overlord’s wrath. Four misses in one turn, this is going to be bad.
All my heroes are pretty beat up by the Naga command stacking with the Beastman. Ronan took the brunt of the force and ended with a depressing 1hp.
Heroes get a lucky string of events to save the day. Varakis kills the Nagga (releasing grapple), Runewitch Astarra activates glyph (+3 heroes) despite a bane spider on top and I move onto the next level. I did not move Ronan because of fear of a trap ending his life. Fortunately the rules allow all your heroes to instantly start in the next level without walking each one to the entrance door. Sadly, without knock back weapon or an idiot for a Overlord, I don’t see how I can kill the boss.
Starfall Forest Level 3 - Puppet Master #31
I am once again faced with a dungeon that I am not familiar with. The clock reads midnight and I have to teach classes in the morning. We should have adjourned there but instead I did a few turns and fled from the giant.
I immediately pulled Ronan to town (remember he has 1hp) and Temple heal.
Astarra picks up a gold pile and we flee.
The giant came down the hall and crossed over 3 pits. This means that half of his 4 squares were on pit squares at the end of his movement.
Heroes (+10) 1650 gold; Overlord [+5]
My goal is to only lose up to 3cp and generate roughly 6 (1 discover, 2 Leader and 3 glyph.)
Ending Characters, Abilities and Gear:
Player 1: (Ronan the Wild), Rapid Fire, Wizard’s Robe, Crossbow, Iron Shield, Dagger*
Player 2: (: Runewitch Astarra), Necromancy, Elven Robe, Ghost Armor, Mage Staff
Player 3: (Varikas the Dead), Leadership, Crystal Shield, Chain Mail, Sword
Player 4: (Nanok of the Blade), Taunt, Skull Shield, Ring of Protection, Sword, Axe*
* means its in a bag
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M.J.E. Hendriks
Netherlands
Velp
Gelderland
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The two parts in red are correct.
A number of things weren't completely true though in your lesson parts.
One of them is that it isn't always smart to go for a second tank. Remember your characters will be upgrading and the magic characters do way more damage. If you get a nice character with low conquest value that might be a better idea.
Another thing I noticed is that you didn't buy optimal shop items at all. What's with skipping on the chain mail? Varikas should have an axe and no shield (or dagger). And the wizard's robe is all very well for ranged and magic characters with a base speed of 5, but anyone else I'd definitely give the chain mail as it's so much better.
You now set up your party in such a way that the overlord will be killing you off with melee monsters. That's going to hurt big time. The overlord can now go for the big conquest heroes.
Furthermore, why not give Nanok the axe he should be wielding?
Quote: Fortunately the rules allow all your heroes to instantly start in the next level without walking each one to the entrance door.
Are these special rules - I don't remember them? Else there are rules against this. You need not go through the exit door, but you do need to be in town to move to the next level.
So all heroes must be in town and/or through the exit to move on to the next level.
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Cross Haven
United States
Texas
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Thank you M.J.E. for your comment.
You stated that i did not buy optimal items and that very well might be the case.
"Varikas should have an axe and no shield (or dagger). And the wizard's robe is all very well for ranged and magic characters with a base speed of 5, but anyone else I'd definitely give the chain mail as it's so much better."
Both characters that have wizard's robe (or now elven robe) have a base movement speed of 5. However, i do believe i will change out ronan's robe for chain mail since that is the reason he died in the dungeon.
Why does Varikas have a shield and a dagger? Well dagger instead of sword because i did not have the funds. Why go two 1-h weapons instead of an axe? It is due to his Leadership ability card. From the FAQ..
"You may not choose the same half action twice with Leadership. It is possible for a hero with Leadership to give another hero a Rest order, and then have that hero activate and recover full fatigue on their turn in the same round that the order was placed."
Since i replace one of my heroe's fatigue every turn (and regenerate 1 of Varikas own through his character ability) i find him better suited in the tank capacity. I give ronan all his fatigue and he uses his Rapid Fire every turn and i just mow down the opposition. Perhaps i should put an Axe on Varikas and risk focus in exchange for the crystal shield on ronan.
Why no axe on Nanok? Well, if you look at the end of the gaming session, he does have a axe that i switch out almost on a every turn bases. Why the shield, cause i setup for taunts and he takes almost the entire focus for the whole dungeon.
Ah, i do believe i over looked the fact that not all of them port to next level. In my zeal to play the game, i must have thought that the heroes in the dungeon (like those in town) port to next level. I will correct this in my next encounter.
Thank you again for your comments and hopefully i have shed some light on my faulty reasoning.
-Happy Hunting
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M.J.E. Hendriks
Netherlands
Velp
Gelderland
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Fair enough. I might also have sounded a little harsh (or harsher than I intended anyway) regarding your faulty initial setup. I didn't mean it as such, it's just that I much prefer killing the monsters right away (axe) to dealing with the damage they do (shield/taunt).
Sure a shield is awesome if you have a one-handed weapon anyway, and taunt can be great, but personally I feel it's situational at best. Once again you do state you actually play to that skill, so that might work, but I would not go there myself.
Rest orders are great, but you generally need to make sure that hero doesn't lose it immediately due to the damage. The taunt gambit might solve that problem, but personally I don't see how you could even set up your taunt that you can attack in most cases even.
Just to clarify and to make sure: taunt is declared AFTER the attack is declared and then only works if the attacking monster can legally target the taunter. This means that 99% (if not 100%) of a smart overlord's melee attacks will be not adjacent to the taunting hero. Decent play from the overlord will prevent most other taunt options as well. From what I understand from your writing you seem to use taunt all the time, with the taunting hero taking the brunt of the attacks - this seems really strange - with LoS being what it is it should be easy for the overlord in most situations to attack one of the other heroes without being able to attack the taunter.
With regard to your wizard's robe - yes, it's good to start with, and I generally have 2 wizard's robes and 2 chain mail for my starting setup. As long as I don't have more than 2 heroes with 5 or more base speed, this is not a problem and ideal IMO.
Quote: Anyway, next up: the skills.
Hero choices:
Player 1: (Ronan the Wild) chose Rapid Fire (Olmric‘s Hut)
Leadership (Vynelvale), Appraiser (Dawnsmoor), and Swift (Frostgate)
Player 2: (: Runewitch Astarra) chose Necromancy (Nerekhall)
Holy Aura (Vynelvale), Inner Fire (Tamalir) and Divine Retribution (Frostgate)
Player 3: (Varikas the Dead) chose Leadership (Vynelvale)
Tough (Forge), Wind Pact (Greyhaven) and Cleaving (Olmric’s Hut)
Player 4: (Nanok of the Blade) chose Taunt (Dawnsmoor)
Unmovable (Forge), Furr the Spirit Wolf (RiverWatch) and Water Pact (Greyhaven)
Then this. What is going on here? You let them choose? Two heroes chose leadership? I prefer to play it clean and have the heroes play according to the rules. You get 12 heroes to choose from, 12 skills to choose from, wow, if you can't make a decent combo out of that, you simply need to make sure you get the important skills early on (training).
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Corbon Loughnan
Singapore
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Mr Mjeh wrote: Quote: Anyway, next up: the skills.
Hero choices:
Player 1: (Ronan the Wild) chose Rapid Fire (Olmric‘s Hut)
Leadership (Vynelvale), Appraiser (Dawnsmoor), and Swift (Frostgate)
Player 2: (: Runewitch Astarra) chose Necromancy (Nerekhall)
Holy Aura (Vynelvale), Inner Fire (Tamalir) and Divine Retribution (Frostgate)
Player 3: (Varikas the Dead) chose Leadership (Vynelvale)
Tough (Forge), Wind Pact (Greyhaven) and Cleaving (Olmric’s Hut)
Player 4: (Nanok of the Blade) chose Taunt (Dawnsmoor)
Unmovable (Forge), Furr the Spirit Wolf (RiverWatch) and Water Pact (Greyhaven) Then this. What is going on here? You let them choose? Two heroes chose leadership? I prefer to play it clean and have the heroes play according to the rules. You get 12 heroes to choose from, 12 skills to choose from, wow, if you can't make a decent combo out of that, you simply need to make sure you get the important skills early on (training).
I presume it was 'chose from'...
The rules are that each player draws his skills (so 16 cards are drawn), then each player discards 3 of them (so 12 cards are discarded).
They do not say that each player draws 4 skills then discards 3 of them, in turn.
It is not possible for two players to get the same skill card drawn in RtL.
(It is possible in vanilla, if hero A discards skill X, which is then immediately shuffled back into the deck and Hero B may receive skill X to replace his discard.)
FWIW I don't believe, from experience, that it is worth avoiding skills from Tamalir just because they are easier to get 'later'. I will always pick the best skill for that hero's role, realising that roles might actually change slightly depending on the skill selections.
From your selection I would have chosen the following.
Ronan: wait until the others choose - Rapid Fire makes his role clearly a damage dealer, Swift clearly a runner.
Astarra: Inner Fire - that is an important bonus for a Blast weapon - they often have short range and can't add damage. She is the prime candidate right now for a blast weapon. Necromancy is not a bad choice, I just don't fancy it. I'd rather have something that helps me kill monsters, than something that relies on me killing monsters to then help me kill monsters.
Varikas: Hard choice. Wind Pact is the only absolutely critical skill in the campaign. BUT, it isn't important until later, and it is relatively easily gotten, with the silver legendary dungeon as a backup option. Cleaving is great, but confirms Varikas as a combat oriented character rather than a support character who is nicely tough. IMO you always end up needing one support type character (Wind Pact, Leadership, etc). If you have a Rapid Fire hero then Cleaving is also less useful - it is a chaff-sweeping skill (requires one hit kills mostly) and Rapid Fire does that job nicely. In the end, Leadership will win here for me, being more useful at the start than the end of the campaign, in reverse of Wind Pact.
Nanok: Unmoveable. Taunt sounds rather cool, and seems like something you can build a party around, but a halfway competent OL can more or less ignore it. Unmoveable is part of the best combo around, with Knight. These two skills, extra dice and maybe Weapon Mastery will turn Nanok into a death machine - with his role being to pound the tough stuff rather than chaff sweeping.
Back to Ronan: Rapid Fire will win, mainly due to Leadership on Varikas enabling the fatigue refill each turn. But Swift would have been a great choice in other circumstances - train Acrobat early... Ronan becomes the runner+support hero (target skills Swift, Acrobat and Wind Pact) and Varikas can be built as a backup mage/fighter - more AoE attacks will be needed if you run into Soaring monsters outdoors. He (Varikas) can carry Pico most of the time too in that case.
Crosshaven wrote:
The giant came down the hall and crossed over 3 pits. This means that half of his 4 squares were on pit squares at the end of his movement.
Is there a question there?
The pit rules say that they only affect a figure if all it's spaces are in a pit.
The FAQ rule currently says
Quote: The overlord may choose to have a monster affected by any terrain it partially occupies. A monster MUST be affected by any terrain it completely occupies. If the monster is completely occupying multiple terrains, the figure has to be affected by one of the terrains (Overlord's choice).
By the FAQ the giant may choose whether it occupies the pit or not - presumably choosing 'not' as there are no advantages for it being in the pit (saving avoiding a Rolling Boulder) worthwhile the loss of the wound.
If you have a FAQ that mentions 'front half' of large monsters, then it is out of date.
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Sebastian D.
Germany
Berlin
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Just a few short comments.
In my opinion if you use two melee heroes at least one oft hem needs do have a 2-handed weapon for damage potential. Especially if both of yours only have two power dice in melee. Rapid Fire is a great skill but relying on that one hero only will prove difficult when it counts most.
With Nanok’s stats he seems to be easily made into a damage absorber, on the other hand he’s quite mobile making it easier for him to reach monsters if he would be played as a damage dealer. Since adding power dice makes him stronger both offensively and defensively it’s up to you how you want to play him I think. So giving him an axe is viable and giving him the skull shield is viable on its own, too (for trap damage, obviously). But changing those two items around “every other turn” will make him deplete the curse tokens pretty fast: You put a curse token on him EVERY TIME he equips the cursed item. Also remember that in case of death you have to unequip it, equip it again immeadiately or DISCARD it. (Sorry, no access to rules for quotes.)
But you might have adjusted to that situation with voodoo dolls already, I don’t know  .
Like corbon I would have picked Inner Fire for Astarra, too. Damage skills work especially well in the beginning, and, like he said, most especially for blast weapons.
The others already mentioned the “leaving the dungeon” rules mistake. I’m inter-ested to see how you will correct this next time. It sounds like you denied your OL a pretty good opportunity to get some more XP out of your heavily wounded heroes.
Another mistake? crosshaven wrote: He even spends a movement point to change weapon to an Axe and slay the Boss. A re-equip costs two movement points. (Sorry, no access to rules for quotes.)
crosshaven wrote: My goal is to only lose up to 3cp and generate roughly 6 (1 discover, 2 Leader and 3 glyph.) You mean per dungeon, right? Well, for the first couple that sounds ok. And if you have a plan like that, make sure not to let yourself get lured into a seemingly easy situation only to be beat over the head. Also keep an eye on the OL total, flee if necessary to get one more dungeon without a monster upgrade.
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joel cuthbert
United States
fort collins
Colorado
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IMO, you should restart the campaign from week 1. Your misinterpretation of the rules effected both the gameplay and the CT gain of the OL. For instance, if the OL was able to kill 1 more player per level, that would net him much more CT. Also, if there was a hero that was severely wounded going into another level, the OL could have set your forward momentum back a lot by defeating a hero at a critical time. If you do this, probably optimize your original buys.
You should also take this into consideration with your other AC you are running. You guys have put a lot of time and effort into this game already, so it may not be the best idea to start all over, but I would at least give the OL 5-10 MORE CT for deaths that should have happened.
We never got all the rules correct the first time we played, so don't fret about it too much. You get better over time.
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joel cuthbert
United States
fort collins
Colorado
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