Ye Olde Inn

So on the weekend we were playing HQ and the heroes would just park the barbarian in the doorway with the dwarf and elf either side with long swords. As monsters can't attack diagonally I'm limited to one attack per round. If I don't go to the door they just fire their crossbow to likely kill one of the monsters.

I'm at a loss how to combat this, any ideas?

Throw in diagonal attack monsters.
Throw in range attack monsters.
Throw in a secret door the monsters can open to get behind the Heroes.

EWP has the map, Heroes don't know what it shows, so he can make needed changes on the fly.

Don't engage the Barbarian. Move the monsters out of Line of Sight if possible and wait. There is no rule saying you must move monsters to attack. They can be played smart.

or
Write up a homebrew Dungeon and equip the monsters wit spears {2 Attack} or Small Bows {2 Attack}.

I quite like the idea of changing it up so they run into something they don't expect. The LoS one works sometimes though it depends on the room.

I guess it's the problem of playing when you are 30+ and no longer 10! Back when we were children they just ran in the room.

Just equip some of the Goblins or Skeletons with Spears and Bows. Playing Door Blocker is becoming deadly.
With just one Bowman per room, you can stay back and shoot and shoot and shoot. Alternatively, you replace one or two of the monsters with a spear-equipped monster. The door blocker gets three attacks then.

If you don't have those models, don't attack. Let them come.
But the Bowman should really be in your collection.

And get some of those great double doors from Zealot. They should be put everywhere if there are more than a few monsters.
open door
closed door

Click for big.
They are for my own system, but i am sure you can make something up with them.




Ah, and I nearly forgot:
Make your own EWP deck. That applies some time pressure, in turn it prevents tactics that take too much time.

Here is mine

Allow Monsters to move furniture so they can use it as a shield to block LOS.
Makes sense...the heroes are in the door launching ranged attacks? We need cover yells a monster and the table is over turned to provide protection. Now you just forced the heroes hands...they must close in to melee range.

There's a thread somewhere on here about "knockback/pushback," where if you successfully attack, the barbarian would have to move backwards a space. I'm thinking about using that rule in these situations.

benvoliothefirst wrote:There's a thread somewhere on here about "knockback/pushback," where if you successfully attack, the barbarian would have to move backwards a space. I'm thinking about using that rule in these situations.

http://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1408&p=15152&hilit=push+back#p15152

It remedies a lot of the problem, along with some double doors, double-wide corridors and monster equipment as suggested here.
The cards Anderas has suggested help, too. I call them Fate cards, others have called them differently.
Evil Wizard deck, for example: http://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=1943&p=27009&hilit=evil+wizard+deck#p27009

Here's a simple solution - heroes can't attack in close combat over the threshold of a door but monsters can.

cornixt wrote:Here's a simple solution - heroes can't attack in close combat over the threshold of a door but monsters can.

Edit:
I went with this so that it works the same for monsters and heroes and uses the actual door as an excuse for the rule. Not quite as simple but simple enough to be worth it I think. 'You can't attack opponents on the other side of a doorway in close combat if the door opens on the opponents side. The door gives them cover, this is to prevent heroes from standing by the door where only one can be attacked. Doors in corridors open into the room and other doors open away from the adventurer, in cases where the quest allows for doors to be opened from either side because of more than one path they'll be an arrow pointing in the direction the door opens, so the direction you can't attack from.'