The air stank more heavily of necromancy the deeper they moved into the cave. Jain led the way, proceeding as quietly as possible, peering hard into the darkness, and carefully stepping around the old bones littering the hallway. When they saw the flicker of torchlight ahead, Leoric concealed the glow of his enchanted stone, and Grisban tested the weight of his axe.
As they continued forward, they were startled to see the confident, muscular figure of a familiar dragon hybrid. What did Belthir’s presence mean? It seemed the Overlord had schemes within schemes…
Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce that six Lieutenant Packs for Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition will soon open all new avenues of play!
These Lieutenant Packs allow you to replace your Core Set lieutenant tokens and bring the overlord’s most powerful agents to life. Each pack features a detailed plastic figure at the same 28mm scale as the game’s hero figures. Moreover, each lieutenant comes with a personalized Plot deck and rules that allow the overlord to summon him to service in nearly any campaign!
A Change of Plans
The sculpted plastic figures that come in each of these Lieutenant Packs allow you to further immerse yourself in your heroic journeys through Terrinoth, but the figures aren’t the full story of these packs. Rather, they’re just the beginning…
You may remember we had earlier announced our plans to release these lieutenant figures in pewter; however, we came to realize though that those pewter figures wouldn’t deliver on one of the core design principles of Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition : Every Descent release should broaden the whole game. While the pewter lieutenant miniatures would have offered players deeper immersion into the quests in which those lieutenants appeared, they would have been limited to those quests. They wouldn’t broaden the entire game, so they went back to the design team.
What’s the Biggest Change?
The goal was to find a way to develop lieutenant figures that could improve the quests in every campaign, not just the quests from the Core Set .
We needed a way to make these new Lieutenant Packs fully compatible throughout the game, playable both with all existing campaigns and with all campaigns yet to come. This led to the development of the Plot deck and new rules that allow the overlord to spend the packs’ new threat tokens to summon a single lieutenant of his choice into any campaign, excepting those in which that lieutenant already appears.
The result is that your Lieutenant Pack is far more than just an attractive replacement for your lieutenant tokens; it’s a portal to a whole new, tactical play experience.
Why Introduce Plastic Figures?
The ability to use your lieutenants in additional campaigns makes these new Lieutenant Packs a better value than lieutenants that would have been limited to the Core Set quests. Still, our examination of the overall value of each of these Lieutenant Packs also led us to move from pewter to plastic.
Casting these figures in plastic allows us to provide them to you at a greatly reduced price. For example, the sculpt of Valyndra that we plan to release at a later date would retail for approximately $30 in pewter, but as a plastic figure, we expect to be able to release it for roughly half that price.
A prototype sculpt of the great Wyrm Queen, Valyndra
While the pewter miniatures would have been fine token replacements, these detailed plastic figures offer you a broader game experience, and at a lower price, even after we factor in each lieutenant’s Plot deck, tokens, and rules. All told, these new Lieutenant Packs add a lot more to your overall experience of Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition .
How Does a Plot Deck Work?
Each lieutenant comes with a personalized Plot deck of ten cards, and at the start of a campaign, the overlord can choose a single lieutenant’s Plot deck to use throughout the entirety of the campaign.
Then, in addition to its Plot deck, each Lieutenant Pack introduces rules that allow the overlord to gain and spend Threat to buy Plot cards and trigger their abilities. Thus, each Plot deck offers the overlord a number of choices to make as the campaign progresses. He can focus on his class and overlord deck, or he can buy Plot cards and spend Threat to trigger them. For the overlord player who prefers to gain more consistency in his approach, the Plot deck offers tactical alternatives to the randomized overlord deck.
It’s worth noting, too, that the packs’ new threat tokens are double-sided. Once the overlord spends them to trigger Plot cards during a quest, they’re flipped over and become fortune tokens. The heroes can then spend these fortune tokens to trigger their choice of a variety of beneficial abilities.
You can learn more about how to use the Plot deck and threat tokens by visiting our Descent Lieutenant Packs description page .
How Do I Summon My Lieutenant?
Each Plot deck features a “Summon” card that allows you to swap a number of specified monsters out of any quest to gain the pack’s lieutenant (with specific restrictions identified on each “Summon” card). For example, the overlord could spend three threat tokens to buy the Summon - Zachareth Plot card, and he could trigger it at the beginning of a quest by spending another two Threat. Then, he could bring Zachareth to the table by swapping out one master and one minion monster from an open monster group.
Combined with the way the Plot deck allows the overlord to build his power in a fashion similar to the heroes, the ability to summon your lieutenant to almost any campaign means that Descent becomes a far more versatile game. Each lieutenant has a strong personality, and by changing the personalities and tactics you associate with different campaigns, you gain tremendous replayability.
Which Lieutenants Will Be Available?
Our first six Lieutenant Packs give new life to the Core Set lieutenants: Splig, Belthir, Zachareth, Alric Farrow, Merick Farrow, and Eliza Farrow.
These Lieutenant Packs are scheduled to arrive at retailers everywhere in the fourth quarter of 2013. Until then, you can find more information by visiting our Descent Lieutenant Packs description page !
Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition is a story-driven board game for 2-5 players that takes a party of adventurers deep into the dungeons of Terrinoth for adventure, treasure, and glory. Players will embark on a campaign of linked quests as they develop characters based on four fantasy archetypes.