3-5 Into the Mountains Heroic scenario power balance

[Namyra]

The Heroic scenario power for 3-5 Into the Mountains is pretty brutal as is (1d4 Force damage to the entire party every time you defeat a henchman), but it just occurred to me... is it intentional that this will trigger on, say, a Skeleton Horde?

 

On a party of 4, all standing at open locations, provided they manage to defeat all Ancient Skeletons (somewhat dubious considering all the damage flying around before some characters even get to defeat theirs), that would be 4d4 Force damage to the entire party. Pretty much gonna wipe out everyone's hands entirely every time you pull a horde barrier like that.

 

Was just wondering if that's intentional or if maybe the scenario power should only trigger on defeating non-summoned henchmen.

[Avaclon]

Same here. Was thinking about this after getting wiped for the fifth time on that scenario. Noticed most of my guys just can't sustain the damage. Are henchman from basic suppose to trigger?

[Hannibal_PJV]

Ancient skeleton is a hensman, so this is working as inteded... You need a lot of healing power, armours and scouting. Also try kill villain first and keep on going. He does not cause the damage like hensmans!

The first run was prutal, then I learned how to beat the system. But it is hard and requires tight play!

So sceletons hordes and other barriers that summons hensmans Are your worst enemies, try to augury them to the buttom of the deck!

[Rhygar]

How I did it without having a optimal deck with my mishmash party of 6 on legendary without much in way of evade and deck reconnaissance from skill or spell cards or item is to simply lose narrowly to every henchman that's not zombie that I encounter in a horde barrier. It's better to let one or two character lose a few cards for lack of protection than to let everyone get hit for force damage that can't be as readily reduced .

 

That said, the only reason I won , besides not having that bugged combo of wild card power, was because of luck ferreting out the villain early and thus able to focus on him without digging up all the henchman. It's one of a few scenario in game I'm not confident of reproducing a win but I wonder if a primed deck with enough reconnaissance cards will make much more of a difference.

[Namyra]

I still think the scenario power would work much more fairly if it only triggered on non-summoned henchmen. That's still quite a lot of damage potentially.

 

It's also inconsistent with 3-1. In 3-1, Mammy Graul's difficulty only increases by 2 for each non-summoned henchman defeated (even though it doesn't say "non-summoned"), while in 3-5, the scenario power triggers on summoned henchmen as well.

 

I think the way 3-5 works right now mostly makes it more random... if you get lucky and don't pull any horde barriers you're gonna have a much easier time than if you do. And I, personally, much prefer a little less random, a little more stable gameplay. And I think it would still be one of the toughest Heroic scenario powers so far.

 

If it is intended to be the way it is now, then at least there needs to be more clarity when summoned henchmen trigger the power and when they do not. I.e. in that case, the scenario power in 3-1 should be rewritten to say "non-summoned henchmen", since that's how it currently works.

[_Harwin_]

The horde barriers seem like a bug either way.

 

If they're intended to do damage:

With 4 players I only triggered 1d4 damage.  Since I beat *4* henchman, if you want it to be based on henchman, I should take 4d4 damage.

And I should probably do it after each henchman is defeated.... making this barrier unbeatable.

 

If they're not intended to do damage:

Well, then they should stop doing damage.

[Namyra]

Yeah, exactly. I've had the luck of only pulling a Skinsaw Ritual with a single character so far, but a friend told me that indeed, you get dealt the scenario power damage only once even if you defeat multiple henchmen summoned by a horde barrier. So that's another inconsistent behaviour that needs fixing one way or another.

[Irgy]

I still think the scenario power would work much more fairly if it only triggered on non-summoned henchmen. That's still quite a lot of damage potentially.

 

It's also inconsistent with 3-1. In 3-1, Mammy Graul's difficulty only increases by 2 for each non-summoned henchman defeated (even though it doesn't say "non-summoned"), while in 3-5, the scenario power triggers on summoned henchmen as well.

 

I think the way 3-5 works right now mostly makes it more random... if you get lucky and don't pull any horde barriers you're gonna have a much easier time than if you do. And I, personally, much prefer a little less random, a little more stable gameplay. And I think it would still be one of the toughest Heroic scenario powers so far.

 

If it is intended to be the way it is now, then at least there needs to be more clarity when summoned henchmen trigger the power and when they do not. I.e. in that case, the scenario power in 3-1 should be rewritten to say "non-summoned henchmen", since that's how it currently works.

 

FWIW, Mammy Graul technically works by putting the henchmen in a pile, and they can only be put in a pile if they weren't summoned since summoned cards always go back to the box afterwards (unless specifically the summoning card says otherwise).

 

The damage thing doesn't work the same way because it doesn't involve putting the henchmen anywhere it just happens.

 

I suspect they've programmed it to work the way it does with multi-henchman barriers because it would just be ridiculous otherwise, but just didn't get around to figuring out how to adjust the wording to describe the behaviour they wanted.