Some family and I were playing over the holiday weekend, and we got to the point where we were doing Blackfang finally. We had beat every scenario to that point, but some of them were close. Then we hit this scenario.
Not sure what is was about Blackfang himself, but he popped up mid game then fled. We had characters still sitting at locations they had just closed, so there were three or so open locations for him to flee to.
Anyways, we proceeded to close other locations and fan out, but the blessing were running pretty low. The last blessing card was flipped up. Valeros had a Holy Candle in his deck, but it never materialized as he doesn't go through his deck very fast. This is something that player has started getting better at, discarding unwanted cards to get a chance to see more of his deck.
I'm rambling, sorry. So there we are, last turn of the game. The rogue uses her last exploration and bam. Henchman. Location closed. Blackfang is in the deck so gets revealed! We all get excited. I hit the rulebook to clarify.
A villain found in this way is returned to the now unclosed location as the top card. We needed one more exploration to find and defeat Blackfang. One more. Argh!
The most non-gamer at the table was playing the rogue, she was yelling at the cards, mad that we had been beat. Okay, not in real anger. Still it was great to see her so into the game.
In the end, before the weekend was out, we gathered once more, and this time Blackfang met his doom before half the blessing deck was done. Take that you stupid dragon!
Great write up!
The moral of the story is: don't give the holy candle to Valeros :)
Give it to somebody more... delicate... that's likely to see their entire deck at least once.
I've thought about taking it in place of my Token of Remembrance as the cleric of the group (since it is divine I can use it to trigger heals). Probably should at some point, as the token has YET to be used for its intended purpose.
I must be doing something wrong then, because I cycle through his deck like crazy. I'm always recharging weapons and drawing new cards every turn. I never keep more than one armor in my hand (though I don't think I have every needed it yet) and I discard extra armors during my reset. If I have the dagger, I always recharge it for the extra d4 and an extra draw from my deck. Out of the three characters I use, he cycles through his deck the fastest.
In the groups I have played with, once he finds his biggest weapon he tends to hold onto it. Discarding extra armor is common, and now so are extra weapons, but generally if it works they usually stick with it. IE, find a decent weapon and don't recharge it, just keep revealing it.
Valeros can only cycle weapons if he finds a monster. He also has relatively few blessings/allies for extra explores so I find his cycling is (really) slow. Compare it to Seoni, whose deck I can usually go through completely in 2-3 turns.
In the groups I have played with, once he finds his biggest weapon he tends to hold onto it. Discarding extra armor is common, and now so are extra weapons, but generally if it works they usually stick with it. IE, find a decent weapon and don't recharge it, just keep revealing it.
I play Valeros in two different groups and in a solo-group that is just me playing multiple characters. He has to be played a certain way, but I think he can easily cycle his deck if he has the right cards. Some of these might take some time to acquire. Here is what I do:
1. I make sure all his weapons can be discarded (recharged for him) to add additional dice. If they can't they might clog up his hand. In other words, spiked chain and glaive aren't of great use to him.
2. I make sure to get him armor that can be recharged when resetting your hand ASAP. This keeps armor from clogging up his hand too.
3. I pick up one or two longbows. You can recharge them to add to a combat check at another location. Its a no-brainer when you have a longbow and a melee weapon in your hand to recharge it to help a friend when its not your turn. It keeps you involved with the other turns and keeps his deck moving.
5. Take on the locations that have the most monsters. That way you can turn your weapons over faster.
4. Take the 5 hand size as your first power feat check box.
With that, I like Valeros having the candle since he won't need his deck for health the way the others might. So burying a card won't hurt him as much as it might another character. (i.e. for Seoni the candle can also be a spell, but for Valeros, its just a card he wants to get out of the way anyway so he gets his weapons faster). And if you really need to you can always have him discard his whole hand to reset so he can find the candle in the deck and have a healer put what he discarded back into his deck.
If you don't want to go with the Weapon Master role later you can always drop those longbows. Notice that the Guardian can have a larger hand size, so you'll be able to let some things stay in his hand with out clogging it up.
I also love having Shalelu Andosana as an ally. She gives him a conditional extra explore, and can also add to his longbow if its the only weapon in his hand.
At the risk of making this post so long no one will read it, I will add that Valeros has a higher median die for his base skills than all but 1 character in the game: Seelah. Count how many dice each character has above d6. Valeros and Lini have 3, Seelah has 4. Everyone else has 2, except Krya who has only 1. The other characters are more specialized in their skills. Valeros can encounter something he might not be great at dealing with, but he's more likely to at least be "good" at dealing with it while the others are more likely to be average.
So give him so love. I think he deserves it.
EDITED to clarify Valeros recharges weapons instead of discarding them in point 1.