Losing to a villain

[Brian Valenti]

When losing to the villain, he escapes to an open location, which could cause a location to have a henchman and villain. How do you go about closing locations from this point in the game? Do you have to basically explore all the cards in the locations to close the remaining locations?

Thank you.

[Malcolm_Reynolds]

You still close locations in the same way. Henchmen will give you a chance to close, finding the villain again and defeating will close his location, and emptying a location will give you a chance to close. Mixing in the blessings assures that you don't know to which location the villain has fled, and he could even return to the location you had fought him.

I don't have my rulebook handy but it does say that when you close a location due to defeating a henchman that you examine all the cards and banish all of them except villains. So if you find where the villain fled to this way the location remains open but you know where he is and can (hopefully) close others and be prepared to temp close the rest before you run out of time.

[iMonkey]

Also, losing to a villain who then escapes may cause a location to have neither a villain nor a henchman, in which case you are right; the only way to close that location would be to go through the rest of the location deck.

[Theryon Stormrune]

Malcolm_Reynolds wrote:

I don't have my rulebook handy but it does say that when you close a location due to defeating a henchman that you examine all the cards and banish all of them except villains. So if you find where the villain fled to this way the location remains open but you know where he is and can (hopefully) close others and be prepared to temp close the rest before you run out of time.

You are correct. After defeating a henchman and following the directions to close the location, you examine the remaining cards (in order to banish them) while looking for a villain. If a villain is discovered then he/she/it becomes the only card at the location. (And it is not closed.)

That's what happened to us last night after the villain fled the first location (after being defeated there). Remember that the placement of blessings can be key to discovering where he has fled. Many a scenario has pivoted when we found a blessing where one hadn't been before.