Arthadan

And back to the map...

I have to say it's amazing both in size and quality. @Florentin has made a great job and the progress from the first version is impressive. I must confess I had my doubt about the large areas, but they play out pretty well with the big cavalry bases.

One last doubt: Is it possible to move from 26 <--> 22? (I've played like it is possible) f so I'd delete the stake separating both areas because it's not very clear. .

I've discovered during playtesting is we have a small issue with the wall of sand (areas 27, 82, 83).  Horses cannot run on top of it, area 81 is never used and the small unumbered area to the right of area 83 is so small not even a dismounted miniature can fit in there.  I guess heroes could use it to hide behind it (same as within the monolith field), but for that we would need a much thinner wall with bigger areas behind it (on its right side). Going back to an old idea, it could be something like this:

This way heroes can hide between Princess Hill and the top segment ofthe wall and behind the long vertical section. Doesn't really matters it it has this shape or the current one, I'm using this image to illustrate my suggestion about a thinner wall with space to it's right for heroes to hide.

Thoughts on this?

Long overdue battle reports.

FIRST PLAYTESTING GAME

Heroes used the movie strategy, Subotai grabbed the bow to kill any enemies going to Princess Hill , staying at the border of the monolith filed, while Conan intercepted enemies going to get him. 

The OL divided his forces in an attempt to keep busy the heroes while capturing the Yasmina with a few warriors.

In the end Thorgrim died, Thulsa Doom arrived but he couldn't use his Set's Arrow spell to kill Yasmina and win because she was behind the huge stone she was tied to at the start of the game (one Black Guard had managed to capture her and was running away but was shot dead by Subotai while standing in that area, dropping Yasmina dead).  Akiro managed to survive until the end ofthe game. He had a great role boosting Subotai's shots with his Support skill and casting Favor of the Gods on Conan.

In the end Rexor killed Subotai, Conan rushed towards Rexor but he was too late and Thulsa Doom had to admit his defeat.

Hadrathus as Akiro, Kherim Sha as (dead) Subotai

SECOND PLAYTESTING GAME

Heroes changed the strategy. Instead of staying within the safety of the monolith field, they took the fight to the enemy blocking the access to Princess Hill. 

The Overlord went for Yasmina with everything he got, all the action was condensed around Princess Hill. 

Subotai was surrounded pretty bad, unable to escape and playing defensive, Akiro was killed early in the game and the heroes sorely missed his Favor of the Gods spell (pretty useful!)

Thulsa Doom never appeared because Thorgrim and Rexor survived until the end  Subotai was killed by regular troops in the end, Conan survived with only 3 gems and only the turn limit (10 turns) made the heroes win.

CONCLUSION

Best strategy for the heroes was clearly the one they use in the first game, closer to what we see in the movie. They have advantage within the monolith fild, limiting the number of riders attacking them in the smaller zones there (as opposed to the bigger zones outside). Subotai shooting from the edge of the monolith field has a good chance to kill any enemy getting too close to Yasmina, specially with Akiro's support.

The Overlord has a harder time in this scenario, having to divide his forces to capture the Yasmine while keeping the heroes at bay.  I'm thinking Rexor and Thorgrim shouldn't be the very last in the River, having them arriving earlier can spice things up. I'd try that next and see how it plays out.

Olgred as dimounted Thorgrim.

Edit: As you may notice, I'm using the old Subotai sheet without the Lock-picking skill. It makes no difference for this scenario.

12 hours ago, Florentin said:

A question: Does the principle of "Opportunity attack" exist as an option in the Conan Core game ?

• If an opponent arrives in your line of sight, is it possible to shoot him!
• Or if he enters in your area, without attacking you and live it in the same game phase could you strike him?

Nope, closer thing to an opportunity attack is the skill Counterattack (Riposte, in French). It allows to perform a free attack after being attacked.

7 hours ago, Florentin said:

Yes a document is something I would like to have too in order we share the same view !

Will work on that next!

5 hours ago, Florentin said:

I remember to have talk about this on the french forum, there are ages (~April 17th 2017).

This is in french...do not know if every one can understand what was written (see below PS) so I summarize the conclusion:

<<

Heroes that should not die  escape  out of the map to avoid to be killed when their hit points are under 0.

People that should die are killed at the end of the scenario...the OL read a small text that will tell the story who is going to die & how.

>>

 

However, this solution is not the one I would like now. In fact, if Valeria was not killed, she would had certainly participated to the Battle of the mounds...

If Rexor and Thorgrim had escaped the battlefield in the BOTM maybe the last fight against Thulsa Doom would not have been as easy as it was.

So I think it would be great to try to find a game system that could allow to live new "Conan the barbarian adventures".

I was thinking about using official campaign as a model, implementing the same mechanic, because they are well tested and solid. In the official campaign if a character dies, he will lost any equipment obtained in the campaign scenarios and reappear in the next scenario with his starting equipment. There are some penalties like he cannot spend experience (to level up or whatever) and he cannot swap equipment with other heroes.

Now I agree with @Florentin, and I think allowing some small changes can be fun. After all this is the players making their own version of the movie with their actions, "living" that story and reshaping it to an extend. I suggest if Valeria dies in the assault of Thulsa Doom's mountain she will stay dead for the rest of the campaign but if she survives I'll tweak the Battle of the Mound scenario once is made so she will be included. Conan will lose the Campaign card "Not even the Gods can sever us", he won't have the increase recovery rate and, the OL will have more gems and an increase gem recovery rate, and perhaps Rexor, Thorgrim and Mr. Doom will get some some extra life points. And it could also happens that Subotai dies and Valeria survives, I'd give a thought to that posibility as well.

But first things first...

5 hours ago, Florentin said:

At present, @Arthadan I'm not certain to well understand the purpose of the low black stones you talk about.

My understanding of these stones was that they could be used to allow movement for on foot miniatures while blocking mounted miniatures. For on foot miniatures, an extra gem cost is necessary to climb on the low black stones and go in the nearby area.

 

So for me stone F could not be used by mounted miniatures.

Why are you talking about usage by mounted miniatures for stone F ?

In the oficial maps, all conected areas have a common border line long enough to allow the crossing of a miniature base (that is, the miniature base fits in the initial area, the common border and the final area). 

Regarding stones, all stones but F can be crossed only by miniatures on foot because no mounted miniature base will fit on them because they are between other stones. 

Now, stone F is between  empty flat areas and we could place a mounted miniature base on it without any space issue. What I mean is if it's a low stone and we have room to place a horse base over it, then horses should be able to jump over it. 

I suggest this rule for black stones: 

Any miniature can jump over a black stone as long as its base can move over it, paying 1 extra movement point, or without any extra cost if the miniature has the Jump skill.

What do you think?

Then, we have some areas conected by a border line so narrow that not even a dismounted miniature base would fit:

55<-->18

38<-->40

Stone B <-->37

Stone F <-->14

I'm afraid this would cause confusion among players, but I've thought about some solutions that may fix this:

#1 Easy solution: if base does not fit on the common border line , no crossing allowed.

#2 Solution (I bet you'd like it best): only characters on foot with the Feline Grace skill can cross between those areas paying one extra movement point. 

Second one makes sense because big guys (think of Baal Pteor for example) wouldn't be able to cross the narrow gap, but nimble fighters would be able to do it.

Everybody agrees on solution #2?

4 hours ago, Florentin said:

I saw this post after I worked on the new map!

I draw the red movements arrows to show the interest of the stone F.

So, move could be realized between:

• 61 to 14 while avoiding areas  62 & 63.
• 62 to 63 while avoiding 61.

Thus, I think it would be great to keep the stone F as a lower black stone that offers capability to change area for on foot characters.

 

Note: for me 63 to 22 is forbidden consequence of the "cheval de frise". 

Or, we can imagine that the F black stone is the only way to go from 61 & 62 & 63 to 22 by jumping from it in area 22 ? It could be epic to see Conan to do a such action to protect Yasmina !? 

But, if so it should be forbidden to go back from area 22 in the three others areas or that means that on foot characters should climb on the "cheval de frise" to reach the F black stone top...But quite dangerous and that would need an additional gem so: 2 gems to use this way...

 

What are you thinking about this ?

 

Thing is black stones represent low stones in narrow spaces. That's the reason why only miniatures on foot can move through them.

But in the case of stone F is between two open spaces (62 and 63), so there is plenty of room for a horse to jump over it.

So, should we complicate things a bit and make F usable by mounted and on foot miniatures or keep it easier and leave F as a normal stone so all black stones are only for miniatures on foot?

4 hours ago, Florentin said:

Stone D: passage between 46 and 43 seems useless !

In fact, there is already a border between the both areas.

There is a border but it's so narrow no miniature base can pass through it. I think we should keep it.

17 minutes ago, Florentin said:

Thank you !

Moreover, would it be possible to have a document that regroup rules in the download part of the forum ? And so each time he would be updated we would all share the same full version ?

It could be in .txt format !

Sure, let me do a bit more playtesting tomorrow and I'll sharethe document next week.

55 minutes ago, Florentin said:

 

• Maybe I would replace the OL victory condition:

<<

OVERLORD: While Thorgrim and Rexor are alive, before the end of turn 10 the Princess must be captured and taken outside the board by the zone with the reinforcement token AND both heroes must be killed.

>>

by

<<

While Thorgrim or Rexor are alive

>>

In fact, I would like to avoid the case where the OL  sacrifies Thorgrim (as example) and then Rexor and all the other riders run to the Yasmina's hill to kill her....

Thing is it's nearly impossible to kill Thorgrim and Rexor. To begin with they are in the last positions of the River, so they arrive late to the fight (just like in the movie) and heroes are a bit beaten up by then. Also, keep in mind Thulsa Doom will never appear before turn 6 so heroes will have a good chance of protecting/recovering the Princess even after killing the "sacrified" OL character.

Besides, if we follow your suggestion,  heroes will  try not to kill both, Thorgrim and Rexor, so Thulsa Doom will never appear and OL's victory conditions change for the worse.

Anyway, further playtesting will give us the answer. 

55 minutes ago, Florentin said:

• What about trying to save the Conan's father sword to be broken ?

Maybe a full sword could be catched by Conan at the death of Rexor ?

I kind of like a final duel between Conan and Thulsa Doom with the broken sword, just like the movie. @Xaltotun what do you think?

55 minutes ago, Florentin said:

• I love the rules of the ancien shield & the set's arrow spell!

Thanks! 

46 minutes ago, Florentin said:

I would like to draw in golden color the crossable stones edge.

Not sure golden is a good choice, I think it would be to close to the sand color. I suggest to make them darker and I'll add that they can be crossed by miniatures on foot in the map rules.

49 minutes ago, Florentin said:

Yes It could!

Only 6 to 35 is impossible !

Then perhaps the spike between 6 and 10 could be make smaller. It seems to be interrupting the movement from 6 to 10.

3 minutes ago, Florentin said:

The map could be this !

A new area that I could propose would be one of the stone near the Yasmina's hill (in yellow too).

At first sight, I believe that it would be useless but now I think it could be interesting because

That could allow to go from 62 <--> 63 & from 61 <--> 14 !

I think that one doesn't need to be changed. There are gaps wide enough to be understable a character on foot can move from 61<-->62 <-->14 and 61<-->63<-->22.

I suggest changing just the previous ones (A to E).

@Florentin by the way, I have a doubt, could a mounted miniature cross from 6 to 10? I think they should.

9 minutes ago, Florentin said:

 

In fact, I think it would be funny to allow some stones to be crossable only by men on foot.

Yellow circled stones could be these kind of stones.

But maybe, it could be necessary to use 1 extra gem for a such movement.

So not certain that it would be necessary to modify the map as the stones are already different from the other classical rectangled monoliths.

But the stones could be circled by an other color than white to identify them maybe a king of golden colors ?

 

Thus, different new movements could be authorized.

A: 10 <--> 84

B: 37<-->16 (even if path between monoliths is narrow)

C: 44 <-->39/40 & 38<-->40

D: 45 <--> 46/43 & 43 <--> 46

E: 30/84 <--> 46/19

 

What are you thinking about this ?

 

That would be a good solution!

Tricky thing is how to make them easily identifiable at first sight. Perhaps making them much darker than the others, as if they were much lower stones (like "A" or even darker)? 

Changes I suggest after my first playtesting (besides the one on the map on the previous post):

MOUNTED COMBAT

A Mounted miniature count as two miniatures on foot regarding hindering. In other words, one mounted miniature in an area with one enemy on foot is not affected by hindering, and it would have a penalty of -1 if there were 2 enemies on foot.

ENEMY TILES

Akiro's armour needs to be reduced from 3 to 2 (he's way too tough now).

EQUIPMENT

The horned helmet armour value needs to be toned down as well, from  to 

SCENARIO

WINNING THE GAME

HEROES: The Heroes win if they prevent the Overlord victory conditions to happen for 10 turns OR if they kill Thulsa Doom before the end of turn 10.

OVERLORD: While Thorgrim and Rexor are alive, before the end of turn 10 the Princess must be captured and taken outside the board by the zone with the reinforcement token AND both heroes must be killed.

When Thulsa Doom enters the game, the Overlord wins killing or capturing the Princess (no need to exit the board) OR Killing all the heroes before the end of turn 10.

HEROES

The game starts with the heroes' turn. The heroes start in the areas indicated by the setup diagram.

Suggestions for 2 heroes:

* Conan (Atlantean Sword, Old Armor).

* Subotai (Hyrkanian Sword, Spear, Old Armor).

[The rest about Akiro is the same]

[The horned helmet becames another token object the heroes can place]

OVERLORD

[Starting gems changed]

The Overlord starts with 5 gems in their Reserve zone and 7 in their Fatigue zone, and places the recovery token showing a recovery value of “5” in the Book of Skelos.

SPECIAL RULES

AMBUSH AMONG THE STANDING STONES

[Modified]

- The hero remains hidden in the following turns if he remains in cautious stance or until an enemy unit enters an area with a hero token. In this case the token is removed (if it was the decoy) or replaced with the hero miniature (if it was the hero).

ARROWS

[Added Subotai gets arrow also when picking up the bow. Problem is there is only one token per area and it makes no sense having the bow in one area and arrows in another]

- When he picks up any arrow token or the Hirkanian bow token, he will increase his arrow number by 5 (arrow tokens are placed by the heroes, along with some more items, see the following special rule, "the dead will help us").

THE BROKEN SWORD

Rexor wields Conan’s father sword in this scenario and it will break as he dies. When Rexor dies, place the Broken Sword equipment card in his area.

HE WILL COME FOR ME

Thulsa Doom himself will enter the battle along with the purple Riders of Doom tile from turn 6 if Thorgrim or Rexor are dead and any other unit tile. Remove 2 the dead tiles from the River (pick 2 in this order, Thorgrim if he is dead, Rexor if he is dead, any other dead tile) and add the purple Raiders of Doom  and Thulsa Doom tiles at the end of the River and place the miniature in the zone with the token with the number 1.

One of the Raiders of Doom bears the Standard of Set. Place the Standard of Set token near this miniature. It will move along this miniature and it is removed from the game if this miniature dies. It is needed for the Event card effect “Battle Orders”.

Finally, replace the recovery token in the Book of Skelos with the one showing a recovery value of “7”.

NOTE

Set’s Arrow spell cannot be parried as a general rule but a hero with the Ancient Shield can try to parry the spell.

Comments?

46 minutes ago, Florentin said:

Areas 3-85: border was updated to smooth the drawing.
Areas 40-18 : The update of the border between the both areas was realized.
Area 66: To my opinion it is a good thing to keep it as it is!
In fact, in the movie, Subotaï sought refuge in this place, to catch some arrows before to go in area 14 and shot on both riders when they were near Yasmina.
Note: this area is between two monoliths. So, I think special rule to hide could be applied because Subotaï was not seen when he caught his arrows.
Area 67: was deleted because cause of trouble and spikes too.
Area 86: was updated as required.

+ All areas center were changed with a non pixelized bitmap.

 

The map was udpated in the download section.

Great work as always!

You are right, area 66 is fine as it is. In gfact Subotai has used it today! 

That's the exact map I've used for playtesting (hand-drawing your latest changes). And I have one last request (I promise this is the very last one!).

Thing is the heroes are already outmanoeuvred by their mounted enemies so, to make a bit easier for them to move within the monolith field, I'd remove 2 monoliths (or make them smaller or any other solution you see fit, like rotating the one on the right). The idea is that they  interrupt movement no more:

First playtesting complete!

It WORKS! Some small changes made on the fly, some more to be tested tomorrow, I'll share the small changes I've made this evening or tomorrow and some pics..

In the end Subotai has been killed by Rexor after shooting dead a Black Guard running away with the Princess and Thulsa Doom has turn his back away at the end of turn 10, admiting his defeat. Pretty intense and epic moments.

By the way. I've played the OL and an expert player has played both heroes. Here's her opinion:

At the begining it was a bit complicated, but soon you get the hang of it,.It has been pretty balanced and I've ejoyed it pretty much.

This is what I suggest for heroes setup:

I'll start playtesting tomorrow!

I'll draw by hand the last modifications we have discussed on the map and try out different River setup, initial enemies deployement, etc. I hope to give you a scenario with core rules that work and then we can all do some internal playtesting and polish things.

By the way, Rexor will drop Conan's father sword (broken version) when he dies, just like in the movie. Don't have much impact in the scenario but I think is a nice touch.

Where do you think heroes should start? I'm going to review the fight to see where Milius placed them.

Yep, I've read it as well.

They will release an Overlord vs. Overlord mode (in fact I *think* is already implemented in Batman) , but I don't recall anything about cooperative mode.

1 hour ago, Xaltotun said:

 

My suggest is to create the skill as general as possible, so that it can be applied to all minis, but specify the special use of it in this scenario, inside the rules.

 

So we everyone can use this skill in other homemade scenarios.

 

I think this is the game spirit: few general rules, and every scenario has his own particular ones / exceptions.

Yes, the rule is general. If you are mounted and suffer any damage adjacent to a Spike area, you may suffer additional damage. It makes no distinction between minions and bosses, nor is needed.

Looking great!

2 hours ago, Primeval said:

Great! Can you send me the trample icon? Are there other skills with icons too?

 

Sure! Will do in the evening. I think the trample skill would work well for big monsters such dragons.

It's the only skill we've made so far.

2 hours ago, Primeval said:

Oh, so the rider and horse fall together then? I misunderstood then - got it!

In the case of minions, yes. In the case of bosses, either way is possible. They can fall on the stakes with their horses or being dismounted by the blow and then hit the stakes.