Only 1XP? How is that possible? Didn’t you kill the Pit Boss? You must have cleared some of the back rooms of clues? Each of those is a victory point!
-Tom
Oh, I missed the victory on the room cards! Nice, I might do the same thing you did with Arcane Initiate, then. The other card I’d consider adding is Spirit Athame, a Mystic asset that gives you +2 to any skill checks on spells and you get +2 fists for one attack each turn. Since Akachi has a surprisingly good 3 fists for a Mystic that’s actually not bad, +5 to a fight check might be handy for killing off simple stuff that you don’t want to waste a spell charge on.
There’s also Enchanted Blade, which is kind of the Mystic Tommy Gun. May not really be worth it since it takes up a hand and an arcane slot and she’s already got a lot of damage tools, but it has charges so there’s some synergy with Akachi’s abilities. Plus I just always like that weapon in the Arkham games.
As far as what to replace with it, maybe Eldritch Inspiration? I think there are cases where it could be really useful but I’ve had it in both games so far and ended up just using it for skill checks.
If I dump any card from the Akachi deck you made – which is doing far better than my Tony Morgan deck, by the way – it’s going to be the boring ol’ Unexpected Courage.
I mean, sure, it’s useful. But it feels like you just gave up at that point. It feels like you carefully picked 28 cards and then thought to yourself, “Enh, that’s good enough, so to finish, I’ll just add the two cards that are sooooo generic and broadly useful and dull-minded no-brainers they’d fit in any deck without having to put any thought whatsoever into including them.”
And then you hogged both of them for your deck!
Not that I’m judging.
Here’s a question I encountered in the Humanities Building of the Miskatonic University. What do you do with this?
It’s got the Peril keyword. This means from the moment you draw it, you can’t consult with other players until it’s been resolved. So it’s clearly intended that one player has to pick asset, event, or skill without knowing what the other players have in their hands. But when playing co-op, I obviously know what’s in the other hand because it’s laid out in front of me.
Do I…
a) …choose based on the full knowledge I have?
b) …choose based on what’s optimal to the hand of the character who drew the card?
c) …determine asset, event, or skill randomly?
I went with a) because I refuse to have to make suboptimal choices. Unless there’s something in the rules or gameplay that mandates a suboptimal choice, it’s not my job to make things harder. It’s the game’s job.
-Tom
As a mutual friend might say, “tough but fair.” I mostly added that because Akachi’s skill icon spread is not amazing. I wouldn’t even have noticed if I hadn’t put the deck into Arkham DB. It’s a totes useful site.
Yeah that card sucks. I went with b) for two reasons. First I kinda forgot what was in Akachi’s hand so I just looked at what Tony had. He had 0 events, not many cards and every one of them was important. Then I almost flipped the table when I went to discard events from Akachi’s hand and realized she had 4 of them and they’d all be real useful against the mess that just showed up in the Science Building. How you say, womp womp.
Tony has been tearing it up since I started using his contracts correctly, by the way. That custom gun he has gets a nice perk when fighting bounties. I actually held off on busting out the Thompson this time around.
Great to see you guys playing this awesome game. I’m paused somewhere in the Dunwich campaign, but I do plan to resume – it’s very inventive. I’ll be following your doings with interest.
I just finished an Extracurricular Activity playthrough with the token mix on easy. Seems like a pretty straightforward scenario, although I went down a rules rabbit hole trying to parse whether “take control” meant the card was in my hand or in play. I’m still not convinced it’s answered clearly in the rules, but all my Google searches led to people saying it meant a card was in play, so I’m going with that.
The Experiment doesn’t seem that tough. I mean, he’s tough, sure. Tons of hit points with that +3/investigator bonus to his base 7. But in terms of fighting him, am I correct that he’s totally defanged for the round if someone evades him? His dexterity is only 2. Tony and Akachi aren’t particularly nimble – oh, look, someone thoughtfully put a dexterity boost in Tony’s deck instead of just shrugging and chucking in both Unexpected Courages! – but a single successful check will mean The Experiment is exhausted and spends the round untapping instead of attacking. Right?
So I guess the challenge is just keeping him from the student dormitory. Hey, how about that +2 damage vs. non-elites on Akachi’s Spectral Razor?
Oh, wait, you probably had to discard your Spectral Razor when Tony drew Terror from Beyond.
I only just noticed during my easy playthough that it was +1 to his fight skill per bounty! I think I’m going to drop a couple more bounty tokens on The Experiment when I play for realz with a standard difficulty token mix.
-Tom
So I just looked something up that I wasn’t sure about. You know how Extracurricular Activity has those pacts and hexes in the Encounter deck that make you discard cards from your investigator deck into your discard pile? And you know how your investigator’s weakness cards have the keyword “Revelation”?
Did you know this means the weakness triggers when you’re moving it from your draw deck to your discard pile?
Ouch.
-Tom
Extracurricular Activity! I decided to just go for it and played on Standard after work today. I was feeling pretty good about crushing The Street Always Wins twice. We’re unstoppable!
There’s plenty of time to look around as the opening agenda holds up to 7 doom tokens and does nothing. Tony picked up 2 clues and then ran into a Ythian Observer while he was in the Student Union. Probably taking night classes, Tom. Tony’s Long Colt and the 2 bounties I had on its head made quick work of it and we got an early victory point, ayooo!
After that he just kind of ran around opening up locations while Akachi cleaned up on clues until The Experiment showed up. Akachi got a lucky draw and found Jazz the Janitor on her first attempt, but it ended up not mattering very much because (spoiler) we never even got to look behind any of the locked doors!
I’m positive it goes into your play area and not your hand. If it was your hand they’d just say put it in your hand. Stuff you have on the table is the stuff you control. Luckily, Jazz doesn’t take up an ally slot so I didn’t have to drop my Arcane Initiate like I did with Dr. Morgan last time.
Then, from the Science Lab…The Experiment! It’s like a tentacle teeth monster thing I guess? And it moves towards the dorms every 2 doom tokens, which normally takes 2 turns but our Experiment got a bit of a head start as the next mythos card I drew added a doom token. We moved fast to get to the Student Union and cut it off. While we were waiting we fought a Wizard of Yog Sothoth! Tom, do you think that’s foreshadowing? Also what’s foreshadowing. Either way, second victory point! We also met a Whippoorwill and I’m not a fan of those.
So we said screw that whippoorwill and rode out Theoden style to meet the Experiment on the quad. Tony unloaded the last 3 shots of the Long Colt (I had boosted the ammo with Emergency Cache) and Akachi got off a Shriveling but took a horror damage in the process. The Experiment hit back and brought both investigators down to one sanity! Tension, Tom!
That’s what I thought at first, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. It says on his card that he readies at the start of the enemy turn, which wouldn’t be necessary to point out unless they intend for it to be able to then engage and attack (since it would then ready immediately after the enemy phase). You could attack it, evade and then run away. But we didn’t do that because…that’s just not our style.
Then, through a super fun combination of mythos cards, Akachi’s basic weakness (Overzealous, it’s so bad!) and enemy movement The Experiment plodded off to the Student Union and left us trapped by an Arcane Barrier with THREE Whipporwhils. -3 brains in an area that we can’t leave without making a brains 4 check!
Ok I took that picture before the other two showed up but just imagine, you know, 3 of them.
Luckily Akachi had her rosary and dumped every card with a brain on it to the check, just passing it at 7 (-3) and breaking down the barrier. Tony pulled out the Tommy and went in to land the last two hits. He had 3 bounties down so only a -4 or a tentacle could have stopped him, but either one of those would have led to 2 defeated investigators.
Yay, we won! Kinda? The mission ends immediately if you kill The Experiment and we hadn’t found the other Doctor yet. Turns out that means he’s kidnapped, so I guess that’s bad? But we didn’t die and we have xp to spend so I’m calling it a win. A little sad we didn’t see what was behind any of the locked doors, but I figure that’s something to look forward to in your recap or I’ll just wait until The Return to find out what’s in them.
Both of them :(
Thanks! This game is amazing. I’ve heard nothing but good things about the upcoming campaigns, very exciting! Tom, did you know that the next campaign (the one that’s not out yet, not the next one we’ll play) has vehicles? Maybe we’ll get to fly on the Blackbird!
Whoa, triple whippoorwills! That should be an achievement.
You got a ton of monsters and birds, too. I just had a pair of thralls loitering in the dorms, waiting for me to come get the bounty tokens off them.
What’s with the bird motif in the whippoorwill set? I love the artwork on Eager for Death:
All those birds are, like, hey, what’s up?
Wait, hold on. The Emergency Cache just gives you regular resources. As far as I know, you can’t turn them into bullets.
Ah, right! I figured a 2-dexterity evade check would have been too easy. Good catch.
-Tom
Ooh, that looks cool. I never saw it because I spent the whole game drawing those -1 bird jerks. You’re all just such…bird jerks. Not you, Tom.
Now I’ve got enough xp to upgrade the other one as well, along with Akachi’s second Arcane Initiate. Yay.
Whoa, I want that Emergency Cache! Especially since Tony Morgan just played the piddly first upgrade that lets you draw a card…and he drew Amnesia. Poof, four cards gone from his hand, forgotten as soon as he opened the lid of the cache that would have given him the resources to be able to play them.
I just finished my for realz playthrough with the standard difficulty token mix. Pretty uneventful. An early appearance by the Wizard of Yog-Sothoth on the Quad. We never even found the janitor. A few of those Ancient Evils hurried The Experiment into play, and we just Thompson SMGed and Shrivelled it to death while it rolled towards the dorms. On the last cast of Shrivelling, Akachi had enough cards that I figured I’d throw in enough to connect even if I drew a -4. And I drew the -4. Phew. Actually, she had plenty of charges (I drew the Elder Sign twice while casting Shrivellings, which adds charges) and even an action left. But still, the -4 came moseying out of the cup thinking it was going to give me the what for, and then…DENIED.
So all told, an XP for clearing the library, an XP for slaying the Wizard in the Quad, and 2XP for The Experiment. On to the Miskatonic Museum!
-Tom
Oh, I forgot to mention something about the second scenario. Remember this?
I ended up drawing a skull or cultist token like 3 different times when using Shriveling and my Eldritch Inspiration was hiding in the deck. It made the last few turns closer than they had to be as drawing another would have taken Akachi out. I’m sorry, Eldritch Inspiration, I’ll never doubt you again!
Aaand again you have made me realize I didn’t score xp for a room. Good thing I’m such a nerd that I take a picture of the table after every game I play for BGStats. The Library was indeed clear.
Going to try to play the museum tonight but I may not get to it until tomorrow. Very exciting, though. Our first Mythos pack story! Are you ready to have 12 to 15 dollars worth of fun, Tom?
I have not had an Eldritch Inspiration moment yet, but I look forward to it eventually happening. That’s one of those highly situational cards that you just have to let lie. Because if I were to swap it out for something else, that’s exactly when I’d draw a token that would cause a Shrivelling or Rite of Seeking misfire.
By the way, I wonder how much Rite of Seeking and Read the Signs mess up scenario scripting. Getting two clue tokens in one action seems to really push the act cards ahead, and Akachi’s extra charage on Rite of Seeking feels like a big deal.
In other words, Cathcart, I think you broke the game.
Okay, on to shopping. For Tony Morgan, I’m going all-in with Derringers. Or, as it’s called in the multiplayer shooter Lead and Gold, much to our friend Len’s delight, the ladies’ gun. I’m swapping out the Colt Vest Pocket with the upgraded level 2 Derringer, so now Tony’s deck is rocking twin Derringers.
I’m also taking out the two Daring Maneuvers, which boost the success level of a successful skill check. I’m replacing them a pair of these to give Tony the ability to reach out and touch someone:
By the way, that’s 8 of the 10-card allowance from Tony’s secondary Guardian class. Which could have been any other class in the game! Tony has a lot of versatility. I like this guy.
So that’s Tony’s 4XP from Extracurricular Activities. Akachi has 2XP left over from The House Always Wins, so she’s got 6XP to spend. The first order of business is to upgrade my second Arcane Initiate. Now Akachi has two upgraded Arcane Initiates. With the remaining XP, I’m going to take out the Torrent of Power cards, which let you cash in spell charges for skill check bonuses. I’m always on tenterhooks with Akachi’s Angered Spirits lurking in the deck, so I don’t want to squander spell charges when I might have to give them over to the Angered Spirits. So Torrents of Power are out, and I’m adding two Mind Wipes for monster management:
Seems like those could be pretty useful? And I like having a fight icon available to play to skill checks. I see also that they upgrade…but, wait, where are my upgraded Mind Wipes? That Arkham Horror card database says there are supposed to be upgraded versions of Mind Wipes. I can’t seem to find them. Whoa, hold on. They’re only in one of those Return to… sets? You mean those Return to… sets have new player cards and not just scenarios? Good lord.
Anyway, Akachi’s last XP goes onto her gift certificate and now we’re off to a night at the museum.
-Tom
Relevant:
Anyone who hit play on that video now has -1 on your fight, will, lore, and dexterity stat.
-Tom
Ooh, I like the Derringers. Maybe I’ll steal that idea. The Colt Vest Pocket was a little weird, anyway.
Akachi is just going to sit on her remaining 3 points for now. I really want to pick up a Grotesque Statue but they’re 4xp each!
After that I’m probably just going to start upgrading her spells whenever I can.
Ok, I’m going to the museum. There better not be any birbs.
My thinking with the Colt Vest Pocket, which you have to discard the same turn you actually play it, was that Tony would get off an extra shot. A normal character would have to spend one action to put the Colt Vest Pocket into play, and then he’d get two shots. But Tony Morgan would get the extra free action against a bounty target, so he’d get three shots.
Ha ha, there is a birb. It’s just the one, though!
So I got tripped up again on the concept of “control”. I don’t know why Fantasy Flight couldn’t simply use one term for a card in play and another for a card in an out-of-play area. I “control” cards in my hand and cards in play. But when the rules tell me to do something with a card I “control”, it always means cards in play unless otherwise specified? Huh?
I mean, I get it. I’ve been doing it right. But during Miskatonic Museum, I got distracted going down another rules rabbit hole making sure I was using Crypt Chill and Pushed into Beyond correctly. They both make you discard a card you control:
I assumed it was a card in play, but had to make sure. If I didn’t have a card in play, would I have gotten off scot-free? Apparently. But I don’t get why they don’t reference a card “in play” instead of a card “you control”.
Anyway, the Thompson is a great gun except when Tony Morgan gets cold. Also, I realized that Tony can’t equip the flashlight when he’s toting a Thompson. So during my easy playthrough, Akachi had to deal with all the bird/snake/whatever it is management. Which wasn’t much, frankly. The Hunting Horror only spawned twice before we found our book.
Okay, I’m going to replay with the standard difficulty mix of tokens now. Seems there’s not a lot to this scenario.
-Tom
P.S. Hey, speaking of sneaking into museums to find eldritch relics, Lovecraft County starts this weekend on HBO!
I’m sure control does not count cards in your hand. Also that card Pushed Into the Beyond got me three times on the easy run. So rude. I think on the standard run I’m just going to try and evade that snake thing as much as possible. By the time we got to the end it had the +3 to all stats and I just wasn’t able to land hits consistently.
I don’t know how people watch shows week to week anymore. I really want to see that but I’ll be waiting until the end of the season. No spoilers! But you can tell me if there are whippoorwills.
It actually does. Page 16, under Ownership and Control:
Which might lead one to think Crypt Chill and Pushed into the Beyond will let you burn a card from your hand, right? Go ahead and look through the rules book for anything to the contrary. You probably won’t find anything telling you otherwise.
But then you start reading conversations about these cards, and about the concept of control, and sure enough, Fantasy Flight really whiffed on this one. You have to read this clause under the entry for Ability on page 2:
Therefore, the text on Crypt Chill and Pushed into the Beyond aren’t allowed to interact with cards in your hand, deck, or discard pile. But you’ll only know that if you try to look it up under “Ability”.
And I’m still not convinced that when an act or agenda card tells you to take control of a story card, it’s supposed to go into play as opposed to into in your hand. I mean, that’s probably the intent, sure. But I don’t see where in the rules that’s spelled out.
-Tom
P.S. Relevant:
Also, I just read this about whippoorwills:
Which kind of explains the freaky artwork in the game:
Black hole sized mouths, Cathcart.
-Tom