Boy, the Ironman mode certainly wakes one up!
Having played the game a LOT and never in Ironman one gets used to saving, and saving often, but now one really has to concentrate on small things, such as where one sleeps, blind corners etc. Am restarting after going round a corner at Arnika at Lev 4 and encountering four lots of 6 Brigands all in one go! Nowhere to run to.


So here is my party, comments?

-Mook Fighter M (for Giant's sword) Pump STR and DEX and some VIT when Giants Sw avail.
-Fairie Ninja M (you gotta, haven't you!) Pump STR and DEX, and Alc + Air to get Portal. CoC of course.
-Hobbit Samurai M (Have yet to play a Samurai through the game, about time I did) Will use Bloodlust. Pump STR and DEX. Will prolly go for Portal but am more interested in seeing the combat capabilities of Samurai.
-Human Bard F (I'm a big fan of Bards in W8) Pump VIT and SPD. Utilitarian with Music, Locks and Artifacts. Staff of Doom.

I prefer smaller parties and am tempted to go with my usual Rogue rather than Samurai but what the heck. When I have tried Sam in aborted games he was always very weak compared to Fig or Rog, will be interesting to see how he develops if I can avoid a wipeout.

Playing on Medium difficulty, no buffing/training etc. While Ironman presents its own challenges everytime I trained chars the game did get too easy.

I'd say that entering Arnika at lvl 4 is inviting trouble. Whenever i get there at lvl<5 I run into very high level opponents, it seems to me that the spawning has a bug there. Concerning the samurai, maybe this vnboard thread could be interesting. Flamestryke focused her last samurai on speed/int and found it a useful strategy.

Interesting. Thanks.

My party got wuped out by Gregor at Lev 3. Unbelieveable, never happened before. Guess I made a dogs dinner of it.