Some minor spoilers ahead if you haven't played all the way through AP6.
Here's my 6-player solo setup:
Harsk, Seelah, Lem, Lini, Amiri, Seoni is the order of play. I settled on that order sometime probably in AP2. I liked having the scouting of Harsk and Seelah at the beginning and the firepower of Amiri and Seoni at the end. Lem & Lini provided their support in the middle, which I felt was very effective. I realized early on that I was very greedy and wanted to explore locations as much as possible (for loot!) and would frequently try to set the game up so that Amiri would encounter the villain for the final time with 1 card left in the Blessings deck.
With 6 characters, it was pretty easy most scenarios to close down 2 locations early on leaving plenty of time to explore for the villain and loot and have the appropriate characters at the ideal locations to temporary close when we ultimately faced the villain for the final time.
I will say that we discovered the Holy Candle very early and this was a lifesaver for the entire AP, especially for a greedy loot-monger like I turned out to be. I did have to replay a couple of scenarios over the course of the AP, but the Holy Candle probably saved me from having to replay at least a half dozen more. I found that I sometimes made bad decisions like not closing a location after defeating a henchman knowing that I had the Holy Candle available to give me extra turns. It was usually those times that I would roll a "1" when using it. :)
Early on, I didn't like this mix of characters and felt hampered because they were generally pretty weak at combat checks (except Amiri & Seoni)on their own in the early scenarios. Lem and Harsk were often left without many cards in their hands because they were consistently needed to help with combat checks across the board. However, by mid-AP, this team became very potent. Once Lem was able to add to his own checks, he became very powerful and was able to hold down locations by himself. Lini was borderline OP by the end and I don't know if she failed but maybe a handful of checks from AP4 onwards. Amiri was a beast the whole AP and probably took down 2/3 of the villains by herself (with Blessings, of course).
For the final battle, we obviously had a lot of healing in the group, so weren't taking a lot of discard damage. The first time we faced Karzoug was with 3 cards left in the stack.
Lini drew Karzoug and completed the first combat check. Amiri was able to handle the 2nd check, but was left only with Mokmurian's Club after taking damage and burying cards to enhance her roll.
(While we defeated him, he left us pretty damaged as we saved our blessings for the combat, not the before combat damage. On a side note, it was interesting as I was hoping to fail the Constitution checks on some characters so that I could take the Fire damage, since I had some items (like Sihedron Ring) that mitigated elemental damage, but not Poison damage).
Unfortunately for Amiri, this left her with only Mokmurian's Club on her turn, which she had to bury right away, leaving her empty handed. When she reset her hand, she unfortunately did not draw another weapon, leaving her barehanded with only 3 cards left in the stack. Lem performed a Scrying and sent Karzoug to the bottom of the pile, meaning we'd only have to face him one more time.
I wanted to have Amiri be the one to take him on as she was my powershouse villain killer the entire AP, but without a weapon, I was a bit hesitant, so I cycled through the characters, defeating one more henchman, acquiring one armor, and burying cards and resetting hands to hopefully acquire some more Blessings and aid cards for the final battle. I was planning to reset part of Amiri's hand, hopefully acquire a weapon, and come back around to her one more time for the final battle. However, when it was her turn, I did this, changed out 4 of 6 cards and still did not draw a weapon!
At that point, I didn't feel comfortable going through and burying another card to try that strategy again, so I decided to have Seoni explore and flip the villain and take my chances. She barely made her check to play attack spells and did succeed at making the first combat check.
I was intending to have Harsk take the 2nd check with the Venomous Crossbow +2, but when I examined all of my character decks I realized I had a fair amount of Blessings and decided to let Amiri take on Karzoug barehanded!
As you would expect, rolling a bunch of D12s (like 7 or 8), plus a D4 from Lem, plus 2d4 from Runeforged Weapons (in this case her hands), Amiri took down Karzoug with ease. Victory!
Overall, an epic and extremely satisfying ending! The burying mechanic in the final scenario adding a degree of tension was very befitting of a boss battle. Plus, the before combat checks were very difficult for this party, even with Lem helping out on most of them, so we were taking pretty consistent damage throughout the scenario adding to the excitement. The fact that there was no Blessings deck made for a great win-or-die event.
Thanks and Kudos to the Devs for a great experience - I can't wait for S&S and OP!!
Check the manual. If a bane has more than one check other people can take the extras, as long as the character that encountered it resolves one of them.
Check the manual. If a bane has more than one check other people can take the extras, as long as the character that encountered it resolves one of them.
Only the character who encounters the card may attempt the check, with one exception: if a card requires sequential checks, the character who encountered the card must attempt at least one of the checks, but other checks may each be attempted by any one character at the same location.
So if a card requires 2 checks, the encountering character has to attempt one of them but someone else at the location can attempt the other. The encountering character can attempt the firs or second one, it doesn't matter. But remember, even if the first check is failed, you must still attempt the second check.
But if the first check failed and your hand is empty you can usually suffer it without penalty!
(until you get up in the ranks and they start making you bury cards and stuff)