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Calumma

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  1. So what about Conan? There are a few Overlord vs Overlord scenarios (some published in The Overlord Compendium). The mechanism therefor can work and be made into a playable scenario. My idea is purely intended to find a use for the Blood Rage crossover tiles within the Conan game system. But will it be fun? As it stands, players will look at their gems and decide the best strategy is to hold back to gather as many additional gems as possible and then use the Mystic to summon the most powerful creature that they can afford. What we need is a turn limit. But I'm not keen on fixed turn limits in vs scenarios where the objective is to kill an opponents character. What I therefore wanted was a mechanism to create a variable turn limit. And that's where Conan comes in. Earlier in this thread I discussed the high armour value of Gods and the ways that could be managed within a scenario. In my vs scenario I've introduced an object that when revealed automatically lowers the armour of all Gods. This object starts the game in three pieces and has an increased impact when reassembled. I need a few scenario specific rules. Debris of War - The Nordic Gods fight over a hillside that is littered with the relicts of past battles. Before deployment, make an asset deck that contains the following items: Battle Axe, Parrying Dagger, Shield, Life Potion, Aesir Sword, Broken Sword, Old Armour, Barbarian Helmet, Ancient Shield, Asgardian Sword, Magical Lemurian Blade and Suitable Worthless Objects x 9. The deck is shuffled and 9 items are randomly drawn face down. Three Blue Orbs numbered 1 - 3 (representing fragments of the Orb of Power) are shuffled into the drawn deck and one card placed face down by each Player in turn on an empty area of the map until all cards have been placed (do not place items in deployment zones). Searching an area to reveal an item automatically occurs when a Hero or Ally ends a movement in the area. Allies can pick up orb fragments for a cost of 1 gem. Orb Fragments - Each revealed Orb fragment (whether carried by a Hero or face up in an area) reduces the armour of a God by 1 (to a minimum of 3). These rules allow me to use some other fan made material. These include the Worthless Objects cards and Conan Film cards. You don't need to use them, but they introduce a variable element to the asset deck. Conan may find a battle axe, but he could also reveal an old Nordic shoe. I've used the Blue Orb as my main object because it has appropriate numbered pieces, but any similar cards could be used. I believe the blue orb cards are in the Devil in Iron campaign book. The rule that helps create the variable turn limit is below. Orb of Power - When all 3 pieces of the shattered Orb are assembled (complex manipulation difficulty 5), the armour value of each God is reduced by 5 (to a minimum of 1). Any Gods that have not yet entered the map are immediately destroyed. When the Orb or its bearer is located on the central hilltop the power of the Gods is further diminished. At the beginning of each subsequent Overlord turn the Overlord rolls 1 x red, 1 x orange and 1 x yellow dice. The resulting score indicates the number of gems that are permanently removed from the Overlord's dashboard and returned to the game box. The Overlord can choose gems of either colour to remove. No rerolls are permitted. Overlord players can sit back to build up the gems needed to summon a more powerful creature, but the longer the game lasts the more orb fragments will be revealed and the easier a God becomes to wound. If Overlords wait too long they will even start to lose gems. To allow Gods to combat this time factor I've allowed the assembled orb to be directly attacked. Shatter Like Glass - The Orb of Power can be shattered by direct melee/missile/spell attacks (including area attacks). The number of undefended hits determines the number of fragments (Max 3). When the Orb is shattered, the attacker may place the fragments in up to three adjacent areas to which there is line of sight (from the Orbs location). If not so placed, the fragments drop to the ground. If the Orb is being carried when attacked, the defender may Guard as normal (note: armour does not protect the Orb). One undefended hit does not shatter the Orb, but the Orb can still be knocked into an adjacent area to which there is line of sight. Of course the hero player(s) can collect the fragments and reassemble it... To begin with I've selected Conan the General with Black Dragons allies as a single hero. But I also think the scenario scales reasonably well with additional hero characters. Easier to find the orb fragments, but more blue gems available to be stolen by the Overlord players. To mix things up a bit I've also created a third clan based around Vanir Valkyrie. But only two overlords will play in a scenario. The he scenario will initially take place on the frozen battleground in the Nordheim expansion, but I think with not much work I could make it work on several other maps. So there we have the basics of the scenario. I'm still play testing at the moment so some things will no doubt get tweaked. Once the scenario is ready I'll post a link to the PDF. I'm using the online scenario editor, which is great but is missing some tiles and isn't designed for scenarios with two overlords. So I'll probably have to fiddle with the PDF in InDesign once I'm satisfied it's ready to publish.
  2. Gem Management Conan is a game that is based around the management of gems. Red gems for the overlord and blue gems for the hero. Trying to give a points cost to units with differing attributes can lead to a feeling of imbalance. Indeed the two clans included with the Blood Rage tiles are not equal. The various Gods also have different strengths. One way to redress the balance is to use gems. In my scenario, Clans and Gods therefore have bonus gems that the overlord player adds to their Fatigue Zone. Adding them to the Fatigue Zone helps to prevent the balance pendulum swinging too far the other way. Weaker Clans and Gods gain more bonus gems, but those gems are not immediately available. I also decided to introduce a gem acquisition mechanism that allows an overlord player to add additional gems to their dashboard. For example it's possible to steal gems from another player via combat success. Think of it like one God stealing power from an enemy God (or hero, more on that later). Stolen gems are also placed in the Fatigue Zone. But both Overlords start the game with a Recovery Tile showing just 3. If bonus gems are being added to the Fatigue Zone then not many will become available unless we also introduce a mechanism for Overlords to increase the rate of gem recovery. One easy way is to link gem recovery to the presence of a God. Gods are randomly drafted at the beginning of the game and start off the map. During their activation players can choose to bring the God onto the board. If they do, the Recovery Value is increased by 2 (so from 3 to 5). Gods may elect to remain off board to save them from attack, but there are consequences if they remain off the map for too long. A Recovery of 5 is an improvement, but I thought it should be possible to improve this still further. Here are the actions available with the Events tile: - 5 recruitment points. - Gift from Asgard. Replace 3 red gems from the Reserve Zone with 1 blue gem. Replaced gems are returned to the game box. - Glorious Death! Gain a number of red gems equal to the current number of dead friendly figures in Valhalla. Gems are taken from the game box and placed in Reserve Zone. - Rage of the Gods. Once per game discard one blue gem to increase the recovery tile value by 2 (ie. 3 to 5 or 5 to 7). Discarded gem is returned to the game box. - Heimdal's Gaze. Secretly examine any face down item card on the board. Card must be left in the same area, but Overlord can chose whether to reveal the card or leave it face down. You can see that there are other ways that a God can gain red gems and also a way by which Gods can gain blue gems. Gems gained through the event tile also go straight into the Reserve Zone. You'll also see that I've tried to keep some of the theme from Blood Rage. Blue gems? Hmm, let's see how else they could be used. Blue gems are used by hero characters to achieve various actions. In my scenario, when an overlord character wounds a hero, the blue gem is given to the overlord rather than being transferred to the hero's Wound Zone. Blue gems can also be stolen from the enemy overlord when a God is wounded (if a blue gem is available it can be taken instead of a red gem). Activated Gods can use a blue gem on their dashboard exactly the same as a red gem or they can spend a blue gem to recover a wound (on any character, even a dead one). Gems used to recover wounds are removed from the game. So we have a scenario that pitches God against God and allows Overlords to draft various troops, creatures or Monsters using Conan's existing gem management system. But what about Conan himself? One of the unique aspects of the Conan boardgame is the way hero characters can interact and use gems to achieve almost any task. If my scenario was simply Overlord vs Overlord I might be better off just playing MB Pantheon (or Ragnorak when it appears). So I also wanted to make sure that Conan was present in the scenario as a playable hero with a different set of victory conditions. More on that next time.
  3. Points and Drafting! There have been countless threads discussing whether it is possible to assign points values to individual units in Conan. Much of the discussion has concluded that because of the variable nature of many of the skills, assigning points is doomed to failure. After all how much is the skill 'Swimming' worth on a map board that does not include any water? But many games suffer from this issue. Some games allow players to put a force together using a number of set points before a game is played. Other games (e.g. MB Pantheon) have a set points value for a game and then allow players to draft units. This has the benefit of allowing players to see what units other players have and then choosing units to counter them. The points system I have developed is very simple and works on the basis that each attribute is worth 1 pt. Each skill, movement value, armour value is worth 1 point. The only skill that I've added an extra point on is Spell Caster (2 pts). The first wound is free, other wounds are costed 1 pt each. Units that can be recruited cost 1 pt (free if the recruitment cost is more than 1 since the benefit of recruitment is diminished by extra gem cost). Attack values are scored based on dice colour and whether the dice can be re-rolled. So a yellow die is worth 1 pt. A yellow die that can be re-rolled is worth 2 pts. Orange dice are 2pts each and red dice 3 pts each. But Conan isn't a game that is based on points. It does rely on gems though. What I therefore needed to do was come up with a straightforward mechanism to translate 'points' into gems that players can spend to draft units. The way I did this was as follows. First I calculated the base points for all of the units I want to use in the scenario. I then ranked them from lowest to highest. The cheapest unit costs 1 gem to draft, with cost increasing by 1 gem for every 2 pts. I then wrapped this up in a 'Summon Creature' spell that forms a new scenario special rule (I might rename this, but you get the idea for now). Hopefully I'll be able to make a spell card with the spell text on. Each overlord will include tiles representing the Serpent and Bear clans from Blood Rage. The River will include the following: Warrior1 : Leader : Warrior2 : Mystic : Special Event (note that Gods are not include yet, I'll discuss that in another post) Mystics represent each clan's spell caster and have Summon Creature as their only spell: Spell: Summon Creature - Spend x gems to summon a creature that joins the warband. Place the creature's tile in the river at the same place where the Mystic tile was when activated. The Mystic tile is then moved to the end of the river. Creature figure is immediately placed in a friendly recruitment zone. Spell can only be cast once per turn. Where x = 12 gems - Fire Giant (8 wounds) 29 pts 10 gems - Frost Giant (7 wounds) 26 pts 9 gems - Sea Serpent (5 wounds) 24 pts 8 gems - Wolf Demon (6 wounds) 22 pts 8 gems - Valkyrie (5 wounds) 21 pts 7 gems - Wolf man (5 wounds) 20 pts 7 gems - Troll (5 wounds) 20 pts 6 gems - Mountain Giant (4 wounds) 18 pts 5 gems - Mystic Troll (4 wounds + spell) 15 pts 5 gems - Dwarf Chieftain (4 wounds + spell) 15 pts 5 gems - Dark Elf (4 wounds + spell) 15 pts 4 gems - Volvur Witch (3 wounds + spell) 13 pts 3 gems - Giant Wolf Pack (per figure) 11 pts 2 gem - Flock of Crows (per figure) 10 pts 2 gem - Undead Viking (per figure) 9 pts 1 gem - Vanir Primitive (per figure) 8 pts I 'm making a small sheet with these values on together with the creature tiles. This will allow players to review what they may want to choose without overloading the scenario rules. The sea serpent doesn't have the swimming skill on its tile. Thinking that I might be able to adapt this scenario to other maps I've included the following special rule: Sea Serpent - This monster also has the Swimming skill. On land the Sea Serpent suffers a -1 move and -1 armour penalty. At the start of the game each overlord has 10 red gems available, five of which start in the Fatigue Zone. The Recover Tile is set at 3. But some creatures are expensive to summon (the Fire Giant requires more gems than what the Overlord has available). I therefore needed a mechanism to manage available gems. After all this is a scenario that involves Gods so extra gems should be possible. More on Red (and Blue!) gems next.
  4. I'm currently writing a Battle of the Nordic Gods scenario that is Overlord vs Overlord with the option of adding Conan (and friends) as one or more extra players. The scenario features the excellent fan made tiles from Blood Rage by Mathieu Hatt. Link to tiles: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1705393/crossover-blood-rage-skelos-tiles I've built a simple points system for Gods, monsters and clans that includes a form of drafting. Needs some more play testing but the system seems to work ok. Whilst some skills can be considered problematic in a points system (eg Evasive), this can be managed by the scenario. Allowing players to draft additional units is one solution since it allows players to select units that counter their opponent's selection. I thought it would be useful to start a thread that discusses some of the design issues that have cropped up whilst writing the scenario. I'll post again about the points values and drafting mechanism, but thought I would start with the issue of armour. Some of the Blood Rage God tiles have high armour values. In MB Pantheon any unit (even troops) can cause damage on any other unit. This is achieved through the push your luck dice mechanism. Troops may roll fewer dice but if any of them are a five they can be re-rolled to achieve a higher score and still damage another unit with a high defence value. That mechanism obviously doesn't exist in Conan. Weak units with limited attack dice may not be able to damage units with high armour values. I therefore needed to find ways to overcome this. Possible options include: 1. Include units with better attack dice. This can be achieved through the drafting mechanism. 2. Introduce a scenario specific mechanism that lowers the armour of a unit. I have achieved this by having objects that when revealed automatically lower the armour value of a God (to a specified minimum). 3. Include a mechanism to boost the attack strength of a weak unit. This is the mechanism that I want to discuss further in this post. Conan is a game that relies on the careful management of gems. The overlord dashboard includes a number of Benefit Tokens that allow gems to be spent for extra moves, defence rolls and re-rolls. I wish that there would have been a 4 or 5 Benefit Token slots made available for different abilities to be used in scenarios. An existing Benefit Token could be changed with the existing dashboard, but for my scenario I wanted an additional benefit. It was therefore necessary to create a scenario rule: Mighty Strike: When a friendly God is on the map, melee or missile attacks made by Overlord characters can be boosted. The Overlord must decide whether to use Mighty Strike before any attack dice are rolled. Spell attacks cannot be boosted with Mighty Strike. Attack dice may be re-rolled as normal. +1 Yellow: 1 gem Upgrade Yellow to Orange: 2 gems Upgrade Orange to Red: 3 gems For example a unit with a single orange attack die could spend 3 gems to boost the attack from orange to red. The unit could also add a yellow die for 1 gem and then boost this to orange for another 2 gems. The attack dice of a weak unit can therefore be boosted to overcome high armour values, but the less attack power the unit has, the more gems such boosts will require to have an impact. Of course existing strong units can also boost their attacks. More on this another time.
  5. It would be good to bring another dimension to an existing map. There are mini maps for basement, cellars etc, so how about a ruined tower top for the abandoned fortress. There are stair icons in the base game so the tower could sit on any of the three turrets. That means an existing map could have three levels. I also thought about a passage or tunnel. But how about one linking two of the other mini maps. That would create a larger playing area to be used alongside the main map.
  6. Hi, scenario editor looks great. I'm currently trying to put a Overlord vs Overlord scenario together using tiles from the fan made Blood Rage expansion. I've noticed a few issues when doing this: 1 . The editor doesn't allow more than one Overlord board to be displayed/edited. 2. Tiles from the Blood Rage expansion are missing from the dashboard. 3. I don't seem able to edit scenario rules once they have been added. I can rearrange the rules but I've tried in both Safari and Firefox and can't edit the rules. Edit: fixed this problem. The edit box appears at the bottom of all rules so is off screen. Thanks for your help with this.
  7. I have the paper copies, but its always useful to have the pdf as well. I prefer paper for actual games (and reading as leisure), but since the magazines are stored with my game, the pdf is great for a quick look up on my iPad. We have pdfs for Vols 1 - 3, will a pdf for Vol 4 be made available?
  8. Whilst not essential, these tokens are actually very useful. Especially for scenarios where the jump locations may not be so clear (stops everyone needing to constantly refer to the setup map) or where there are several jump locations with different success values. Particularly useful with new players.
  9. These cards are excellent. They look good are thematic and add something new to existing scenarios while still offering potential to scenario creators.
  10. We started playing this campaign last night and enjoyed the first scenario (easy for the heroes, but we've not played for a while so good scenario to ease us all back into the game). We made a few tweaks to the scenario (nothing wrong with Rules as Written, but the tweaks suit our play style a little better). These included: 1. Black Dragons. Heroes can choose how many to deploy (0-5), but the number is finite. If heroes want to minimise casualties they can hold some back in reserve. If they deploy all, they risk taking casualties that won't then be available in future games. At the end of each scenario heroes roll red die to see how many casualties recover for next game. In our game, heroes deployed 5 with 3 casualties. They rolled a 2 so there will be 4 Black Dragons in scenario 2. 2. Location of spider is hidden. Heroes know there is one (or more) spider but don't know which hut is occupied. This introduces a little drama and tension into the game without upsetting balance too much. 3. Contents of asset deck are kept secret. We do this in most games we play. Keeps it fun for the heroes to discover what is present. In this scenario heroes know they must collect clues, but don't know how many there are or what other equipment is hidden. 4. Scenario suggests all chests are unlocked and this is how we played (1 gem for simple manipulation to open). It would have made quite a difference if chests were locked so happy to keep this unaltered. Edit: If a scenario does not specify manipulation difficulty for chest, Hero book states they should be considered locked with difficulty value of 2. 5. Event tile options kept secret. Heroes don't know that Picts, snake and/or outer demon may appear. Again doesn't really alter balance but introduces some tension. In our game the heroes won scenario 1 fairly easily and managed to open all of the chests so collected all clues. They did lose a Black Dragon. Overall a fun scenario that is designed to be easy for the heroes, but overlord can cause damage to make follow up scenarios more difficult.
  11. I've seen this mentioned elsewhere and think it is an excellent idea. The new Kickstarter should include an upgrade pledge that enables anybody (especially retail purchasers) to upgrade to a full Kings Pledge. Personally, I would like to see the items from the first campaign that I missed also being made available: - Black Ones - Dragon - Guest Boxes - Scenery Like many others I assumed that non ks exclusive expansions would be made available at retail. With regards to new stuff, much of what has already been discussed in this thread would be great. Creating balanced new scenarios is time consuming so having many more official scenarios is essential. My preferences: - Big box expansions with new boards (wilderness boards, temple etc). The ability to combine boards makes for interesting gameplay. - Overlord vs Overlord play mode - New campaign book with similar format to last (my group really enjoyed Devil...) - Additional scenery elements
  12. What I hope the Book of Set Kickstarter demonstrates is that there is a real desire amongst Conan gamers to purchase additional scenarios in printed form. I have already downloaded the pdf scenarios, but it's much nicer to have the book. I was lucky and managed to snag a copy of the book last night, but like many, I was disappointed to see so few made available. Whilst the gripes from some of those who missed the book have been a bit ott, the expressions of anguish surely demonstrate that the game has legs. It's great that Monolith have looked again at this campaign and made more books available to those who want them. Just imagine how popular a whole new 'campaign' book would be!
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