This is copied from my posting on BGG.
I recently finished playing through the Devil in Iron campaign for Conan. As a disclaimer, I played solo left hand vs. right hand.
How does it work?The book contains 19 scenarios but you'll only play through eight of them during the campaign. At different points in the campaign the next scenario changes depending on whether the heroes win or lose.
Leveling UpLeveling up the characters and the Overlord is a neat with the players adding new skills, spells, and companions. At the conclusion of my play through all the characters were level 1 (they start at 0) and I had enough XP to level a single character to level 2.
This was due to me misinterpreting the XP gains. I was writing down the XP gain for the heroes but wasn't providing that to EACH hero. So, I should've had four level 4 heroes and a common gem walking into the finale. Because the power gains are limited, this probably doesn't have a huge effect but gaining three Belit's Guards, a lion and a wolf would've helped at times. And circular strike would've been very helpful at times when Conan can roll 5 red dice including his weapon.
Both sides can buy extra gems. The players get Common gems they can use between them (for a cost of 25 XP each) while the Overlord gets their own special gems for 15 XP each). The Overlord's gems are worth 2 normal gems which, when there's five of them can unleash a punishing assault or hunker down with a bunch of defense dice.
NarrativeEach scenario has a good blurb of flavor text to set up and finish up each scenario. The overall flow of the adventures had a Conan feel as he and his group travel across the land. In one or two cases the adventures felt like side quests that didn't tie into the larger narrative.
Thing that probably only bugs me: Amra the Lion (basically King Conan) and Zelata mesh time-wise. Belit and N'Gora don't as they appeared much earlier in the Conan timeline. This version of Conan fighting as a mercenary captain felt out of place.
BalanceMy heroes were 6-2, including the finale. Some wins were by the skin of their teeth. One of the losses was a curb-stomping while the other was the heroes ran out of gems and the ability to defend their objective.
How are the characters?Savage Belit is a powerhouse with ambidextrous getting 3 orange dice (and a yellow) for one gem based on her two weapons. I actually found, I'd use Conan to soften up defenses for her to unload on someone. Zelata is powerful but you have to find the right time to use her spells, especially against foes with higher armor values. N'Gora, for some reason, was the guy that I kept knocking out of the game, but I think I was using him as a human shield too often. N'Gora, like Conan, gets 11 gems and can do some massive attacks with 5 orange dice plus whatever his weapon is.
ReplayabilityI think so. Even if you replay many of the same scenarios there's two things that can change the outcome drastically (besides the XP gain). The first is there's a deck of special equipment. I think I found only a handful of those pieces throughout the game. The second the monsters that survive scenarios could come back towards the end. That should provide incentive to the players to focus fire on those at times.
Art BookUnrelated to the campaign is the art of the game. There's 37 pages of full color art that's featured through out the game, including two page spreads for the three big box expansion covers and Thaug. The artist box art is also included as is much of Adrian Smith's work. Overall, there's 37 different paintings included.
In the front half of the book there's another two page spread of the Stretch goal box cover, and images of Skulthus, the Princess, and several different weapons.
QualityThe book has a heavy duty cover with a matte finish and slightly muted art (this could also just be the piece selected). The cover also extends further than I'm used to on books, but I believe that was done to hold the cards that came with the book. The book lays open easily and you can see the binding/stitching in the middle. This gives me the feeling it may not hold up for excessive use. The paper is heavy duty and glossy with high quality printing.
OverallIf you're a fan of the Conan game and have the King pledge, this is a fun romp. The light leveling up creates nice bonuses without destroying the balance. I wouldn't recommend running a campaign and then starting it again, but if you spaced it out in a few months or a year, it'd be fun to revisit to see how it turns out.
Based on this campaign if the next Conan kickstarter has another campaign I'm buying it.
8.5/10
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