Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms

Now this is a true idle game!

In this simple but addictive clicker game, you are tasked with assembling a team of heroes to take on some well known D&D campaigns, crossing paths with the likes of Strahd, Halaster, Acererak, Valindra and Zariel. To win the missions through each campaign you'll need to mix, match and position your heroes to the best benefit of the party.

While "the tank is up front" might be obvious, there are many less so with some people preferring to be away from others, healers only healing the forward row or DPS buffing the back rows etc. While collecting gear is a thing, collecting and expanding your hero roster is also interesting as there are LOTS to collect. While some are locked behind some tough missions, most are readily available via monthly events, giveaways and time gates (which let you replay the monthly events you may have missed).

Once your party sets off, you can assist with clicking near the start but later on there is little to no input required from you making it a perfect game to run in the background. Indeed, the adventure continues even when you shut down the game albeit a little slower. This is fine as heroes can't die and you can't "lose" a mission unless you specifically back out of it. And you might just do that a few times to increase your "gold find" ratio.

Familiar faces all around.

Gold find is the main advancement metric through out each campaign. The more gold you have when you "end" a run (win or lose), the more gold find percentage you gain which will help you on future runs. How? Simple, your characters can level up sooner and higher. There is a pay to win component here but it is very slight as players are regularly bombarded by free chests and rewards anyway, a feature that really got me sucked into this idler. I give it three mind witnesses out of five and recommend it to people that enjoy this sort of thing.

Insight: If you reach a level that your team can't pass, simply rearrange them for starters as they might not be in the best positions anymore, especially after leveling up. To help on your journey, also regularly check this combinations page for free loot!

Tomb of Annihilation (board game)

Acererak awaits!

Having defeated Ravenloft, Tomb of Annihilation was quite refreshing with all the new yet simple mechanics thrown in. Firstly 2/3rds of the tile stack are outdoor and spacious jungle zones, while the last 3rd is a tight, trap filled tomb.

It's amazing some of these minis are only used once!

I also appreciated the enemy progression this time, and increasing the amount of experience required to cancel an encounter card is an eloquent way to make things harder and drive home the theme.  The spell deck is the biggest feature, yet is only used a handful of times, more often than not by adversaries! All up, a very fun adventure romp that is an improvement on all the previous iterations. I highly recommend it and give it 4.5 zorbos out of 5.

The Solved Games

Where enough experience leads to almost certain victory.

After numerous play throughs I'm finding that a few of my cooperative board games have reached a "solved" status - where repetitively using the right tactic often leads to victory. Spoilers / Tips ahead, depending on your point of view!

Police Precinct - never had a defeat in this, the team just to divide labour between keeping crime in check and finding the murderer / preferably focusing on what their character is good at but being fluid enough to adapt to the board. I still really like the "emergency" system. Score Adjustment: -1.

Pandemic / Pandemic: On the Brink - while defeat comes quickly if you go for the full epidemic card set having less than that almost makes for an easy game. The red ones of On the Brink are almost mandatory for us now as we can even win with the full green epidemic cards of the base game. Obviously the bio-terrorist option (which we haven't tried yet) might mix things up. Score Adjustment: -1.

Shadows Over Camelot - on full cooperative it is almost impossible to lose provided the team works together. Defeat only comes if everyone does their own thing and tries tackle the harder group quests solo, or keeps quest hopping. You don't have to win every quest, just be sure to win the important ones. I can see why the traitor mechanic is almost mandatory. Score Adjustment: -1.

Operation Flashpoint: Fire Rescue - while bad luck can ruin any game it can be mitigated a bit here simply through communication. Planning ahead pays well, as does not intentionally damaging the building more than necessary. Almost trivialized if you have the driver in the fire engine to provide cover. Score Adjustment: -1.

Zombicide Season 2: Prison Outbreak - knowing your perks and staying together (more HP to share around) is the main rule here, as well as sharing the XP so that the spawns don't become overpowered ahead of your team mates. Bad things usually happen when people wander off on their own, and most scenarios later on even force the players apart because they know a team together is near unstoppable. And that's even without equipment juggling. Hot potato chainsaw is fun. Score Adjustment: -1.

D&D Adventure Boardgame System - all the ones I currently have reviewed (Ravenloft, Ashardalon, Drizzt, ToEE) fall into this category. Victory lies in finding the quest tile fast, and that usually means splitting up to burn through the tile deck quicker. Yes, this puts more monsters on the board but they are usually more manageable than the dreaded encounter cards. Score Adjustment: -1.

Xenoshyft - though it delivers a few brutal losses at the start, once you know how to manage your card hand properly (don't buy garbage), and how to position troops (weakest dudes NEVER go at the end of the lane) loss becomes a thing of rarity in this game. Just don't expect any of your troops to live through the whole thing. Score Adjustment: -1.

Forbidden Desert - PSYCH! This is the true stand out in my current collection. Despite having such a simple premise each game requires active thinking from each participant to mitigate those deadly loss conditions. Such a treasure of a little game, and one I'm going to recommend again right here: if you haven't played Forbidden Desert yet, please go do so! Score Adjustment: +1, and is now the "best" game in my collection.

Neverwinter Online: Chult Totem Grind

The new campaign for NWO is out and with it comes some really nice looking areas which will be introduced to you in the somewhat lengthy intro quest. You'll also quickly learn that dinos have a big aggro range, Batiri that glow red are very dangerous, to watch your ranged attacks as to not draw unintentional aggro from the densely packed mobs, and to turn away from the giant eye icons above the yuan-ti dancers who can push or pull you into said mobs.

Also, don't piss off the King of Spines. :P

More importantly, you'll also be introduced to the new grind which is that for totems, the currency that unlocks this new campaign. You can only collect 100 per week to begin with but can boost that as you advance. How does one get to the 100 per week though? The Prince in the new hub gives you 6 patrol quest bonus rewards per week, which each give 5 totems, so that's 30 out of the way. His patrol quests (the ones that start from the city) are quite fun too. You might need to wait a few minutes if you finish them too quickly for his quest cycle to restart though.

There's another 20 from a weekly that comes from defeating a rare critter, which randomly spawns in the place of a regular mob. Hopping to a channel with less people gives you a better chance of finding one I feel since I encountered 2 at a very off-peak time. I'll keep an eye on that  and update here if it continues to be the case.

The remainder of the totems will need to come from repeatable quests at Camp Vengeance, giving 5 totems each. There aren't that many variants, but if you are just gunning for totems, the path of least resistance (with or without a party) seems to be "Rescue Templars" and then "Rescue Scouts from Batiri". They're fast, and don't involve fighting your way into (and then out of) one of the many ruins or sanctify spots required from the other quests.

Does that sound boring and repetitive? Yes, but it's also efficient. There might be better options as more quests get unlocked, but for now that is my plan of attack.

Today I Smiled: Neverwinter Birthday!

The Fourth Protector's Jubilee, which is the annual in-game celebration of Neverwinter Online's birthday, has come and gone - leaving those who attended and participated in the optional events with a lot of free goodies. While I missed out on the last one, I still recall there was speculation if it would ever reach year IV. I'm happy to report that the game is going stronger than ever!

It wasn't only Neverwinter's birthday recently, but also mine, which meant I got even more free stuff in game courtesy of my brother, Dragonlord, who gifted me with a Celeste and lesser bonding runes among other things, and a random stranger named EdwinaVC of the Blackcloaks (alliance) who gave me a Hell Emblazon Worg mount! Thank you very much!

As a PSA for those who play NWO: get the Wanderer's Fortune mount boon if you don't have it already. It's a fantastic source of refinement points, so much so that bag space is again an issue for me.

Wish I could put these thrones as static statues.

While on the topic of Dungeons and Dragons I'm also happy to report that my group has finished the Legend of Drizzt boardgame, and have now moved on to Castle Ravenloft to face the ever present Strahd. It's pretty cool so far - I'll have a review up on that after we play it a bit more. Nice to know the next module, the Tomb of Annihilation, has a board game slated for simultaneous release.

More blog posts coming up shortly, here are some interesting clips for you to watch: a very impressive coin magician and a kid who solves the Rubix cube in his head. Might look like he's doing nothing, but just wait till that blind fold goes on. What's worse - this is a tournament - so there must be others doing the same thing. :O

Have a great day everyone!