When we placed the last tile, it included a Lair feature. The tile was a little crowded, with some impassable wooded spaces on the edges and bonfire in the middle. So we stuck the Lair in the back, as that's where there was the most space.
Sadly, this meant we could not get close enough to do damage to the Lair. The monsters (and their Captains) just kept pouring out into the cramped space, while our hands were combo-less and ineffective. The fight went a ridiculous 2.5 hours for this one little tile. We eventually triumphed, but our Archer was KO'd and all that saved the rest of us from falling with her was using Call To Arms to bring Marcus the Ready to our aid. It stayed fun, and very challenging right up to the last Hero Cycle, but boy was it long. Our guests left at 1 am.
I may have to reassess my analysis from a few days ago about game length. It's true we could have been more effective if we were a little more coordinated, and we could have defeated it quicker if we'd been a bit more strategic. Some portion of the delay was no doubt user tactical error... but even if we'd cut the length of that fight in half through stronger play (or better equipment) it's still over an hour for a single tile with a single Lair. (Some tiles can have up to 4 Lairs if you really want to challenge yourself!) I'd honestly felt prior to this that stopping points during Free Questing presented themselves every 15 to 30 minutes, with Slaughterfield Quests being the only likely exception that I was aware of. Turns out there are rather more exceptions than I'd imagined. The board situation was so complex, it would have been a huge burden to try to stop in the middle of that fight and record where everything was for next time. Luckily it was still tons of fun, but the notion that the players have total control of the length of the game turns out to be something of an illusion.
No comments:
Post a Comment