Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2ed) - Tips & Strategies

This is probably my favorite game right now. I have had the chance to play a few campaigns as the heroes and the overlord. Both are very enjoyable, I thought it would be fun to write a couple of strategies one from the perspective of Overlord, another from the Hero’s.

As overlord remember your job is to win just as much as the heroes. Some have fallen into the trap that your role is more of a Dungeon Master, just to make it challenging enough for the Heroes so they want to keep playing. One of the beautiful things about Descent(2ed)is as Overlord you can win too. The heroes should be aware of this before you start playing, if they are not clear on it they may feel mislead about the object of the game.

It is beneficial to read everything. As OL it’s your strongest weapon. If you are playing against a group of people it’s 2,3, or 4 minds vs. yours so take every advantage you can.

This means: know the conditions for winning the quest for both you and the heroes. Sometimes you’re playing against the clock and you just have to hold off the heroes until time runs out on them. Sometimes you have a specific target you should focus on. Throw everything at that one target don’t focus on the heroes.

Know the heroes, what are their strengths and weaknesses. Exploit them, if you have a trap card that effects someone’s Might make sure you play it on the hero with the best chance of failing. If you can make them use up their fatigue, do so, remember at full fatigue a hero then takes damage anytime more fatigue is used.

Read your cards, know how they effect the hero’s party. Which ones will help you the most to accomplish your goal in the quest you are playing. Purchase accordingly.

Know your monsters. If possible I like to make sure I have a balance between melee and ranged attacks. I also find that more monsters can be more destructive than a couple of big monsters. More monster’s = more opportunities to attack and more fronts the heroes have to pay attention to. A large monster the heroes can gain up on.

Take out the weakest link. By knocking out a hero, you have the advantage of drawing a card. The heroes then have to choose to spend resources to revive the fallen comrade or stand-up. That leaves a weak hero that can be knocked down again.

Lastly, there are just some encounters that are easier for the heroes to win. Don’t get beat up about it, a moral victory may be to limit the heroes from getting treasure, then they will have less to spend during the buying phase.

Overall I hope you enjoy this game, my appreciation for Descent (2ed) grows every time I play it win or lose.

If you get the chance to set up a monster in a 2-wide hallway use a big monster (Ettin, Dragon, ect.) to block the Heroes movement. This way you can use your other monsters to complete the quest objectives while the Heroes face your road block.

At the end of Act 1 the Heroes gain access to the entire Act I shop. So dont waste gold on items that you are not sure you will need and wait until you can purchase ANY of the Act I gear. In this manner your group will be up the challenge in Act II.

This is a game of patience. Tip: To mitigate bad dice rolls my suggestion is not to run immediately into the fray! Take your time, plan things out, and then go for the end goal of each adventure as you play through the games campaign. Be mindful of tricky-tricks and always beef up your gear. On a more personal note I prefer to play this game with 3 people, with one of course being the nasty overlord. (I think this gives a good balance to the playability and it takes away from any AP downtime from having more players) Good luck and good fun!

The Overlord doesn’t have much they can customise each game, so make sure you’ve read through the objectives before hand. You can then pick your open Monster groups and trim down the overlord deck based on the objective.

And remember knocking out the heroes is not always the best method of winning the game.

When playing a campaign in Descent, hero players will surely be tempted to buy as many items as possible during each Campaign phase. Sometimes it is better to save your gold for something more useful next time that you didn’t happen to draw this time. Also, be sure that every hero has some kind of upgrade before a hero gets his second upgrade. Spread the wealth!

My daughter loves games, especially the ones with scenarios (story) and characters that she can rely to and that she make progress. When a game have miniatures she choose one and it becomes her character.

I know that these game are expensive but its nothing compared to the time we share together painting the miniatures. They are not perfect but it is hers….and soon enough I’m sure that they will be better than mines 🙂

Spend good hobby time with your family has no price

With expensive games like Descent, I always sleeve the playing cards. It took me a while to find sleeves fitting the hero cards. A company called Swan Panasia produces sleeves (for a game called Talisman) that measure 103mm X 128mm. They are a perfect fit for the hero cards. The only drawback is that the sleeves are quite thin. Having said that, they come by a 100 in a pack and I haven’t had one break on me yet. You can also use these sleeves for Star Wars Imperial Assault (by FFG). The hero cards in that game are of the same size.

Descent 2.0 has a ton of interesting items for heroes to purchase at the shop (especially when expansion items are added in). After playing several games as the heroes, I noticed that even when acquiring as many search tokens as possible and obtaining end of encounter gold bonuses, it is incredibly difficult to amass enough gold to purchase more than a few items.

So, when I started my first campaign as the OL, I implemented a house rule creating a special search action.

Once, during each hero turn, one hero may, as an action, search on any tile. They do not need to be adjacent to a search token, and when they search, they do not draw a search card. Instead, they roll a single blue die and receive gold equal to Gx5, where G is the number rolled on the blue die (ie: if the hero rolls the side showing the number 5, the heroes receive 25 gold). If an X is rolled, the search has failed and they receive nothing. This takes an action, but this action may not be affected in any way, either positively or negatively (no die rerolling, no OL cards, etc).

This allows the heroes to sacrifice an action in order to acquire more gold. Basing the amount of gold on the die roll adds an element of luck, and limiting the search action to once per hero turn keeps them from all standing around spending their turns constantly searching for gold.

I created this action because I want the heroes to be able to get those shop items into play (regardless of what side I am on), and as the OL, it’s always nice to have heroes “waste” an action on something that doesn’t move them closer to winning an encounter.

If you don’t like the idea of using a die, you could instead pull the top card of the search deck, award the heroes the amount of gold on the item card (without showing them what the item is), and then shuffle the card back into the deck or place it on the bottom. If you want to increase the potential gain for the heroes, simply use Gx10 instead of Gx5.

if you are using Army Painter paints (or any other to be honest :)) , shades and primers remember this:

1) black army painter 120ml lasts only for monsters to prime. not enough for heroes, but you should use white on heroes (in my opinion)

2) plenty of paints you have in basic set, mix paints together, do not use shading, use just basic colors. easier and faster to paint.

3) you need to have 1 package of green stuff, grass etc. to make bases and fill in gaps in monster figures

4) after the painting use QUICK SHADE. it will do the job!

5) use varnish spray for your minis for them not to be glossy! when it shines – it looks really bad.

play with painting. if you think they are beautiful – they are! do not listen to people saying “ah, you could have done it better” unless you see their job, and its really better 🙂 there are a lot of haters just pointing fingers.

enjoy your work! and have fun!