The long awaited Slaughterfield video went up, giving us a bit more of an introduction to that game mode, and more importantly letting us see the Brigand, Skald, Spriggan, and Trickster in play. It also gave us a sampling of the rat and Cyclops enemies.

Wave 1

Wave 2

Wave 3 (To be continued)

The game will be completed some time after the holidays, but we have a number of learnings from the video already.

Brigand –   Suicide run is as effective as expected, especially with a hustle card also in hand.  The ability to share bonuses from hiding in shadows was a nice buff I wasn’t expecting though.  Being able to hide at opportune times is huge.

Druid/Spriggan –   I hope that the expansion kickstarter scheduled for August/September next year includes a model for the summoned elder (treant).  We already knew the item summoning would be a big part of the Spriggan, but the battlefield manipulation like entangling and confusing enemies is a nice direction where I don’t think any other characters excel.  This character seems very strong early on with summoned items, but I wonder if it will scale well as others find bigger treasures to fill their item slots.

Skald –  Skald has become far more important in my mind.  I think I’d prefer a Skald in my party over an apprentice.  It provides decent buffs, and has the ability to manipulate treasure draws, which is a huge advantage, that can affect multiple acts of a quest.  Of course in Slaughterfield as a competitive mode, the Skald seems terrible.  This character seems to be more support oriented than any other heroes by far.  Of course, reciting your epic poetry is a big bonus playing this character as well.

Trickster – Still hard to figure this one out, even with the game play.  Looks like he can be effective with some nice devices, but combos seem so random.  I think it may be harder to try and create any cohesive strategy with this character.

Slaughterfield Items – These are REALLY strong, especially since you can pick one that will best fit your character.  They are the best items I’ve seen (having looked through some of the blue and green decks at GenCon), which isnt’ surprising.

The Game – I understand that this is a cooperative/competitive mode of the game.  I’m wondering if I’d prefer a variation of pure cooperative, so that you aren’t subtley trying to undermind your team.  Due to the play order rules, I think I’m not a fan of the competitive mode.  I may be convinced otherwise later, but I think I may house rule this with the team going for the greatest sum of victory points instead of individual scores.

The third wave video really illustrated one of the core concepts in Myth.  Manage the monster types.  Leaving 3 monster types out on the board creates a lot of AP for the darkness.  Try to wittle down the number of monster types as quickly as you can.  You will be generating enough AP with your cards, best not to give out free AP by leaving extra monster types out on top of it.

Rats and Cyclops – It’s probably good we will be getting the base boxed set to start, allowing us to get used to priorities of orcs and bugs before we start adding in more variations.  It might just be me, but Rats and Cyclops seem to be deadlier than the two base races by a pretty good amount.  Dodge can be a game changer when it cancels a killing blow that was costly to set up, and multiple ranged attacks can drop a party fast.