
Tainted and Foul
Preview the Monsters and Tainted Cards of Mists of Bilehall
The rumors of an undead army massing in the Mistlands have led you to journey closer to this cursed realm. Within the twisting, shifting mists, the servitors of Waiqar the Undying bicker and maneuver for power, preying upon each other until the day that Waiqar deems his forces powerful enough to march forth once more. This land is no friend to a hero of Terrinoth and as soon as you enter, you’ll feel the pervasive mists eating away at your very soul. Yet to uncover the truth behind the dangers within, you must enter the mists…
Mists of Bilehall is a new expansion for Descent: Journeys in the Dark that offers new quests and adventures in the realm of Terrinoth for overlord players and heroes alike. In addition to a complete one-act campaign, new Event cards, and new Shop cards, this expansion increases the overlord player’s forces with twelve sculpted plastic figures—six reanimates, three broodwalkers, and three bone horrors. Unlike other expansions for Descent, Mists of Bilehall is primarily focused on the overlord player and includes no new heroes or hero classes.
Today, we’ll look closer at the expanded options of the overlord player as we explore some of the monsters and Tainted cards introduced in Mists of Bilehall!
In the Realm of the Living Dead
Three new monster groups join the forces of darkness in Mists of Bilehall, and each of them offers a unique set of abilities to your armies as you seek to spread your evil into Terrinoth as the overlord player. The first group of monsters you’ll summon is also the most numerous: the reanimates. Many foolish adventurers have sealed their fate with misconception that these undying legions are mindless puppets controlled by a remote master. Though masked with a lifeless expression, a reanimate’s otherwise hollow skull contains hundreds of years of training, experience, and bloodlust.
In your quests, you’ll quickly find that the reanimates function best as a single coherent squad. All reanimates have access to the Phalanx ability, allowing them to draw strength from their fellow warriors and replace their lowly brown defense die with the gray defense die as long as the figure is adjacent to at least one other reanimate. The heroes will also find that the reanimates are more resilient to damage then they appear. Reanimates bear the Reanimation ability, which reads, “Each time this monster suffers damage and is not defeated, it recovers damage equal to either the amount suffered or the number of monsters from this monster group within 3 spaces of it, whichever is less.” In effect, the heroes must either isolate the reanimates or push enough damage through their defenses in a single attack that they stand no chance of recovering.
Minion reanimates roll only a single yellow die in combat, but their Swarm surge ability makes up for this seemingly low attack power. When you trigger Swarm, your attack gains one additional damage for every other monster adjacent to your target, allowing you to overwhelm the heroes by force of numbers if they’re foolish enough to allow the reanimates to approach. Master reanimates also possess some knowledge of battlefield tactics, and as an action, they can choose to Maneuver. This allows them to choose an adjacent minion monster to immediately gain two movement points and position your forces for future attacks.
Swarming Horror
Another monster group the overlord can look forward to commanding in Mists of Bilehall are the broodwalkers. These walking corpses differ greatly from the typical undead. They are not animated by ancient curses or dark sorcery, but by a unified hive of corpse bugs. Working with inexplicable cooperation, the larvae manipulate the rotting tendons and muscles of this horrid beast, ever searching for fresher flesh in which they will lay the next generation of their young.
Whether in the quests of Mists of Bilehall or another campaign, the broodwalkers are fearsome opponents, difficult to destroy and deadly in battle. All broodwalkers can spend a surge to increase their damage, and minion broodwalkers can spend a surge to inflict the new Terrified condition, which prevents the targeted figure from spending surges until it has no hostile figures in its line of sight. Master broodwalkers replace the Terrify ability with Colonize, which allows them to inflict Immobilized and Terrified, pinning a hero in place as the corpse bugs begin to lay their young in his flesh!
The heroes must also fear the uniquely repulsive nature of the broodwalkers’ Overflowing ability. This ability forces the heroes to treat every space adjacent to the broodwalkers as if it were a sludge space, which requires extra movement to enter and reduces a hero’s speed to one if he begins his activation in a sludge space. Master broodwalkers expand this threat even further with Hive Defense. This ability forces the heroes to treat all spaces adjacent to the master broodwalker as a hazard, which deals a damage when a hero enters the square and immediately defeats the hero if he ends his turn in the square! With Hive Defense and Overflowing combined, it’s very difficult for your opponents’ heroes to come to close range with your master broodwalkers, and if they ever do, they must flee before the end of their turn or face instant defeat as colonies of corpse bugs defend their animate nesting place.
Resist the Corruption
Foul monsters are not the only threat at your disposal when the heroes venture too far into the Mistlands. In these perverse and evil lands, the very air the heroes breathe holds noxious fumes and insidious threats, and you can use the evil mists to tear the heroes down with the help of the Tainted cards.
At the beginning of any Mists of Bilehall quest, the overlord player first deals one Tainted card to each of the heroes. Initially, these cards may seem innocuous—or even a boon, because each Tainted card grants the hero two additional health. Once the hero is knocked out, however, the Tainted card is flipped over and its true nature revealed. All Tainted cards share one important ability—any hero with a flipped-up Tainted card has become tainted, and while he is knocked out, he can only recover damage from untainted heroes or heroic feats. Ultimately, the Tainted cards make it much more tempting for the overlord player to target and knock out the heroes. In addition to drawing more Overlord cards, you can steadily weaken the party, perhaps even completely preventing them from healing each other.
Though all Tainted cards share the same primary effect, each of them affects the hero in a unique way. You may infect a hero with the Gray Decay , lowering his might and awareness, or convince him that he is Ordinary , which prevents him from using his heroic feat if another hero has already used his own heroic feat. You may even bring the touch of Death's Hand upon the chosen hero, forcing him to suffer damage on every turn that a monster was defeated. Whichever Tainted card is inflicted on a hero, they offer you powerful rewards for knocking out the heroes and give you a chance to relish the heroes’ weakness.
A Misty Doom
The heroes have boldly entered the Mistlands, piercing to the heart of your power, and you shall not allow this insult to go unchecked. Summon your most dire and terrifying monsters and call upon the power of the mists to drag the heroes down!
Pre-order your copy of Mists of Bilehall today, and join us in our next preview for a look at the Kyndrithul Lieutenant Pack.