Hi Sandy, thanks for the clarifications.

For #3, do you mean to say Invasion tokens AND minions do not group together under the Lord’s Shadow but move independently?  For example, what will happen to the revealed minions that circle around from the Start on the Doomgate map?

Nevermind, ignore my second question.  I realize that playing it as an addendum rather than a replacement will still cause the double invasion token issue to occur.

Well, since folks are talking well enough on the topic of the double summon issues, I figure I’ll shift conversations to somethings I find concerning. I covered this in the discord, but figure I should bring it back up here for further discussion on the matter.

1) The adjustment to Bernice’s Teamwork ability is a humongous nerf. I understand the connection between Dorothy’s ability creates undesired loop, but to cut her dice down to only being doubled makes getting help from the rest of her team in those instances meaningless, and utterly tanks her effectiveness in a game without Dorothy thusly, Dorothy’s presence being the linchpin that the nerf hinges on. If Bernice needs a correction to her Text to allow Dorothy to not need her own adjustment, I would suggest to make Bernice’s ability say she can only gain 1 die per Teammate who helps her, allowing her team to contribute in full as before while accounting for Dorothy’s presence in the future.

2) The Double gift ban seems heavy handed, if not wholly unnecessary. I get it was how the game was tested, but that seems largely irrelevant unless doubling up on Gifts of the same name somehow creates a specific game breaking situation, and how the game was tested is not always how the game will be played in the hands of the general public. Does one player having multiple copies of the same Gift create any issues? If so, is it tied more to a specific Gift? If it is a legitimate gameplay issue with buying double Gifts in general, I can see reason for it. If not though, looking at individual problematic Gifts would be wiser to do. I understand correcting specific over general takes more time, but the double gift ban seems like a nerf for no other reason than to nerf. There’s rational to give your team’s go to fighter all of your attack buffs. Why would I want to boost Doc Hunter’s offense more than I feel is necessary when I could, and possibly should let Moose have the Sword of the Spirit instead? He’d make better use of it in the long run, especially if I have a decent attack bonus for general mob clearing myself. As it stands, one hero being able to buy multiple copies of Gifts of the same name has tactically sound reasoning to me. Unless there’s a reason for it to not be a thing, removing it as an option seems to be taking a sledgehammer to it when it doesn’t even call for a ballpin.

I really wonder what all the confusion of the double spawn mechanic is all about. Maybe I did not played the right maps where they cause trouble but I like the double spawns and the intensity it creates. I just want to voice my opinion that it really works in our gaming group.

Keep up the good work, Sandy. Love this game. 🙂

My initial gut reaction on 2 and 3 – the true problem really wasn’t double invasion tokens, it was doubled groups of minions (which is caused typically by doubled invasion tokens).  The fact that the above rule fixes double invasion tokens but doesn’t change the situation when tokens are revealed, is a lead that it might not holding up to rigorous testing.

Also, I’m really not a fan of rules which make things less thematic and more “gamey,” especially for a game like this one, and these rules ratchet that up In two ways — A) they create further differential between an invasion token and its revealed set of minions and B) they are very high-swing conditional rules.

So, instead of the nice flow of the game, concentrating strategies & tactics on the real meat of the game, and enjoying revealing the new bad guys and shooting things up, you have to thing of the new gamey contingencies of revealing an invasion token or having Ambushes down which would reveal them.  Now a simple reveal of an Invasion token can trigger the future spawning, and/or or combining, of a ton of minions.

And of course if you change the conditions to Minions instead of Invasion Tokens, then you still have gaminess by the ability to leave a limbo minion in a space to prevent spawning / combining.

I spent an absurd amount of hours on devising and testing changes to this problem and detailing them in other places in this forum which do not contain conditionals like these, as I really, really, really dislike these types of rules.

I don’t think the “gamification” issue will be as serious an issue if we think about that steps of the Lord Cycle.  You would never have to worry about troopers revealing an invasion token prematurely or popping an invasion token at opportune times because the “spawn step” happens after the invasion token in the Lord’s previous area moves to his current area, then the check is made.  The only time it would matter is if the heroes enter hell-time and killl the minions, then the Lord Cycle happens.  This ensures that the the Lord is protected with minions at all times.  We have to remember that many of the house rules that were proposed by others were to simply not spawn an invasion token at all during the Lord Cycle.  This could also have been gamified by allowing the heroes virtually an entire turn against the Lord without any minions in his area.

I do still have the same questions that Ville has on the Doomgate and Final Battle map.

The question isn’t whether or not revealed minions in the Shadow will join the Lord in hell-time — that’s clear from #3 — the question is whether or not revealed minions in the Shadow are also supposed to move independently (ie. next area vs. out of the shadow).  For Final Battle map, I think your right that it’s clear from Sandy’s wording that the 3 invasion tokens will still group up and join hell-time regardless if you enter the Lord’s Area or center area, since its in the Shadow.

to avoid teleport party, I think that is you don’t fight a single round against the lord then you should only be able to teleport to the start area, that way you won’t jump around the entire map spawning stuff using the Lord as jumping gate

Also, I think you’re misinterpreting the rule.  The invasion tokens would still spawn on the Lord’s current position, not the start area.  You would never have more than one invasion token in the Shadow on the first map (although you could have one invasion token + leftover minions from a previous hell-time battle).  Although now that you mention it, yes, we could have this issue on the Moonbase map, since the invasion tokens spawn on the gates and not the Lord directly.