https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2019/4/29/return-to-the-path-to-carcosa/

ETA: July to September 2019

The first gun with a "reload" option!

I like the look of logical reasoning.... although 4xp might be a sticking point.... but then again I’m reading it that each 2 horror can be from a different investigator so maybe 4xp isn’t so much....

the colt screams ‘eat lead!’ And reload!!!

28 minutes ago, gazzagames said:

I like the look of logical reasoning.... although 4xp might be a sticking point.... but then again I’m reading it that each 2 horror can be from a different investigator so maybe 4xp isn’t so much....

the colt screams ‘eat lead!’ And reload!!!

I read it as not only can it be different investigators but it can be a mix of healing horror or discarding Terror cards.

For each clue you have, do X or Y.

That said, Seekers already have places to spend a bajillion xp points.

32 minutes ago, gazzagames said:

the colt screams ‘eat lead!’ And reload!!!

That's good news because it looks like there is another version of "Eat Lead!" amongst the player cards in the picture at the top of the article.

The other ones in the background are Alchemical Transmutation and Suggestion (maybe a lower level version?). Also another basic weakness?

Exciting stuff. I can't wait to see if those new Scenario 4 acts interact with a certain decision from Scenario 3 in a meaningful way.

This announcement also seems to verify the Arc/Return to release schedule.

If so, then we'll get Arc 5 followed by RttFA, then Arc 6 and RttCU, and so on.

47 minutes ago, Iuchi Toshimo said:

Exciting stuff. I can't wait to see if those new Scenario 4 acts interact with a certain decision from Scenario 3 in a meaningful way.

This announcement also seems to verify the Arc/Return to release schedule.

If so, then we'll get Arc 5 followed by RttFA, then Arc 6 and RttCU, and so on.

I agree with your release schedule conclusion.

Looking forward to this one, ironically, it's the one I played the least yet appreciated the most. I always had the feeling that something wasn't being revealed or let on. Not necessarily in a bad way, but so far it's the only campaign that's really left me wanting to know more. So Huzzah!!

If I understand the interaction correctly, Carolyn could use Logical Reasoning to heal horror from three different investigators and then generate a resource for each one. It is probably a difficult situation to set up, but the card's three willpower icons and general versatility should still give it some use.

It might be worth noting that our new Logical Reasoning can discard any Terror from your location, whereas the level-0 version only discards a Terror from an investigator's threat area. I don't know if we have seen Terror cards yet that attach to a location but Carcosa seems like a place where they would show up.

Looks like we're going to be getting replacement encounter sets for Ancient Evils, Striking Fear, Agents of Hastur, Delusions and either Decay & Filth or Hastur's Gift (betting on the latter). Seems like a good set - excited for more Delusions in particular!

15 minutes ago, BlueHairedMeerkat1 said:

Looks like we're going to be getting replacement encounter sets for Ancient Evils, Striking Fear, Agents of Hastur, Delusions and either Decay & Filth or Hastur's Gift (betting on the latter). Seems like a good set - excited for more Delusions in particular!

Where are you getting Ancient Evils from?

All I can make out for sure is Agents of Hastur and Delusions. After that, if we assume that replacements sets are used whenever possible, then:

• Echoes of the Past only swaps Delusions. Unchanged: Cult of the Yellow Sign, The Midnight Masks, Locked Doors, The Dark Cult.
• A Phantom of Truth only swaps Agents of Hastur. Unchanged: Evil Portents, Byakhee, The Stranger.
• The Pallid Mask : Ghouls, Hauntings, Chilling Cold unchanged... unless there's extra text and the swaps are on the back.
• The Last King: 2 of Hastur's Gift, Decay & Filth, Ancient Evils changed.
• The Unspeakable Oath: 1 of Hastur's Gift, Inhabitants of Carcosa, Decay & Filth changed.
• Black Stars Rise: 1 of Ancient Evils, Inhabitants of Carcosa changed.
• Dim Carcosa: 1 of Inhabitants of Carcosa, Striking Fear changed.
• Curtain Call: 1 of Striking Fear, Rats changed.

So, from The Last King + The Unspeakable Oath we know both Hastur's Gift and Decay & Filth can't be changed or they'd show up in both. Therefore, The Last King swaps Ancient Evils and one more. Black Stars Rise then eliminates Inhabitants of Carcosa since Ancients Evils is changed (the changed symbol maybe looks similar to the changed "Ancient Evils" symbol on The Last King too, although it's pretty blurry!). With Inhabitants of Carcosa eliminated, Striking Fear is the set changed in Dim Carcosa and Curtain Call. This leaves either Hastur's Gift or Decay & Filth for The Last King and The Unspeakable Oath.

This ends up in agreement with @BlueHairedMeerkat1 's conclusions: the predicted swaps are Agents of Hastur, Delusions, Ancient Evils, Striking Fear, and one of either Hastur's Gift or Decay & Filth. Personally I reckon it will be Decay & Filth but both sets are 6 cards so I don't think even wild speculation involving card counting can distinguish them at this point.

Oh, I completely missed the bottom left-hand spread of scenario change cards! That makes a lot more sense. Sharp eyes and good analysis, both.

I'm curious to see what the change to Ancient Evils is this time (and amused to note that this is the second time it's being changed, since I'm of the opinion that it was a big design mistake in the core set).

I don't know that Ancient Evils is a mistake per se, it's just not very interesting. It does not offer any choices or player agency other than canceling it. There are other encounter cards you could say similar things about it, but yes, it also can be a bit swingy depending on player count and the number of cards in the encounter deck.

The issue is that it is one of the sets in the core, which means it is likely to be reused in additional campaigns since all campaign stand alone and will only draw from the core or their own included encounter cards. So instead of taking encounter cards in the deluxe expansion (which is a design space that I assume is limited) to alter the card to that campaign and tweak it (but effectively have it do the same thing, advance doom), it's probably fine to leave it as it is and then update the set in Return to Boxes specific to the cycle.

31 minutes ago, Soakman said:

I don't know that Ancient Evils is a mistake per se, it's just not very interesting. It does not offer any choices or player agency other than canceling it. There are other encounter   cards you could say similar things about it, but yes, it also can be a bit swingy depending   on  player  count and the number of cards in the encounter deck.

The issue is that it is one of the sets in the core, which means it is likely to be reused in additional campaigns since all campaign stand alone and will only draw from the core or their own included encounter cards. So instead of taking encounter cards in the deluxe expansion (which is a  design space that I assume is limited) to alter the card to that campaign and tweak it (but effectively have it do the same thing  , advance  doom     ), it'  s probably  fine to leave it as it is and then update the set in Return to Boxes specific to the cycle.         

I agree with you overall.

I will say it adds an element of uncertainty to scenarios, which increases tension overall. Sure we may have 3 more turns until the agenda advances, but maybe we only have 1. So while it may not offer many choices on its own, knowing they are in the deck does change the way that one approaches a scenario. A majority of scenarios that I have "lost" on the first play through have had ancient evils and cultists in the encounter deck.

Ancient evil isn't so bad if you are playing solo or 2 player. The problem is that with 3 or 4 player, not only does your chance of drawing it increases but drawing 1 basically reduces everyone's turn by 1. If it removes itself from the game, it would still be ok but usually when the agenda advances, it would be shuffled back again for another round of test your luck.

4 hours ago, DarkFate said:

Ancient evil isn't so bad if you are playing solo or 2 player. The problem is that with 3 or 4 player, not only does your chance of drawing it increases but drawing 1 basically reduces everyone's turn by 1. If it removes itself from the game, it would still be ok but usually when the agenda advances, it would be shuffled back again for another round of test your luck.

It ain't good on a stalled train, on a bridge over the Miskatonic, solo or two player... 😄 😥

21 hours ago, Allonym said:

I'm curious to see what the change to Ancient Evils is this time (and amused to note that this is the second time it's being changed, since I'm of the opinion that it was a big design mistake in the core set).

This would also be the second time that Striking Fear has been changed. I wonder if this is because Frozen in Fear is viewed as unfairly punishing for low willpower investigators or because, out of all the encounter cards, Dissonant Voices is the one that I'm usually happiest to see?

7 minutes ago, Assussanni said:

This would also be the second time that Striking Fear has been changed. I wonder if this is because Frozen in Fear is viewed as unfairly punishing for low willpower investigators or because, out of all the encounter cards, Dissonant Voices is the one that I'm usually happiest to see?

That would make a lot of sense. My first thought, aside from my bellyaching about Ancient Evils, was that Ancient Evils and Striking Fear were among the most "generic" sets in the game, but if that were the only reason we'd surely see Dark Cult and/or Chilling Cold changed as well, those are equally generic and appear just as often or more so in Carcosa.

Or maybe it's simply because Ancient Evils is a bit boring and they had a cool idea for something fitting for Carcosa, and Striking Fear being sanity-themed was something that they wanted to customise given the sanity theme of the campaign...

Also calling it now, there's gonna be a new version of Dark Cult for the Return to the Forgotten Age.

18 hours ago, Jobu said:

I will say it adds an element of uncertainty to scenarios, which increases tension overall. Sure we may have 3 more turns until the agenda advances, but maybe we only have 1. So while it may not offer many choices on its own, knowing they are in the deck does change the way that one approaches a scenario. A majority of scenarios that I have "lost" on the first play through have had ancient evils and cultists in the encounter deck.

+1 to this. I think it's a very important element to add some uncertainty to the clock. I also think it's a good balancing option for larger games - larger groups typically scale efficiently with the number of actions, so the increased chance to hit it (and lose a lot of those actions) makes sense.

Ancient Evils may not be the most interesting card, but it may be the one that does the most to make scenarios interesting.

6 hours ago, Allonym said:

That would make a lot of sense. My first thought, aside from my bellyaching about Ancient Evils, was that Ancient Evils and Striking Fear were among the most "generic" sets in the game, but if that were the only reason we'd surely see Dark Cult and/or Chilling Cold changed as well, those are equally generic and appear just as often or more so in Carcosa.

Chilling Cold only shows up in The Pallid Mask; I doubt we'll ever see a one-off swapped out barring some serious concerns.

Dark Cult makes a bit of sense, because they already have Cult of the Yellow Sign. That set is very much a "Dark Cult: Hastur Edition" already, containing three generic enemies with an "enters play" effect, one "boss" enemy, and two treacheries that target cultists.

Midnight Masks is the only set I'm surprised didn't get replaced. Aside from the mild awkwardness of sifting the treacheries from the rest of the set, the flavor's just off. Why, exactly, is it raining inside of a library? I mean, I guess we are in a surreal psychological horror, but still...

I wonder if they're kicking themselves when it comes to the Midnight Masks - there's now multiple scenarios that require you to partially disassemble the scenario. With hindsight, probably would have been better with a "manhunt" encounter set for the Midnight Masks treachery cards and a generic "Arkham streets" set for the locations, at least in terms of ease of setup instructions and storage.

my first think, before annoucement, was that every core box set used twice time or more in a campaign would be replaced. But the annoucement made me wrong : now I think about Ancient Evil, Striking Fear, Delusions, Agents of Hastur and Hastur's gift.

I already have the name of the replacement for the Ancient Evil set : go in the annoucement, open the picture with a man in a yellow cloak and with a mask, and look at the irl : you would see '' Delusory Evil '' write in it.

A second though : when you look at the card number of The Comtesse, you see 20. This is the first scenary set. The set contain 7 cards. Even if each 6 other cards of the set is unique, you would find that there are 13 cards before the first scenario set. So 10 players cards, and a weakness. This is just 11. What are the two others ?? Neutral player cards ?? Or two other weakness, like a new Man in the pallid mask ?? I would prefer this second option but I think the first one is more lucky to happen ...

2 hours ago, phorcys12 said:

my first think, before annoucement, was that every core box set used twice time or more in a campaign would be replaced. But the annoucement made me wrong : now I think about Ancient Evil, Striking Fear, Delusions, Agents of Hastur and Hastur's gift.

That had been my thought as well. I guess it makes sense that they'd want to free up space for more cards, and that Dark Cult would be kept because it already does its job well enough. I am still surprised about Midnight Masks, though. I'm kind of taking @Assussanni 's word for most of the swaps (I can barely make them out), but I can see that Echoes of the Past only has the one exchange on it (which has to be Delusions).

2 hours ago, phorcys12 said:

I already have the name of the replacement for the Ancient Evil set : go in the annoucement, open the picture with a man in a yellow cloak and with a mask, and look at the irl : you would see '' Delusory Evil '' write in it.

Ooh, nice catch! "Delusory," of course, meaning "comprising a delusion" (or just "deceptive," but I'm betting it's that first one), implying a thematic link to the Delusions set. Could we be seeing a hidden card that adds doom when played?

I am surprised we haven't heard anything else on this yet. There are rumors of the final pack of the Circle Undone being available next week, and one would assume this to follow on its heels closely.

Perhaps someone visiting GenCon could scout it out.