Maybe a bit off-topic for this thread, but as it was already brought up here, I have to say I’m not too worried about the Lord-teleporting either – except in the case of Lord Asmod! He is the only Lord that just gives you a clear benefit (+1 luck to a random hero) if you immediately leave Hell Time – and he also happens to be the one Lord that I think scales poorly in difficulty on different player counts. Against only two heroes, Asmod is almost as bad as Cthulhu thanks to his ability to control 50% of your heroes; whereas against five players he controls only 20% of your heroes each turn and becomes rather weak.

Now, your chances of succesfully exploiting the Lord-teleporting also increases with more heroes, as there will simply be more opportunities for it every turn. Against Asmod, with five players you can potentially net five extra luck each turn just by Lord-teleporting and placing the heroes in the right places; with just two players the most you can net is two extra luck per turn.

Combine these two factors and now Asmod becomes a cakewalk with a group of five smart players, whereas against only two players he remains very strong still. Considering that the difficulty of all the other Lords seems to remain pretty much the same regardless of the player count (thanks to the existing difficulty scaling mechanics in the game), it feels odd that Asmod works so very differently. I would not go so far to call him “broken”, but I really think there needs to be a way to stop players exploiting the Lord-teleporting against him.

Yep, I would rather see double-tokens in Hell (or the flipside, zero tokens added on movement turns), than a rule penalizing players for defeating all Hell minions (instead of n-1 minions) on the turn prior.

The arguments for zero:

– it is appropriate on these maps due to the loss of a board space from shadow’s expansion.

– it is what would happen most (all?) of the time in Sandy’s rule anyway, because players would just leave a limbo minion.

But I would take either way over it being a conditional.  At best, having it be conditional is just unnecessary.  At worst, it is an unfun trap that will be sprung only by new players after an accomplishment of defeating as many Hell minions as they could.

Hi Sandy.  Personally I welcome these new changes and think #2 and #3 are good compromise between what others have already house-ruled and the original rules.  I do think that the Moonbase map will need to be addressed, however, if #2 and #3 are to become in effect.  I think the White Gate minions will need to spawn on the Lord’s Area, not the White Gate, otherwise we could have a build up of invasion tokens in the Shadow as the Lord moves, as cberney mentioned.

The Final Battle map might also need addressing.  Here we have 3 invasion tokens that spawn in the central location: one moves down Path 1, the 2^nd moves down Path 2, and the 3^rd moves down Path 3.  Path 1 is the concern, because as the Lord moves down Path 1 it will create the same situation as the Moonbase map.  Minions might build up on Path 1 which could lead to 6+ invasion tokens (ie. critters) existing in the Shadow at one time. 

The fix is a bit more fiddly due to the nature of the map.  We’d have to have one invasion token spawn on the Lord (that moves down path 1), and 2 invasion tokens that spawn in the central area (that move down path 2 and 3 respectively).

I will now invite anyone interested to review the proposal I made which would substitute for number 3, and can be used alongside any version of #2.  No Moon Base problem, and, has a cool use for the Gate:

Lords move only as the Shadow expands, not as an extra step in the Lord Cycle.

During setup, place the Gate in the next space in front of the Shadow.

When the Lord track hits 1:
– A 4th Circle Demon spawns on the Gate
– Minion Invasion: A new Shadow token spawns on the Gate, and the Gate advances. 

———————————–
Hell is in the entirety of the Shadow at all times; the Gate has no other inherent effects (but has a more interesting use than it does currently, for such a nice piece).

For “The Final Battle”, the Shadow does not expand, but the Lord now does march, as the map’s unique mechanism.

Cberney – the Lord moves in my version as well – please do not misconstrue it as otherwise.  Or at least, it moves just as much as it can in the written rule; the Lord moving is redundant to the Shadow token placement (in reality, the Lord is residing across all Shadow spaces).

It is the timing change that matters and fixes the issues – you can simply keep it in the rules as “the Lord moves” if you find it most fun.  Or rethink the thematic conception to match the true post-prototype mechanisms – as all of the Shadow being an expanding dark empire, where you can place the Lord and all of his minions and tokens in whatever fun formations within the shadow you like. 

I prefer this because it doesn’t obfuscate the functionally-important part for players. The primary problem of how we got here, and where I fear we are still heading, is holding on tightly to rule artifacts from previous versions, and trying to patch around them.

With this, as with the Lord Asmod et. al. Hell Time issues – I hope if Sandy Himself doesn’t wish to test, I ask for someone he trusts to actually set up and see what I am saying & report over to him, as I have spent an exorbitant amount of thought in the name of improving of his great game for his fans, during a time when they really felt left hanging on whether their concerns would be addressed.

If the picture’s Minion Phase header refers to the rulebook’ s full Enemy Phase, then that is the idea. The 4C Demon spawns during its normal timing i.e. as the Gifts clear for Lord track hitting 1, prior to minions attacking and moving.  The end picture is correct either way.

(If you end up liking the idea, I would then present the similarly effective variation of just moving the entire [Lord-track-hits-1-check / gift clear / 4C spawn in hell / shadow (& Lord) advance / Hell Time / 4C advance] to a consolidated step after all minion attacks / advances, for a matter of your preference.  But that has the 4C’s spawn damage effects occurring after the minions attack, and, also, an initial goal was to not change written rule structure too much.)