[Jamelfr]

I finally beat the dragon mission. It took me three tries : first one was a complete failure (was still trying to figure out my new upgrades), second one was a successful abort and the third one was a winner. I will share some thoughts about it, sorry for my bad english...

My setup (I played all four runner all by myself):
- Troll Face : 97 Karma with upgrades Competence (5), In Training (5), Just Tough (5) and Prime Runner (50)
- Ork Street Samurai : 86 Karma with upgrades Combat Fu (5), In Training (5) and Prime Runner (50)
- Human Decker : 82 Karma with upgrades Button Masher (5), In Training (5) and Prime Runner (50)
- Elf Mage : 77 Karma with upgrades Minor Knack (5) and Prime Runner (50)

Logic behind those upgrades :
- To defeat a dragon's aspect, I have to deal 8 damage from the same color or an insane amount of any color damage. So I chose the upgrades that boosted the role color of my runners.
- Defeating quickly the opponents and keeping the crossfire level low were priorities, so I chose upgrades that boost my initial firepower. Prime Runner for example is basically giving me one extra basic card without diluting my starting deck.

How it went :
- Contrary to the other missions, the Dragon Fight was a game of patience. The goal was to gain a lot of money to buy enough cards from the Black Market and deal the required damages to the dragon.
- Each round, I was able to defeat all obstacles, preventing the rise of the crossfire level. It seems hard to to believe, but the game spams 3 obstacles per round, which is less than the Crossfire mission. The covert aspects of the dragon deal no damage, so I basically had to deal with only 3 opponents each round.
- I was lucky : I did not get any event that send more obstacles and the flipped obstacles were evenly distributed (i.e. i did not get three 11-Nuyen ennemies at once).
- When you are ready to get to the Enraged aspects of the dragon, you better be ready to finish him quickly since he can now deal 2 damages.
- Each runners focused their puchased around their role color.
- At the end of the game, the Black Market was empty (I bought it all, yup), the Crossfire level was at 0 and all my runners were kinda healthy. The normal obstacles deck had to be reshuffled. I did not count how many rounds it took (it was late), but I would guess that the game lasted around 10-12 rounds (might be more).

TL; DR: this mission requires luck and skills. Skills to choose the good upgrades and the right actions each turn; luck in the drawing of events and obstacles. And patience, also, to defeat all opponents each round and accumulate enough cards and firepower.

[biotech66]

Congrats!

[graven2002]

Nice!  I'm looking forward to our own Dragon Fight, hopefully the new expansion will help Karma gain at higher levels.  Thanks for the write up, it was a good read.  Congrats again!

[Jamelfr]

Thanks all!

I tried the Dragon Fight six more times. 1 success, 2 aborts, 3 fails.

I found a new strategy. When Crossfire level is building up or when tough opponents are revealed at the same time, it is often a good idea to plan for an abort. The more a team wait, the more runners lose their HP, opponents pile up in front of them and it soon becomes impossible to abort.

To avoid that, I choose a runner who will be the "sacrifice", hopefully with a combo of low HP + hard-hitting ennemies so the abort round might come quickly. I concentrate my attacks on the other opponents so the abort round might go more smoothly. In case of a really bad situation, having the Aztechnology Striker is a big help during an abort round.

[celena til reth raen]

Each round, I was able to defeat all obstacles, preventing the rise of the crossfire level. It seems hard to to believe, but the game spams 3 obstacles per round, which is less than the Crossfire mission. The covert aspects of the dragon deal no damage, so I basically had to deal with only 3 opponents each round.

Why would eliminating all obstacle would prevent the crossfire level to increase? Reading the rule for Dragon Fight, you only remove the active crossfire card when a scene ends, that is only when you deal with one of the dragon aspect.

Rules p21:

Dragon Rewards and Ending a Scene: At the end of any turn
when the team has defeated one of the Dragon’s aspects,
each runner gets the reward for defeating that aspect shown
on the Dragon card and the starting runner removes all the
active Crossfire events from play

Did I miss something?

[Jamelfr]

Each round, I was able to defeat all obstacles, preventing the rise of the crossfire level. It seems hard to to believe, but the game spams 3 obstacles per round, which is less than the Crossfire mission. The covert aspects of the dragon deal no damage, so I basically had to deal with only 3 opponents each round.

Why would eliminating all obstacle would prevent the crossfire level to increase? Reading the rule for Dragon Fight, you only remove the active crossfire card when a scene ends, that is only when you deal with one of the dragon aspect.

Rules p21:

Dragon Rewards and Ending a Scene: At the end of any turn
when the team has defeated one of the Dragon’s aspects,
each runner gets the reward for defeating that aspect shown
on the Dragon card and the starting runner removes all the
active Crossfire events from play

Did I miss something?

The normal rule is to remove a Crossfire card if all ennemies are defeated before the end of a round.

Rules p. 12: "At the end of any turn, if there are no obstacles or bosses facing any runner, the starting runner removes all the active Crossfire cards, if any, from play and puts them on the bottom of the Crossfire deck (don’t put them in the Crossfire discard). "

No mission mentions this rule even if it is effective. The Crossfire mission mentions a rule similar to the Dragon Fight one : "At the end of a turn, if there are no obstacles in play, each runner heals 1 HP and the starting runner removes the Crossfire event from play (it goes to the bottom of the Crossfire deck instead of the discard). " (p. 19).

On this matter (and others), one of the designer (SevenSpirits, many thanks to him!) confirmed interesting aspects about the Crossfire events : http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=17975.0.

It is an important rule: it makes the game more manageable (and Dragon Fight slightly possible to win).

[celena til reth raen]

I never realized that the rules page 12 was generic, and were to be applied in addition to mission specific ones relatively to end-of-scene (for the matter of the crossfire mission). Also thanks for the interesting thread and even more interesting answer from SevenSpirits. I will try this way next time we play Dragon Fight.

However, strictly reading the rule:

At the end of any turn, if there are no obstacles or bosses facing any runner, the starting runner removes all the
active Crossfire cards, if any, from play and puts them on the bottom of the Crossfire deck (don’t put them in the Crossfire discard).

Sure there could be no more obstacle in play, but the boss is still there facing the runner that did not receive an obstacle this round, so no removal.
Examples given by SevenSprits were for run without bosses anyway, so I am not sure I can consider is answers to be fully applying for boss missions.

Regards,
Celena

[Jamelfr]

I never realized that the rules page 12 was generic, and were to be applied in addition to mission specific ones relatively to end-of-scene (for the matter of the crossfire mission). Also thanks for the interesting thread and even more interesting answer from SevenSpirits. I will try this way next time we play Dragon Fight.

However, strictly reading the rule:

At the end of any turn, if there are no obstacles or bosses facing any runner, the starting runner removes all the
active Crossfire cards, if any, from play and puts them on the bottom of the Crossfire deck (don’t put them in the Crossfire discard).

Sure there could be no more obstacle in play, but the boss is still there facing the runner that did not receive an obstacle this round, so no removal.
Examples given by SevenSprits were for run without bosses anyway, so I am not sure I can consider is answers to be fully applying for boss missions.

Regards,
Celena

This is an interesting insight!! I might have missed the "boss" part, you are absolutely right.

I think we will have to see what SevenSpirits will have to say on that matter. If the crossfire card cannot not be removed when all obstacles are defeated,  then i cannot see how the Dragon Fight can be won. Even a single hard obstacle can wreck a whole session. I hope he is still reading the forums.

[Jamelfr]

Bumping the thread. I am really curious to know how the crossfire events are dealt with (can they be ever removed) in the Dragon mission, as mentionned in the last few posts. 

Hopefully, the designers still read the forum.

[oggey]

I hope they read it still but it seems doubtful.
Congrats on your wins, even if they were illicit. The boss does get in the way of crossfire card removal, but who cares? I imagine you're getting the other 90% correct, so keep having fun. Try it with the crossfire card situation update, and meet us know how you get along! We always have a good time playing and shadowrunning it up.