by Zeratul141
Not sure if this should be under general or sessions, but ultimately it's more of a question, so here it goes...I recently played through the Shadow Vault Interlude quest, and I fear I may have spoiled my wife's view on the game for good. She is playing with Syndrael as a Berserker, Leoric as a Necromancer, Tomble as a Thief, and Ashrain as a Disciple. She managed to make it through to right before where the broken cart is without much issue, dispatching both Merroids without any real trouble. While she was working on them, I was able to get my master Flesh Maulder up to where the Shadow Dragons were waiting. It was when she stepped into the caravan, allowing me to activate my Shadow Dragons, that the trouble started. As soon as she came around that bend onto the River's Edge, the Interlude became a bit of a slog, admittedly for both of us. Leroic was carrying the Staff of Light that he had won in a previous quest, and Ashrain had her healing prayer boosted to add an extra brown die. It took us an hour and a half to 2 hours from that point to get around the bend and onto the waterfall's edge. During this time, I was blocking up the river with my monsters to keep her from being able to swim anyone down. I was never able to do enough damage to actually knock anyone out, and I was able to use the Flesh Maulder to keep my Shadow Dragons pretty well healed. Also, any time she was able to kill one of my Dragons, I was just able to bring it back at the beginning of my turn and move it up to a point where it was blocking the river again (using 2 moves), and ready to take the other Dragon's place if/when it died. This resulted in a very slow slog down the path. By the time she had the chance to get a monster into the top of the waterfall and drop down, I had the whole lower area around the base of the waterfall surrounded by my other respawned monsters and the lieutenant so that there was only one possible square to jump to. She was tired of just pushing along as slow as she was, so she just jumped with Syndrael (who as been carrying the crypt), who was killed and dropped the crypt, and I was able to snag it and run out the exit. She likely would have won if she had just finished moving slowly through the bends to make it to the end, but if the rest of the Interlude was anything to judge by, that could have taken another hour or more.
To make matters all the worse, we just played through the second half of Endure the Elements (she had won the first half, with me getting the blue ability that forces you to use a fatigue to take an action when adjacent to any monster) and it was again a situation where I was using the Shadow Dragons and managed to take out Ashrain before they could kill my Master Shadow dragon, and then once they did I was able to bring it right back out amidst them. She was frustrated not only by the fact that I was able to bring a dragon back right after killing it, but also that I had used the Shadow Dragons again. I can understand the second part, but with the options I had, that monster just seemed to give me the best chance at success.
I know that I'm leaving out some bits of information, and the details are probably a bit scrambled, but I think I've gotten enough written to give you an idea of what I am trying to say. Has anyone else run into this kind of a situation? I was starting to get a bit tired of doing the same thing as well in the Interlude, but it didn't seem like there was any other tactic I could have employed since I needed to actually kill the hero holding the casket and she was effectively nullifying any progress I was making towards that goal by keeping her healing heroes together. Am I doing something with the monster reinforcements wrong? Is there a kind of "summoning sickness" that I missed in the rules or am I able to activate them right away? Any other input or questions anyone has would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!