Friday, April 29, 2016

Never mind the hook

I really should have written these yesterday when I still remembered things.

Oh well. We continued Undercity with scenarios three and four.

In the third scenario we used epic crossbow thugs instead of regular ones.

Scenario had a weird start when the boss villains took just one step forward. Alchemist was able to throw a virtuoso AoE acid bomb on them, which killed the gobber boss outright.

Villains that were guarding the gate were easily dispatched, and the gobber guy was able to make INT check with some additional die skill and a boost. Gate opened easily, and the trollkin boss would be surrounded.

Situation looked so secure that the trollkin hero started long trek to get to side quest near entrance five. He found Misplaced Message or something like that there, which began a chain of some sort in the future scenarios.

Trollkin boss died in the dark alley before getting even to the gate opening. Alchemist snatched the package, which stopped patrols from building up. We still had plenty of time, and the board side that had the first Side Quest was almost cleared of any villains. We tried to get the first Side Quest also. It prolonged the game to very last possible turn, and last Even card would be an event that spawned villains. Alchemist gave the packet to Doorstop, and gobber tinker checked Side Quest. Of course it was some Drudge Thralls. Well, serves us well for abusing the scenario design.

We had some luck in the scenario when gobber opened the gate without alerting villains and Alchemist taking down one of the bosses on turn one. Perhaps that skews my opinion, but I don't think the scenario was completely thought through. After packet was picked up, additional villains appeared only sporadically, which in turn made it all too easy just to grind for experience points without much threat from possible consequences. My advice is to make every villain the most epic version available.

The patrol spawning system in this scenario was nice, though.

For the fourth scenario trollkin hero took Rusher (great strength option to walk two squares or charge three) and alchemist got concussion grenades (knock down all models in a square). We used epic sword thugs in this scenario in addition to epic crossbow thugs.

Rusher was amazing choice for this particular scenario. The crane hook that villain was controlling dealt massive damage, so heroes were in a hurry to get to the boss. If nothing would interfere, trollkin would be there in two turns.

But the all the plans fly off the window when you contact the enemy. Gun mage Canice got a feat card that gave +2 def for her, and she went to lure the hook to her top open up a pretty free lane for trollkin to run through. That she did, but somehow the villain boss managed to activate twice before the trollkin had time to activate. There was trollkin and Doorstep in the square where hook landed second time. Doorstop was knocked down, but trollkin was left standing because of some great strength option that gave him knock down immunity.

Trollkin started to rush forward to boss, and villains even made it easier for him to reach there. Counter charge feat card gave him an additional square of movement. He needed that, though. Because Rusher is a Great Strength ability option, he wouldn't be immune to knock down any more.

He did reach boss on turn three. I tried to be fancy with him and kill a crossbow thug in the square next to boss and enter boss square with Overtake feat card - but he missed both attacks.

Things looked pretty fine, and alchemist was greedily reaching for the side quest. Then I'm not sure what happened. Once trollkin started fight with boss the first heavy warjack appeared. And next one almost right after thanks to Impending Doom event, which rolled six extra points for the timer. Both warjacks started from the farthest corner of the board, so that was kind of a good thing. Though they would be activating just about always when you had to activate villains far from any hero.

Doorstop was taking heavy damage and gobber had to use most of his feat cards to repair the light jack.

Two especially bloodthirsty gobber villains slashed and sliced Canice. Only model that was relatively healthy was the alchemist, but he was stuck on the side quest and a couple of villains who had started chasing him. Side quest was, by the way, Cinder bomb that alchemist was not strong enough to carry.

Trollkin had to beat the scenario boss all alone and drag the hook to the gate all alone. If it wasn't for a couple of Backswing feat cards I don't know if he could have done it. But it was a victory for heroes anyway.

This was by far the most interesting scenario yet. Appearance ratio of villains vastly exceeds the killing potential of heroes - especially when one hero cannot reliably contribute to the removal of the spawns. Had the heavy warjacks spawned somewhere else, there could have been far more casualties than one empty revival potion.

Next time we're probably going to play the 4.5 scenario that's available for download on the Privateer Press website.


My hero statistics:
Trollkin
17xp in bank
Vendetta, Guardian, Rusher

Alchemist
1xp in bank
Skulk, Concussion grenades, Mad Bomber

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