Mauve Manticore #18

First map is easy.
Second map is easy if you

Spoiler

spawn some of these flying things and hide them until you have 4-5. Then they will draw invisibility pretty much every round and deal massive damage while invulnerable.

But third map? Do I really just need to wait until the AI decides to freely leave the victory square? It's also possible to poison him early but it's difficult, I haven't managed to do that early enough yet. 2dmg + 3poison + 3poison = 8dmg but he has 9 hp...

Edit: Beat the 3rd map on 3rd try, AI just stupidly left the victory square. Ok.

 

AI will likely leave the VP if you leave a path for them to get behind you as they value standing behind you over being on the VP most of the time on a 1vp map.

 

I agree with @Lord Feleran, although I was a bit more proactive on map 2. On map 3, it took me a round to realize that Uncanny Dodge was helpful only until I got close to the victory square, and the next round I made a severe facing error compounded by not drawing a I'm Here About The Job when I needed it most. In the third round, the AI just abandoned the square when I was close enough to reach it that turn, but didn't move to get behind me.

 

MM18! @BlackVoidDeath @youthpastor @Fanturluche
Part 1:


Part 2:

 

1st map, average, seemed like a lv13-14 mission. A boring one. 2 lords, 1 merc, 1 hardened merc vs some zombies and skeletons and alet zhav? With victory points just for the player? How can you lose in that? If it wasn't made by BVD it wouldn't be in MM.

2nd map, the AI played the cake pieces like crap and the (invisible) flies (with their piercing attacks) are too OP, the spawn grubs were never in danger, but liked the idea and the design.

3rd map was the only truly enjoyable, but what was the purpose of the respawn?

 

Ouch.

 

There isn't always a 9 HP guy on the VP. On my winning attempt, I had one of the 5 HP servants camping the VP instead.

 

I beat the first two simply enough on the first tries. The dinner party might've been a little tougher just because you have to juggle your characters a little bit to keep them alive amidst the mixture of enemy attacks and defenses. The radioactive picnic was just that - a picnic .. and radioactive. $E^ D I learned a couple things, though, which I'll be posting in the text bugs thread and the rebalance thread...

spoilers!

I loved pulling Dodge x2 + Duck on my nobility. My elderly were better tanks than my mercenaries. $E^ D (Especially with Mud Pit and Dropped Guard, ~exhale.~)

I loved biting with radiation over and over, lol!! I never managed to deliver Vulnerable nor Squishy, but Mind Leak was excellent; it was like the anti- Martyr+Maneuvers combo, sapping two cards out of its hand with every bite! $E^ D (Bite! drop Frost Cannon, drop Scuttle .. Bite! drop Frost Storm, drop Made of Cake .. etc., heheh) Traveling Curse was also a fun one to grab. $:^ ] It took me a couple rounds to realize I shouldn't bite an empty-handed monster since I only give cards at that point, but fortunately, it only took a couple rounds. $F^ }

The third was hard, comparatively. It took me three or four tries. I "got" how to do it within the first turn or two of the first battle, but continuously drawing that trait was rough. $:^ [ There were a couple times I made it to the victory square in only 3 rounds, but then I spent round after round trying to rid myself of the "boost" cards and keep moves to go back and forth and try to kill whomever on the VS, or at the very least be able to poison (or even try to poison if one of the goblocks er I mean goblins); once I'd get to the VS, enemies kept staying away from me thus I couldn't stab, and the camper would often have a move and just spin around when I'd Scamper around and around, ugh. After multiple losses like that, it got pretty frustrating and unfun, actually. (Twice, Gary even acted like he knew what he was doing! Once, I positioned near the square and ropes, then a surprise Move trapped me in to where I couldn't scamper past! erg! Another time, early on, I positioned to warp past the ropes, and a goblin ran up and planted itself directly behind me! to where I wouldn't be able to teleport through! ha!) ... In related news, it was fun moonwalking through the ropes (including imagining what it'd be like to be an Uncanny elf wizard). $E^ J ... EDIT: Gary never left the square for me, no matter how I positioned. Weird.

Locked Club pillow offered Ruin #3. Heh. Appropriate (if I had Club).

 

I liked this MM, some interesting maps with amusing concepts.

First map was a nice "hold out" sort of map where surviving is the main point rather than beating enemies, which I tend to like. I've had varying degrees of luck with card draws, dice rolls and how long the doors survive. I always make sure to destroy all enemy doors just to get rid of their zones of control as they have cost me the match once before. Overall the biggest threat was always a combination of the Skeleton Wizard, Warriors and depending on how many move cards he gets the Muscular Zombie, the Zombies generally took too many turns to reach my characters to make a difference. It seems odd that there's no loss condition for having either/both of the lords die, but I tend to prefer MM maps to be lenient in their winning and losing conditions anyway.

Second map gave me trouble when I tried it on the test server the first time, though once I realized that the key to success is a swarm of 5 flies it became a matter of accumulating enough flies and keeping the Invisibility train going. Felt good to mess up that cake with a horde of flies, which also fits the map's theme nicely which I appreciate. Not entirely sure what some of the map decoration is meant to be, I get there's meant to be a picnic cloth but the stacked decals confused me.

Third map was the hardest of them all, on my first try on the test server I managed to skip most of the line cutting though a well-timed Uncanny Dodge but then failed when a Goblin with his back turned to the wall camped on the Victory Square and in trying to get him to turn his back to me I wound up trapped in the corner of the room, unable to be hit or hit any enemies due to Here For The Job. On my attempt on the test server I played more aggressively, using my Backstabs to ensure I could poison whoever was on the Victory Square, and I only narrowly made it in the end with 3 HP left. Uncanny Dodge failing against Scream when I was trying to bait out a rgular attack caught me off guard. I liked the flavour this map has, it's an interesting way to put the player in the Assassin's role.

 

I didn't mention it before, but I really think it's a great map design! - To be honest I thought the scenario name with all the "red tape" was enough to make it great, but add in multiple twists of strategy challenges it's really a wonderful challenge! I went through and played MM again (which I never do) even before it reset just to beat the 3rd battle again for fun.

 

First map no comments: Really hard to not beat it.

Second map: As someone said, spam a lot of flies and when you got mass invisiblity use the radioactive bite until the opponent gets "Hear Them Out" after that the map should be very easy. Take care with Cake blocks, you should have enough movements to avoid that. Curiosity: The map could be done really fast with good rng, festering slices are crazy (but isn't a consistent strategy to beat the map btw)

Third map: Move the most you can. Kill the servants with the poison shot. Use your 12 attack with wise (for be able to use the poison attack). Also Uncanny Dodge wasn't that useful, the AI wasn't that stupid for hit me in a way I could shortcut the map from the beginning. For fun, on test server, I also challenge myself to kill most of the goblins. With that you could say the respawn comes very handy.

 

First Map was an okay survive x turns map. Was really easy, not much more to say about it other than it's a no brainer map.

Second Map: Pretty fun playing a spawner against spawner, but honestly it's a no brainer too, the cake doesn't have any defence against Mass Invisibility. It's an auto win and never leaves you when you have 5 flies out. Now I know how to cheese Perilous Garden now at least. The lore was good.

Third Map: Not sure why people are having problems with this one, you can use Uncanny Dodge to jump over the lines and can kill anything that's on the VP easily with your OP backstab card, they can't even turn their back to you when you got I'm Here For The Job. I managed to finish it with 4 VP stars remaining. It's a really easy map as well. This was my favorite map, the design of it is clever and the lore was also great. Good job to the guy who made this one.

 

The problem with the last map is that if the goblin sitting there is facing away from the wall, then you cannot kill him. He would have to move away himself. I played the map 3 times and he was always facing away from the wall.

 

When the AI moves, if it's not changing it's location it will always turn to face you. Don't want it facing directly away from the wall - get to one side of it or the other (at any distance away), the next time that character moves, it'll either leave the VP, or turn to face you.

 

Glad so many of you are enjoying some of these maps.

To the rest of you, if you're going to be salty about Mauve Manticore, you should submit excellent scenarios instead. That way I'll pick them and MM will look the way you want it to ^__^

 

Is there like a place where it has all the creature deck lists? And would it be possible to add the CoC characters into the drop down thingy? I had a search for them earlier and they were absent.

 

Most creature deck lists are on the wiki I believe. There are no plans to add the CoC characters.

 

I thought that I couldn't have a single character(excluding doors since they are worth 0) die otherwise the enemy will win(they only need one star). So I never lost a character because of that.

 

I thought lords may not die and that I need to have more (at least not less) characters on the victory squares too. Turns out I made it too difficult for myself (Though it was still easy.)

 

I should mention, I loved the flavor of everything. "The guards are too stupid to use the doors," the standard symbiotic relationship of cleaning up trash after a picnic $;^ b and what happens after "the last window closes." And.. oh.. wow.. Tapioca, the Yellow Pudding. Lol! A lot of care went into all that. Good stuff. $:^ ] (I could say more, but I's gotsta go!)