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mariners95
Hired Hero
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posted September 02, 2005 03:09 AM |
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Session Reviews
Is there anyone who has played this game that can give us unfortunate ones a review of your game?
It would be great to read some games being played, you know to sort of to quench our appetite.
Thanks
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doc8466
Known Hero
Event Coordinator Annapolis MD
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posted September 02, 2005 12:56 PM |
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Do you mean a review from a players prospective, or a play by play of an actual game?
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TheFoeHammer
Known Hero
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posted September 02, 2005 03:14 PM |
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I can try to do a play by play after the fact, but a play by play is always hard because it takes a lot of time to record every move and if you don't do that after the game its hard to remember all that happened.
Dranuth and I started the game Tuesday night with a mixture of 7 tiles from an Underground group and 7 from an above ground group to choose from. We decided to play on a 4 tile map. The maps we chose randomly were two underground and two above ground. Their ended up being 3 castle towns to choose from, 2 of them were underground and one above. Dranuth, playing a Might deck, chose one of the underground castles and I, playing a Chaos deck, chose the above ground since the 2nd underground castle would either require 2 turns to reach or force me to fight through a location to reach it on turn 1. Also the way the above ground maps were layed out, there were some locations on islands that unless we had a boat, were unreachable by our heros.
We each drew our initial cards. I cannot comment on Dranuth's deck because I don't know it. My hand and deck initially did not have the locations I wanted but did have my Magic Arrow spell card. Since my starting hero was a sorcerer I was able to learn this Level 1 spell as soon as I reached my castle. This is a nice spell because it gives the sorcerer a ranged attack of 2 plus the caster's level, so later in the game it gets even more powerful.
Since I did not have my key locations yet (1 for my Level 4 creature and 1 for my Helm of Command) and since there were more accessible underground locations than above ground, I decided to define my closest location as a link to the underground (using the optional method of defining connections in the FAQ). Dranuth ended up being the guard flipper and added a Behemoth to a guard stack that already had a Cyclops and others in it. He really did not want me getting close to that second town and the other available resources that soon. So I ignored it for a while. My next locations were across desert hexes, so I was going to be trudging for a while, but I got started ASAP since Dranuth was not going to be coming through this location any time soon either.
Meanwhile Dranuth was having better luck down below. He defined locations and creature dwellings left and right. My Minotaurs held him back for a bit. But he was at Advanced Tactics and had a Gold Mine, his Level 4 Mine and several other defense boosting skills and artifacts long before I saw any significant progress. I was eventually able to get to Basic Tactics and Leadership and win my Level 4 mine. I came back to my town about the time that he was defining the second Castle. Since he had not been back to build up his army after his initial location-defining frenzy the flipped guards behind this town wall were a little scary and he backed off, so I had a little build up time while he regrouped. I built up enough and captured the 2nd castle he defined. He was beginning to build more each turn due to higher income so I took the opporunity once he was in range and struck first for the big battle.
I had two Hydras, my now Level 6 Sorcerer Hero, 3 Minotaurs and 5 Bandits, but I bought 2 more Bandits and my Thief Hero at the beginning of the battle which is a cool advantage to Chaos. Well he was now at Expert tactics and attacked two phases earlier on his troops and one phase earlier on the Hero due to the Halberd of the Swiftwatch. He had a couple of Nomads, 2 Behemoths and his Hero.
After suffering his initial attacks I had left my Sorcerer Hero, Thief Hero, Bandits and Minotaurs. I had taken out one of his Behemoths (I think) but lost my main force in the Hydras. My best shot was to combine my spell with the sacrificed minotaurs to get a 14 attack against his hero, just enough for an automatic kill with his defense bonuses. Taking out the hero would eliminate all his tactics and defense bonuses this and next round which would give me a fighting chance. His later round stuff this turn would take out some more, but I might take one of them with my other guys before they acted.
Well the only wrinkle in this plan was his Might Barbarian hero has Magic Resistance, on a 0-2 roll he can ignore the effects of the spell. He rolled... a 0!
Ouch!
After that he wrapped my army up pretty quick. His next shot this round with the cyclopses killed my two heroes before I could get to an end of round withdrawal. Since no one was guarding the towns and I had no more cards in my hand or deck to buy next round, I surrendered.
One die roll changed the course of that game, but boy was it fun!
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Dranuth
Tavern Dweller
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posted September 02, 2005 04:15 PM |
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It was a fun game and would have been a lot closer had I not mad that roll. The game would have been wide open. I might have killed his heros later in the round as well and then it would come down to what our units could do.
A truely fun game that ended in a narrowly won victory...just the way I like it!
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TheFoeHammer
Known Hero
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posted September 02, 2005 04:29 PM |
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Next time its my Death deck and Vampires for you buddy!
Payback time!
;-)
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Dranuth
Tavern Dweller
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posted September 02, 2005 04:50 PM |
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Hmmm a Death deck huh? Well I might just have to play life then and send in the Angels ;-)
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Talarius
Tavern Dweller
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posted September 02, 2005 09:15 PM |
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Thanks for the session report. I haven't played the computer games of HoMM so it was helpful to read this and get an idea of how a game plays out.
Question: What happens if you have more players than towns on the map? Someone will be in big trouble!
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mariners95
Hired Hero
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posted September 02, 2005 10:56 PM |
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Well that was exactly what I meant about a session review. So great job, Hammer. But now I just need more and more, it is like an addiction of some sort. 
Anyway cool account of your game.
Thanks
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doc8466
Known Hero
Event Coordinator Annapolis MD
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posted September 02, 2005 11:05 PM |
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I've heard of EverCrack, but never HOMMCrack!
I'll hopefully be playing this Sunday and will see what I can do about giving you a fix. 
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thefoehammer
Known Hero
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posted September 02, 2005 11:38 PM |
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Quote:
Question: What happens if you have more players than towns on the map? Someone will be in big trouble!
That should not happen. There are only a few map tiles that do not have a castle on them and you play a game with 1 more map tile than players.
For tournament play each player will provide a tile and the tournament organizer will provide one. So a player would kind of hurt themselves by bringing a tile with no castle, but it definitely could happen.
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doc8466
Known Hero
Event Coordinator Annapolis MD
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posted September 04, 2005 10:49 PM |
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Just finished a 5 hour 2 person 3 tile game!
We both know how to play, so there was no lag for learning.
I set my Order deck (tweaked with a mage intended to be hero #2)in the desert, my wife took her (magicless)Nature deck to the semi-scorched but otherwise workable castle. While she quickly ran around defining and leveling up, I plodded slowly to do the same. Luckily, I was my usual card drawing self, and was able to garrison my town fairly well. When I finally strayed a bit too far from my castle, she struck. I had a nice garrison, but it wasn't much of a contest. I took out 1/2 her army, but then fell in a White Tiger flury. Luckily, I had defined a Magi dwelling and recruited 5 before returning from my *beach*. She was happy recruiting from her home castle and wagon train-ing her reinforcements to where she was holed up in my former abode. Assuming I was coming back for revenge (a very fair assumption), she was surprised to see me bypass my old digs and head straight for her undefended homestead. Not wanting to lose that foothold, she chose to jump out of her fortified castle and go for the winning blow.
Note to readers:
Remember that part at the beginning about a 5 hr game?
So we faced off on even ground, with her Nature army lead by a nasty looking Phoenix, 2x3 Tigers, 4 Wolves, 1 or 2 Unicorns, a few Sprites and an archer type hero with the Emerald Long Bow (+4 to ranged attack). I had my Lord's defense stacked at 17 (Adamantine Armor + co-hero with Advanced Tactics/Defense) 5 Magi, 5-6 Halflings, 2 Gold Golems, 4 Dwarves, 3 Genies and the woefull Mage. I don't remember blow by blow, but the highlights were me rolling 0 THREE BLOODY FREAKING TIMES when a 2 would have killed my target. My Halflings and their +4 vs. level 4 units wiped out the Phoenix only to have it reborn! When the end was near, she finally decided to take a shot at my now 15 Def Hero (the other having been dispatched much earlier) needing a 6. And she rolled....drum roll please....the perfect 6. Shortly thereafter, it was down to 2 Tigers and a wolf vs 4 Magi. 2 Magi lived to tell the tale.
She started rebuilding her force back at home base and so did I. Soon I was back up to 6 Halflings, 3 Dwarves, 3 Gold Golems, 5 Genies, 2 heroes and 3 hungry Dragon Golems. Not wanting a repeat of our last battle, I stole her Alchemy lab to prevent more Phoenixes, marched to her starting fortress, and let my Dragon Golems eat their fill. I lost my Dwarves and Gold Golems, rolled a zero again, but the Dragon Golems won the day.
I'm going to untweak my Mage since I feel level 2 spells just weren't worth the wasted 6-8 slots. Since my Mage was supposed to have a supporting roll, I chose not to include anything above level 2. I used Slow, Precision, Magic Fist and Ice Bolt. Then again, maybe I'll re-tweak to have a Mage as my starting hero and focus on magic instead of crazy card draw.
Nah! I'll make Chaos my next deck and focus on magic then.
Until my next report...
Sayonara
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mariners95
Hired Hero
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posted September 04, 2005 11:42 PM |
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AHHHHHHH, thanks another fix.
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doc8466
Known Hero
Event Coordinator Annapolis MD
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posted September 24, 2005 11:11 PM |
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Finally got to do my first demo!
I finally got clearance to use a multi purpose facility at the Naval Acacemy to do demos. It's a gathering place with internet access, pool tables, Texas Hold'em tables, various board games and big screen TVs etc. Stuff to keep young Sailors out of trouble.
Unfortunately only one of the 3 people that had signed up showed. But it was great none the less! We had 2 lookers-on, one of which is a former MtG player, so he showed great interest (but showed up an hour into our game so all he got to do was watch) and the other stood back a bit listening to what was going on.
My Demo-ee chose a Might deck, I chose my Chaos deck. I've had no luck with my Chaos deck, never being able to level up past level 2. Thus no big bad spells which half defeats the way I hoped this deck would work. Unfortunately, my streak continued....
I first set out to define my Sulfur Mine so I'd be set with my Black Dragons. Flip for guards...Centaur, Berserker, Cyclops, Behemoth! ARGH! If it weren't for bad luck I think I'd have no luck at all. 
Next turn, define my Evil Eye lair. Flip for guards...2 Harpies, Cyclops, Thunder Bird! What are the chances of that?!?!
So I'm not going to get anywhere against these 2 guard forces, so off to define something else. 3 turns later I get to define my Troll lair.
Are you ready for this?????
Cyclops, Harpy, Nomad, Thunder Bird!
And these are all straigh flips from his deck! Nothing added from hand or adventure stack! I think someone is telling my I'm doomed with my Chaos deck since I started out with an Order deck which is still my favorite!
Anyway, my demo-ee proceeded to define and win 3 times, got into position to strike at my barely guarded town (2 Orcs, 2 Medusa) one turn before I could get back to prpoerly *attempt* to defend it. He stomped me, only losing 2 Berserkers then proceeded to continue on against my meager army, which was adjacent to the town, and ground the Demo-er to mulch.
Needless to say...he's hooked!
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mariners95
Hired Hero
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posted September 25, 2005 02:01 AM |
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Very nice one last fix, I was e mailed and I will get my cards on Wednesday, YES OH YESSSSS !!
High Five!!
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doc8466
Known Hero
Event Coordinator Annapolis MD
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posted September 25, 2005 04:10 PM |
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Glad I could help keep the jitters away until you're cured on Wednesday!
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