Ok so I just got through my first play of the Night of the Zealot campaign with Roland using the starter deck.

The first two missions were pretty much a breeze.

On the second mission I apprehended 4 cultists. I forgot about Roland's ability to collect a clue when defeating an enemy or else I could have had all 6.

I failed the last mission by one turn due to some bad luck with cultists popping in to advance the agenda early twice. Also some horrible token draws near the end ate up a lot of actions.

I played through it again for fun and beat it with several turns to spare.

So, I'm just wondering what are some good tactics people use to make things a bit easier. The final boss of the third act seems about impossible to beat if he actually spawns, at least for a solo player.

I never did pick up shotgun, so maybe that was my mistake. If I'm reading it right, shotgun plus physical training and any other boosts you can get could 2 shot the final boss on solo mode. That seems pretty OP honestly.

I plan to play through the whole campaign again with each character to try out different styles and see what I like best. Then I'll move on to Return to Night of the Zealot.

On that note, which characters do people find strongest/easiest all around? Are there any additional tips for playing through Return? How much harder is it?

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

Honestly if you were able to beat the second and third scenario, it sounds like things are already easy enough. You might want to actually go up in difficulty until you can't beat it.

As far as a "meta," people generally prefer two-handed solo (one person playing two characters), with one character being dedicated to clues and the other dedicated to enemy management. Having two characters smooths out the variance you sometimes encounter in every scenario.

I can't remember any specific things about return, but it is harder. More enemies, more complexity in general, a faster ramp of the overall difficulty. I wouldn't say it's that much harder though, since the second and third scenarios are already so brutal.

One other thing: some characters will struggle hard in solo, especially with the starter decks. Daisy, for instance, lacks a way to deal with the ghoul priest and many of the cultists. Agnes, conversely, has nothing but the flashlight for investigating (and maybe drawn to the flame?). Something to consider.

I must admit I'm quite surprised.

If you used Roland's starter deck (which is a really crappy deck made on purpose so you can understand which cards are useful for you and which cards you should change for optimization) and still did a pretty good job on the first two scenarios (also suggesting you could have beaten all 6 cultist when that is quite hard even on easy mode) it probably means some mistakes were made along the way...

I would recommend you to watch a playthrough on Youtube and check if every rule is correct. On the other hand, maybe you really are a master of this game (in which case I envy you so much!)

On 7/28/2020 at 6:16 AM, Henryillusion said:

I must admit I'm quite surprised.

If you used Roland's starter deck (which is a really crappy deck made on purpose so you can understand which cards are useful for you and which cards you should change for optimization) and still did a pretty good job on the first two scenarios (also suggesting you could have beaten all 6 cultist when that is quite hard even on easy mode) it probably means some mistakes were made along the way...

I would recommend you to watch a playthrough on Youtube and check if every rule is correct. On the other hand, maybe you really are a master of this game (in which case I envy you so much!)

I wouldn't say I'm a master, but machete is a super good weapon and I got it near the beginning every time. Also on the second scenario I got machete and Dr. Milan Christopher in my starting hand so I was able to gain a good amount of resources while investigating and had some decent attack power. I actually advanced the agenda the first time a turn early because I forgot that when a cultist comes into play during the draw an encounter card phase, it doesn't advance the agenda until the next Mythos phase. And as I stated I forgot about Roland's ability so I missed at least 4 clues I should have had.

Did you remember that "unique cultists" are only those cultists with the star icons next to their name?

1 hour ago, rsdockery said:

Did you remember that "unique cultists" are only those cultists with the star icons next to their name?

Yeah.

Both Machete and Dr Milan Christopher are incredibly powerful cards in their untaboo form. If your looking for more of a challenge try to use the taboo version of both cards.