Mound of the Beastmen

[The Admiral]

My brother and I played this in France last week. We started with a Prequel quest to actually get the Black Stone. I used the first Sir Ragnar quest for this (Outpost at the Mountain's Base) with Mount Grimfang being the mountain in question. As we have long moved on from the Sir Ragnar timeline I figured this was a good opportunity to use this quest. I replaced Ulag with Rethnor, the Demon from the Royal Bodyguard questpack, as that is the next pack up for this party. I put the Black Stone in the chest in the central room. Sir Vardion accompanied the Heroes on their raid, while a force of Imperial Guard awaited to escort them back to the Empire.

Having retrieved the stone, the whole force headed back to the Empire along the Silver Road and into the Forest of Gloom, which is where I set the Beastman questpack. Things went badly for the Heroes from the start and by the time they got to Quest 4 they were in a sorry state. Attempting to get through the Hall of Storms into the room with the Beastman Shamen, bolstered by extra monsters via the Evil Wizard cards, really punished the Heroes. My brother decided to cut and run, and just headed back to the stairs. It proved to be the right choice, as if he had carried on they might have killed Vivigor and got the Black Stone, but they would never have seen the light of day.

Time to adjust the storyline. With no Black Stone, I decided that Sir Vardion would not turn evil yet. I placed Vivigor in the Quest 6 central room, and said that Zargon's attack on the mound was not to recapture the stone but to cover it's transfer back to Rethnor at Mount Grimfang.

The Final battle was close! The poor Dwarf Darmian ran heroically at Vivigor with his Bonemangler swinging and a potion of Strength ready, but I spawned a pit trap in the final square. Down to 3BP's and no healing potion he was then hacked and bitten to death by Beastmen and summoned Chaos Hounds. Vivigor with his Shield of Thorns was a real pain (literally) to take down. I ruled that it didn't affect ranged attacks. This was the state of the party at the end. There was absolutely nothing left with regard to potions and spells.

Balash (Wizard) 3BP, Alvin (Elf) 1BP, Gwendoline (Princess) 3BP, Darmian (Dwarf) 0BP, Sir Vardion (Knight) 2BP. All five henchmen rescued during the quest were killed. This is one of the closest finishes we have ever had, and was great fun.

Next up is the Questpack Royal Bodyguard. The Imperial Guard troops at the rear of the convoy in the Forest of Gloom managed to escape east during the ambush, where they have been captured by the Rethnor led Greenskins of Mount Grimfang. So the party must now travel east, back to Mount Grimfang to kill Rethnor, rescue the Imperial Guard prisoners and most importantly retrieve the Black Stone! They will once again be accompanied by Sir Vardion of House Trell of Wissenland. The Dwarf will be replaced by the Dwarf Revealer Thorik of House Gallinicus of Wissenland. Lord Gallinicus wants his part in the expedition so that house Trell does not garner all the glory. Politics!

Champion of the Empire questpack will be up after all this. Wissenland replacing Solland.

[knightkrawler]

thanks for the batrep. it's almost poetic that you played this in France... do you have criticisms of mechanics or of the translation?

[The Admiral]

thanks for the batrep. it's almost poetic that you played this in France... do you have criticisms of mechanics or of the translation?

The Swallowing Toad Spell seemed a little strange. Why can't Hero's outside try and cut the Toad open and release the "Prisoner"? Also, giving the Toads internal organs defence dice seemed odd to me. I changed it so that the trapped Hero rolled 1 combat dice to escape, and would cut his way out on a skull. External Heroes could cut the Toad open with an adjacent attack that caused a BP loss. Toad can defend this. If trapped Hero does not escape in 6 turns he suffocates to death. The trapped Hero cannot cast spells or take potions; he is too constricted.

All the new traps worked very well.

Runic room was fine. I think I did the Hall of Storms correctly. I was happy anyway. Halls of Blind and Forgotten were not entered, but they worked very well in my solo playtest.

There were some problems with the Pit Room. Where does the Hero land, near or far square? Also this is a double square jump, which only succeeds on a Black Shield in The Mage in the Mirror. Therefore we played it a follows:
Skull = fall in 1st square and lose BP. No Beastman appears.
White Shield = fall in 2nd square and get attacked by a Beastman. No BP lost.
Black Shield = successful jump.
If you wanted to keep with the original rules you could have a skull as success, and a shield being a failure, with one landing in the far square and one in the near one. I would go White Shield far and Black Shield near.

General translation was fine, but a few things I corrected:
Trail = convoy
falsify = Allay
Messy = Ragged/jagged. Not sure, but messy doesn't sound right.
sip = drip
dainty (smile) = faint

[knightkrawler]

That's constructive, indeed.
I think Pan will be happy about his mechanics playing out so well, all in all.

[j_dean80]

Mound of the Beastmen is one I'm anxious to get to.

Hope to hear how Royal Bodyguard plays out.

[Pancho]

Admiral could you rate the difficulty level of this quest pack, directly compared any of official expansions you might have played?

I'm keen to insert Mound of the Beastmen into my chronology, but concerned that it might be too easy, as written, for Heroes that have just hacked their way through ATOH and WOM.

[The Admiral]

Admiral could you rate the difficulty level of this quest pack, directly compared any of official expansions you might have played?

I'm keen to insert Mound of the Beastmen into my chronology, but concerned that it might be too easy, as written, for Heroes that have just hacked their way through ATOH and WOM.

Hmmm, tricky. It appears deceptively easy in that there are not that many monsters encountered, but the special features really ramp it up. Quest four is a real meatgrinder, and it really doesn't matter what level your Heroes are, they will suffer! Runic traps can be devaststing if they blow up in a crowd, and they can't be found by searching (blue trap).

I play with no recovery of Body Points or spells between the quests, which makes things alot harder. I also play with Evil Wizard cards, but not 1 card per turn. A four group party with no henchmen would generate 1 card per four turns. If you play normal full recovery then I would probably place this after the initial 14 quests. It would be easy enough though to ramp this up by just adding in more monsters to the rooms, as many of the special features take no account of level.

[The Admiral]

Mound of the Beastmen is one I'm anxious to get to.

Hope to hear how Royal Bodyguard plays out.

Yes, this is definitely up next and I will do a report. Planning to go to my brother's mid August to play it. I have completed my usual development of a quest that I always do to suit my taste/storyline/setting. The file is attached if anyone is vaguely interested. I hope you are not too offended by my changes as this is pretty much what I do with every pack.

The biggest change is the removal of Quest 2. I just thought this would speed up play without removing too much. This meant that Quest 4 also went, but then it all fit with the 4 keys and 4 pieces of the Black Stone with 4 big bosses. Varth the Undead Champion replaces the Zombie in Q3 room E. Ulag the Orc Warlord replaces the Chaos Warrior next to the throne in Q5 room A. Grizgald the Orc Shamen replaces the Chaos Sorcerer in Q7 room C.

[j_dean80]

Mound of the Beastmen is one I'm anxious to get to.

Hope to hear how Royal Bodyguard plays out.

Yes, this is definitely up next and I will do a report. Planning to go to my brother's mid August to play it. I have completed my usual development of a quest that I always do to suit my taste/storyline/setting. The file is attached if anyone is vaguely interested. I hope you are not too offended by my changes as this is pretty much what I do with every pack.

The biggest change is the removal of Quest 2. I just thought this would speed up play without removing too much. This meant that Quest 4 also went, but then it all fit with the 4 keys and 4 pieces of the Black Stone with 4 big bosses. Varth the Undead Champion replaces the Zombie in Q3 room E. Ulag the Orc Warlord replaces the Chaos Warrior next to the throne in Q5 room A. Grizgald the Orc Shamen replaces the Chaos Sorcerer in Q7 room C.

Take, change, edit. If I was offended by anything changed for taste I would just hoard it to myself. I kind of like Quest 4 though, a real slaughter Quest.

[The Admiral]

Take, change, edit. If I was offended by anything changed for taste I would just hoard it to myself. I kind of like Quest 4 though, a real slaughter Quest.

Thanks. Yes, Quest 4 is tough, and there isn't much to find to help the Heroes, other than the Crossbowman. As I play with no recovery, and with my brothers' party very weak now, I'm not sure they could survive with this quest included. I have put the Crossbowman into Quest 7 so that each of the four quests I am using has a Royal Guardsman.

As the Heroes have not played the initial 14 quests they will be very pleased to find the Wand of Magic and the Spirit Blade!