Hi everyone,

I've settled into my first true solo, blind play of Return to Dunwich, and I plumped for Ursula. I've played a decent amount of solo with her, and I know her strengths and weaknesses. But I've not played Dunwich in a while and was struck again by the frequency of enemies in the first two scenarios (particularly HAW, which is fine if they're aloof but dreadful if they're not). Anyway, it reminded me that selecting investigators for a campaign is in part about investigator-strength, but it's also about knowing what you're facing and how your choice will or won't be able to handle what the campaign is about to throw at you. So I thought I'd ask your opinions too.

If you play solo,

1. who's your go-to solo investigator for a blind play?
2. do your memories of Dunwich make you question that choice or hold other investigators in mind as possibles?
3. any odd picks that one might not usually go for?

I've been very happy playing Leo Anderson through Carcosa recently. I wouldn't have thought him necessarily a top tier solo investigator, but he muscled through incredibly efficiently. I've also found Silas Marsh to be remarkably agile solo (even if Think on your Feet showed otherwise!). So yeah... wonder about your choices and thoughts!

My go-to for a solo tends to be a rogue, almost always. Never done blind solo, though, I always had a group. I've done a lot of Jenny and Sephina.

My solo choices are typically Roland, and possibly now Joe, Skids or Agnes. As we all know Mystics can do almost anything with the right spells and Agnes can just throw out Raw damage. Roland has the best ability for skill gathering solo possibly ever, especially if you use both his original and replacement cards. Skids has become an all star for me in just about anything. It took me a while to realize how to build him correctly but he can be so wonderfully capable once he has one or two of his tools down, and the more he gets down the more he can do. (my rogue boards always are asset heavy, but they also wind up pulling the group and/or themselves out of almost un winable situations)

I play solo, but I've always done blind play-throughs in a group. I have also only ever played on Standard. I keep telling myself I'll get around to Hard but somehow never seem to...

If I were to do a blind play-through solo, and aim to do as well as possible rather than thinking about theme, I think top of my list would be Ashcan, Roland and Jenny (NB I don't own The Forgotten Age or any of the currently book-exclusive investigators).

• Ashcan: effectively starts with a 2 damage weapon in play and has a 4/4/4/3 stat line. Given that in solo there is no-one to pull you out of the fire if, say, you get bad luck with your opening hand and pull an enemy during the first mythos phase, having Duke is a massive boon. Intellect tests and separate Investigate actions might be a headache though, and without access to better weapons some way of boosting combat score will likely be needed towards the end of the campaign when tougher enemies appear.
• Roland: access to guardian and seeker cards and the ability to discover a clue when defeating an enemy is a potent combination when you know that you will be the one who has to (1) fight all the enemies and (2) discover all the clues. The more powerful weapons mean that you are unlikely to miss and should be able to one or two shot any non-boss enemy and Stick to the Plan makes your deck more reliable, which is important in solo. However, I find his low sanity to be a bit terrifying - even more so knowing that Cover Up is lurking somewhere in his deck.
• Jenny: Streetwise provides an answer to both investigating and enemies and starts in play for those times when you don't have any other option, and two resources a turn means that you will always be able to try evading at least once. Add Lone Wolf and you can do that and still get as many resources per round as most other investigators. Access to high level weapons such as Lupara and Chicago Typewriter means enemies can be efficiently dealt with. Speakign of efficiency, Leo De Luca gives 33% more actions per phase in solo and cards like Quick Thinking and Double or Nothing can further speed up progress. And if everything goes south then cards like Elusive and Narrow Escape can sometimes turn certain defeat into a win. 8 health and 7 sanity make Jenny pretty resilient as well.

My memories of Dunwich, particularly Undimensioned and Unseen, would make me nervous about completely ignoring any one stat for a blind play-through even if I think it is going to be useless. I'm not sure there's too much else, other than maybe Essex County Express ramming home the point that it isn't enough to have an answer to a problem (in this case investigating) in your deck - you really want any answer you expect to need available as soon as possible in the scenario.

I don't think I have any odd picks. I've been having great fun playing Lola blind through Carcosa alongside Jenny - I intend to try her solo as soon as I figure out which classes to put in her deck. I had a very successful solo run through of Night of the Zealot with Agnes so I'm inclined to try a longer campaign with her at some point. I also don't see Zoey mentioned very often for solo, I wonder if now having Scene of the Crime to put along side her 5 splash cards for clue gathering make her a more attractive solo prospect.

Sefina

The extra cards she starts with make for a more reliable game, and she has good defensive stats/cards. Both critical when playing solo.

On 1/14/2019 at 5:50 PM, ColinEdwards said:

Sefina

The extra cards she starts with make for a more reliable game, and she has good defensive stats/cards. Both critical when playing solo.

I was going to mention Sefina but I don't have any experience with her. How much do find her 5 health to be a problem, is it something you find you need to pay careful attention to when building and upgrading her deck?

I've never solo'd with her, but take a few handy allies (maybe cat burgler) and eventually nab yourself a Suggestion, and you're pretty set I would think.

Sefina: I have never found her health a problem; she's got good defensive stats (and nothing like Roland's aweful weakness!)

Her extra hand makes her start more consistent; with hot streak (with her ability!), she can almost always pay to win the occasional pass-or-die check.

@Assussanni the other handy thing for Sef is her stats, as mentioned: 4 in willpower and agility means she can usually fend off most damage-dealing treacheries and evade most enemies. I really liked your suggestions in particular; some of the classics there, which are all probably due a revisit - Jenny and Ashcan got a *lot* of play time from me when Dunwich was out so I should probably lean into exploring how they've changed with the new card pool.

I'm struck Ursula, Leo and Finn all solo fairly decently, too - I suppose burly jungle explorers should be robust enough to navigate whatever the mythos has to throw at them!

Jenny got some really interesting stuff later on. I still haven't had a chance to try her with High Roller, but I really want to.