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Hi everyone. As you may know, we have been working away on a Conan campaign. We are asking for your specific feedback on all 6 of these scenarios and we'd like you to post that feedback here. I'll be editing this post to add content as we go, but as of now we have 4 scenarios looking for tests. 

 

Hail! So we have been chipping away at the Community Campaingn and we are just about done our drafts for all the scenarios. I’m posting the first 3 for any testers who would like to give feedback. Your input is greatly appreciated. Please post your comments in this thread. Know that this will have some progression and a few light campaign rules. We will eventually compile all this info in a neat little PDF packet for downloading, but for now we just want feedback on the individual scenarios. Note that you only require elements from retail items (Core game, Stygia, Nordheim, Khitai, Crossbowmen, Yag, and maybe The Witchunters) 

 

Scenario 1 – The Time for Flight is Nigh
https://www.conan-scenarios.com/scenarioPage.php?MissionId=1038

by Dan Mauric

 

Scenario 2 – Fight or Flight
https://www.conan-scenarios.com/scenarioPage.php?MissionId=1090

By Neil Amswych

and he would like to know the following: 
1) Which side won
2) Did the heroes go for the Medallion?
3) How many wounds did the heroes have at the end of the game?

 

Scenario 3 – The Fate of Yag-Kosha
https://www.conan-scenarios.com/scenarioPage.php?MissionId=1041

By Kevin M. Deming

 

Scenario 4 – Dreams of Atali

 https://www.conan-scenarios.com/scenarioPage.php?MissionId=1081
 by Matt John

 

Scenario 5 (A) – The Streets of Khemi 

https://the-overlord.net/index.php?/topic/491-the-streets-of-khemi/

By Ken Meyri

 

Scenario 5 (B) The Trap

 https://the-overlord.net/index.php?/topic/492-the-trap/
 By Ken Meyri

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I had a go at The Trap 5b and here is what happened:

 

The Trap (b) thoughts.

The play:

The heroes won but it was round 14, only one turn to go and it would have been a stalemate. Is it expected that the scenario ends at the end of turn 15, or do you keep going until it’s over?

I found that the river can get clogged up, especially when Yogah only has a couple of gems left. Atali was killed in turn zero, the scorpions after about 6 turns, and the dark Demon at about 10. Yogah had 2 gems worth of health which meant that the OL was hesitant to activating him as he could easisly lose those 2 gems. I made the decision to pay 6 gems to remove three dead tiles but I think that was a mistake as I then left myself short of gems. However if I hadn’t dredged I would have had three dead tiles plus two event tiles I couldn’t use. It may be worth considering splitting the event tiles, one that is used to activate Yogah and the other for reinforcements. It is a toss up as to whether I should have left the dead tiles in the river and payed gems to move them when needed or dredge them. Maybe I should have just removed one or two.

There was a period during the game when the OL wasn’t doing much because the heroes were just trying to get to the top level.

It needs to be specified how many movement points it costs to move through the stairwells. I eventually played it was 2. However, the first time I moved someone through the stairwell I spent one movement point. It was only later that I questioned that decision and made it 2. It does make a big difference because if it is 1 Ikhmet can move to the second level in one turn, but if it is 2 or more he cannot and can be blocked by the Dark Demon.

In my play Conan did most of the damage on Yogah and Hadrathus did most of the damage to Thoth Amon with his Lightning Strikes. The 3 gems that come with the Spellbook are very handy. Having said that the killing blow was delivered by Shintu.

Thoughts:

A tense scenario that can have periods of caution. This scenario had a chess like feel at times. You could almost feel the tension at times (and I was playing solo). The situation with Yogah is very clever. He is reasonably powerful but causing himself to take damage makes the OL have to think carefully about using him, particularly if his gems fall low. As OL I basically sacrificed him at the end with the hope that I could keep Thoth Amon alive.

I could see that some players may find this scenario frustrating because there are many times when players are cautious. Also most the heroes do not really get into the game for a while as it takes a long time to get from level 1 to 3.

I will probably need to play this again because I am not sure if I used the best tactics, neither as OL nor as the heroes.

Conclusion:

A very well thought scenario that uses some unusual ideas. Subverting the levels in the dungeon was a surprise and paring with the ruined fort was a masterstroke.

NB: I didn’t have enough red gems (it takes 31 and I have 25) however that was not a big issue as I made up the difference with by replacing 6 of Yogah’s gems with blues giving him 6 of each. This didn’t matter as his gems are separate from the rest of the OL’s.

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@Primeval

I played The Fate of Yag-Kosha. Heroes won once, Overlord won once. Both were similar in that the side that won really wore the other side out while staying strong themselves. For example when the Heroes won, it was no problem dispatching the suddenly appearing Assassins, when the OL won, the Heroes had no hope of escaping the Assassins.

 

A couple notes:

On the map:

Place tokens on the rock slides

Maybe use red doors to signify that you have special rules?

Maybe point out exactly which area you mean for the Heroes to throw the Artifact into the fire. I know there is a big fire on the map, but you know how gamers can be. ;) Clearly labeling it will dispel all doubt and potential confusion. (Maybe mark it with the red X or call it "the area with the number 2 token" or mark it with an event flame token.)

 

Events- like I mentioned earlier- make sure you write in there that only one event is to be activated- again just to dispel the possibility of confusion.

 

One other question I had was for the Viridian Wings event- I took it as written and put the Heroes any where I wanted- usually as far away from the goal as possible. Did I do that the right way?  Typically I put the Hero outside of the Fortress so that they had to spend huge amounts of gems to get back in.  BTW I liked how it could only be used once per zone it might be a good idea to tell people to some how mark the zones that the event has been used in.

 

One suggestion- the Assassins- maybe cut them down to 3. Since they are going to appear near the end of the game and chances are the OL is just going to drop them on top of the guy with the Artifact and then hit the Hero with the Crushing Burden event- dang... gets potentially overwhelming.

 

Over all things clicked well. The events are cool and critical. Movement is a huge issue because no one has the Climb skill and the rock slides are brutal- both sides need to be aware of that. Both Heroes and OL had to be creative to win. The frustration of being tossed out of the Fortress in a lotus daze was equal to the frustration of killing the Outer Dark Demon in one attack.

 

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6 hours ago, drmauric said:

@Primeval

I played The Fate of Yag-Kosha. Heroes won once, Overlord won once. Both were similar in that the side that won really wore the other side out while staying strong themselves. For example when the Heroes won, it was no problem dispatching the suddenly appearing Assassins, when the OL won, the Heroes had no hope of escaping the Assassins.

 

A couple notes:

On the map:

Place tokens on the rock slides

Maybe use red doors to signify that you have special rules?

Maybe point out exactly which area you mean for the Heroes to throw the Artifact into the fire. I know there is a big fire on the map, but you know how gamers can be. ;) Clearly labeling it will dispel all doubt and potential confusion. (Maybe mark it with the red X or call it "the area with the number 2 token" or mark it with an event flame token.)

 

Events- like I mentioned earlier- make sure you write in there that only one event is to be activated- again just to dispel the possibility of confusion.

 

One other question I had was for the Viridian Wings event- I took it as written and put the Heroes any where I wanted- usually as far away from the goal as possible. Did I do that the right way?  Typically I put the Hero outside of the Fortress so that they had to spend huge amounts of gems to get back in.  BTW I liked how it could only be used once per zone it might be a good idea to tell people to some how mark the zones that the event has been used in.

 

One suggestion- the Assassins- maybe cut them down to 3. Since they are going to appear near the end of the game and chances are the OL is just going to drop them on top of the guy with the Artifact and then hit the Hero with the Crushing Burden event- dang... gets potentially overwhelming.

 

Over all things clicked well. The events are cool and critical. Movement is a huge issue because no one has the Climb skill and the rock slides are brutal- both sides need to be aware of that. Both Heroes and OL had to be creative to win. The frustration of being tossed out of the Fortress in a lotus daze was equal to the frustration of killing the Outer Dark Demon in one attack.

 

 

Thanks for the great input @drmauric - I made the changes you suggested.

 

I appreciate the comment on the events - critical is a good word for them, as the setting itself is meant to be a foe just as much as the scorpions or demon!

 

You did indeed handle Viridian Wings correctly as it was written - but I wrote it incorrectly :) I have fixed that as well - it should be an adjacent ground zone, and can be inside or outside the fortress.

 

As for movement - do you think I should send the heroes in rested at full health since they are going to need all the movement they can get? I can rewrite the intro to reflect that as well.

 

 

Edited by Primeval
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4 hours ago, Primeval said:

 

As for movement - do you think I should send the heroes in rested at full health since they are going to need all the movement they can get? I can rewrite the intro to reflect that as well.

 

 

@Primeval

I don't think that is necessary. Ultimately it's only one gem because the Heroes recover 2 of the 3 that start in the fatigue zone right away. I will try to play it again with the changes tonight or tomorrow. 

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@Ken !! The Trap was epic!  @Footballzs called the combining of the tunnels and the ruined fort a "masterstroke". I couldn't agree more.

 

What I liked: 

- No spells for Thoth Amon- at first I was wondering about this and almost asked if you forgot to give him spells.  But as I thought about it, storywise, I imagined him being busy keeping Yogah under control, or drained from slaughtering Aquilonians and then scurrying around like a rat to keep away from vengeful Heroes. I liked it.

- Conan being heavily armed and armored. Great balance to the Atali mechanic. He will be picking crossbow bolts out of that scale armor for a long time after my game! I figured he would be a goner in a hurry- but that armor made it hard to hit him- Yogah got a good hit in- but that drained Yogah and ultimately cost him his life.  And the cinematic imagery of him walking into The Trap like a badass was epic.

- Atali- she kept luring Conan in, it worked really well. Had I moved her one more space, the Overlord would have won because Conan would have had to go the other way, away from Thoth Amon.

- Hadrathus with Mental Torture- otherwise they would have never gotten past that Dark Demon

 

A couple questions-

- Does Yogah roll for damage if he goes Cautious?

- I had a situation where Conan had 2 OL units on him- making it so that I had to spend gems even if I wanted to move him.  In your rules for Atali it says Conan MUST use 1 FREE move to move toward Atali- in this case the 1 Free move point would have gotten him no where. So I chose not to move, meaning I didn't spend any gems to move him that turn. Did I play that correctly?

 

In my game Hadrathus died in the tunnels and Ikhmet was mostly dead in the tunnels, he spent 2 turns trying to find  a Life potion, 2 turns trying to catch up and managed to get a slight wound in on Thoth Amon's last turn beat down. Like I mentioned had I moved Atali 1 more space the Overlord would have won. Conan survived with 1 gem left- and that was pure luck. Crossbowman rolled a 2 and Conan's armor rolled a 2.  SO the game could have gone the other way easily.

 

This will be a great climax to the Campaign!

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16 hours ago, drmauric said:

@Ken !! The Trap was epic!  @Footballzs called the combining of the tunnels and the ruined fort a "masterstroke". I couldn't agree more.

 

What I liked: 

- No spells for Thoth Amon- at first I was wondering about this and almost asked if you forgot to give him spells.  But as I thought about it, storywise, I imagined him being busy keeping Yogah under control, or drained from slaughtering Aquilonians and then scurrying around like a rat to keep away from vengeful Heroes. I liked it.

- Conan being heavily armed and armored. Great balance to the Atali mechanic. He will be picking crossbow bolts out of that scale armor for a long time after my game! I figured he would be a goner in a hurry- but that armor made it hard to hit him- Yogah got a good hit in- but that drained Yogah and ultimately cost him his life.  And the cinematic imagery of him walking into The Trap like a badass was epic.

- Atali- she kept luring Conan in, it worked really well. Had I moved her one more space, the Overlord would have won because Conan would have had to go the other way, away from Thoth Amon.

- Hadrathus with Mental Torture- otherwise they would have never gotten past that Dark Demon

 

A couple questions-

- Does Yogah roll for damage if he goes Cautious?

- I had a situation where Conan had 2 OL units on him- making it so that I had to spend gems even if I wanted to move him.  In your rules for Atali it says Conan MUST use 1 FREE move to move toward Atali- in this case the 1 Free move point would have gotten him no where. So I chose not to move, meaning I didn't spend any gems to move him that turn. Did I play that correctly?

 

In my game Hadrathus died in the tunnels and Ikhmet was mostly dead in the tunnels, he spent 2 turns trying to find  a Life potion, 2 turns trying to catch up and managed to get a slight wound in on Thoth Amon's last turn beat down. Like I mentioned had I moved Atali 1 more space the Overlord would have won. Conan survived with 1 gem left- and that was pure luck. Crossbowman rolled a 2 and Conan's armor rolled a 2.  SO the game could have gone the other way easily.

 

This will be a great climax to the Campaign!

 

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you like it! 

 

- Thoth Amon actually does have spells. So does Atali. They must have been cut off when I was working on the PDF. I will add them back when I add the Xuthal's Crowns and then re-upload the scenario.

 

- Yogah does roll for damage when he goes Cautious. 

 

- You played correctly. If Conan is hindered, you can say "I try to use my free movement point to move to Atali, but these guards aren't letting me go." If Conan adds some gems for movement, though, the move would have to be closer to Atali. (Thematically, the guards could have special orders to let Conan fall further into the trap, but this scenario had enough special rules already.)

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/14/2018 at 2:06 AM, Footballzs said:

I had a go at The Trap 5b and here is what happened:

 

The Trap (b) thoughts.

The play:

The heroes won but it was round 14, only one turn to go and it would have been a stalemate. Is it expected that the scenario ends at the end of turn 15, or do you keep going until it’s over?

I found that the river can get clogged up, especially when Yogah only has a couple of gems left. Atali was killed in turn zero, the scorpions after about 6 turns, and the dark Demon at about 10. Yogah had 2 gems worth of health which meant that the OL was hesitant to activating him as he could easisly lose those 2 gems. I made the decision to pay 6 gems to remove three dead tiles but I think that was a mistake as I then left myself short of gems. However if I hadn’t dredged I would have had three dead tiles plus two event tiles I couldn’t use. It may be worth considering splitting the event tiles, one that is used to activate Yogah and the other for reinforcements. It is a toss up as to whether I should have left the dead tiles in the river and payed gems to move them when needed or dredge them. Maybe I should have just removed one or two.

There was a period during the game when the OL wasn’t doing much because the heroes were just trying to get to the top level.

It needs to be specified how many movement points it costs to move through the stairwells. I eventually played it was 2. However, the first time I moved someone through the stairwell I spent one movement point. It was only later that I questioned that decision and made it 2. It does make a big difference because if it is 1 Ikhmet can move to the second level in one turn, but if it is 2 or more he cannot and can be blocked by the Dark Demon.

In my play Conan did most of the damage on Yogah and Hadrathus did most of the damage to Thoth Amon with his Lightning Strikes. The 3 gems that come with the Spellbook are very handy. Having said that the killing blow was delivered by Shintu.

Thoughts:

A tense scenario that can have periods of caution. This scenario had a chess like feel at times. You could almost feel the tension at times (and I was playing solo). The situation with Yogah is very clever. He is reasonably powerful but causing himself to take damage makes the OL have to think carefully about using him, particularly if his gems fall low. As OL I basically sacrificed him at the end with the hope that I could keep Thoth Amon alive.

I could see that some players may find this scenario frustrating because there are many times when players are cautious. Also most the heroes do not really get into the game for a while as it takes a long time to get from level 1 to 3.

I will probably need to play this again because I am not sure if I used the best tactics, neither as OL nor as the heroes.

Conclusion:

A very well thought scenario that uses some unusual ideas. Subverting the levels in the dungeon was a surprise and paring with the ruined fort was a masterstroke.

NB: I didn’t have enough red gems (it takes 31 and I have 25) however that was not a big issue as I made up the difference with by replacing 6 of Yogah’s gems with blues giving him 6 of each. This didn’t matter as his gems are separate from the rest of the OL’s.

 

Thanks for the thorough review! This mission isn't timed, so no worries about a stalemate.

 

I made a bunch of changes since this play-test, the two biggest being 1) replacing the scorpions with assassins and 2) adding mind control in a chest in the catacombs so Hadrathus can potentially help Conan even before he reaches the ruined fort.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/22/2018 at 8:50 PM, Ken said:

@Matt John S 

 

I created two posts in Draft Scenarios. Can you update the links in this post to point those new posts? That way, I can make changes as needed without having to bug you.

 

Speaking of bugging you, did you ever write up your scenario?

Sorry, @Ken, where are the new posts you want linked? 

 

And, I still need to complete my intro text write up. If I don't get it done by the end of this weekend, I'll post it without the intro text, just so it's playable. 

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36 minutes ago, Matt John S said:

Sorry, @Ken, where are the new posts you want linked? 

 

And, I still need to complete my intro text write up. If I don't get it done by the end of this weekend, I'll post it without the intro text, just so it's playable. 

 

Here the links. They are in Draft Scenarios.

 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Matt John S said:

I added them. Let me know if that's what you wanted. 

 

Sweet. Now I can update them as we get feedback from play-testers (if we get feedback from play-testers).

 

(I have to admit the preview formatting for The Streets of Khemi (compared to the basic links for the other scenarios) is messing with my OCD, though.)  

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41 minutes ago, Matt John S said:

And, I still need to complete my intro text write up. If I don't get it done by the end of this weekend, I'll post it without the intro text, just so it's playable. 

 

This sounds like a plan.

 

By the way, I am fine with my flavor text being tweaked to match a consistent voice, if needed.

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2 minutes ago, Ken said:

 

Sweet. Now I can update them as we get feedback from play-testers (if we get feedback from play-testers).

 

(I have to admit the preview formatting for The Streets of Khemi (compared to the basic links for the other scenarios) is messing with my OCD, though.)  

It messed with mine too, but I left it because I could get it to switch back and am now busy trying to finish up this scenario ;) 

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I've read the pitch of the first scenarii you wrote and I must say it sounds amazing, with an original but consistent group of heroes. And icing on the cake, it's lore-friendly. I'm really looking forward to play it.

 

I'll try to gather four players besides of my actual group playing Monolith's campaign. If I manage to do that (in a not-that distant future, if it pleases Mitra), I'll let you know how it turned out.

 

Kudos for the excellent work you've done!

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14 hours ago, Footballzs said:

I have been having trouble finding time to test these. I have had the board set up for the first scenario in my games room for over a week but haven't managed to actually play. Sorry for the lack of testing on my part, I'll get there.

Your help this far has been most appreciated. Thanks for checking in!

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Hey guys,

I played through Dreams of Atali a couple times this week. It is a solid scenario with a number of pretty cool elements. Next up is The Streets of Khemi, which means I will have played through them all. I am stoked about the quality of these scenarios! Especially the unique way a lot of components are being used. The hidden merchant tokens, jumping from fortress walls because you're wacked out on lotus fumes, Frost Giant allies!?!, and multi map boards. Things are looking good to me!

 

How is it going for all of you? 

 

@Matt John S @Primeval @Neil Amswych @Ken

 

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