Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Enjoy. Dream Eaters and Forgotten Age go back and forth as my favorite campaigns. There are some silly long scenarios in there, but unlike Circle Undone, they feel appropriate for the scope of the setting.

Yeah, I don't love the 4/4 structure but Dream Eaters might be my favorite too!

Scarlet Keys is officially announced and generous on investigator spoilers. The guardian and mystic are revealed in the article, and the rogue on the back of the box. We also have the new customizable keyword to upgrade cards and confirmation of a non-linear campaign. Maybe fiddly but also fun.

www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2022/6/30/scarlet-keys/

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A lot to dive into here but my immediate takeaway is one of dismay and horror that half my country has been wiped off the world map.

Even more traumatic, it's the half I live in...

On the plus side, we're doing 50% better than we did back on the early Risk boards!

Edge of the Earth is solid. After one playthrough, it has earned a firm place in my second tier of campaigns: not an absolute favorite but definitely worth revisiting anytime. No bad scenarios and plenty of good hooks and gimmicks for everything else.

The greatest strength of this sequel to At the Mountains of Madness was its sense of place. An abundance of treacheries that attach to locations and fewer enemies really made it feel that you were fighting the place itself, an element made literal in the finale. Really glad to see this because the weakness of place, primarily created by returning to the Underwater Caverns locations way too often, was a blow to Innsmouth.

Not totally sure how I feel about the partner allies. They feel like a reaction to the supplies of Forgotten Age. Whereas in Mexico it only hurt you to not take binoculars or chalk of whatever, it can still hurt you to lose Danforth or Takada, but you’ll also benefit by brining them along and keeping them alive. It’s definitely fun to have these new toys and find the best matches for the particular scenario or your investigator. They’re also smart on a narrative level. MJ can only do so much to the investigators to raise the stakes and ratchet up the tension but has free rein to knock the expedition team around to let you know things are getting worse.

On the other hand, MJ overwrites and giving a personality and detailed backstory to every one of these people is a license to overkill. The only expedition members that really matter are Danforth and Kensler. Giving everyone else a line here or there and otherwise letting us care about them as we drag them across Antarctica because they’re useful is fine. It’s ultimately just a niggle in a fine campaign, but it’s there.

Excited to head back to Antarctica for campaigns with a Bob that loots the bodies of his fallen team members for their stuff and abuse it with Joey Vigil and Scavenging or investigators that actually try to keep everyone alive. Before then though, I’m trying out the fan campaign Crown of Egil.

I think you'll really like it. It's a good one.

sornars and I finished our second edge of the earth playthrough and blitzed through the final scenario on the back of the cyclopean hammer and some reasonable early clue acceleration from Minh. I like the last scenario. I think we got the "best" ending but I'm not sure.

I really enjoyed the narrative arc of EotE. The cold environment is a huge danger in the early scenarios and that slowly shifts as the campaign goes on but you still feel the effects of any frost damage/tokens you've acquired in the later scenarios.

I think the 2 part finale is fantastic. It's very cinematic and the end skedaddle is a lot of fun. I like when finales offer something for brawlers and cluevers to do; my most memorable example is the Dream Eaters finale but this is another good one.

www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2022/...shift-in-the-mythos/

New FAQ and taboo list with extensive explanations from MJ. A lot of the stuff you’d expect to get hit got hit, and Lola got boosted by nerfing her signature weakness and gaining an extra role change at the cost of an action. Big boost to curse and bless, too, by allowing them to trigger off all those mystic cards that care about symbol pulls.

Finished Crown of Egil, a four-scenario, fan campaign that takes place in Iceland. I liked the setting and thought there was some solid treachery design (if tuned a little easy), but none of the scenarios really got me excited about trying it again. There’s nothing wrong with it. I’d probably just rather play anything else.

I was excited for my Silas and Bob team where Bob would provide the resources for Silas to return his Net and Harpoon to hand and replay them with no tempo hit, but it was never really necessary. None of Silas’ skills felt high impact enough that I needed to recur them through his weapon abilities, or I could just grab them with True Survivor anyway.

Looking next at another Edge of the Earth campaign with a solo Bob who loots the bodies of the expedition team and then loops their stuff with Joey “The Rat” and Scavenging.

derbk.com/ancientevils/scarlet-keys-visual-spoiler/

The entirety of the player cards for Scarlet Keys are now spoiled. I’m not too excited for most of the investigators but am generally happy with these. A lot of underdeveloped themes getting some love. Healing got a huge boost, and Seekers dropping clues for benefits, doom play and caring about arcane slots all look fun.

That’s another Arkham Nights in the books. About 13 hours of gameplay by my estimate.

Friday evening I opened the festivities with a play of Fortune and Folly, a new standalone designed by a podcast host. It’s a casino heist and absolutely stuffed with ideas. You begin with a stakeout, completing tasks like stealing uniforms and keys and finding allies to make smooth the job itself. Every encounter card has the rank and suit of a playing card allowing you to play modified versions of poker, roulette, slots and baccarat in game. Even more, it has special rules if played as a side scenario with the upcoming Scarlet Keys campaign. This was the lead designer’s first official scenario, and he didn’t cut any ideas from it. I ran a clue-gathering Darrell with the test at zero tech, and he performed very well, collecting 21 of 27 clues on his own. Looping Sharp Vision with Resourceful and True Survivor (reduced by Own Your Own) helped a lot.

Saturday was Ironman as we played the entirety of Return to Dunwich in one afternoon. We were absolute heroes. We saved Peter Clover (a first for me), beat the museum on the second agenda, beat Essex on the third agenda, lost only one sacrifice and knocked out four Broods without breaking a sweat. We did lose one investigator in the finale when a bad treachery kicked her to a location with three chunky enemies. One turn from escaping my Silas pulled the same card but actually had remaining health and an evade above one and was able to scoot to the exit by committing every card in his hand. Ran a Dark Horse Silas because he only needs 10 xp to feel complete, and he did work on enemies (as expected) and clues (not as expected).

Then because we had finished Dunwich in seven hours, literally three hours before most teams, we broke out Fortune again. Tried some new tactics, won again even though my Scavenging Finn wasn’t as strong as hoped. A teammate’s Vincent Lee was an absolute madman though. He gladly tanked damage because, once set up, he was healing two damage and a sanity for each point of damage taken.

The best, though? Goodie bags included Final Hour because that was the only way to move that box.

My Scarlet Keys campaign box just dropped and showed up at my house. The player cards looked ok with some interesting twists but many of the invesigators feel a little... niche maybe. So the campaign box is kind of the main event. Glancing at it, it looks pretty interesting with lots of locations and globe trotting which isn't really how the game has gone before.

I wouldn't say that my Scarlet Keys hate is even close to as high as I see on BGG and elsewhere. But it leaves a really bad taste in the mouth at the end which I think amplifies any existing mixed feelings---the finale scenario is an absolute mess and leans into a lot of the things which are just a regular level annoyance or notable feature you need to know of the campaign at large.

Not in my top tier. Probably in that middle-bottom tier. Still not sure it's as poor as pre-Return To patch Circle Undone. I really think anyone going into this campaign needs to know that they will be taking repeated, difficult primary skill tests that they can ideally pass without tossing many resources in. Static boosts and resouce->stat boosting cards feel like the name of the game. Just like anyone going into base Circle needs to know they probably an't realistitically take in a 1 or 2 will investigator with low sanity without some MAJOR tricks.

Glad to see the next campaigns from a refreshed design team. But I think a lot of people have very rosy assessments of the old simple campaigns that I don't think they would have if they got released now, because they were in the throes of their initial love for the system. So I don't necessarily think the ambition is bad.