A Red Sun Rises Scenario (Nordheim) question

[Swarc]

I'm a bit confused by the win/loss conditions for the first scenario in the Nordheim expansion, "A Red Sun Rises".

 

The heroes win if at least 1 hero is alive at the end of turn 8, and 5 or more victory points are scored (for each hero character in the center hill spaces marked 2 or 3 at the end of turn 8, 1 victory point is awarded). The Overlord wins at the end of turn 8 if all heroes are dead, or if the heroes score less than 5 VP.

 

What confuses me is that the rules for the scenario state that if Niord dies, all of his 5 Aesir Warrior units are then immediately removed from the game. This means that, even if all of the other 3 heroes survive, they can only score a maximum of 3 VP at the end of turn 8, assuming they all finish turn 8 in the hill spaces marked 2 or 3 (each hero can only score a max of 1 point, according to the rules).

 

So really, all the OL has to do is kill Niord, because that takes away any possibility of the heroes winning by removing 6 possible VP. It's not impossible to keep Niord alive of course, but fairly difficult given the mobility of the wolves, the open nature of the board, and the ability to respawn 8 units at a time from event tile 1.

 

If this intentional? Or is there a mis-translation here, and the heroes should actually score 2 or 3 points at the end of turn 8 for each spot they are in marked with a 2 or 3 (respectively)? The latter seems to make more sense, otherwise why bother marking the center hill spot with a 3, and the other spots with a 2? Why not just mark them all with the same number if each spot is only worth 1 VP?

 

 

[garbetsp]

Some fan recorded statistics show the overlord wins 80% of the time in this scenario. (https://goo.gl/WrIvbY) However, there's only 5 recorded plays so the spread on a binomial outcome like leads to the true rate of OL winning is between 30% and 99% with 95% confidence. Maybe it's a misprint in both languages.

 

 

[Strijdparel]

@garbetsp Do you know if there also is a record sheet about the scenario's from mythic battles pantheon?

[garbetsp]

I am unaware of one and google reveals nothing. You could easily put together one and publically allow folks to edit their wins into it. I'd keep a regular backup, because there is always someone who will destroy all the work.

[mattchkn]

I played this one the other night, as Overlord, and had the exact same thoughts. It is an INSANELY difficult win condition, and I think there must be some sort of mistranslation or combination of different versions. In the win condition it states that at least one hero must survive and score 5 points, but there is no way to score five points without all 4 heroes surviving (and at least one Aesir). Even just changing it to two points per hero on the hill would go a long way toward balancing things, though it still leaves Niord with a big target on his back.

 

As for marking spaces '2' and '3,' we read that as something to do with elevation levels, not points. The majority of the map being an assumed 1, the first ring of the hill higher at a 2, and the crown being the highest at a 3. From that, we ruled that 3 could see and be seen from anywhere, but blocked line of sight to spaces behind it, and level 2 would block lines of sight to level 1 or any level 2's behind them (a lot of our players also play Heroclix, and this is similar to their system). This doesn't entirely mesh, since the rules state that the hero starting areas are elevated as well, and they do not have numbers, but it worked out well for us (other than me winning on the last turn by killing the final Aesir...). It definitely added some extra strategy for them, since otherwise the map is completely open for ranged attacks (we also decided to houserule replacing a unit of Pict warriors with Pict archers, to keep things interesting, gave the scenario more strategic flair).