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I've been replaying Innsmouth and got to Vanishing with tuned decks for it, and still got the worst ending. All locations cleared of clues, all enemies dealt with and I was forced to guess because there's no safety net for extra hints or clues like other similar scenarios. I had two names and three locations to pick from. There is the "if you investigate by 3+, look at the top of the leads deck, then shuffle" but that's once per round. Even if I gave myself seven more rounds, there's still a chance to have to just stop playing because the design means you can run out of guesses.
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Jan 11, 2022 01:02
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I have trouble building unless the cards are in front of me, so all my cards are sorted in color-coded boxes and then I have a box of deck scraps that constantly needs to be sorted and put away between campaigns.
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Jan 25, 2022 20:32
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Return to Curtain Call is insanely difficult. I'm 0-3 against it with Minh + Diana. Minh has trouble because Seekers rely on burst damage through events to get themselves out of a jam at 0 XP, but certain treacheries make that unreliable; risky at best. Diana can't hold off the enemies enough, even built for only damage and cancelling. That encounter deck is just brutal, it's non-stop sanity pings.
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Feb 6, 2022 06:53
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Golden Bee posted:I mean, you should probably have someone who can fight instead of someone who can flex and cancel. Yeah I thought the cancels would replace themselves and the fighting stuff would do the rest. Reliably doing 2 damage a hit isn't the problem, it's getting in place to be able to do it. Maybe Dexter, using the Rogue cards to get extra actions and Molly to tutor up what I want?
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Feb 6, 2022 07:39
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I've been working my way through Return to Carcosa. The changes are very minor compared to Return to The Forgotten Age. The biggest and best change was to Last King, which makes it more challenging by removing that design flaw where the main roadblock would often get stuck in a place that's out of your way. It also balances the XP rewards between paths in Unspeakable Oath and makes it so a treachery in The Pallid Mask can't pop a certain boss enemy (but I think I assumed it worked that way anyway and could just have easily been an errata). The majority of the changes are just extra locations you get a 50/50 shot at replacing one of the core Carcosa places with. Unless you find it on sale or are a completionist I can't recommend paying full price for Return to Carcosa. It does make The Last King one of the great scenarios and has this amazing art on one of the encounter cards, but it makes me want a Return to Return to Carcosa (and NotZ and Dunwich) to bring them in line with Return to TFA and Return to TCU by really mixing things up instead of just a Version 1.1. I got tired of Cyclopean Hammer, and figured it'd be at least different on a non-Guardian. I was wrong; Dexter is slamming even the tankiest Carcosa enemies around. If I don't draw an autofail, everything's dead in one or two smacks. Carcosa is combat-heavy with very tanky enemies though and I don't think Minh would have survived if Dexter was trying to zap things with Shriveling 5s though. Minh is fun. Her weakness isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, because I usually have enough cards in hand to commit three skills, or else I just bring back my Glimmer of Hopes. I'm Scavenging a Necronomicon, but it was much more interesting running 2x Ice Pick and 2x Eon Chart and deciding which one to Scavenge back, when to use them, etc.
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Feb 22, 2022 06:07
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bagrada posted:Any idea what the deal is with the extra divider tabs in the Return boxes? I've got the ones for carcosa, forgotten age and tcu because I like them for storage and they come with midnight masks, ancient evils, etc tabs each so I have three of those but only one devourer below and no the gathering tabs. I understand ancient evils and chilling cold because those sets get used a lot but why do all of them have midnight masks? Not a huge deal but very weird. I still have RtNoZ and dunwich to get at some point, but I just found it odd. A few campaigns use the treacheries from Midnight Masks. They'll tell you to just grab the treacheries and not the location cards. This storage made a lot more sense when buying 2x core set was necessary, because people who were in the market for a Return To also had at least one spare copy of each core set encounter card.
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Feb 28, 2022 06:39
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I'm replaying Dunwich, without Return, after a long way away from it. And drat if it doesn't remind me how far the game has come. There's still the DNA from Dunwich scenarios in every campaign, for example Essex Express is one design they've constantly iterated on, but there's a bunch of design decisions they've learned from: - The decision-warping Beyond the Veil - What if players want to change their decks? (i.e. expansions actually giving out XP after Dunwich) - Maybe we shouldn't hide XP enemies in the encounter deck from the start (later expansions tend to spawn VP-awarding enemies at set milestones in a scenario, also so players have at least a few turns to set up before getting ambushed by a tanky monster) - Give everyone something to do (Museum much, fighters?) - Don't limit how cluevers can cluever (many times in Dunwich it's not about how many clues you can get, it's how well you can pass an investigate check, if you get what I'm saying) The one thing Dunwich does better than most campaigns is keep the locations fresh. Most scenarios have two copies of a location, but you'll only see one of those copies during the campaign, which keeps you guessing. It's likely printing costs that keep them from going back to this, but it's nice not knowing exactly what's going to come up when you reveal a location. I'm thinking about how replayable the first scenario of EotE would be if I didn't know which location had the best shelter value, for instance. -
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Mar 6, 2022 04:56
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Batterypowered7 posted:How does Stella Clark compare to a lot of the other Survivors? I like the look of her gimmick and hope she's not overshadowed by someone mechanically similar but entirely better. More like how does every other Survivor compare to her? You build her to "fail" at least one action a turn, but thanks to the Survivor suite she gets to actually benefit from it. Then you get to recover that action plus your regular actions to do whatever else you want, and she gets three copies of her amazing signature card that blanks most treachery cards in the game. The only reason I don't play her anymore is that she's a boring unkillable ball of efficiency that ignores the encounter deck. I didn't enjoy the campaign I first played her in because I didn't get to experience any consequences of my decisions.
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Mar 6, 2022 06:04
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I abandoned a campaign where I 2H-solo'd with Gloria and Daniela. Gloria was fun until I saw that by picking apart the encounter deck I was removing all the challenge. Even though it's not possible to remove everything, I could spread out the challenges enough so that it didn't matter when Daniela got hit with a three horror treachery, because the odds of her drawing another one were that much lower. It's also possible there could be no empty location for those "spawn at an empty location" enemies. In most scenarios that means the enemy card just gets discarded. I know there's one where that isn't the case, but it'll tell you what to do otherwise.
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Mar 14, 2022 22:56
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I found EotE to have the easiest first scenario, mostly because of the partners. Minh can have a tough time with enemies though with her 2 punch and 2 agility, so I can definitely see her getting stuck on an enemy and dying in the first scenario. Leo can be practically unkillable from the start with all his soak from allies.GreenBuckanneer posted:I generally do sleeve my cards, but what I'm trying to say is I have the core set (revised, so 2? core sets) and now the dunwich expansions + investigators. I can see myself currently filling up the Revised Core box and that leaves me with an empty storage box. That's a lot of storage, drat. The Return To boxes are the perfect size, enough for all the encounter cards sleeved with room for core encounter cards. I keep the latter in a separate box, but the extra room is nice. Jim Culver is the worst mystic. Not that he's unplayable, but he's outshined in every way by everyone else. The Mystic starter deck is a big reason why he's outclassed actually; Jacqueline does a much better job at flattening the odds of the chaos bag.
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Mar 20, 2022 04:57
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Zoey is my favorite from Dunwich. A Guardian that has money? Leo can do that too with Rogue access, but Zoey can rake in cash while still devoting her entire deck to fighty cards.
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Mar 20, 2022 19:04
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Jimmeeee posted:Ok I picked up the revised core set and played through NotZ on easy as Wendy and Roland. This game is so much fun. The first two scenarios went well - I was able to kill the Ghoul Priest in the first scenario and got 4/6 cultists in the second. I got absolutely demolished in the third scenario though, I got buried in enemies faster than Roland could shoot his way through them. I remember hearing that that scenario is designed to be really hard to get players used to losing, is that right? And any tips on it for the future? It seems like even killing one more cultist in Midnight Masks would have made a pretty huge difference. 4/6 on Midnight Masks is really good, that's what I hope for when I play. There isn't any mixing up of scenarios to do, officially. Most of the variety in the game comes from investigator deckbuilding, with a smaller amount from what order things come up in the encounter deck. You can get the Return To set or one of the standalone scenarios and insert it into the campaign (Murder at the Excelsior Hotel is great and you can pretend you escaped your house and stayed in a hotel before hunting cultists in the city and oh no it's haunted) but all that costs more money that's better put towards real campaigns.
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Mar 21, 2022 14:06
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GreenBuckanneer posted:That assumes that I Burned my house down, which I didnt Daisy and Agnes get big boosts from Dunwich player cards. Daisy is suddenly more mobile with Shortcut and Pathfinder, and can do burst damage with "I've Got a Plan!" and Strange Solution. Agnes gets Peter Sylvestre, a horror soaking, agility-boosting ally that heals his sanity every turn, and also boosts willpower when upgraded.
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Mar 21, 2022 21:32
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I recommend the Arkham Cards app to run your campaigns. It'll tell you step by step how to set up the scenario, including which encounter sets to grab, which cards to set aside (that may be put into play or shuffled in later), and a diagram of the location setup. Nothing the official paper doesn't have, but it's a lot more convenient. Plus you can keep track of experience earned and little things you might have to remember without having to write them down.
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Mar 24, 2022 02:50
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Anonymous Robot posted:They’re not capsules, and cost a little more, but these are on my list to eventually get. They’re a shortcut that turns pennies into weighty, glossy tokens. Burger Tokens are fantastic, but they're made to be counters, not something to be a randomizer. I noticed I was drawing the auto-fail a lot, so I did a blind test and noticed that I could pick out the auto-fail and one of the other tokens 100% of the time at will, because they were flatter than the others. Could have been manufacturing or the way I pressed down when building them. I got some Air-Tite A-26 capsules for my cardboard tokens and couldn't be happier. The 26mm size lets me pop out and swap tokens if I need to, which happens occassionally because 20 is enough to run a campaign, but not enough to cover every token. For investigator health/sanity I've been using the dials that come with Marvel Champions. They're even red and blue!
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Mar 25, 2022 13:50
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I just finished two-handing the custom campaign Dark Matter and it was an A+ campaign. Tied with Edge of the Earth as my favorite. If you haven't heard of it, it's a fan-made campaign set in the future, with inspiration from Event Horizon, The Thing, Alien, etc. and all without beating you over the head with references. It takes the best parts of Dream-Eaters, Path to Carcosa, and The Forgotten Age and mixes them in a sci-fi blender. Like Edge of the Earth, it has lots of replayability, secrets you won't discover the first time through, and branching paths that lead to the same conclusion. Even though it's set in the far future, it still captures that pulp horror vibe of Arkham Horror, and I never once felt taken out of the story because I was on a space station. It really helps if you've played Path to Carcosa, and I played on TTS so this wasn't an issue, but I think you even need Path to Carcosa in order to play. I'll be ordering a physical set printed as soon as I have the money for it, it's that good.
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Apr 20, 2022 21:12
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https://twitter.com/FFGames/status/1518707684115103745?t=naJxvn2BWzWflVFcoD5XUw&s=19 First teaser for The Scarlet Keys! No cards, just a redacted dossier of one of the big bads. Or allies? I'm not familiar with the Scarlet people lore at all.
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Apr 25, 2022 23:43
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Nyarlathotep is neutral? I thought he was the most evil. Also the most in tune with humanity to where he could tempt people with super powers in order to do his bidding, so I'm not ruling him out.
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Apr 26, 2022 00:39
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Xlorp posted:Where in the world is Cthulhu San Diego https://twitter.com/FFGames/status/1518998462414659590?t=4w0bNQh52z7sg5G9KFL7zg&s=19
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Apr 26, 2022 18:47
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Xlorp posted:Our crew got through Carcosa in the end. We're in no condition to take on even standalones so it's on to The Forgotten Age with three brand new investigators. Against the Wendigo was good. I didn't like the river mechanic, it's too inconvenient to be fun. I don't know if I'm going to play Alice in Wonderland. I heard it's great, but I don't like the theme. I was about to get it printed before I saw the art on some of the cards. Dark Matter was amazing, tied with Edge of the Earth for my favorite. Even though it's sci-fi, its art and theme works and didn't distract me from the fact that I was playing Arkham Horror.
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May 1, 2022 23:29
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https://twitter.com/FFGames/status/1522618269080952833 New cycle announced! With more details early this summer. It's going to be a long wait.
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May 6, 2022 18:00
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If they didn't print Lola, people would be begging for a neutral investigator. There's hope that Charlie Kane will be the next neutral investigator, but I don't know what that could mean.
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May 7, 2022 03:42
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jeeves posted:I finally bit the bullet and did it-- over a hundred dollars of binders to go along with the other obscene amount of money I've spent blinging out this game: GameNerdz.com has Dex Protection's nice "Noir"/Black-band 12-page binders in all of the 5 investigator colors. (You'd probably be fine with the 9-page version but I said gently caress it and future proofed it. Plus the 12-pages fit perfectly into my IKEA Kallex board game shelf.) This is one of my motivations to find a new job. I have one binder now and it's a 9-pocket UltraPro just for investigators and their signature cards. For anyone wondering, there are ~270 player cards for each class at the moment. EotE added 30ish for each, but multiclass was a theme so Scarlet Keys could have more per class.
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May 25, 2022 02:19
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My favorite gimmick deck is "oops, all assets" Yorick with Geared Up. Scoffner's Catalogue, Blessed Blade, Meat Cleaver, Tennessee Sour Mash, etc. Short Supply is basically "at the start of the game, draw 10 cards". I include a few skills like Vicious Blow, but otherwise it's all assets. Here's an early version I took through Dark Matter. I'd change a few things if I rebuilt it, but it'll give the gist: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/2067793 This "Kirby All Even" deck is fun, too: https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/37318/ultimate-ursula-deck-guide-1.0 However, you should ignore the hell out of that Crystallizer of Dreams garbage. To play it you need 3 XP on Relic Hunter and waste 3 XP, a card slot, and action on the bad Archaic Glyphs upgrade. Just play Eon Chart, and fit Deduction or Fingerprint Kit in there. I've been working on a custom campaign and it's a lot of work. My first two scenarios are "done" in that they're complete, tested, and playable but only exist in a Google Doc and written onto basic Pokemon energy as proxies.
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May 29, 2022 15:19
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Return to TCU adds a way to skip the prologue, which isn't necessary the first time but very welcome on replays. The tarot cards are also neat and Observed is my favorite thing to grab when I don't know what to do with my XP. If you're grabbing them in order of big box releases, that'll be a wait.
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May 29, 2022 18:36
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CitizenKeen posted:Thoughts on the following Jacqueline Fine build? You're missing Ward of Protection and Guts. Maybe a Flashlight or two for level 0 because you're not using your hand slots for much and it's guaranteed clues at Shroud 1 or 2 locations. Familiar Spirit and Arcane Studies aren't great. Delve Too Deep is a useful card if you're playing Dunwich and don't have access to either of the permanents that make Mystics able to efficiently upgrade their cards. Just hold onto it until everyone's ready to complete the last scenario or resign and fire it off.
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Jun 14, 2022 22:39
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My theory on the customize rule is that you can only spend XP on them that fits your deckbuilding restrictions. So the average investigator with Class 0-5 could spend up to 5 XP on a card, but Daisy Walker could only buy 2 XP worth of upgrades on a Mystic card.
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Jun 30, 2022 19:58
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The best idea I heard for Concealed and the mini cards is that they're randomly spread face down in locations. The "real" Red person is hiding in one of those spots. The rest are red herrings at best and encounter cards at worst. A similar vibe to the main mechanic in Carnevale of Horrors.
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Jul 2, 2022 05:42
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CitizenKeen posted:Next time, the Miskatonic Museum! If you didn't like scenarios where certain characters have nothing to do, you might hate this one also. Nathaniel Cho is going to be bored.
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Jul 5, 2022 18:25
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Vidmaster posted:Amazon has the Edge of the Earth investigator box on sale for $28 for prime day: https://www.amazon.com/Investigator-Cooperative-Fantasy-Flight-Games/dp/B096146GCM?ref_=Oct_DLandingS_D_d121d01c_267&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER That's an amazing deal. There's so much good stuff in that box.
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Jul 12, 2022 18:58
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Bob is the only one whose deckbuilding confuses me, because I always start theorycrafting around some higher-level Survivor item that would make sense for him mechanically and thematically, yet he can't take.
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Jul 12, 2022 20:37
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Orange Devil posted:So just a quick trip report on my first time through Innsmouth. Norman is broken for sure, he only needs 3 XP to get the Atlas and start doing crazy things. He's Amanda Sharpe but you actually have to put work in. I think Ashcan can get his Int up pretty high, but you have to strictly be gunning for that and it spoils his jack-of-all-trades stuff. You can also do Ancient Covenant + Favor of the Sun + Jacob Morrison tricks to pass whatever test you want, but again, that's a very specific playstyle. The true MVP card of the car chase is Pocket Telescope, to avoid bad turns and to pick up clues on locations you've already passed. You still need at least one charge to activate Blur, it says "If Blur has charges remaining" in its cost. I haven't tried Handcuffs yet, but I keep meaning to. Dragging an enemy around and getting those "if an enemy is at your location" bonuses every turn must be great.
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Jul 21, 2022 21:59
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Orange Devil posted:4 actions (taken by the cluever), 2 resources, a card and three tests for 6 resources seems like a good deal to you? If that's in my deck, I'm aiming to put as much XP into it ASAP for the reasons you said. If it stays level 0 for more than the first scenario it's a wasted deck slot. Everything looks great on paper until you remember that it's always been easier than this card for someone to just spend two actions to draw 2 or gain $2.
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Jul 23, 2022 04:57
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I didn't see what the big deal was about what is almost always a French vanilla 2/2/2, until I re-read it. If you're a non-fighting Mystic and you draw this without a combat spell, your team's fighters are going to be swinging at air trying to fight it while drawing three tokens. I can't quickly find a calculator for it, but from a few random pulls I'm seeing it's usually a -5, plus or minus 1, on the average chaos bag.
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Jul 29, 2022 04:19
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Kalko posted:
His camera not taking up a slot is amazing. 2 willpower is rough, but he's got good sanity and access to Peter Sylvester. Probably the first investigator from this box I'm building, I'm sure I'm not the only one who waited forever for a 5/2 red/yellow.
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Aug 12, 2022 03:31
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I think Leo is perfectly fine until you replace him with Gene. Monterey rakes in cash; even if you don't have access to the big economy cards, you have un-taboo'd Dr. Milan plus Monterey's ability. Once you get Higher Education you won't be worried about failing will treacheries anymore, and with 5 foot you're not taking much damage, so it's worth 2 physical trauma to start with Higher Education. Edit: Working a Hunch worked better for my Monterey than level 0 Deduction. With only one in the deck and lots of money, I'll take the guaranteed clue. Kind of weaker in three player, but still. LifeLynx fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Aug 15, 2022 |
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Aug 15, 2022 04:57
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Kalko posted:
They must have playtested the hell out of this to get to that 4 (technically 5) card discard cost. It's one of those that if you get it, you have to change your upgrade plans to include a lot more horror soak than you thought. Sort of like the Edge of the Earth "counts as a damage" weaknesses. When I'm playing a seeker, there's a lot of times past the halfway mark in a scenario where my hand is full of redundant cards I don't need; the trouble is finding a spare action to get rid of this.
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Aug 18, 2022 19:08
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Signum Crucis at 0 XP is the best bonus, that card is so good in a bless deck. It's survivor so I always had extra XP to waste on it, but still welcomed. It's also Practiced! Jeremiah Kirby was broken. I built some decks based around him and he was constantly refilling my hand. Same with Gené, being able to ship enemies away from you or freely swipe clues off victory locations without wasting an action + test is too good. I'm actually going to play Mandy again now that she's stuck at 50 cards and Rook can start in her deck. I haven't done anything with her since before I started using the taboo list. Shame they had to nerf David Renfield, but if he had to take a hit so that "doom matters" can become a good mystic archetype, so be it. I actually forgot that Eon Chart could do non-basic actions, so I was always using it for a free move or a basic investigate after using whatever else.
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Aug 27, 2022 00:11
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I finally have Scarlet Keys in my hands! I wish they'd release the investigator and campaign expansions at the same time. On the other hand, it gives me time to fumble through a practice campaign with bad decks so I'm not having a bad time with bad decks in brand new content. I'm running Darrell, who I suspect they accidentally made too strong. Even with the new cards designed for him, Survivor 5/Seeker 2 is incredibly powerful. But they really gave him an extra edge with all the 0 difficulty cards. There's no obvious fighter though, so I'm torn between Doom Matters phone operator and the Rogue for the enemy handler. One thing's for sure though, I am not smart enough to figure out these customizable cards. My eyes glaze over as soon as I even begin to riffle through the massive stack of checklist cards. I'm also bad at super-specific deck limits that Vincent has.
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Oct 6, 2022 04:32
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Nephthys posted:I finally got my investigator box myself. Looking forward to trying out Darrell and Vincent at the weekend. I think I'm going to throw them at the Hotel to see how much they break it. Full degenerate Darrell cluever and Vincent fight with Jessica Hyde, Ace of Swords and Machete. I tried Darrell + Kymani (in combat mode) in the first scenario of Edge of the Earth. When there's no enemies and no treacheries in play, neither of them are very interesting. But the evidence mini-game and killing enemies by overachieving on evades are both fun once things kick off. Darrell has two archetypes, and I can't tell which is better. He can do the difficulty reduction deck or the dropping-clues deck, but it's hard to do both in the same deck. Dropping clues wasn't great in EotE; too many locations, most of which are gated by spending clues. In some scenarios it should really shine, like picking up clues off easy locations, dropping them for benefits, and then spending evidence to help easily get clues from victory locations. With the 0-difficulty deck, Darrell already has 5 book, so he doesn't necessarily need Old Key Ring, Flashlight, etc. to help him get clues unless you really want to never pull a token. Reducing a 4 shroud location to 0 and not risking the autofail on a test I've committed two Deductions to sounds great. While I was building Kymani I didn't like them because I felt like I was building just any mono-Rogue deck, but once I got into combat I realized how amazing their ability is. It's incredibly easy to pop enemies, and cards like Stealth and Blur make it even easier. You can set up the kill by automatic-evade cards and then do a real evade test to snipe it, and there are so many cards that let you do action compression on evades because evading enemies was never a permanent solution before now. Since it only works on non-elites and doesn't give you victory (they're discarded, not defeated, unless I'm mistaken), you can save ammo for those enemies.
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Oct 7, 2022 17:18
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