I received my expansion last week or so but do not see much talk about the expansion lately. I found that it ramp the difficulty. Mythos cards and Agreements (worse then dark pacts) can be devastating. I played using the edition's cards on top of decks, its investigators and fill out mythos with them. With the mysteries we got, we have only 12 rounds to do two mysteries and we get penalized for every four rounds we take. Mysteries are a lot of work, and one bad rumour just can throw ratchet into everything.

Due to game running longer due to being new cards, we yet to finish the game but the end of the two games we had it did not look pretty when we left the table.

SR offers you different ways to trick the game: Mystic Ruins encounters offer you often the opportunity to trick the omen track. In this way, you can gain time to complete the two mysteries, or you can push fast forward, and go for Final Mystery very quickly. Please note that you don't need to have two mysteries completed to resolve the Final Mystery: having two completed will give you a bonus during the final one, but honestly you can try hijacking the AO by solving only the FM

In any case, I'd never suggest to put "all new on top": in this way you'll have plenty of encounters triggering the mechanics proper of the new expansion in the game, and not much more. If you want those to appear more often, use a 50% new - 50% old ratio by preparing accordingly the decks: in this way you're sure to see the new stuff, but also some old encoutner / item, allowing you to move along a more familiar strategy

The new AO feels like Azathoth 2.0. Doom advances really fast if you can't make rolls on the research encounters.

Yes I do also feel FFG just upgrade Azatoth this time.

I like to see more others AO

I received my SR expansion yesterday and then spent a good couple o hours lovingly sleeving all the cards, drooling over the prospect of having a game.

Well... had my game today and got proper guffed over in 7 turns. I used the 4 new characters and despite Zoey and Skids trying their hardest to solve the " Eye of the Storm " rumor in London, the last eldritch token was spent and it was game over. Boooo!

I must say Marie Lambeau is very impressive,maybe even a little overpowered. She managed to acquire the "Arcane Tome" asset and perform the rest action as her first action regaining Stamina and Sanity and then gain a spell from the arcane tome then use her component action to rest again and gain another spell from the Arcane Tome. After she would use her "Voice of Ra" Glamour to do something else. Due to her passive ability the Glamour would only require her to spend 1 health and no sanity as well!. She also had the "Markings of Isis" Glamour active further enhancing her capabilities. Personally I feel that maybe her action ability should have a focus cost to activate. "ie Action:- Spend 1 focus and perform an action you have already performed this round"

Anyone else feel this way?

Well, how many times will you get the arcane tome on turn 1 or fast enough, though?

SR offers you different ways to trick the game: Mystic Ruins encounters offer you often the opportunity to trick the omen track.

+1.

Warning: SPOILERS ahead.

====

s

p

a

c

e

l

e

f

t

b

l

a

n

k

====

Okay. Spoiler time. I've yet to finish gathering all the stats, but having just gone through the Mystic Ruins encounters I can report that 55% of the pass effects and 45% of the fail effects offer the option to move the omen without advancing doom in some fashion (either one space counterclockwise or to a space of your choice). In addition, 35% of the pass effects and 25% of the fail effects allow you to close a gate of your choice.

So the Ruins definitely allow you to option of stalling doom.

And I won't go into what can be done with the Relic unique assets.

SR offers you different ways to trick the game: Mystic Ruins encounters offer you often the opportunity to trick the omen track.

And I won't go into what can be done with the Relic unique assets.

LOL. Well put, sir.

Indeed. Strange Remnants is different , but "different good". And it was time. One of the biggest risks in EH (imo) is that a certain structure could be repeated over and over and over, with the only result of a game that is cloning itself over the years.

So far, we had some interesting twists instead, and one thing is Syzygy and omen track control strategies, that allow a lot of different things to be done

Well, how many times will you get the arcane tome on turn 1 or fast enough, though?

Arcane Tome isn't the focus of my issue. It is just a mere taste of all the awesome combos Marie can pull off using her action ability.

Due to the power capability of her action ability compared to other investigators, In my opinion she should have to spend a focus to use it.

HOw do the Mystic Ruins work?

They are complex encounters you can make in certain spaces of the board. For specific rules, you may want to check the rules ( here )

Thanks