by Galandil
I'd like to hear from you about this new ability.I found it to be the most "disruptive" gameplay wise. In the base game, we already had a partial immunity to non-Attack/Block effects with Fire and Ice resistance, but at least we could use White and Green effects against those monsters (target not attacking effect, etc.).
True, we had our Fire and Ice attacks halved, and the rationale behind Arcane Immunity must be something like giving up resistance against Attacks while getting non-Attack resistance against any color.
The problem is, imo, that it doesn't work, at least as it's applied to actual monsters in the game.
We have 4 monsters with this new ability.
- Sorcerers: this new enemy seems the most balanced out of the 4, maximum Fame given among all the purple tokens, and only a 6 physical attack which is not much of a problem to block. Though, giving it Assassinate and Poison it's still too much (comparing the monster to the other purple ones).
- Shadow: here the things gets worse. Immunity + Evasive, so to kill it during the ranged phase we need 8 Ranged Attack (when it's not fortified), which is really high for a monster that gives only 4 Fame (a Medusa, which is way easier to defeat, gives 5 Fame). And it has a ColdFire attack too, which means that it's hard to block, so most of the times we'll have to play a total of 8 Attack to defeat it. The most effective way to fight this monster is to have a -X to Monster Attack card, which there aren't a lot in the game. And, as I said, Fame 4 is really low for such a monster.
- Grim Legionnaires: worst than before. 10 Armor, 11 Attack, with Arcane immunity is totally off the room power-wise for a single token. Especially when playing the Volkare scenarios, if we face such white monster the first time we face Volkare, it will mean a Knock Out most of the times. And for 8 Fame (same value as Altem Guardsmen, which have been even nerfed in the expansion) is, again, too low. But here, the Fame value is a secondary problem, defeating this token is very, very difficult in itself.
- Dragon Summoner: Armor 8, Physical Resistance + Arcane Immunity + 2 Summoned tokens, Fame 9. Really, this is another over the top monster for its Fame value, we can't cancel its summoning, we need a lot of Ranged Physical Attack to defeat it before it summons the 2 brown tokens. And again, if we face it in Volkare's Army, it would mean most of the times a Knock Out.
Most of the problems stems from the fact that, in Volkare's Scenarios, we face a high number of tokens, which means a lot of Knock Outs, due to how Block is played (no grouping of tokens when blocking), giving full immunity against effects such as "enemy doesn't attack" is way too harsh and frustrating imo.
I'm thinking about amending the problem introducing a house rule, which gives the possibility to use any non-attack/block effect against an Arcane Immunity monster by spending an additional mana (same color as the effect). For example, in order to play Whirlwind, we need to spend 2 White mana, 1 for the spell and 1 for canceling Immunity to land the effect.
What do you think?