Thunderstone, 23/2/2012

Our most recent foray into the dungeons of Grimhold was a little one sided on my part but it's worth mentioning how it all went down. Udead - Doom, Enchanted and Doomnights were our enemies for this game, and the heroes were Lorigg Thieves, Redblades, Clerics and Amazons. This was an interesting set of heroes actually because they're all relatively low power, and with almost no magic power going around for the first few rounds, we were going to have to rely on wit, guile and cunning in order to secure victory in the dungeon.

We had quite a lucky draw of monsters as well in a sense, because our first few opponents were relatively low-powered. This gave me the opportunity to get into the dungeon early and rack up some kills, even though in some cases I hadn't even got a hero. (I'd got militia, but you know what I mean.) It did also mean I got some disease cards; you can't avoid it with Undead - Doom, but in the Thunderstone game you can at least get rid of that card in a round so it didn't bother me too much.
Dave hadn't cottoned on to this and spent the first few turns trying to build up some forces, so when he did eventually decide to venture into the dungeon, most of the easy monsters had gone...

We found our way blocked by a couple of high-powered monsters that needed a very strong attack before they would go down. A couple of them also had the added effect of killing one of the fighters. The obvious tactic at this point was to go into battle without a fighter - after all, it was only the Redblades that counted as fighters. However, it became apparent to me that there was no way we were going to manage this, as the thieves, clerics and archers we had left couldn't come up with a powerful enough attack. I was well ahead of Dave by then and I knew it, so I had to make an uncomfortable decision that I could afford to lose a Redblade Assassin (as good as it gets, and the top level heroes also grant victory points) to take out some of those high-powered monsters.

We also came up against a monster that could only be hurt by magic; I got around this by drawing a top level Cleric who is strong enough to use a polearm, which brings their attack power up to 6, then drawing the arcane energies card that converted all attacks with weapons into magical attacks. It was  a tricky manouvre but I'm quite pleased that I pulled it off!

Nasty little beast, this...

The other monster that gave us some grief was Blink Dog, part of the Enchanted set, that can't be attacked if any light penalty applies. I'd stocked up on torches and lanterns but this is really where the Thieves became useful, as the higher level cards come with light bonuses. That way, I managed to use a combination of Thieves and Amazons to take out the Blink Dogs. The Amazon's thing is their attacks become more powerful in the second level of the Dungeons. It doesn't really work if you don't have any light because the penalites would negate this anyway but all of the hero cards in Thunderstone are best used in combinations, and Amazons are no exception.

By the time we found the Thunderstone, it was a bit late in the day for Dave to pull it back, but fair play to him for making a fight out of it. By then, I had so many monsters that I was drawing one in almost every hand, and very few of them worked to my advantage so I found myself having to deal with this. This might have given Dave some room to rack up some points, but it was too little too late for him, as I found the Thunderstone. The final score was 54-15, so quite an easy victory for me.

That's twice I've won it now so I'm at level pegging with Dave. I think for this game, you really need to be aware of what everything does together so that you can use it to its best effectiveness. That's not easy, since it changes each time, but it's working a damn sight better than picking a strategy for the game and sticking to it (a popular wargaming effort, but it's not a wargame!) Also, it's a good idea to remember that if you can go in for an attack, it's a good idea to do it, otherwise you leave the other players open to take their own spoils!

Then again, Dave also plays Resident Evil, which works in a similar way but rewards caution to a certain extent because you don't know what you're going to be attacking from one round to the next...