Those are my “I have sold my consumerist soul” cases, because to get them you’ve got to partake of two of the most morally suspect creators on the planet – Hobby Lobby (who make the case, it’s an “Artist Case”, and you can buy them on Amazon) and BrokenToken for the inserts – although I think I’ve seen some similar inserts now on Etsy. (I bought the inserts before the sexual harassment stuff hit the BGG news with regards to BT.)
At any rate, I don’t have room for Edge of the Earth and Scarlet Keys in those two so I ended up buying a third storage dealy about a month ago on Etsy, and once it arrives I’ll figure out how to organize everything when it shows up.
Oh! And the cool color and symbol-coded inserts are also from Etsy. They’re not super expensive and great for keeping the different campaigns – and the different card types/factions/symbols separated and easy to find when you want them.
Anyway, as for Scenario 1B (which I elected to do first by flipping a coin), everything was going swimmingly. Daisy was clearing clues (and resources) like crazy, and Zoey – thanks to two swarms of rats and a couple of evidence cards – was also pulling in clues. Wonderful.
And then Zoey pulled her inherent weakness, Smite the Wicked, and had to go all the way back to the front of the restaurant to deal with. She was almost all the way to the alley when the agenda ticked over, and all hell broke loose.
We survived, but not without Zoey sacrificing a Beat Cop and Daisy burning through TWO Milan Christophers. A judicious bit of evasion and a dynamite stick (oh yeah, and Zoey getting to play “Shortcut” first!) helped immensely.
At any rate…on to 1A!
Also, if there’s a “Shortcut” card fanclub meeting, let me know. The combination of Zoey engaging big bad mobs, dropping shortcut to get out of the room/area, and then throwing dynamite? Yes, please.
OK, this time we legitimately won the first scenario, at the cost of Roland taking two mental trauma. Strongly considering retiring him before we go on to Scenario 2.
I’m a bit confused by buying new cards with experience. You’re limited to only what higher-level cards your set(s) come with, right? So if I wanted to buy Foozle and there was only a level 3 version, and Roland was eligible to use it, I’d have to pay 1 (for the hypothetical zero level version) + 1 + 1 +1 = 4 XP?
Congrats! One possible solution if Roland is getting low on sanity points is to use some upgrade points to get him an Elder Sign Amulet to soak additional horror.
That’s almost right. You only have to pay the level cost of the card, in general. So a Level 3 Foozle costs 3XP to add to your deck (and you need to remove another card to have space for it.)
There are two confusing related rules that make this tough to gather from the rulebook:
To add a card to your deck after deckbuilding, there is a minimum XP cost of 1. So if you decided to add Level 0 Foozle after the first scenario, it would still cost 1XP, even thought you would expect 0. This prevents you from swapping out all of the zero-cost cards between scenarios.
If you are adding a higher-cost version of the same card you already have in your deck (by exact title, subtitle and all else can be different), you get a discount of the lower-cost card’s level. So replacing a Level 1 Foozle with Level 3 Foozle only costs 2 XP.
I had to laugh at this. My BrokenToken Spirit Island insert is possibly my most useful and treasured gaming accessory, but I feel the need to disclaim when I bought it when showing it off.
Great, thanks – those rules absolutely confused me and I think I was interpreting the process as “first, you need to buy the level 0 version, and only once you do that can you then buy up to a level X version.”
My experience playing so far is that rares/uniques are drawn so infrequently that it would be better for Roland to have, say, a half-dozen weapons to draw instead of a level 5 “Roland’s handcannon” or whatnot. Does this make sense? (or if anyone wants to share their upgrading philosophy, I’m all ears)
If you’re working with the core set, then that seems totally reasonable. Roland doesn’t seem to have access to anything that lets you efficiently locate weapons or even draw extra cards very easily. In general, the advice is to try not to overload any one slot too much, because if you have six awesome Hand slot cards, then chances are you’ll draw one when you already have your Hands full and it becomes just a bad skill boost card.
My core set advice would be to aim for around four passable weapons (three with Roland’s 38) and mulligan everything until you draw one (four cards should give you a better than 50% chance of getting one in your starting hand.) If you don’t get lucky in the opening hand, then use every basic skill card with draw until you get one (Guts, Overpower, etc.)
If you have or are open to proxying a card from the first expansion, Dunwich Legacy, then Prepared for the Worst is a staple Guardian card that is effectively a copy of your best weapon, but is also a pretty okay skill boost card if you draw it when you’re already prepared.
He will need to spend 3 XP (since he doesn’t already have this card)
and
It needs to replace a non-required card in his deck
but
Does the card it replaces need to be the same type (Asset) or the same Cost (2), or does that not matter at all?
The card it’s replacing doesn’t matter at all. Some investigators have stricter deck requirements on the back of their identity cards, but Roland and all the core set investigators can have any number and types of cards as long as they’re the right classes and levels.
I haven’t tried Shortcut but that sounds like a great combo… does it work in three actions? How does it prevent the engaged enemies from moving along with the investigator?
Did you manage to get Dr. Morgan before you escaped?
I played through the scenario again last night and finally didn’t make any rules mistakes. It was going great until a Servant of the Lurker and the Pit Boss both engaged Roland when he wasn’t armed for a fight. I walked away when things looked dire… Daisy should be able to escape but I don’t think Roland has a chance in hell. Ach!
So Shortcut is a fast-play card, which means it doesn’t consume any actions. Which means that if you play it when you’re engaged, because you’re not taking an action, enemies you’re engaged with don’t get a free attack of opportunity on you, and you scoot from the room unharmed.
And enemies typically will either engage another investigator in the room. The scenario or agenda rules may have them move towards you, too. And obviously, “Hunter” enemies will move towards you.
But enemies can’t move until it’s their phase, which comes after the investigator phase in the turn.
So. Play Shortcut. Get out of the room. Throw dynamite (first action). Then either move, or ready other cards as needed to prepare to finish them off.
The biggest issue is other investigators in the room. If they’re unengaged, it’s easy, they go first. Otherwise it gets more complex. Ideally maybe your guardian character can engage every baddie in a room and get them off your others so they can escape first, but that leads to your guardian likely facing a lot of damage the turn before he/she can shortcut out and toss some explosives.
Makes sense that the Fast action wouldn’t trigger an attack of opportunity. But I’m still not seeing how the enemies wouldn’t just move on the shortcut along with their engaged investigator. I thought engaged enemies always move to new locations with their investigators.
Elusive is a card from Skids O’Toole’s deck that disengages before the move so that could make a powerful combo with a Dynamite toss. But the move is limited to revealed locations with no enemies.
Completed Masks at Midnight last night! Spoilery thoughts below
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This was great because the complexity is immediately ratcheted up x10 (compared to the first scenario) with the layout of the town and what you’re tasked to do (has anyone in the history of this game ever honestly dealt with all the cultists? lol )
Given my experience with the first scenario, I was absolutely NOT going to let the agenda expire (figuring it would be a “your party took too long and ghouls ate everyone” but pleasantly surprised to find that resigning one turn before it would have expired will allow me to keep full hands at the beginning of the next scenario)
Good ol’ Dynamite!
Is killing the cultists who have a parley option really supposed to be allowed/count? Seems to me that killing them keeps you from interrogating them, but hey.
Killing the cultists is definitely okay! I think the story idea is what you learn not just from interrogating them but also from searching their still-twitching corpses.
I imagine you could get all the cultists if you got some lucky card draws and were playing on Easy difficulty. But it sure seems close to impossible!
