Gloomhaven: Jekserah's Corruption

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

After we learn that donating to the temple not only grants us temporary blessings but also increases Gloomhaven's prosperity it has become a common practice for each of us to drop 10 coins in there (the maximum after each mission) and are informed by the clergy about a wise seer in the mountains who can divine the locations of anyone or anything so we pay him a visit, only for him to test us against his guardian golems, spirits, drakes and bears!

Luckily Juris' new insta-kill (non-elite) is on hand to deal with the harder hitters while I backstab majority of the ranged foes by getting into their room and hiding in there while the rest clog up the singular bottleneck doorway. Victorious, we ask the seer the location of Jekserah and pay her a visit in the mausoleum she's hiding in. She's definitely leveled up her necromancy as almost every single round she summons new zombies but carefully thrown daggers from Juris ends her and her minions for good!

The local guard congratulate us on this feat by means of offering more work. Mentioning dragon sign to the North and a horrible corruption from below the city. We opt to try the sewers first as there are no "travel encounters" for such a short trip. Inside are snakes, vermlings and self-replicating (but also suicidal, because replicating hurts themselves) oozes. DL gets hammered in the second room here but it is Juris who goes down first. Not to worry though as Jim and his spiderbot make it through unscathed while testing out his new disintegration beam. :O

Almost every time you open a door there's an army waiting on the other side...

Alas, in the end these just turned out to be regular sewer denizens as the source of the corruption seems to be coming from further below.

Gloomhaven: Inox Warehouse of the Damned

[Part of the Party Time journal]  

I love how every starting room immediately puts you in the sh*t.

Jekserah's next job was basically the massacre of an Inox encampment which wasn't so bad physically, but felt somewhat wrong when I found the tent they were protecting their young in. No slaying of younglings was required though, as we had to flee before their returning war parties could get us. A guard lady back at Gloomhaven then confirmed our suspicions that Jekserah might not be such a good employer so we decided to snoop on her warehouse to find that she's summoning undead in TOWN! Luckily her zombies are fat, slow, and tend to hurt themselves but her two huge bodyguards with their AoE attacks do a good job of covering her escape. I make good use of jump abilities to deal decent damage but it is Jim and DL that take down the first one and Juris beheads the second.

We try track Jekserah down to a crypt where more undead have been reported but it turns out to be the bandit cult again and they've progressed to summoning earth and wind demons! Random note: opening multiple doors works better in this game as your cards/stamina impose a pretty tough time limit. The earth demons are lumbering and slow and are dealt with using Jim's cunning and Juris' steel while the glass cannon wind demons are tremendously difficult to hit (or rather, to hit through their shield). Jim actually has to come over and help take care of the last one with his piercing bow to cinch the victory here, as DL and I were just taking too long.

Once cleared we find a map made by the cultists indicating another of their ritual sites, and a mark on a different crypt where it seems they've lost control of their summoned dead. We opt to go to neither and return to town to rest!

Gloomhaven: Black Barrow Lair

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

A mercenary team composed of an Inox brute warrior (Juris), a cragheart (DL), vermling mindthief (me), and tinkerer (Jim) were hired to collect a magic tome from some bandits based in a crypt that possibly once was the home of a baby black dragon... Apparently the bandits had some warning since they had six guards ready in the first room! With Juris and DL tanking and Jim healing, I had the opening to not just backstab a few fools but also to open the door to the next hall, introducing three archers into the fight... but just them, because I was "gaming" it knowing that there's a limit of "figurines" even in the digital version which means the additional 3 bandits that would otherwise be here as well were missing.

My summoned rat swarm could tank some arrows as DL and I cleared out the archers while Juris and Jim finished off the initial guards. Juris then opened the last chamber and got pelted by the numerous archers sitting behind some multi-armed skeletons, downing our horned warrior and giving Juris an aversion to doors. Luckily we could manipulate the skeletons into the already set traps and smashed the remaining archers at close range where they have disadvantage at attacking.

With Juris revived the team proceeded downstairs where the bandit boss was busy summoning more skeletons, and I goofed by overestimating my rat swarm and ending in a bad forward position (while not being invisible). As such, I got wounded significantly early and just piled on as much hurt on the boss before collapsing in exhaustion. Luckily Juris sword and DL's hurled boulders took care of the other bandits while Jim got the finishing shot off on the boss, clearing this level. Since we couldn't open the five mystery doors, it was back to the city of Gloomhaven to get paid by our patron, the merchant Jekserah, who was happy to take the accursed tome off our hands for some coin.

Dark Deity: The Mountain

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Upon returning to the mainland where everyone hates them, Lincoln leads the growing team into a cavernous mountain to hide out but first must secure it from the resident dragon! Fenton the dwarf and an awesome snarky acolyte named Faust help them defeat it without any casualties. 

It looks pretty cool though!

Hearing news that King Varic has ordered mass executions at a nearby prison, the team does a prison break next - freeing archer Rose and barbarian Alexa (who they themselves captured before) along with other prisoners to join the revolt. Cia gets concussed again during this and Maeve and Ford expend some luck, but they are able to escape a cordon of soldiers with the help of some food buffs and the powerful storm witch, Liberty, who happens to be Irving's aunt.

Due to these actions the undead forces of the necromancer, clearly in league with King Varic, locates their mountain base and launches an all out assault upon them, weakening Iris and Liberty with necrotic poison, sapping the luck of both Rose and Ford, burning Alden to a crisp, beheading Aurima, giving Maeve lightning inflicted shakes, and beating down Thae'lanel before the necromancer finally runs out of mana and is forced to retreat.

Rolling Damage List:
Irving [DEAD]
Cia [4/5]: -1 Str, -0 Magic, *-0 Magic
Benji [DEAD]
Elias [2/5]: -1 Dex, -2 Magic
Samara [DEAD]
Sophia [DEAD]
Lincoln [3/5]: -2 Str
Corvan [4/5]: -1 Mastery
Garrick [3/5]: -1 Mastery, -1 Dex
Alden [DEAD]: -1 Def, *-7 HP
*Iris [4/5]: -1 Def
*Liberty [2/5]: -3 Def
*Rose [4/5]: -1 Luck
*Ford [1/5]: -2 Luck, -2 Luck
*Aurima [DEAD]: -7 HP
*Maeve [2/5]: -1 Luck, -2 Mastery
*Thae'lanel [4/5]: -1 Fort

Dark Deity: Fireball to the Face

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Having saved the team from defeat by cut scene, Sara and Samara convince them to help fight against a bigger threat which includes the necromancer they encountered before. The team agrees and go with the princesses to the desert to meet their contacts Corvan the thief and warrior nun Helena who lead them to a monastic arena which contains knowledge to the aspects (artifacts) of the gods, the same thing they believe the necromancer was after.

Aurima, the monk tank within, challenges them to combat for this knowledge and is only defeated after giving Benji a close call with his spear, Elias a burned finger, and Samara a fear of fire. Pleased with the result, the big monk joins them and leads them to a not so well hidden temple further in the sands where warrior priest Vesta is holding off an army of undead! The team rush to her aid and (re)slay the enemy, but not without injury. Sophia is killed by a poisoned arrow, Lincoln gets part of his soul drained, and Irving takes a fireball to the face - annihilating him from existence.

Rolling Damage List:
Irving [DEAD]: -1 Def, *-5 HP
Cia [4/5]: -1 Str
*Benji [3/5]: -2 Luck
*Elias [4/5]: -1 Dex
*Samara [4/5]: -1 Fort
*Sophia [DEAD]: -5 HP
*Lincoln [3/5]: -2 Str

Dark Deity: Royal Bluff

[Part of the Cursed story line]

A trio of bandit hunting ladies arrive as the squad is cleaning up, and soon after an evil looking mage also arrives who asks if they found a particular gem in the bandit's possession. Garrick lies that they haven't so the evil mage, who turns out to be a necromancer, resurrects all the bandits and leaves - calling it a day. LOL. The "bandit hunters" Sara (mage), Samara (guardian) and Brooke (rogue) help clear out the undead bandits (who seem to be just bandits with white powdery make up) and reveal they too are after the gem but instead of taking it decide to leave Brooke with the squad to help defend it while the other two go off to see if they can find out more about the necromancer.

King Varic isn't pleased by the tardiness of their arrival at the capital but they earn his respect again by easily taking down a nearby camp of deserters led by the barbarianess Alexa, so he commands them to next march against the invading Aramoran army  whom they first encounter vandalizing an aqueduct and chase them off. It is here they gain the idiot knight Benji and the Aramoran archer deserter Caius, who doesn't want to slaughter innocents but is a-ok to slaughter his own people. At Redhill the team easily defeats the Aramoran invaders are captured by the Aramoran cavalry (via cutscene) only to be rescued by Sara and Samara, actual Aramor royalty, who bluff their way to getting the squad to safety.

How!? The town was cleared of enemies! Defeat by cut scene sucks.

Rolling Damage List:
Irving [4/5]: -1 Def
Cia [4/5]: -1 Str

Waiting for Duviri: The Sixth Strategy

The best way to combat fear is with a plan, so here are games that make you think!

Rise of Industry

I'm not a fan of building games, and this one which features sharp geometric graphics that also demands you put roads to your dig sites, determine how much stuff goes into which warehouse, and makes sure you plant trees so that in future years you have trees to lumber is way too much micromanaging for me. It even has a 72+ step tutorial to micromanage the players!

City of Gangsters

While you aren't building structures in this game, you will be building connections along street corners with people you want to extort, trade things, get introductions to, and the like as you grow your illegal empire. A good example would be if you don't like the beat cop patrolling your turf you can track down his family (immediate and extended) and threaten them to coerce his allegiance. Crazy right? There's lots of that level of detail here, but boy they will make you work (and read, so much reading) for it. It's ultimately still a management game though, so not for me.

Hundred Days: Wine Making Simulator

Using tetris. Yes. You read that correctly. In fact you'll want to "upgrade" your field so that your tetris shaped "tasks" can all fit into it. While that part is nice and simple, there's a ton of reading for the other systems of bottling and selling the wine and since I'm not an alcohol drinker myself, this lost my interest quickly.

Shop Titans

With good graphics and simple systems this game about running and maintaining a fantasy shop is excellent - EXCEPT for all the timers and cash shop nag boxes to skip said timers. Selling stuff gets you gold that you can invest on your resource harvesters to deliver faster and for your heroes (who you are supplying gear to) to rest/get to the quest faster so that you can get the things you need to build the thing this customer is asking for! But you can only build two things at a time and each takes time to build! The pay to speed things up option is annoying and as most of the game is just waiting it really is just a waste of time.

Iratus: Lord of the Dead

This is Darkest Dungeon but in reverse. You are the titular Iratus, a wise cracking undead necromancer who sends his battle squads of up to four monstrous units against the humans who wronged him. While your namable units can make enemies go insane and/or flee, it's usually better to just kill them because from their parts you can make new units and so on as you follow a map (encounter choices) that inevitably leads upwards and out of your crypt. Fun but repetitive. Just like Darkest Dungeon.

Filament

The only way to access the deeper parts of this spacecraft is to power them up by sending a droid with a long power cable to loop around the generators! This puzzle game gets hard really fast as the droid can't cross back over the cable, the cable can't touch the "dark" generators and in some cases you must wrap around the generators in a specific order, only said generators are constantly rotating around the room. Even though its not one for me, this is an excellent game if you like challenging your mind.

Warframe: Oberon and Nekros

The paladin and the necromancer.

Before we get into the frames there's currently a code for two free weapons (and weapon slots) you can redeem on the warframe website on in-game market (use the button on the bottom right): WF-DEATH-BATTLE

Not sure if that's due to the upcoming Tennocon or thanks to the recent Death Battle involving an Excalibur, but either way its a win for us - use it quick before it expires! On to the frames...

Oberon

Not sure how I got my hands on this paladin class warframe as it was waiting for me upon my return, and I found it to be just ok. No super strong offensive abilities but it can buff and heal allies while being pretty sturdy itself. After completing mastery on it I let it go because I'm usually a lone wolf type player anyway.

Then Wrothak shows up in a prime version to help me on a few missions (those freaking Orb Mother Heists on Venus) which just proved I was using it completely wrong (guaranteed I'm using 90% of all warframes wrong anyway since they have to "shine" for me before they get forma or potatoed/reactor) and while I was hiding from the Corpus army doing my sneaky Loki thing he was just tanking them AND the Orb Mother for a time. Definitely a frame I underestimated, just still not one for my playstyle.

Nekros

Easily farmable from Lephantis on Deimos (who is basically a pinata when fighting fairy Titania) the Nekros' main draw is his ability to make corpses cough up more loot. Oh, he can also punch enemy souls from out of them, summon ghosts of killed enemies as allies and scare badddies into running away which doesn't go well with any of his other abilities.

If I needed a word to describe him it would be: boring. For the most part Nekros is a warframe without powers. His punch is weak, the summoned dead expire, and what you will be doing most of the time is double looting corpses. Bleh, not a frame for me. Luckily he's an easy one to reclaim if I ever want to.

Zombicide: Black Plague

Undead spawned by necromancers!

A step up from it's more modern predecessor, this figurine heavy game plays much like the other Zombicides where players cooperatively complete missions while more and more baddies spawn. The casing for these is great, and the player boards are really handy and useful.

Added here are necromancers who try to dash across the board and if they make it leave another spawn point for things to pop out. Usually they are just flavor though, and only really pose a threat of escaping if the game is already going sideways.

The dead will always outnumber the living...

Best of all, the stupid rule of "if you shoot into a crowd of zombies and you have an ally there, all your shots will hit your ally until s/he is dead and then it will hit zombies" in previous Zombicides has been changed to be "there's a chance to hit your ally".

Expect to be searching a lot though, as only one starting equipment piece can harm the fat zombies. Worse, you need to find two items to destroy an abomination because there is no strength three weapon in the game. It's really annoying, especially as on more than one map it IS the main target.

That's also the main reason this game was left on my unfinished list for such a long time. So all up, yep - a decent cooperative outing that's better than previous Zombicides... but not much better. I give it 3.5 fireballs out of 5.

Insight: Always play with the recommended character count regardless of the number of players as that's how the maps are balanced.

The Cursed: Goddess of Snakes

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The team soon discover that the lizardmen are just minions to something deeper in the caves, and after fighting through legions of skeletons and their necromancer whom Olchyr wins a magic duel against, the team finds an out of place, friendly temple.

Naryu's snooping quickly reveals them to be Yuan-ti's though, and while Olchyr is killed in the mayhem, the team free another adventuring group comprised of Marchon, Iholikan Quinval, Reise Coppersky and Cristiana Knight who help them clear what turns out to be a large base of the snakemen - including their marilith "goddess" who hacks up Nessa in the final confrontation before being put down.

All the red areas are traps!

They find the scrying orb Arundel sent them to retrieve on the marilith, who is also not the "cold evil" given her entire mandate was to melt the ice for her followers. Upon returning to Kuldahar they find it under attack by Neo-Orogs (orogs taking performance enhancing drugs?) who are easily slain.

Unfortunately they got to Arundel who with his dying breath, instructs the team to take the orb to tower of the Severed Hand - and to the last person nearby who can use it. Iholikan and Marchon stay behind to guard the town while the remainder head back out to the mountains.

Insight: Blast skeletons are skeletons with IEDs strapped on. They explode upon death, so kill em from a far!

Eador: Exploding Units are the Worst

[Part of the Masters of Eador story.]

The scout, Dynrigg is sent to the next shard against Beleth's forces where he enlists the aid of dryads, fairies and finding that most of this land is faithful almost to the point of zealotry to "the Lord of Light". Since they still view Nesturs as "good" they do let Dynrigg pass through, but aren't as friendly to Beleth's evil champion.

Poison damages all opponents!

Dynrigg eventually lays siege to Beleth's stronghold there, and despite catastrophic losses to centaurs allied to the necromancer, the scout is successful, partially thanks to his success in poisoning their water supply before the battle but mostly thanks to the exploding gargoyles he learned to summon during his time with Archmage Kelaide.

Meanwhile in the void, another master appears - the barbarian Doh-Gor who wields a powerful magic amulet. He openly states his intent on destroying Nesturs. Soon.