Filler games

We've had two weeks without a full complement of players, so we've been digging out the filler games!

A couple of weeks ago it was Dominion (actually, Dominion: Intrigue) which we're still getting the hang of. We played a few games, trying to get a strategy together - I'm still on the fence about this one; one of our group likes it, one seems disinterested, I get into it at the time but don't really get that much out of it...

This week, however, was regular filler game Descent! Taking into account what was said last time, we decided to take one hero each - and the balance seems to be restored. We lost.

I drew Varikas the Dead (yay!) and some interesting skills - I regained (another) fatigue point when Advancing, got +1 armour and a free Guard action when Battling, and exploded killing everything in 3 squares if I died. Dave got Steelhorns the minotaur, the ability to Cleave into another opponent if he killed someone in melee, and invigorating battle cry and something else...

We were kicking ass and taking names right up until the final battle, when our lack of decent magic items meant we really couldn't touch Nat's dragon, and we went down. We play that if all the heroes are dead at the end of a turn then it's Game Over Man, so the evil Overlord finally won!

To his credit, Nat had an interesting strategy going; burning - rather than playing - spawns and traps to get get Doom, Hordes of The Things, Brilliant Commander and something else all in play - meaning the most effective way for us to clear a room in the endgame was for me to die, and take as many with me as possible!

Descent and balance

Descent's a great game, but our group's reaching the point where the Heroes are rapidly outclassing the Overlord player. We're only 4 or so missions in, so hopefully the balance will be shifted in the later missions.

Two of us took four heroes against the forces of darkness this week, and won by a margin of over a dozen conquest tokens!

We only used pretty basic strategies too:

* Open doors at the start of a turn, run in and collect chests/glyphs before slaughtering minions before they can react.

* Quaff fatigue potions with gay abandon to achieve the above - spend all money in ton on more fatigue potions!

* Position heroes to limit the areas the overlord can spawn in, as (s)he has to spawn out of LOS.

Now, either there're some equally basic Overlord tactics we're missing, or the game's balance is crazy... My thoughts on addressing this imbalance are:

* Start the heroes on zero conquest (or one, maybe) as the chances of getting slotted before activating a glyph are slim to none?

* Allow the Overlord to play multiple spawns when the boss room door has been opened - after all, the remaining minions would rush to the defence of their master, right?

* Give players fewer skills - maybe draw three as standard, but discard one?

* Maybe we should have just had one hero each, instead of two?

Any thoughts, or (better) advice? I'm aware that the expansions swing the balance back the other way, but we're only playing vanilla descent for now!

Descent Ownage

Thursday's Deadlands session was put off as we were missing a member, so we cracked Descent out instead for some good ol' fashioned dungeon crawling.

Mark elected to be Overlord, which meant I got to play the Heroes, for once, with Dave. Random selection netted me Silhouette and Sir Whatsit, Dave got Landrec and Ronan. I was pretty happy with my two, decking Valadir? out as "tank" with decent armour and a sword & shield, and Silhouette as "runner" with a shield & crossbow. Landrec drew the cards that gave him Command and Sorcery 1, making him an unofficial "leader" type, while Ronan ended up with Marksman and some miscellaneous oddments that didn't really affect gameplay.

It soon transpired that Silhouette was grossly overpowered; I'd drawn Rapid Fire and Crack Shot for her, which was handy, but I also got the card that gives +2 fatigue - cranking her up to a game-breaker. With her 5 move and 7 fatigue, the original plan was to run her around and take glyphs / chests, using her shield to keep her alive and the crossbow in an emergency. Ronan and Landrec were going to be crowd control, while Valadir duked it out with whatever was trying to munch on the party.

This soon changed when we figured out that Rapid Fire can be used multiple times in a turn - Silhouette was clearing out rooms as we discovered them with 10+ attacks in a turn before nipping off to town for more potions. Even when Mark revealed a room full of master skellys and sorcerors, the only reason it took two turns for her to beat them all down was because he was incredibly lucky with his Undying rolls.

He conceded - we had over 15 conquest points and a couple of gold items each, and he really couldn't see it getting any tougher for us. Disappointing, but we're having a rematch next week!

We may have to houserule it, in hindsight - anyone else had a similar experience?