Today was some HawkCon. I've completely lost track of the numbering. But it was commented that we've been doing this every other month for 3 years now. So, that is pretty sweet.
Today, our 3 tables continued through Season of Plundered Tombs. There were many moments of excitement. Both the other tables played 3-4E: The Army Awakens without every seeing the Behemoth Golem in the blessings deck thanks to some Sun Falcons (our table saw him once thanks to 2d4 resulting in a 7 then a 8).
And I heard tell that Uliah got to examine the entire siege deck during 3-5B: Guardians of Ruin and only came out with 3 scourges on him. And if it hadn't been for one card, they wouldn't have had to shuffle the siege deck and would have known every card's position.
At our table of Raheli, Zadim, and Balazar, we had some chicanery of our own during the same scenario. We realized that with the group we had and the cards we taken from traders, we could approach a Defensive Stance scenario in a completely different way from the conventional wisdom. We had at first spread out to cover as many locations (3 of the 4) as possible to protect those valuable boons. But then it dawned on us: "We don't need to spread out as long as we can make sure we never take any damage." How might one do that you ask? Well, a few things.
1. Hadden Hoppert gave Raheli Safety Bubble. The perfect card for a siege deck scenario. We put it up as soon as we could.
2. Zadim could add to our combat checks like crazy to make sure we never failed a check to defeat a monster and therefore never suffered combat damage for doing so.
3. Balazar could protect everyone by banishing monsters to reduce damage of characters at his location (by the monster's adventure deck+1).
We had the added bonuse of Balazar taking Elemental Treaty from on of the earlier scenario "swap" rewards. We decided to camp out Garden of Ossumentals so Raheli could be even more potent when bludgeoning.
Sure, a Sandstorm got in the blessings deck thanks to a Living Sandstorm, but after it temporarily split us up we quickly regrouped.
With so many monsters to defeat an fill Balazar's hand, Zadim having Tetisurah to reload his hand on his own turn after ensuring our checks on our turns, Raheli having Mass Cure and just generally rocking her checks thanks to Steal Soul (which she drew in her starting hand), there were few things that could stand in our way.
With that combination, no check was too hard. We nearly waltzed through the siege deck. I commented how the only risk was something that would deal us damage that couldn't be reduced. We did run into a Cenovath Swarm along the way, but Balazar had no allies in hand at the time and so it dealt him 0 mental damage that could not be reduced.
The only other hurdles were an Insanity Mist that ended up displayed at our location (Safety Bubble and Elemental Treaty let us just ignore that) and a Sky Pharaoh's Curse that probably wouldn't have been a big deal, but we threw some resources at it to make sure Rahlie defeated it.
And that is how you turn a siege deck into a "local heroes" kind of scenario. We ended up not losing a single boon from a location deck. With the bonus upgrade, Balazar and Raheli each got a spell 5 and a spell 4, while Zadim got 2 weapon 5s.
We continue again in 2 months. Come out and join us if you are ever in the Bel Air, MD area.
Wow! That is definitely a steam roller of a group