Hi, Everyone,Any

My friends and I tonight finished our first full campaign in the Arkham Horror LCG - the Dunwich Cycle. We are now thinking about our next campaign, either the Carcosa or Forgotten Age campaigns, and we need some non-spoiler suggestions on which one to try next. What are the pros and cons of Carcosa and the Forgotten Age? Anything we need to consider in character selections and deck building? Thanks for your help!

Carcosa is pretty much universally beloved. I've never met anyone who actively dislikes it.

Agree, Carcosa is really enjoyable. Forgotten Age is quite "difficult"/"brutal" when compared to other campaigns (although still fun to play).

As for character selection, the times I played Carcosa I used:

- Roland + Sefina

- Zoey + Wendy

- Jenny (solo)

- Mark + Luke

This is a summary of my thoughts on the campaigns, but the short version is that I would recommend The Path to Carcosa over The Forgotten Age .

Carcosa

Pros:

• Very interesting story.
• Mostly great scenario design, mechanics and theme fit together really nicely.
• Challenging without feeling unfair.
• Probably the best campaign released so far for the “first time through” experience.

Cons:

• Very harsh penalty for failing one of the early scenarios.
• Another of the early scenarios is quite swingy.

Forgotten Age

Pros:

• Theme is very different to other campaigns, much more pulpy if that’s your thing.
• The good scenarios are very good, some of the best the game has to offer.
• Story has branching paths, your choices and results feel like they have more impact on what’s going on in the scenarios. This leads to...
• The most repeatable campaign released so far, particularly if you avoid reading the text of what could have happened.

Cons:

• Very hard, particularly if you don’t know what is coming.
• The bad scenarios are some of the worst the game has to offer.
• The “supplies” mechanic can result in events that feel arbitrarily punishing.
• Snakes... why did it have to be snakes?

In terms of what to consider when deck building, I wouldn’t say there’s anything specific for Carcosa. Off the top of my head I think the encounter deck tends to test willpower a bit more often and inflict horror more than damage compared to Dunwich. For TFA I think there was a deliberate attempt to make evasion more important, trying to force the players’ mindset away from killing the enemies always being the best solution.

I hope that helps and that you have fun with whatever you play next!

9 hours ago, Henryillusion said:

Agree, Carcosa is really enjoyable. Forgotten Age is quite "difficult"/"brutal" when compared to other campaigns (although still fun to play).

I find Carcosa to be a harder campaign than TFA. I always receive the your investigator is defeated and campaign ends result in VII Black Stars Rise. I possess a pristine deck of scenario VIII as I've never even got to shuffle it, let alone play it. That being said, I still really enjoy Carcosa - I just never make it to the end. FTA on the other hand I always reach the end (I don't win, but I reach the end), and have found my FTA campaigns to be the most memorable.

31 minutes ago, Janaka said:

I find Carcosa to be a harder campaign than TFA. I always receive the your investigator is defeated and campaign ends result in VII Black Stars Rise. I possess a pristine deck of scenario VIII as I've never even got to shuffle it, let alone play it. That being said, I still really enjoy Carcosa - I just never make it to the end. FTA on the other hand I always reach the end (I don't win, but I reach the end), and have found my FTA campaigns to be the most memorable.

I'm curious as to what goes wrong for you in Black Stars. I've played Carcosa many times and I consider that to be one of the easier scenarios. In fact, I think it's the only Carcosa scenario we have never lost. Usually we have time to spare.

For context, we always play 2 player. Maybe it's different solo?

Playing AH, I only play solo. My lads are too young to join me at the table for AH yet.

I haven't played Carcosa in months (in fact not played AH much at all since Marvel Champions came out), but if I recall correctly there are two simultaneous agendas in play in Black Stars? - and I just can't advance them fast enough. I'm sure I scribbled some note down last time about concentrating on advancing one agenda at the expense of the other next time I play Black Stars to see if that makes a difference.

I find it best to hedge my bets. Advance both evenly until you reveal which one you were subsided to be trying to advance. Once you know that, go hard on that one and ignore the other until you have to (because the first one changed into an Act).

Again, I play with my partner, so I've never tried solo. Could be very different. But it's never been too bad for us.

Unless we purposefully doddle trying to mop up victory points. Only time we almost lost was because of that, and that was our fault for taking our sweet time.

I like then both for different reasons.We are replaying Return to Carcosa right now, as it’s is one of my favorite campaigns. The ambient feeling is great, the scenarios are different from each other, but well connected by the story. It is a little more horror heavy, so bring some soak.

The Forgotten Age has grown on me. It has the toughest intro scenario in the game and the supply mechanic is hated by many. I’m personally am not as bothered by it, because you are all well aware going in that the expedition is poorly funded (and hey, when you look at the investigator pool, there are not many who have a lot of jungle experience!) So it feels thematic to me.
Since those things both happen at the beginning when you are more vulnerable, it does makes the start if the campaign harder. The rest of it doesn’t seem comparably difficult though. All that said, we have taken the Doomed weakness out of our weakness pool. House decision.

Echoing many here that Carcosa and its Return to... are probably top of the list when it comes to AH LCG campaigns. That is, more will say good about it than bad.

If you or your players have access to Circle Undone (main box) and the FA packs, I ran Carolyn Fern in there most recently and she was dynamite since there's a lot of Horror. With FA's Ancient Stone (Minds in Harmony) on her, a great combo. But I realize that's not being helpful as you're going in with the Base and Dunwich, I bet!

Forgotten Age is one of my personal favourites. A dark Indiana Jones with some frustrating mechanics at first, but I fell in love with the story right away and has lots of replayability. It's really rough only if you're not used to playing with Trauma, like this campaign throws at you regularly.

You do get one more investigator in Carcosa than in FA, if that's a concern.

Carcosa is the best. I'm replaying Forgotten Age now -- hopefully about to get to scenario eight for the first time -- and I'm loving it. Yeah, trauma, but it's manageable.

Building for Carcosa: expect large maps. Anything that enhances movement is good. Fine Clothes is also a good choice through much of it.

On 7/30/2020 at 2:11 PM, Krysmopompas said:

You do get one more investigator in Carcosa than in FA, if that's a concern.

But that extra investigator is Lola, and does she really count?

I see that you are discussing which cycle to play next.
I have another problem, there aren't any cycles at all that is available. I just bought the game and tried to buy an expansion (deluxe+mythos packs) and none are available. Not on FFGs webpage, not in any store in the country and not on Amazon.uk and Amazon.dk.

How do you all get hold of complete cycles to play?


Best regards

Daniel

Lola has potential. I recently beat RttDL with her in solo. Grabbing Anna Kaslow and every tarot card made her shine. Who knew two bad cards could make a good deck.

On 8/4/2020 at 6:14 AM, dancodan said:

I see that you are discussing which cycle to play next.
I have another problem, there aren't any cycles at all that is available. I just bought the game and tried to buy an expansion (deluxe+mythos packs) and none are available. Not on FFGs webpage, not in any store in the country and not on Amazon.uk and Amazon.dk.

How do you all get hold of complete cycles to play?


Best regards

Daniel

If they are unavailable on every website you have looked, either check local retailers for any they might have or else your going to have to wait for ffg to reprint them.