10 x 10 Challenge #16: Eight Epics - Game #2

Not wanting to fall behind with my 10 x 10 Challenge, and with the end of the week quickly rushing towards me I decided to take the opportunity presented by a quiet Sunday afternoon, and to get a little gaming in. In order to keep to my schedule, I needed to get two games in today; and after looking over the collection of games I had chosen for the challenge, I decided that I would go for another game of Eight Epics.

Selection made, I set up the game using the same set of (easy) toggles I played with in the previous game; and drew my first threat..

Round 1 - Threat: Uluwash, Devouring Tide.

Not a bad initial draw. Only three challenges, and none of them particularly difficult to overcome. I just needed to roll low, and largely the rolls were favorable. Even when I rolled incredibly high on the last challenge against Uluwash, they were all sixes; which Jarroth, The Cogsmith was easily able to convert into one using his ability.

It wasn't all plain sailing however, as a couple of the avatars were reduced half of their starting life; which is bad news so early into the game. As the party as a whole had only lost 10 Life Points however, it could of been a lot worse. I mean, it's not like we lost an avatar.

Round 2 - Threat: Broxix, Pestilent Breath.

This is the last thing that I wanted to see so early into the game, as from my experience of dealing with Broxix in the last game I knew just how punishing he could be; and how little room there was for error when challenging him. Learning from my mistakes though, I weighed my options and elected the avatar that I felt had the best hopes of putting a significant dent in Broxix. I chose Gron, Furnace of Justice.

His ability to turn any dice into a six was just the ticket it seems as he plowed through the first FIVE challenges Broxix laid down, having to retire on the sixth due to a combination of a very poor initial roll and the exertion in getting that far. The task of defeating Broxix then fell to Sylliph, Moon Diver.

Sylliph, whilst not particularly well suited to defeating Broxix had a good run of things. Taking challenge six, whilst a lucky roll took challenge seven without any avatar intervention. With Broxix on his last legs, but with a couple of my avatars having taken a bit of a kicking I tagged in Auriel, Harbinger of Healing; with the plan being that even if she could not finish off Broxix, she could heal some of the wounded avatars before passing the torch on to someone else.

As luck would have it however, Auriel rolled EXACTLY what was needed to pass the challenge, and resolve the threat with her free re-roll. Broxix went down. All too easily when compared to last time, which I think just goes to show how important picking the right initial avatar to tackle the current threat is (where last game I was mostly just guessing).

Round 3 - Threat: Narssis, Unholy One.

Like Uluwash, Narssis was a new one on me; but he didn't seem too difficult. Each challenge required that you rolled a straight of one through six, on the six dice; and you had to do this four times to defeat him. Easy enough, although I knew that I wouldn't be able to rely on the abilities of my avatars too heavily to pull this one off, as none of their abilities where suited particularly well to the task at hand.

So, seeing this as largely a crap shoot I opted to put Auriel in the ring first. If nothing else she could heal some of the injured avatars from the previous round, and every time she did so; she could re-roll a couple of dice if she wanted. Re-rolls where largely how I believed I'd be dealing with this threat anyhow, so if I could patch up avatars that my prove more valuable in the next round in the process, all the better.

Re-roll and pass was largely how the challenge went, and with a couple of incredible rolls by the avatars (one of which had only a 1 in 36 chance of coming off, that came off with the initial attempt); the battle was won, and the avatars where ready to face the final threat.

Round 4 - Threats: Durge, World Breaker / Serrin, Shadow Reaper.

The final confrontation was truly embodied the epic in the Epic Eights, going down to the wire; with the avatars securing their victory as only one of them remained standing, with only one of their life points remaining.

As I played through the last round I took almost a whole A4 side of notes that I had intended to share with you all, but as per my previous post I want to start reigning in the length of these session reports; and this post is already long enough as it is. However, if you imagine every movie scene ever where the hero has to diffuse a bomb, conveniently doing so with only one second left on the timer; I'm sure you get the picture of just how the final sequence of the game played out.

Final Thoughts

Another really enjoyable game, but I am starting to notice a theme developing. The theme being that this game is bloody HARD! Considering that I had this game turned down to its easiest settings, and that arguably the solitaire variant is easier than the co-operative game; still only making it by the skin of my teeth just goes to show the level of the challenge that beating Eight Epics presents.

Something that I am proud to have accomplished (even if it was with the training wheels on).