Descent Campaign 2 - Session 3

by Ed Rozmiarek

Catching up with our Road to Legend campaign, our third session was played this past weekend. The report is below.

Previous session reports:
Session 1
Session 2

Week 9:
Our story picks up as the heroes are in the Flametail River dungeon after level 1. With the Overlord sitting at 22 conquest, they have a decision. Should they quit the dungeon and try to get to another before I can upgrade the eldritch monsters to silver or stay and get what they can in the last pure copper dungeon. After some discussions, they decide to stay. I shuffle up the dungeon deck and draw. It's level 44 - The Ice Tunnels. "44?" you ask. That's right, Tomb of Ice baby!

For those without Tomb of Ice, this new expansion comes with four new dungeon levels for Road to Legend. The main features of this level are a stair step design using the ToI 4 by 4 tiles with the non-centered exits, lots (and I mean lots) of ice and a frost breathing Wendigo level leader. These last two would cause the heroes all sorts of problems today. Ice is notable for a character's chance of slipping and ending its turn for each ice space entered (rolling a surge on a black die). And frost of course, makes items brittle and subject to breaking.

Flametail River Level 2: 44 - The Ice Tunnels
The heroes are a bit unsure what to do at the start. About a third of dungeon is covered in ice, including the main passages in the middle and near the exit. There is no way to advance without eventually going over the ice. They are facing Tusk, a frost breathing Wendigo with Stealth, Reach and Tread Ice. There are also two normal Wendigos and a Medusa. There is a pile of gold just past the first patch of ice, another pile in the following room (again, have to get through some ice) and a chest before the exit. However, the red runekey is frozen in a solid block of ice (30 hits, 5 armor and ironskin) near the exit.

The heroes spread out with the ranged characters moving up for a shot. Unfortunately for me, I placed one of the Wendigos around a corner but in range for Landrec. Turns out copper Wendigos are one shot creatures too. I spawned some skeletons, losing one to Grey Ker's guard order and then attacked with the remaining and the Medusa. No significant damage. But here's where the fun starts.

I had intentionally backed my monsters away from the first pile of gold leaving a path to it. The path crossed an ice space and then there was a clear spot next to the gold. Grey Ker moves up and crosses the ice to the clear spot next to the gold and wham! Crushing block! I forced him back onto the ice and made the path to the gold longer and across more ice. The damage was nice too.

The party then started finding out how slippery the ice was. As they moved up across the ice they started rolling surges and slipping, thus ending their turns. This was nice from the overlord's view as it messed up their positioning and they lost attacks. The melee characters had it bad as they had to move into position and risked stopping short. This gave me time to do some frost breathing from Tusk. Nanok and Landrec were the first to feel the chill. The Wendigo didn't do much damage to Nanok but the frost tokens stayed around for most of the level. At one time Nanok had five frost tokens. By the end of the level all four heroes had been frosted at least twice, with three of them losing at least one item. Nanok and Landrec lost weapons and poor Grey Ker lost a weapon, his shield and armor. The running joke today was that bare chested Nanok shouldn't be running around a frozen dungeon half naked.

So with the ice slowing down the party's advancement, I had more time to build threat and spawn. A pair of Dark Priests did some damage to Nanok and dropped a curse on him as he killed the master priest. A beastman war party took out a frosty Grey Ker (+3 CP) while shattering his shield and armor. Nanok found out why Ferrox are tank killers. After three bleed tokens Nanok was down to 2 HP. A razorwing almost took Nanok out but we remembered that he had taken an invisibility potion. After rolling the stealth die, it turns out that the razorwing missed on the killing blow. No worries, as a crushing block did the final damage to the cursed Nanok as he was heading towards the glyph to heal (+5 CP). The level leader Tusk got in a kill as well, taking out an icy Landrec (+2 CP).

And where was Varikas this whole time? Well, early on he took on the rear guard role trying to prevent back spawns and tossing orders around. As the other heroes moved up to take on Tusk, Varikas decided it was time to brave the ice and move up to help. Turns out he had slippery boots. Varikas fell on the ice three moves in a row. This effectively took him out of most of the battle. He did finally make it up to the front lines but only after a majority of the minions had been cleared.

So, as always, the heroes were finally able to take out the minions and wore down Tusk (+2 CP), although, Tusk's Stealth ability made it a bit harder. A newly revived Grey Ker made it to the chest which unfortunately was not trapped since I had just spent the threat on the crushing block. The chest contained one treasure, a bow which Grey Ker took.

With the level clear the heroes took on the ice block with the key, which proved to be tough. It took four rounds of attacks to break it open to get the key. Since I was bored, I decided against my better judgment to spawn some skeletons to take a few pot shots at their back. It was a waste of threat as they slipped on the ice getting into position. Landrec took them out fairly easily. At least the level lasted long enough for me to cycle through the overlord deck (+3 CP).

This was a good level for the overlord. Today's totals were 13 CP for the Overlord and 5 CP for the heroes. The heroes picked up 1050 in gold from the gold piles and the chest but had to spend some of that for replacements of the shattered weapons and armor.

CP: Heroes: 28 / OL: 35/35

Comments:
Ice is nice, at least for the overlord. What I really liked about this level and the previous one, "Stuck in the Middle", is that the heroes were not in complete control of their positioning. The ice made the party very cautious and forced them to deal with non-optimal positions forced on them by slipping. This was in great contrast to the usual team tactics they had been able to use in prior dungeons.

Sure, my monsters got hit a couple times as well by the ice, but all in all, I believe it benefited me more than the heroes. Slow heroes mean more time for the overlord. Time is the overlord's friend, more threat, more cards, more options. Slipping heroes might get left out in the open, vulnerable to attack; they might lose their attack, meaning my monsters live longer or they may be completely out of the battle like Verikas.

Campaign wise, today was a definite win for the Overlord. I now have options. Before the level I thought the heroes would bug out and run to another dungeon before I got 25 conquest. Now I have that and more. I can actually start planning some upgrades and get more into the game. The heroes aren't too bad off. They got some decent gold and they are all sitting on 22 XP to spend. If they get 8 conquest during the third level of the dungeon Nanok will have enough for two power dice upgrades. At least I'll have silver Eldritch to counter Nanok the tank.

Descent Campaign 2 - Session 2

by Ed Rozmiarek

Over the holidays our Descent group got together for a little dungeon delving. Took a bit to get this report done, but better late then never.

Previous session reports: Session 1

Week 7:
The heroes had just arrived in Dawnsmoor with Nanok hurting from their last encounter. They stuck with their plan from the previous session to heal Nanok before taking on Sir Alric. Healing Nanok leaves them with 25 gold.

Of course, prior to this happening I got my weekly conquest handout and Sir Alric placed his fourth and last siege engine. The heroes' decision to not attack Sir Alric right away means that I will get one chance to roll for the siege before they attempt to force Sir Alric away from the city. Hopefully I will get lucky and raze the town on the first try. That would make up for some of the bad luck during the last session. It would also give me some flexibility during the upcoming fight. Given the lack of hero kills so far, the two conquest points a week would be really nice.

CP: Heroes: 14 / OL: 7 total / 7 unspent

Week 8:
The fateful week.

I gather my government handout conquest point and warm up the dice for the raze roll of Dawnsmoor. Will it succeed? I have a 1 in 3 chance. Given the way this campaign has been going, I don't have my hopes up. But, one must be positive and go for it when you have the opportunity, right. So with that, I give the die a final blow for good luck and drop it down the into the dice tower. It travels down the enclosure bouncing back and forth gathering luck from both sides of the battle, finally emerging from the randomization device and coming to rest in the tray at the bottom.

I glance down, hoping for the best. Thinking, "Please let there be a surge on the die." And what do I see?

A power enhancement.

Rats!

The raze of the city fails; on to the battle between the heroes and Sir Alric.

After double checking with the gang that they really want to fight the lieutenant I shuffle the encounter location deck and draw the Haunted Trail. The main feature of the location is that all figures have -1 armor. That will help both sides get hits on the other.

I figured that it was up to the heroes to come after Sir Alric so I decided that it was best to be defensive. Therefore I set up a single group near one of the exits as I wanted to make sure Sir Alric survived. I would give up the siege to keep the lieutenant alive. I placed the soaring razorwings up front since the melee characters would not even be able to attack them. I also hoped that they would stand up long enough to the ranged attacks to allow me to bring in some extra minions.

On their first turn, the heroes took up defensive positions in the trees. After I did nothing but reinforce with a razorwing the party knew the normal battle was out the door. After examining the setup they realized what I was attempting. After some back and forth discussions the heroes decided to attempt a shot or two at the soaring razorwings in the front line and seeing what happened. Much to my dismay, Landrec was able to hit one of the razorwings and bring it down, so much for soaring. I was really hoping that they would last a few rounds and allow me to bring in several extra minions. It was not to be.

With the front line breached the melee characters were able to move up. Nanok was close enough to move up and take on the hellhound (i.e. a four legged speed bump). This brought Nanok close to the remaining minions and Sir Alric. I decided to change from a defensive stance to more offensive. I sent the beastmen and sorcerer in to soften up Nanok before sending in Sir Alric. Using threat for movement, I was able to move Sir Alric up to Nanok and battle. The two attacks did not take him out, but did some serious hurt.

The remaining minions occupied the other three heroes and left Nanok and Alric one-on-one. Although Nanok got in some damage, Alric was able to take Nanok out the next round for the Overloard's first kill of the game (+4 CP). Yea! However, it was now just Alric versus the remaining three heroes. Even with his regenerate 5, 3 on 1 was going to be tough. Alric took some damage from Grey Ker who had used a power potion. I had enough threat to battle Grey Ker and move next to the exit if things went bad. Unfortunately, Sir Alric did miss on one attack and did not kill Grey Ker. So, Sir Alric hightailed it out of town.

Not the best result for the encounter in that I lost the siege on the city, but I saved Sir Alric and got my first hero kill. Things were looking up.

CP: Heroes: 14 / OL: 12/12

Week 9:
Still without enough conquest to do my planned upgrade, this week starts out with the regular conquest allotment and I sent Sir Alric back out to Bitter Downs. The heroes decide to head to the Flametail River dungeon north of Dawnsmoor and on the way they have another encounter. They meet up with three trolls at a Troll Bridge near a Quiet Pond. I thought I might get another kill out of this. Three trolls, one of them a master, a decent chance. However, after reading the text, we see that they heroes can buy their way out of the encounter by paying half of their gold to the trolls in toll. And just how much gold does the party have? 25 gold. Argh! So laughing, the party flips their last 25 gold piece to the trolls and scoot on their merry way.

Flametail River Dungeon Level 1: 30 - Stuck in the Middle
I had heard that this was a good level for Overlords with the hidden web spots slowing down the heroes. I went with the minion set with the two deep elves since I have not used any in our campaigns up to now and it also came with a dark priest, always a favorite.

However, the way this started I thought for sure I was in for another bad day. The heroes were very cautious and moved up in a group just behind the first corner. And what is in my initial draw? Dark Charm. Lovely. Using the extra threat from being the Sorcerer King I can spawn a couple Lava Beetles (yea! first appearance of a Tomb of Ice creature) and charm Nanok. And what does Nanok roll? A blank to avoid the charm! Argh! I've play Dark Charm five or six times over two campaigns and it has worked only once! The odds of that happening are staggering. On top of that, the heroes easily take out the newly spawned Lava Beetles on their next turn. Sigh.

Things started to slowly turn around after that when the heroes found the "web in the middle". Nanok was the first to find some web, soon followed by Grey Ker. The best thing about this was that it slowed down the advancement of the group, giving me time to gather threat and snipe. After a round where Nanok's taunt drew some ineffective fire, the next round was more deadly. An enraged level leader master skeleton was able to plunk Grey Ker twice followed up with a back stab from a deep elf. This sent Grey Ker to the temple in town (+3 CP).

Eventually, Varikas was able to plot a course through the web zone and got to the chest which exploded in his face, but only dealing 2 damage (chest: 400 gold, + 1 CP). Next round he flipped the glyph for another 3 conquest for the good guys. The taunting Nanok found his way up to Kagus, one of the level leaders and killed him (+2 CP). Again, undying failed me so Kagus stayed dead.

As the cautious party found a bit more web I was able to spawn a beastman party near by. They rushed Nanok and the combined forces took him out (+4 CP). Funny, Nanok, the one character I was worried about is the first to be killed twice. Of course, they have not upgraded his armor yet. Grey Ker took out the two regular beastmen while Varikas and Landrec ganged up on Allina, the remaining level leader, who died and promptly failed her undying roll (+2 CP). (I still have had only one successful undying roll over two campaigns.)

With the exit door unlocked, I figured the level was over. However, still cautious of the web spots, the heroes did not run for the door. This left an opportunity to slow them down by spawning more beastmen. They rushed Landrec who was quickly sent packing (+2 CP). This encouraged the remaining heroes to run for the portal and out of the level.

CP: Heroes: 23 / OL: 22/22

Comments:
After that first, lopsided session, I'd have to call today's session a draw. The heroes did force Sir Alric away from Dawnsmoor, saving the town from being razed. They also generated a decent amount of gold (about 1500). The heroes gained 9 conquest for the day and now have enough to get Nanok a power dice upgrade.

From the Overlord view, I lost my siege but did save Sir Alric, who would not have much to travel to get back to Dawnsmoor if I want. Between the lieutenant battle and first level of the dungeon I got my first four kills. All total I gained 16 conquest today and am now only one point behind the heroes.

The heroes must now decide whether to stay in the dungeon or flee. I am very close to the magic 25 conquest that will allow me to upgrade my cheapest monsters to silver. For the Sorcerer King that is the dreaded silver eldritch who caused much pain for the heroes in our first campaign. However, if they flee they give up the potential income of another dungeon and run the risk that they cannot train Nanok and get to another dungeon before I can upgrade anyway.

Decisions, decisions.