I haven't bothered to replay this adventure ... I didn't find it much fun and the loot was definitely underwhelming ... having more fun trying to secure a 2nd Brin's Storm Locket around level 6
Interesting. I beat map #2 not by trying to stand on the victory squares and hope (which seems like a forlorn hope, quite frankly, with that ogre around) but by trying to survive long enough to whittle down the goblins and get points that way. The raging strikes they often have in their hand can be QUITE helpful. As can the ogre damaging his own guys (although on the first attempt I drew mostly heals and got a big assist from the ogre in nearly winning, on the second attempt when I won the ogre actually didn't kill any of his own guys so I had to land all the kills myself. Backing into a corner where only a limited number of goblins can reach you definitely helps. Map 1 was so meh I can't even remember it. Map 3 was a bit annoying because I had to go and turn up the animation speed in order to beat it, and it's basically a lot of passing and discarding until the right cards show up (but I did love the flavour of it- more of that flavour, but with more interesting actual maps!). Map 2 was the one I thought was a real tactical challenge, and a nice change from being able to brute force it with our collections (nimbus + firestorm deck....) and also from being limited to a mere 3 characters...
Odd, I actually loathe the design on the first one. I constantly get caught in the first room amongst 15 rock or acid tiles while he sits on the victory squares and just straight-up wins and the geomancer continues to blossom the tiles outward so that no matter how fast I run, I move 1 space. I lose about half of these just on the merit that I can't get past the first room quickly enough, even ignoring the ogre and freezing him in-place. The second one was fun. I didn't realize the doors were VP tiles, and when I did, I started to heal those instead of my party members (Which is hilarious healing a door!). Used the Ogre to my advantage once, and once, just sat on the VPs for a couple turns and focus-fired a few goblins for the win. The third one was awesome - The only time I lost to the timer was the time I found out there was a timer. I took my sweet time my first three attempts, and on the fourth, I magically lost with a "WTF!?" look on my face.
It's all up to luck of the draw, though. I guarantee the geomancer has more difficult terrain tiles than the wizard has lava. Last two times I played the map I drew no encumber or terrain, but I did get Force Blast in my opening hand so I could kick the door down the hallway before it could play Immovable. It's probably the only reason I got out of that room before the ogre destroyed me.
I've found it pretty easy in general - sure an unlucky draw can kill you but you have a ton of cards that will achieve your aims one way or the other. I've beaten it even when the geomancer filled the hallway with 5 consecutive squares of acid. If you draw Wall of Fire, the door will die quickly. The ogre can be kept in his place with frost bolt or telekinesis, or at a pinch he can be tanked and killed. You have Elvish Mobility and Step attacks to speed your warrior out through any terrain, and the wizard will likely have Hover or Teleport. (Granted, the priest may have to play catch up, but so long as he gets out of the room it doesn't matter.) Even with Thickened Mail armour, your warrior has an Impaling Stab and buffs, as well as other big hits. Your wizard has acid to destroy their armour. If only one of them comes at you, you are in little danger, and if both come, the Victory Squares don't matter. I don't doubt that you can die to RNG, but I think it should be no more than a quarter of the time at most.
3rd scenario tips. - *** Change your animation speed in options to 10.*** <-- Most important. - First round, move to the non-victory square just about the intersection. - Pass until you have at least two run cards. - Run past the intersection closer to the door. - Pass until you have 3 Run cards in your hand (you'll have to save two and draw one). - Run past the door (1 step at a time) until you are diagonal from the door. - Hit repeatedly with any/all attacks until door fails enough armor rolls that you win. Victory.
First off, thanks to all creators for putting a lot of hard work into these maps for us to enjoy. Little feedback: 1st Map. Good fun, probably the least frustrating of the three - partly because you know within the first two draws/rounds whether you have any chance of winning (i.e. if you don't pull any freeze or tk and the geomancers starts spamming AoE attacks, it's a safe bet you'll probably need a restart), and partly because you can see the 'trick' of it straight away, it's just a matter of pulling it off. 2nd Map. Interesting take on the way the VPs work - could have done with some way of shoring up the doors / blocking exits to introduce a bit more tactical play. I managed to win by piling out through the door with the 'weaker' Gobbos and duffing over the spellcaster while the dwarf held the others inside the house with a fortuitously-timed Nimbus. I can imagine there are other ways to win, but I suspect they would rely a bit to heavily on blind luck in close quarters, especially given the lack of attack cards. Good fun overall, but felt a bit shallow tactically (no doubt someone will disagree here!) EDIT: Turns out you can heal the doors?! Well don't I feel like an idiot - Off to try that one again! 3rd Map. Most ambitious and I really liked it, but it also really, really ****ed me off, and not because it was too hard - This has the potential to be the most entertaining one of the bunch, but it should really be the first map not the third, given the total lack of explanation of what you have to do and the brutal time limit. I don't mind having to work the tactic out myself - little bit of good natured frustration is part of cardhunter, but when the only way to learn is by failing at least once or twice and when that will frequently result in you having to repeat the 1st two maps all over again, it passes from mildly frustrating to needlessly aggravating IMO. The post above suggests changing your animation speed to 10 to give you an edge (and, to be honest, I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it) but if metagaming the options console is a required tactic to succeed, I'd say something has gone wrong somewhere. Still though, really enjoyed trying out all three and am looking forward to some more! P.S. the timeout message on map 3 crashed the game for me. Clicking on ok did nothing and after a while shockwave just packed up. Could just be my browser though.
Did you read the messages on the pages of the module that it shows you before and after each fight? It should have made the objective of the 3rd map fairly clear.
Just to clarify: I see a blank bar covering up the VP stars and timer on Mauve Manticore. Is this true for others, or is it a bug?
It is the bug sometimes with too much cards/unit on minion groups. I've seen it happen a few times even in official adventures as well. Couldn't narrow down the cause and it usually goes away next turn.
Only if you're out of gold. Three retries only costs 15g. And gold accumulates rapidly when you play scenarios you usually win.
Overall I'm really happy with how the first edition turned out. If you'd like to contribute scenarios for the next edition (and earn some pizza) you can do so right here!
Don't get lucky enough to draw them yet. I've only been through the map six times, and I've never drawn a Fire Wall or Lava pool within the first few turns. In addition, the Geomancer always has stuff to impede me.
I like the scenarios but they have no replay value because its purely luck based. In the first scenario: no freeze > you are ****ed In the second scenario: not enough attacks and mass frenzy in the first round > you are ****ed Just add unlimited replays to it and it would still be annoying but okay.
Yes, the objective was fairly clear, but the 'trick' of it wasn't - especially when you are dumped into the map and the (very short) timer starts immediately ticking down. In fact, the fact that you can even have a timer in a sp map was a bit of a curve ball, and I was a bit thrown. Even once I sussed out how to do it, it still felt like the time limit wasn't nearly enough to finish it first go unless you were either lucky, very sharp, or pre-warned of the specifics (the double move bit, the timer, the animation speed-up ). As for re-tries, I actually didn't have any gold on my first go (my own fault, yes) and on my time-out attempt, the game crashed anyway, leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth and a reluctance to pile in for another go. I will though, as I enjoyed the maps a lot - I just wanted to give my initial thoughts, particularly as someone who isn't very good at the meta-game but doesn't believe the game is 'unfair' or impossible'.
Indeed, playing Mauve Manticore got me interested in user-created scenarios which I had kind of forgotten about, and I have played a couple so far and intend to play more. Just having it there is a great way to introduce user-scenarios since they are visible and also dev-approved, which implies some sort of quality bar. But the ones I tried from the user forum were good too. I've played MM about five times so far - to be honest part of what I like about it is that it is a quick enjoyable campaign with no need to deck-build. For the same reason I run Cardstock II a lot.
