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So I've been playing through all the scenarios with a group of 4 - Lini, Lem, Valeros, and Sajan. We've done pretty well through the first 6 scenarios, finishing Perils of the Lost Coast and the first three parts of Burnt Offerings with no deaths or scenario failures. Each character still had a couple more card upgrades they'd like to get, but the biggest specific card wanted by anyone was that Lini wanted that saber-tooth tiger.
So I'd read online that Approach to Thistletop, the second to last part of Burnt Offerings, really ups the ante on difficulty for the game. Looking at the scenario and location cards, I can understand why. Between the increased difficulty of goblins (including the villain and most henchmen), a henchman that gets to fight everyone at the location instead of just the person who encounters him, a location that summons a bandit for you to fight every time you start your turn there, three locations that make you fight a monster or henchman to close them, one location with 6 monsters in its deck, not being able to move from one location, and penalties when using weapons at one location, this is obviously the toughest scenario so far.
So I started with a careful plan to gang up on the two easiest locations early to close them, and avoid the toughest locations until everyone was ready to attack them at once, as necessary. It started fine, with Valeros and Lini being able to go through the Treacherous Cave quickly, fight a Goblin Raider there, and close it, while Lem and Sajan worked their way through the Waterfront.
Things started to go downhill when Lem encountered a monster at the waterfront without an offensive spell in hand, so he had to use his heavy crossbow, despite the penalties when using weapons. The dice went against him, and he lost the fight. Then, Sajan fought a shadow at the same location without his Amulet of Mighty Fists. He won the fight, but the shadow was undefeated, because his attack wasn't magic. He had used his power feat to increase hand size to 5 instead of making his fists magical, which worked well for him other than this one fight.
So Lem left that location to go help Valeros elsewhere, and Lini brought an Inflict spell and Augury to help Sajan, planning to corner and/or defeat the shadow for him, then help him work through the 5 remaining cards of that location. She cast Augury first, looking at the top 3 cards in that location deck to find any monsters. She found the shadow, but also noticed that the saber-tooth tiger was in there! She put the shadow on the bottom of the location deck to avoid having to fight it... and then she got greedy.
Lini buried her Toad companion to pull her Augury spell back into hand, and cast it again looking for allies. With 5 cards left in the location deck, and knowing the shadow was the bottom card, that meant a 3/4 chance that the tiger would be among the top 3 that she'd be able to position however she wanted, and she wanted that tiger on top to acquire it immediately.
The result? Not only was the tiger in the top 3, so she could put it on top like she wanted, but the villain was also in there! She had to shuffle the villain in with the shadow and two other remaining cards in that deck, but now that the group knew where he was, they could plan their attack. Lini easily grabbed the tiger off the top of the deck (using a blessing to make damn sure she couldn't botch the roll), and the group split up for their strategic assault.
Two other locations were quickly perma-closed. In fact, the location with 6 monsters that I was worried about happened to have the bandit as the top card in its location deck, so that ended up being the easiest of the bunch. Soon, Valeros and Lini (with her new kitty cat) were sent to temp close the other two open locations while Lem and Sajan positioned themselves to face the villain. Sajan had since drawn his Amulet of Mighty Fists and a couple of blessings, while Lem had two offensive spells in hand, so they were ready in case the shadow showed up before the villain.
One flip of the location deck, and the villain happened to be the first card! Lini cast strength on herself to make the strength 5 check to close off the Guard Tower without even rolling, Valeros used his bastard sword to squash a Goblin Raider to cut off the villain's retreat to his location, and Sajan and Lem dispatched the dastardly villain with ease. Victory was ours!
Yay! These stories demonstrate how well the card game simulates the RPG experience. Well done.
Excellent story. May many such victories follow.