Dan’s 2025 Board Gaming

This scenario was back to the usual “defeat all enemies to win” formula, but with some required exploration before hand. When I saw that the story involved my hero trying to find two magical tomes, I should have taken the hint and fielded the spellcaster hero. The final battle gave my spellcasting a massive boost for having the tomes, but I had no spells to cast as I’d played the might hero.

The scenario also required that I travel to the east to defeat one army, then to the west to defeat the second, then I had to race back to the east end of the board again for the final battle before the turn limit was up. Once I realised that I was a bit miffed as it looked like I’d loose simply because of the turn limit, but in the end I managed to reach the final battle with the last movement point of my last turn.

The Tower were always my favourite faction in the PC game (good spellcasting and access to plenty of ranged troops). The expansion doesn’t add many new rules, but it does include campaigns for the Dungeon and Necropolis factions (the two factions in the core game to not get campaigns). This was a nice surprise so today I started playing through the Dungeon campaign.

The first scenario was a “capture the town and kill the enemy heroes” mission. This played out slightly quicker than usual but was still fun.

This was the first scenario where I was unable to win. It’s also unique in that the objective was to beat another hero in a race to the end of the map.

I was able to defeat the enemy hero and arrive at the finish point using the last movement of my last turn, but was unable to win the final battle. Through some bad luck in the first couple of turns, I was behind in my building materials. This prevented me accessing the best troops until the very last turn, so my army was under strength.

I also tried to focus on using a magic hero and building up a deck of spells to use. I’m not convinced it’s as good as being a might hero though. It’s hard to get lots of spells without spending money in the mage guild (diverting it away from building and recruiting). You also burn through cards to cast the more powerful spells.

I’ve reset the scenario and may give it another go later today.

I played the second scenario again – this time focussing on accessing top tier monsters quickly. I was able to defeat the enemy hero and then defeat the dragons as this time around my army was strong enough.

Yesterday I played the third scenario in the campaign. The objective was to survive four waves of attacking heroes. Again, a different objective which made the scenario interesting.

This one was actually very difficult. I lost the first time, even with several attempts at re-fighting battles. This is the first scenario where the AI begins with a hero on the map that immediately starts moving towards me to attack. In all previous scenarios they were either static or didn’t start moving until later in the scenario. Not only that, but in this scenario there are two heroes charging straight at me, and the starting town is very undeveloped.

On my first playthrough I put resources into building up my spellcasting. Given the time pressure of this scenario, I just don’t think that’s a viable option. I was also a bit unlucky with the starting resources near my town, which slowed development.

On the second playthrough I re-generated the map and put all my resources into building up my army ASAP. I was also able to lure one hero off and wipe them out, giving myself a turn to recruit my army back up a bit. The second hero then reached my town and attacked me. I was able to use the town walls to help my defence.

I’ve played a couple of battles with town walls now. It’s nice to mix the battle dynamics up a bit, but I cannot actually find full rules for the walls in the rulebook. I know walls can be destroyed, but I can’t find the rules for how to do so. I just assume they each have the same defence and health as the arrow towers, which seems to work well.

I forgot to update after scenario two, so I’ll just cover both in one go.

Scenario two had a twist in terms of needing to find an obelisk in time, which kept the game tense.

Scenario three was more of a mundane “explore the map and kill all enemies” vibe, but as a twist it threw two armies at me in rapid succession near the end. It would have been a challenge but I’ve realised that the way to play this game is always prioritise building your army up quick. Doing that makes the game easier. Even playing as a magic hero, I ignore putting resources into spells and instead buy troops.

I played this scenario last week but delayed updating my project while the website seemed to be undergoing some updates.

This is the final campaign until the next wave of stuff arrives.

Scenario one was fairly straight forward. The turn limit was a bit tight – I had a 50:50 chance of the final objective arriving in time. Had the obelisk been on the other final tile, I wouldn’t have had time to reach it – through no real fault of my own. Still, a fun scenario.

The Tower are the wizard faction, so I’m really trying to push the spellcaster aspect and get the game to work for me with a magic hero.

This scenario basically just boiled down to explore and take out three stationary NPC armies, but those armies were particularly tough. This was the first time I’d had to face a succession of armies, each containing the highest tier monsters in the game. This was also another scenario where it was possible to run out of time through no real fault of my tactics. Wasting less than a turn of movement in an eleven turn game was enough to force a replay (I didn’t do the replay – I just allowed myself to move the one extra move I needed to finish).