Hold the Line ~Single Player Mission

[aldrichgreg]

alright so finally I did my first test play of this scenario, and I think I am agreed that ramping up the difficulty might be a worthwhile consideration, though there is a serious outstanding discrepancy in my play-through.

I only have TP, HP1, and Survival of the Fittest (I play in a group that has the original LNOE, so I haven't needed to shell out and buy it yet). I played with TP and HP1.

my heroes selected (randomly) were: Nikki, Alice, Ed, and Jade. at first I was apprehensive since Nikki's Rescue Gear wasn't as powerful as it typically is and Jade's Rebellious wasn't as powerful either. I actually forgot to draw an upgrade for Ed (I realize as I write this...)

the horde advanced and the heroes searched for a couple turns. we found both hopeful discoveries and put them to good use so that all the heroes had a pretty even distribution of weapons. in addition I found both restocks (never played), both Lucky Breaks (one used), a Get Back you Devils (never used), and Samantha Radio DJ (never used). the weapon distribution was as follows:

Alice: Hunting Rifle, Chainsaw.
Nikki: Signal Flare (used), Pump Shotgun (ran out of Ammo).
Ed: Survival Torch, Pick Axe.
Jade: Police Shotgun. (she was also two turns away from getting her hands on the Logging Axe from the second Hopeful Discovery.)

Ed made it to the radio tower first but got low rolls and didn't get to fight till turn 7, but managed some brawling that killed the last zombie standing.

Alice got the hunting rifle, found a good position, and sniped the entire left half of the board, minus one zombie whom she chainsawed (she got the Sharp Shooter upgrade, though I never had need of this ability.)

Nikki, venture out onto the right half of the board and signal flare and then promptly ran out of ammo with the pump shotgun.

Jade backed up Nikki and Police Shotgunned the right half of the board (within two turns of firing.)

the whole showdown was over in 8 turns. overall we only took two wounds collectively (one for Alice and one for Ed--though he could've Survival Torched that sitch--man, I played that character poorly...)

anyway, it makes me wonder if the more brutal rules of TP aren't tipping the scale in the heroes' advantage for my play of this scenario. certainly when I run it again, and I will, this is an excellent one-player scenario, I will not have upgrades, and I will most likely consider pulling the police shotguns from the deck--it was just too powerful. I might pull the hunting rifles as they are a bit too much in this scenario, I imagine.

that being the case, I think TP might just be a little out of balance for this set-up. I am in support of developing some alternate conditions to up the difficulty, at least for TP. it might be fun to develop a sliding scale of difficulty (heroic, master, legendary, or some such title). I think I might consider adding grave weapons to the zombies, though that wouldn't have saved them this time around, but without 2 Hopeful Discoveries...

anyway, it is great scenario concept. I am now super curious about Jason's new development...