Written 28.09.2008 - Uploaded 06.10.2008
I wrote this analysis originally to Fantasy Flight Games' Descent forums but since I don't want it to drown into thread history forever, I'll put a copy here. The text is somewhat forumish and hasn't gone through any post-processing. This piece of text is a relatively typical example of me analysing games. The guide is written for Descent players and requires knowledge of the Treachery cards in the game to make any sense.
MONSTER TREACHERY (COST 1)
Bane Spider Nest. This card equals a lot of webbing assuming you can actually play it. Spiders are in general hard to spawn due to their size and also hard to move around in many dungeon levels. With a huge maybe this card might be playable with The Spider Queen and her Acidic Poison but then again, you can get almost the same effect with regular spider spawn.
Dark Armor. This card is not really my cup of tea. In copper level it might still be useful when the heroes are not overkilling everything but later on, one armor is not going to help your monsters.
Dark Servant. This card has its uses. It is however very dependent on the dungeon level, so putting it into your deck is always risky business. If you can get some good use out of it, great. In dungeons though, Brilliant Commander will be almost as good. What I like to use this card for instead, is Lt encounters where you will often have some very nice monster as a minion but it's not a master. Kar-Amag-Atoth's Demon is a prime example.
Death on the Wing. This card is probably one of the best tier-3 treachery spawns if your most upgraded monsters are beasts. Master Razorwings are super easy to spawn because of their insane movement, and we all love stun tokens on heroes. With the damage boost given to them in RTL and their surprising toughness, these nasty fliers are mighty annoying. Also a fair spawn card to take into Lt encounter, mind you.
Drinkers of Blood. Two master Ferrox can be devastating, especially to a fatigue-happy party with members close to zero fatigue all the time. Especially devastating against targets with weak armor. The main problem with this card is that its normal equivalent does almost as good, without having a treachery cost. Also, with upgraded humanoids, you can pretty much do better with normal war parties. The damage nerf really hurts Ferrox in RTL.
DOOM!. Uh, another one? Why would I want another one when I hardly play the one I'm already having? 0.5 damage per attack is not really worth the slot.
Kobold Horde. Uh, that's a lot of critters. More importantly, that's a whole lot of useless critters. if the heroes don't have blast though, this makes for a nice roadblock, kinda, but really. Do you want to waste a treachery point for this when you already have two swarms in the main deck? When you are usually throwing those two out as well?
Jungle Drums. For the beast player, Blood Apes make nice roadblocks especially before the heroes hit through the roof with their damage output. One must ask though, is it worth it to buy a card that gives you two upgraded Apes instead of two normal? If there is a reason, it has to be berserk which is a fair damage boost if your apes survive. These things are actually fairly mobile too since their movement increases with the upgrades. Another reason of course, is that you simply want two Ape spawns, you monkey-lover. If playing upgraded beasties, I would.
Legions of the Dead. This card is a serious upgrade of its normal version. Double the skeletons, double the fun. If you are playing upgraded eldritch, there is no reason at all not to take this card. Or both of them. The only thing that might throw you off is the fact that you need six out-of-LOS squares to make full use of it.
Lone Manticore. I'm actually having a hard time with this and the other Lone cards. One thing is that this one might be hard to spawn. Damage nerf in RTL not really helping either. However with upgraded beasties, you do get two shots with fair pierce and well, this is the beast with longest range. If all your available targets are highly armored, then this one will probably do better than most beast spawns. But then again, Razorwings do get stun whereas this one doesn't really get any nice statuses (poison in RTL, kinda bleh because the heroes never bother to heal anyway). A nice addition to Lt encounters by the way.
Lone Naga. This is much like the Manticore but with one, more damaging, shot without pierce and added command on top of it. Where pierce is wasted, Naga wins easily over a Manticore. So which one should you be spawning more? Can't really say. Naga's command can be useful if you have a lot of critters, because there just can't be too much of command, right? Of course, this makes the Naga more useful if it's not in fact alone whereas the Manticore is as useful by itself as it is in a group. Outdoors I'd take Manticore because of soar.
Lone Ogre. It's somewhat sad that this one's not a master. It really, really should be because now it pretty much loses to Lone Troll in every field. The only situation where I might be taking a Lone Ogre is one where I really need its knockback, but this is kind of hard to foresee in RTL.
Lone Troll. Uh, this is a treachery cost 1 card? Okay, I can actually see why. While very powerful, this card is hard to use on its own. A single blank can kill your devastating move and the Troll is both slow and large, neither of them being good news for finding spawn spots. Still, if playing humanoids, this card is the best for its cost. Never play it without Aim though, and more often than not you will also need Charge or Enraged. Lone Troll, Enraged and two Aims should do the trick against most heroes though.
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MONSTER TREACHERY (COST 2)
Dark Brothers. Any eldritch player loves Dark Priests. The cost of this card is a little steep though: two treachery for upgrading one out of two to a master. Obviously the bigger gain is that you simply get two Priest spawn cards if you pick this one but ask yourself: is this card really worth two Legions of the Dead? if spawn spots are scarce, then pick this but usually: never do it.
Dark Masters. Pretty much same as above, except I think even worse. Sure, their undying helps sometimes but Legions of the Dead has two undying creatures too. If playing SK and Sorcerers have blast, this one might be better than Dark Brothers.
Dogs of War. I'm kind of at a loss with this card. The good news is, Hell Hounds can blast around corners and objects, and they have good pierce if upgraded. Bad news on the other hand, they have rather lame range and only decent damage. If your heroes love guard tactics, this card will remind them to stop camping and come at you. On the other hand, normal hell hounds can do the same thing.
Elite Beastman War Party. If playing upgraded humanoids, this card is godlike. Not only does it do fair damage on its own right, it also gives a noticeable boost to everyone's damage if spawned to a group. Furthermore, it is one more war party in your deck. The only problem is the same as with normal war parties: speed 4. If you're not having a hard time finding spawn spots for your war parties though, grab both elites and start murdering.
Lone Assassin. While this card is not the most powerful spawn in terms of damage output, it is easier to use than most. The Deep Elf takes up just one space and has decent speed too. If you think you can keep it away from melee range, it will be powerful or at least annoying, but as a one-hit wonder you have better options. Deep Elf being a humanoid kind of hurts this card because it costs the same as Elite Beastman War Party.
Unholy Swiftness. I'd like to call this card the ultimate anti-Kirga card. Suddenly your beloved beastmen can finally reach that annoying she-thing and they will murder her. Laugh maniacally at Kirga's player whenever you play this card. Even if they don't have Kirga, this card makes Gust of Wind so much more useful. So, if you are having trouble spawning, try out and see if this card helps.
Wrath. Increases conquest from kills. For 25 threat and 2 treachery? I don't think so. On the other hand, if you are totally having a hard time spawning and thus have no use for that monster treachery of yours, yeah, this is pretty much your best option (could pick two Dark Servants instead though). A bit costly threatwise too.
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MONSTER TREACHERY (COST 3)
Lone Golem. This card is sad. Forget it. Wouldn't pick it even if it was just one treachery.
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EVENT TREACHERY (COST 1) ;:
Critical Strike. Your tank killer. Especially useful for multi-target attacks. In the long run you will get more damage through if you CB armor, but on the other hand the hero will just get another - if he isn't already carrying one! The best you can most of the time do by destroying armor is to drop it by 2 points. A bit of shame this one can miss, and you can't even aim it. There are definitely situations I would pick this over CB.
Crushing Blow. No matter how you look at it, or how much your heroes complain about it, this card is a part of your main arsenal. At first it will be godlike, until the heroes figure out that they should have spare equipment with them, always. After that, it will be still useful, forcing the heroes to go with sub-optimal equipment and also to sustain their storage of spares. Also, if the heroes get something truly overblown, just crush it. No mercy. At all. You will regret any mercy once you hit gold level. However, if you need to rake in kills, forget CB unless the heroes have forgotten spares.
Danger. Key card in Lt encounter combos. Wouldn't pick for a dungeon though because for them, you already have all those 5-discard power cards. OTOH, when the heroes are clearing levels in 2~3 turns there might be a need to really boost that threat gain above all else. In Lt encounters though, you will be taking these to fuel your plan because you need to execute it quickly.
Dark Balm. Not really my cup of tea. Plus there's already one in the main deck.
Dark Power. So it's a power potion and it's cheap. Then what? Doesn't really work for monsters like it does for the heroes, better off with Critical Strike.
Empower. This card's quite the opportunity window one. It's usable on copper when the heroes actually need to spend several turns pounding on a though enemy. Kinda expensive though. Also, if you get it in the wrong time, totally useless.
Enraged. A nice instant kill card in some circumstances. Not only that slow monster of yours suddenly gets near enough to strike but it also attacks twice. Enraged Troll with Aim? Murder. Especially useful if your highest upgrade is humanoids because without Charge and this, they, uh, suck?
Poltergeist. I always take this card. It's godlike. For 7 threat you can pretty much rearrange the board, closing distances between monsters and heroes by max 4 spaces. It's like charging with every one of your creatures. This card just has so many applications. Heroes hiding in trees? Drag them out with this beauty. Have a demon with high aura? Swing the heroes around it for nice damage. That insta-kill pit in Down the Drain? Oh YES (although somewhat hard to setup). Always picked first in my game. I wish there were two available.
Smash!. Uh another not my cup of tea in RTL. Basically, since you have no real knowledge of what will be out there, you can't plan with this card. Also, obstacles usually work for you, not against.
Spell of Burning. Crap-shoot random card. Not very effective IMO.
Spell of Frost. Yay, it's a multi-target CB with gamble. More amusing in a way, especially if the frost doesn't go away next turn. Lots of monsters available and this one just might do better than CB. Gamble but more amusing.
Time Slips Away. So, um, play one card to draw two? It's like one card gain. Maybe if it was three cards but now? I don't think so.
Weakness. Tired of power potioned Lts? If you can afford it, Weakness is the best way to deal with those pesky surges from power dice. This has its uses, and if the heroes have backups, it's better than CB at least for Lt encounters.
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EVENT TREACHERY (COST 2)
All-Concealing Shadows. This card is kinda neat if you have the threat to fuel it. Being able to dodge all the time can save your monsters better than anything else but it is still much of a gamble and expensive to use. What murders this card though, is the abundance of good event treachery cards that are simply better. In some Vanilla dungeons this is good, but in RTL you never know what you're getting.
Ambush. The best event card with treachery cost 2 and indeed pretty much the only one I would ever pick because the cheaper options are so damn good. This card is the key for giving your Lts a fighting chance after copper. It can seriously mess up any hero plan much like poltergeist which is exactly why you should use it. Using it in the right circumstances is the trick because you want to maximize both damage done to the heroes and to their plan.
Dire Warnings. This card is like a permanent Ambush, just worse because you can't choose when to do the activation. Also, the heroes will know you get those activations so there's no surprise element. In Vanilla this card is much better than in RTL. In RTL, not going to pick it.
Envy. Let's just skip this one in RTL because the heroes can swap equipment easy enough between dungeons.
Guiding Force. Much like All-Concealing Shadows, only this one is meant to dish out as much murder as possible. Dunno which one is better in the long run, both are nice but not nice enough to actually get picked. A dungeon full of trolls loves this card. Too bad we don't have those in RTL.
Pride. Another nice card that is just not nice enough. Some kind of anti-Tahlia card, but not very good at that. Sure, you can probably rake in tons of threat but then what? With reduced treachery cost I might use this card but two is a bit too much.
Spell of Binding. Best of the spells, although a bit weakened in RTL because of the new escape system. I don't think it is worth its treachery cost save for Slaggorrath. For him, this card does work wonders. Too bad Spider Queen gets only two event treachery so you can't combine this with anything nice.
Urgency. If your heroes are slow, this card might be a problem for them. However it does run the risk of discarding your key cards which is not fun. I think it's a bit too random to be useful. Slow parties will hate you but that's about it. And parties in RTL are not slow.
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TRAP TREACHERY (COST 1)
Curse of the Ancients. Totally not my cup of tea. Problems with this and the other curse-trap are: 1) They don't do any damage and 2) They don't hinder the heroes in any way. Both of these are like requirements for a good trap card.
Curse of the Monkey God. We have one of these in the deck already, so should we take another? It is a good question, because this is pretty much the best chest trap card, even with its 1/6 chance of missing. On hit, this card is almost a guaranteed kill, and even if it isn't, the hero is out of the game for two (kind of three) turns.
Cursed Treasure. Like Curse of the Ancients, except worse.
Dark Charm. Another Dark Charm, can't go wrong with this one. One of the cards that get totally stronger as the heroes do, so especially useful in late game. A very solid pick overall for killing heroes and messing up their plans.
Fire Runes. Not a big fan of this card. The free burn tokens are nice but the damage is not that great. On the other hand, it is relatively easy to get this one hit more hero than one, so it is probably the best damage-dealing chest trap. As a sidenote, we are playing the card so that the template is put on top of the chest so it hits the hero opening the chest.
Poison Spikes. More pits! Everybody loves pits and these ones do rather nasty damage as well, plus they are still cheap to play. The one step slowdown is always nice when the heroes are playing it too close with their fatigues. Always remember that. Like Spiked Pits, these are very good utility traps. Take them, just to add more pits to your deck.
Scything Blades, This is a fairly good trap. it's relatively easy to have it hit two heroes on activation or if you can play it in a narrow passage that gets used often, it's hard to avoid. Good trap for damage, especially the bleed tokens.
Trapmaster. Another Trapmaster is much like Dark Charm, can't go wrong with it. If you get both into play, you are doing +4 damage per trap, which is pretty devastating. Also, taking this increases your chances of getting at least one early on. Good pick especially for legendary areas and your keep.
Welcome Mat. This card is fair, until the heroes learn to not stand in front of a door that gets opened. After they do, you are better off with Poison Spikes, because they have way more play opportunities. Also, doors are kind of rare in RTL compared to Vanilla.
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TRAP TREACHERY (COST 2)
Alarm. Well, uh, in RTL there usually aren't other areas, so what good can come out of revealing one? In Vanilla this card can be deadly, but in RTL it's only useful in legendary areas and your keep and even then there are better options most of the time.
Animate Weapons. This card is lovely once the heroes do overblown damage. Having them hit themselves for good measure is always satisfying, even though there's a fair change of at least one blanking or missing. If you can pull it off in an Lt encounter, you should have a decent chance of winning afterwards. if the card doesn't do all the work for you already.
Cloud of Gas. RTL and door traps. Not very useful, and even less with the stun traps because most of the time, the only door heroes need to open is the one leading out of the level and therefore pretty much all you get out of it is one turn's delay. More useful in Vanilla though.
Dark Relic. This card is a fair way to eliminate an unwanted treasure card, although Crushing Blow is better. The problem with dark relics in RTL is that the heroes don't get much punishment for dying, so they will either kill the hero themselves or even just buy that dark relic remover (for god's sake, whose idea was to give them that?). In RTL, one relic is above the others: Lodestone. Putting this one on a hero does not only deny him the treasure he was about to get, it also eliminates everything he was carrying around unequipped. Oh and no potions for you mister. Beautiful.
Drugged Darts. The field itself is pretty large and a very nice fit to a mandatory corridor, don't you think? For what it's worth though, there are many other good cards you can put two trap treachery to. A huge maybe with this card. If you have some means of forcing the heroes go through the field over and over again, you can have fun with the piling daze tokens.
Gluttony. There is just no way you could force heroes to discard potions with this one in RTL, so, what's the point? Sure, it's free 5/6 points of damage each turn per hero but kind of boring. If played at the very beginning of a dungeon though, it's going to be a pain sooner or later. Too much of a gamble though.
Greed. This one does make those chests work for you. Still, we are already having a good deal of better choices. Your traps should hinder and kill the heroes, preferably a little bit more directly than this card.
Killer Chest. Mimic is back, only this time it's deadly. Well, not by that much to be honest. The point of Mimic for me has been more in getting the chest away from the heroes, not killing them. However, this one does have knockback, so if you can build a nice setup for it, then maybe. Again, hard to do setups in RTL.
Lightning Runes. RTL and door traps, so sad. If the door is in a long corridor and there's a huge chance all heroes will be there though, this one combines with Trapmaster or two starts to deal fair damage. The daze is an okay bonus. Still, I can think of better ways to kill the heroes with 2 trap treachery.
Sloth. I can see how this card will be though in Vanilla, but in RTL, dunno. Maybe it could force all the heroes to walk to the portal instead of just one going in and the rest going to town. Also, escape would at least give you 4 conquest. Observe your heroes. If they use glyphs a lot, surprise them with this one and see how that glyph-usage goes down.
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TRAP TREACHERY (COST 3)
Dance of the Monkey God. It can't be chance that this card has the word god in it. Hit the heroes with this one and they will die. If everyone is transformed, you have a whole eternity to kill them off. With this, Lt encounters can become rather brutal. Until the heroes get Wind Pact anyway.
Rolling Stone. This is one nice card. Not only is it potential instant kill no matter what, but it also has another use: blocking LOS. Once the last hero takes his last step, it's not just the boulder that's coming for them, there will be a nice spawn card's worth of monsters right behind it! The card might be a little hard to setup, but sooner or later you will get that dungeon with nasty corridors. Well, you get the idea.