Boardgame

Frosthaven – Crystal Fields (18)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Play reports

We played last week on a special scenario pertaining to Guillaume’s character personal quest (leading to his soon-to-be retirement) but I forgot to take the start of the scenario picture so yeah, too bad, I’m skipping it.

As for now we continue on the same path (there’s 3 main planned paths to the campaign each with some mutually excluding sub-paths), we’ve decided to focus on the Algox’s and we haven’t even dipped into the two others for the moment. I have no idea if it changes anything on the long run.

Characters

  • Miasma the Boneshaper (David) lvl 4>>retirement, minions: Bob the dead lumberjack and Raging Sally
  • T-Gee/Mina the Geminate (Math) lvl 4, two competing hiveminded insect swarms in a single body
  • Tredir the Drifter (Guillaume) lvl 4, versatile Inox fighter
We stumble upon a scene of carnage; dead Algox warriors with weird gashes on their corpses. Of course they’re not dead dead and they rise up to fight us.
The Geminate is singularly motivated to kill an enemy the quickest way possible and they pull one undead Algox right into two traps back to back. That does the job!
We clean up the first room without getting a single scratch between us. Our confidence level is high!
And then we come face to face with a monster we’ve never seen before: Burrowing Blades.
They’re very mobile and often focus on the farthest target, moving around a lot and messing with our positioning. We definitely have some scratches on us now!
We find an Algox survivor on the last area, cornered by more monsters. We apparently have to save him
We soon find out that he’s not the bravest soul out there… The dude just kept his defensive stance while we have to do all the hard work!

Closing Comments:

  • The Burrowing Blades are really nicely designed, with very thematic cards abilities. They don’t seem to do incredible damage but they have some hard to predict (in a good way) tactics that can force us outside our comfort zone. Great addition to the frosthaven’s roster of foes!
  • The surviving Algox kept picking defensive cards round after round, resulting in him doing absolutely nothing useful and us bemoaning his lack of courage. That was funny.
  • Big news, I’ve achieved my character’s personal quest in this scenario so Miasma is officialy taking her retirement from adventuring life. I feel bittersweet about that because I had a lot of fun with this character and her necromantic powers!
  • Next scenario will be the last one of the (in-game) summer season with several planned events on the outpost phase. After that we’ll enter winter in the campaign and we’ve been led to believe that it brings more complications and dangers to the town we’re paid to protect. We’ll see.

Frosthaven – Crystal Enclosure (10)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Play reports

We’re back on track on the campaign’s algox thread as we’re now pursuing on our brand-new sled those who’d set a trap for us a bit earlier at the Frozen Crypt.

Characters

  • Miasma the Boneshaper (David) lvl 4, minions: Bob the dead lumberjack and Raging Sally
  • T-Gee/Mina the Geminate (Math) lvl 3, two competing hiveminded insect swarms in a single body
  • Tredir the Drifter (Guillaume) lvl 3>>4, versatile Inox fighter

This time the Icefolks are channelling magic through icy « conduits », protecting them from damage unless we break these first.

2 algox priests and a guard, nothing to stop us there except for their magic protection. The Geminate start off the hostilities with a powerful Hail of Thorns, damaging everything nearby (and even a bit of collateral damage too!).
The drifter efficiently smashes an ice column with his club and then throws an explosive vial at another. Soon after the protection is down and we’re able to kill the algox
But we’re in for a big surprise as the Geminate steps forward we’re suddenly forced (pulled, slide down?) to another area just as we thought we could take it slow and steady. This time there’s an Algox Icespeaker (with the blue axes, nice mini), a tricky foe.
Again we have to break those damn ice columns if we wish to have any hope of harming our opponents whilst they suffer from no such limitations. The Drifter: « I’m so dead! » The Boneshaper: « Smash this inconvenient ice my minions! »
The Drifter survives to his own surprise but is forced back to lick his wounds a little. But T-Gee/Mina are ready to take over and get in the fray. I protect them as much as I can with a power I’ve just acquired, a wonderful not-gruesome-at-all Flesh Shield.
Meanwhile the 2 algox priests keep using their healing powers on their allies so the fight is a bit of a slog.
But we have greater resilience and determination than the Algox clearly and the survivors are now in disarray. My undead minions slay the last guard and the priests soon join him in whatever subzero afterlife he went.

Closing Comments:

  • Just realized that Math’s character’s names T-Gee/Mina are an anagram for Geminate… Well done Math, well done.
  • Because of how the scenario was designed, forcing us forward unexpectedly, we were a bit caught off guard for the big fight. The Drifter in particular was already at half his HP and kept saying that he was gonna die. Plus, we’ve left loot tokens behind in the previous area. Annoying.
  • The Algox Priests picked the healing card like 3-4 times in a row, slowing our killing, but not contributing much else to the fight fortunately.
  • As Math mentioned, all three of our starting characters have big hands of cards (12,12 and 14), which in haven terms, means we can survive longer and soak blows (discarding a card) if we’re low on HP. We can handle being in trouble for a while, even when it seems a bit overwhelming like it did in this scenario.
  • The Geminate looted the treasure tile and picked (at random) a Freezing Crystal, really fitting for this scenario, nice!
  • We’ve built the Lvl 3 craftsman in town and unlocked a few interesting items doing so.

Frosthaven – The Ruins of Solstice (104)

David Skelector Boardgame, Frosthaven, Play reports

Another random scenario, this one unlocked when we’d found a key in the Glowing Catacombs (loot deck). It gave us access to a strange pocket dimension where Spring and Winter coexists at the same time, separated only by a thin line.

Mechanically speaking the scenario offers something interesting as the board is split in two halves, with the Earth element always strong in the left and Ice in the right. Furthermore, monsters each have an elemental affinity and are vulnerable (lose 1hp) if they finish their turn on the « wrong » side.

Characters

  • Miasma the Boneshaper (David) lvl 3>>4, minions: Bob the dead lumberjack and Raging Sally
  • T-Gee/Mina the Geminate (Math) lvl 3, two competing hiveminded insect swarms in a single body
  • Tredir the Drifter (Guillaume) lvl 3, versatile Inox fighter

Me and Bob choose Spring, you may go into Winter. (2 rounds later, Miasma fleeing from Earth Demons) « I’ve changed my mind, I prefer Winter! »
Tredir the Drifter smashes a Frost Demon to pieces.
My, my… Lots of things going on. The cloaked figures are dangerous dudes (Savvas Icestorm) and the very first thing they do is to summon additional demons, that’s troublesome. T-Gee/Mina kills a bunch of Faeries. Raging Sally is downed by two ranged (piercing) attacks from the Savvas, nooooo!
We’re slowly cleaning up the place, I heal the Drifter some more so he can get back into the fray.
One more area to go. Me and the Drifter aren’t in great shape by the time we get there. Fortunately the Geminate stil has most of their power and is here to save the day.
You know what, between mud and snow, this whole seasonal change is a real pain if you ask me.
T-Gee and Mina are quarreling over their body even more than usual today, what’s up with that? It’s left to Tredir and I to end this Solstice thing already.

Closing Comments:

  • T-Gee/Mina achieved a new Mastery after managing to switch between forms every single round. This and his numerous 2-perks battle goals achieved means that he has a LOT of perks unlocked for such a new character.
  • Maybe we could have exploited the 2 halves of the board gimmick a bit better. A team with crowd control-type characters would certainly have had an easier time.
  • Having easy access to the earth element in this scenario was really convenient for my character, giving me several boosts to my cards all along.
  • The Drifter had a whole bunch of curses put on him by the faeries, like 7-8, but he didn’t pick a single one of them, that’s some luck!
  • Losing Raging Sally in the middle of the scenario was a hard blow, hindering my capacity to ditch good damage further on. What I managed to provide was a lot of healing to my companions, something that the Boneshaper is surprisingly good at.
  • The Drifter gets even more xp than I now that he’s got a good handle on his character’s back and forth abilities.

Frosthaven – The Eternal Crave (122)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Play reports

We do our first random scenario of the campaign, one that has been revealed in a road event because Tredir our Drifter accepted the challenge of eating a Firepepper! Hurray!

Characters

  • Miasma the Boneshaper (David) lvl 3, minions: Bob the dead lumberjack and Raging Sally
  • T-Gee/Mina the Geminate (Math) lvl 2>>3, two competing hiveminded insect swarms in a single body
  • Tredir the Drifter (Guillaume) lvl 2>>3, versatile Inox fighter

A fortuitous encounter has led us to participate in an important ritual in order to placate a dangerous entity that goes by the lovely name of Hungry Maw. In short, we already found Fireppers – now we must find some special bark, the last ingredient in order to nourish nothing less than its Eternal Crave…

Or we could just fight the entity but I mean, we can’t pass the occasion to be chefs can we!

We must navigate a treacherous path with slippery ground, traps and ice shards. The polar bear roars whilst the snow imps throw snowballs at us, damn the little annoying buggers!
Poor skeleton Bob wants to join the action but falls into a pit trap.
I think it’s mating season for the polar bears, lucky us.
The drifter: « don’t mind me ». whistles
The Geminate and Raging Sally fight the bears as the Drifter goes further and gets a look at another area.
Here it is, our goal, almost encased in ice.
But some sinister force conspires against us and new foes appear literally from nowhere (hey you, yes you scenario designer, stop throwing curveballs at us!).
The drifter has the bark, now he needs to get back to the cauldron at the entrance and get on with the special brew. The geminate helps him get through another wave of monsters with a Firefly Swarm attack that kills 3 snow imps at once! Impressive!

As for me, I’m too busy stealing every bit of furniture that’s lying around, there’ll be not a single bit left after I’m done!

With a bit of fiddling we manage to cook the special recipe, the Hungry Maw is satiated and gets back to sleep. Success!

And don’t forget, what’s hot entering is hot exiting too!

Closing Comments:

  • We’ve had a much easier time with this one than the last scenario but it took more than 3 hours, longer than usual. Part of the set-up we didn’t even get to see: the room with the Hungry Maw and a forking path that has locked when we chose to go the other way.
  • There was a (mainly) mathematical puzzle at the end, our first answer was wrong but was taken into account by the scenario, providing us with another hint. The hint confused the hell out of me but Math came up with the answer, phew!
  • We’ve got through the entire loot deck this time with me picking up a big chunk of it as I’m almost always lagging behind. What can I say, someone has to do it!
  • Hey look! I’ve finally added the names of our characters! I guess Miasma is finally remembering who’s tagging along beside her undead minions…

Frosthaven – Glowing Catacombs (9)

David Skelector Boardgame, Frosthaven, Play reports

From the Frozen Crypt we go to the Glowing Catacombs. I mean, I’ll take glowing over frozen any day of the week except – the damn place is a lot more dangerous!

Characters

  • Boneshaper (David) lvl 2>>3, minions: Bob the dead lumberjack and Raging Sally
  • Geminate (Math) lvl 2, two competing hiveminded insect swarms in a single body
  • Drifter (Guillaume) lvl 2, versatile Inox fighter

First room is crowded, full of monsters, traps and obstacles. I’m frontline with Bob the dead lumberjack (that’s a bit foolish with my impressive 5 hp). Bob is back to a pile of bones almost immediately. Those Living Dooms (center) hits hard! The Geminate and Drifter gather their strength.

The Geminate is annoyed at the lack of fresh air and more importantly, room to manoeuver. At least, that’s how I’m interpreting his constant buzzing. What, they’re actually speaking, oops, my bad!

Raging Sally gets in from nowhere and proves that she has more angst than the Living Spirit. She also picks up shiny loot, she likes those. Can we have it Sally? « GRRAAHAAAH! » Okay, okay, you can keep it sweetie.

After (what felt like) two hundred rounds we finally get out of the first room and… WHADDAHECK – more frikkin Ice Wraiths and Living Spirits. And what’s that dripping sound we can hear from farther away? An Ooze?

Can we even make it? Do we turn back? The Inox Drifter isn’t one to ask himself these questions, here he is rushing gallantly forward. Alone. Very far from us. Seriously he’ll get himself killed – I think we should help.

All the way pass the long twisting passage, there’s a strange room with some kind of mechanism. Two switches. And there’s happy Oozes and when Oozes are happy, well, they reproduce like there’s no tomorrow. Of course they do.

The brave Drifter is determined to end this in style. The Geminate skitters as fast as he can and barges in the room and annihilates several oozes. Two switches off and two characters down (exhausted) later, we’re perilously close to defeat. Will the Drifter and Geminate will be slowly, agonizingly dissolved and become part of the BLOB? Me, I’m like a mile away: « guys? GUYS? what’s happening, is that you screaming? »

Pseudopods lash at the Drifter and he hangs on to life by a thread (my curses come in handy!). And you know what, we’re saved by the Law of Conservation of Mass. All that reproducing that the Oozes’ been doing? Not good for their health, they die off just like that, dissolving in an inanimate puddle. And we’re alive, all of us!

Closing Comments:

  • Our very first true test of the campaign, a very challenging scenario where we’ve come really close to regret enabling the « permadeath » option. It came as a surprise too as our first four scenarios were on the easy side of things.
  • We’ve managed to win by the skin of our teeth after having been really close to abandon and we finally got through with a combination of, hmm I’d say, sheer stubbornness, some luck and huh, our astute knowledge of ooze ecology…
  • Speaking of oozes, we just kept getting the card that made them cloning and incidentally, losing 2 hp until their eventual demise
  • Ice Wraiths are a real PAIN, I tell you. Like Math said, even at level 1, with their built-in powers they feel like 1 or 2 steps stronger.
  • Interesting town event with a White Oak official coming to inspect the outpost and actually paying us! Nice! I can’t complain about our lack of pay anymore!
  • Built the Hunting Lodge, all set.

Frosthaven – Frozen Crypt (5)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Play reports

We’re still following the Algox thread of the campaign where we’re mostly being used by one tribe to do its dirty job in killing another. But hey, we’re not picky when it comes to killing.

Characters

  • Boneshaper (David) lvl 2
  • Geminate (Math) lvl 1>>2
  • Drifter (Guillaume) lvl 1>>2

Except that our enemies somewhat object to being killed and even have the audacity of getting us into a trap! The floor opens beneath our feet and we fall into the eponymous Frozen Crypt where we’ll have to fight our would-be victims’ ancestors or something.

I’ve brought Bob the dead lumberjack with me, he’ll be a recurring feature, trust me. Him and Raging Sally. Yes, I’m naming my undead minions. Can’t remember my companions names though ha ha!

We first face off against Icy Wraiths, tricky bastards that do retaliate damage (elite) and range attacks (normal).

And now a classic staple of gloomhaven: the evil altar (utmost left) that we must destroy! ‘Cause if we don’t we’ll soon be swarmed by Frozen Corpses. They’re slow, being all y’know frozen, but they keep coming! But our Drifter does short work of the altar whilst the Geminate distract the undeads. We then turn our attention to our now vulnerable foes and destroy them (Raging Sally doing what she does best).

Closing Comments:

  • Pretty straightforward scenario, 2 rooms, 2 variety of monsters, we’re obviously not yet there on scenario complexity ramping up
  • Frosthaven continue to show us some clever monster tricks, going further on that front than gloomhaven for sure
  • We’re now all level 2, Guillaume was unsure if would go for a range build or not
  • We’ve added a Mining Camp to the village, still a Hunting Lodge to go and we’ll be all set to pumping out ressources (as long as we have the money too)
  • I have to complain, we’re not being paid! What kind of mercenaries are we?! Do-gooders, that’s who you think we are, pwah! Raging Sally, spit on them!

Frosthaven – Town in Flames (1)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Frosthaven scenario 1, Play reports, Town in Flames

My brother-in-law Math have enlisted us back after a several months’ hiatus following the end of our campaign of Gloomhaven. Its much-hyped successor Frosthaven was awfully late in materialising at his doorstep, not even counting the usual delays (covid, always covid), his kickstarter copy arriving with the very last batch of deliveries or so it seemed. Anyway here we are again, the same three players for at least a year of Frosthaven.

Note: My present cellphone is as cheap as it gets and my pictures are shit awful. I’ll try to have a better camera next time.

Note 2: Hopefully, Math and Guillaume will chime in too on the blog.

Note 3: The box comes with cardboard minis and tiles. Every tiles, decor pieces and minis in the pictures you’ll see are Math’s and not included in what you’d buy.

Characters

  • Boneshaper (David) lvl 1
  • Geminate (Math) lvl 1
  • Drifter (Guillaume) lvl 1

Our characters were randomly picked from the six starting ones. Mine is a necromancer who taps on her own life essence in order to fuel her dark arts and summon undead horrors. That’s cool. Even cooler is Math’s Geminate who switches round to round between « stances » as their two personalities compete to take control over their body (which is a swarm of insect, awesome). Guillaume’s Drifter is less unusual and accordingly, far simpler to play.

Town in Flames

The very first scenario.

The fortune-seekers suffer from a long, exhausting northward march in an inhospitable landscape to reach Québec City Frosthaven only to see it burn. It’s under attack! Yeti-like Algox are swarming the poorly defended town, killing its inhabitants left and right.

After asking ourselves for a minute if we’d just go back the way we came we said **** it and just killed the baddies.

Missing (picture too sucky): my favorite moment, when I ordered my summoned skeleton to pick up loot and he was carrying it like a boss.

We save only one poor guard dude, the others are all dead… Hey, c’mon, we did our best I swear! We’ve just arrived! Our feet are like popsicles and all! Now leave the corpses to me, they’ll be treated with the respect they deserve mwahaha!

Closing comments:

  • The starting characters we got all seem fun to play. I have no idea what the non-starting characters look like, it’ll be great to discover them once they’re unlocked.
  • Math’s 3d printed new tiles are amazing. Each are single unit and magnetic so we can assemble the map very fast.
  • Gloomhaven is an excellent tactical boardgame but its storyline and overall worldbuilding is probably its weakest part IMO. If Frosthaven has a wee bit of improvement on this part it will enhance the gameplay experience a lot for me. We’ll see.
  • Frosthaven has another new thing compared to Gloomhaven, a town-building feature grafted to it. It was decided that it is I that will manage that part of the game so once I have studied it properly I’ll talk about this more probably.
  • The loot system seems a bit weird to me; adventurers collecting wood and metal and whatnot in monsters lair? I understand the intent but there’s a disconnect for sure. A bit too gamey for me, but it’s a minor thing, just a reminder that Frosthaven is a boardgame and not a RPG (even if it has rpg elements in it).

Gloomhaven: Fading Lighthouse and Pit of Souls

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, gloomhaven ,

We’re sidetracking in our sidetracking, imagine that. Forget about the dragon or The Voice, there’s a lighthouse in the Lingering Swamp!

Scenario 61

Goal:  loot all treasure tiles

Team: Brute (lvl 8), Elementalist (lvl 8), Soothsinger (lvl 9)

Set difficulty: 5

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Filled with unpleasant inhabitants…

This is one of the coolest looking scenario (with Math’s 3D decor) hands down.

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We’re not killing much monsters, the challenge is to jump over monsters and traps without getting too much damage.

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Victory!

  • we moved fast, mostly ignored (or immobilized) the monsters and got a secure win

Scenario 62

Goal: Kill the Hungry Soul

Team: Brute (lvl 8), Elementalist (lvl 8), Soothsinger (lvl 9)

Set difficulty: 5

A single, if somewhat large, room with living bones and living spirits. The elementalist wipe out the living spirits with a well-timed vengeance. We can then focus on the immediate goal of slaying 10 living bones (they keep popping up each round).

Once it’s done (not a big feat), the Hungry Soul manifests itself. Oddly, the Hungry Soul is no big deal as it’s just a slightly stronger elite living bones (with a strong shield that diminish the more living bones there is). So all in all, an anticlimactic end to the Fall of Man thread.

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Victory!

  • All three of us can now retire our characters, that’s pretty awesome!

Gloomhaven: Echo Chamber

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, gloomhaven

We’re supposed to investigate a dragon sighting in the copperneck mountains, but more frivolous adventurers the world as never seen. We’ve sidetracked at the first occasion, in this case after seeing some odd writings on the walls of a cave mentionning a « voice ». Or rather: The Voice.

Scenario 24

Goal: Open all doors

Team: Brute (lvl 7), Elementalist (lvl 7), Soothsinger (lvl 7)

Set difficulty: 4

We start the scenario with our first encounter with drakes (of the rending variety) and oozes. The soothsinger immobilize the whole lot before the elementalist softens them up. I then finish the two leftmost drakes with a devastating swing of my battleaxe. The way is clear (mostly).

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In the next room floats 4 living spirits with their annoying shields and all.

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But they’re promptly zapped into oblivion by the elementalist.

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Living spirit: « I think it’s our cue! » Living spirits in unison: *anguished wail*

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3 more drakes. We manoeuver so that they’re bunched together and:

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Boom! They’re disintegrated, just like that.

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Things are so smooth & easy, we’re swaggering our way deeper into the echo chamber. We will pay the price for our overconfidence though…

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Only one door to open to win the scenario, but at least one of us must survive the round and it now seems far from certain…

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The elementalist goes down too but the soothsinger survives to win the day. With 1 hp!

  • That was an incredibly close call!
  • Upon verification,  surviving the final round isn’t mandatory but that would have felt like cheating…
  • The drakes are hard-hitting but not very durable, glass cannons essentially.
  • I think this scenario should be fairly easy, with a sound plan, on most play

Gloomhaven: Decaying Crypt

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, gloomhaven ,

The thing with dead people is that there’s so, soooo many of them. You just can’t take a wrong turn without stumbling upon a crypt. I mean, could they not just disappear or something? If at least they could stay dead dead but then, do they ever? They don’t! The stinking wretches just keep going on… Living Bones, Living Corpses, even Living Spirits. Living Spirit… What the hell does that even mean? Oh well, as long as I can hit them with my axe…

Scenario 6

Goal: Reveal M tile, Kill all revealed monsters

Team: Brute (lvl 4), Elementalist (lvl 5), Soothsinger (lvl 4)

Set difficulty: 3

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The soothsinger’s melody is so angst-filled that even the dead feel depressed…

The soothsinger’s immediate crippling chorus gives us time to prepare. I push the lone living corpse to get it in a perfect cluster for the elementalist’ next attack:

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Soothsinger: « I’ve got first kill! I’ve got first kill! »

We mostly ignore the zombies living corpses that are oozing disgusting fluids everywhere since the elementalist’s ice-spiked them.

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Three more living bones and three living spririts behind in the next room.

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I jump in the middle of the living spirits to slash them with a devastating hack while the elementalist attacks the living bones with a (successful, yay!) chain-lightning.

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Elementalist: « Could you help us finish those, please? » Brute: « I can’t hear ya! There’s too much moanin’ and singin’! »

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Brute: « For the Blood God! »

As I open the next door, a living spirit, a particularly dreadful one, blasts me with a necrotic ray that stuns me. That’s bad. Every damn monster in the room wants a piece of me. When I regain my senses, bleeding from many wounds, I lift my axe one last time and slay a living corpse before falling down on my knees. At least, the Blood God is pleased.

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Elementalist: « Noisy, you’re still here? » Soothsinger: *Hit living bones with his lute* « Yes! »

With so many monsters left, the situation looks dire. But then the elementalist quickly kills 2 living spirits with a spell and then turns his attention to  the stronger one:

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And make it explode!

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soothsinger, 5 rounds later: « I swear, this thing won’t f**cking die! »

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soothsinger: « Unless… »

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(bottom) « Get into this trap will you! »

Frantic lute-playing Victory Tune!

  • We did not reveal the other part of the crypt as there was no need
  • I burned through my cards waaaay too fast this time
  • the lvl 5 elementalist has been very, very efficient and saved the day
  • the soothsinger swamped the monsters in curses, we felt almost invicible, no kidding