Hi all, I'd love to hear everyone's views on the new Return to the Forgotten Age box - both the player cards and the changes to the campaign, plus any other aspects (achievements and challenges). So here's a place for that!

I'll post up my own thoughts in a bit.

I for one am looking forward to it. We are waiting for new investigators to play RttFA. I think Stella is going to take her delivery skills into the wild unknown. She is used to badly funded organizations, so....

I am interested in what you think of the upgrades to certain cards I have never really played before. Like Decorated Skull or Chthonian Stone.

At first blush, a 2XP Mists of R’lyeh has me intrigued as does a 1XP Alter Fate.
Backpack is an improvement and could be a real boon for certain investigators, like Mandy. Switchblade has my husband very interested. But the card I am really wanting to give a go, is On Your Own. The deck strategy will be fun to figure out.

Me and my group are jumping into it this coming Monday so I’ll be happy to hear people’s thoughts, as for player cards though:

survival knife: is a hugely amazing upgrade, it’s easily going to be a go to weapon for me

blood eclipse: I figure this card will make it into my Nathan deck, and be a real huge slammer of a card too

Truth or fiction: we got our return to right before we finished carcosa, our seeker (my wife) grabbed it and whew its a great card, very wonderful with Mr. Rook

Ancient Stone: we already identified the stone awhile back, I think this will work it’s way into our seekers deck or if I die and become seeker? I may be using it lol

Decorated skull: oh this card, im currently playing the millionaire and focus on getting Huge amounts of resources to auto complete tests, and this card just makes the whole thing run a little more smoothly, I was planning on getting the one prior as I have 1 relic slot open (2X relic hunter and 2X lucky Cig case) but now this is my only thought for upgrading lol

Colt vest pocket: I have to admit I’m not sold on this at all, wasn’t on the previous version either.... I am sure it has uses but I would rather take anything else really (well.... except Kukri lol)

Mists of R’yleth: I see this less as a huge card and more a increased reason to get arcane research, more targets for the research is never bad

The Cthonian stone: I have to admit I loved using the original in Daisy, and she died in our current run so I’m kind of sad about that, but this is just strictly better. I can’t wait to use it.

Alter Fate/On Your Own: I don’t play survivor.... I never have and I don’t know if I ever will, unless forced to lol... so no xomment

backpack: I love backpack because instead of grabbing 3-4 weapons for consistency you can grab 1-2 weapons and 2 backpacks and grab other items with it if you happen to miss a weapon, a good card but better, very nice. It’s gonna make it into my Zoey deck.

I only did the first two scenarios so far - but I'm very fond of the changes to the exploration deck mechanic for the 'Return' - its made the 2nd experience feel vastly different compared to the changes from the previous 'return to's (but also i tend to play each campaign just once due to time constraints so my internal data set isn't really significant lol)

I wonder, this would actually be a good place for it. So I reverently moved and had misplaced my other return it’s handbooks, anyone able to upload copies of each one? (Including this one if you’d please) so I can download them and have them on paper? Without having to buy the sets again? Or would a site have them? I also can’t seem to find my forgotten age one 😕 I’ve been having to move around a lot recently and it’s just been heck for stuff in general lol

So I want to discuss the player cards first. Since these are different versions of existing cards, I'll be revisiting the original versions as well for comparison. As a quick spoiler warning, this post contains references to a few cards that have been revealed by FFG but not released yet.

Blood Eclipse (1)

Blood Eclipse (3) was an interesting card that wasn't really worth the cost. It had a lot of problems: It has lots of competition - most Guardians are taking actual weapons, meaning that it mostly just saved you an ammo; it's expensive in terms of exp, 3 experience per copy of a situational event is really unappealing; it uses Willpower rather than Combat, so leaning on a secondary stat for (most) Guardians; and it costs a hefty chunk of health for the effect, which generally just isn't worth it. There were a few people who might want it - Zoey with Machete, Timeworn Brand or the .45 Thompson might want it as a means of dealing more than 2 damage with one attack; Leo Anderson with particularly sacrificial allies could use it to kill them off while getting a strong attack into the bargain; Carolyn Fern might be focusing on Willpower to use Shrivelling and have the healing/soak to pay for the health cost, and need more ways of defending herself; and Calvin Wright might like having a big attack that uses Willpower (for those times that he hasn't taken enough damage to have strong Combat) and might like taking more damage for the stat boosts. But basically none of these effects are worth 3 exp per copy - all Guardians have lots of things they want or need to buy with experience, and by the time Calvin has run out of more important things to buy, he likely has enough trauma to have stat boosts already and can't afford the health.

Blood Eclipse (1) solves one of those problems, namely the experience cost, and opens it up for secondary Guardian access, potentially giving it new applications. It is the same card as Blood Eclipse (3), but with the amount of damage you can take set to 2. This is basically not a problem at all - 2 damage is generally the sweetspot for Blood Eclipse, since it's a 3-damage attack, and 3-health enemies are often the most problematic, especially if using a 2-damage weapon as your main combat option - it'll save you an action and potentially prevent an attack now and then, and if you're not a primary monster-hunter, 3 damage will cover most enemies that ambush you. It's still a very situational effect - I can't see it being a card that most Guardians will want to take, but there are some good applications for it.

At 1 exp a pop, it's a much more attractive prospect for Calvin to take early on. I don't think willpower and Shrivelling is a good way to build Carolyn Fern, but if you are going for Peter Sylvestre and Painkillers, you can turn the damage into resources - not an option I'll be going for but might work for some. There are some new synergies for it, too - Tommy or Yorick with Jessica Hyde can assign the damage to her and not worry too much about it, and Tommy even likes taking damage sometimes, in order to kill off assets and use his ability for resources or ammo for Becky, and if he's going for a build based around Becky and just 2-damage attacks, a 3-damage attack might come in handy sometimes. If going for the risky Summoned Hound build without cheating it into play, you might get good use out of Blood Eclipse to kill off the Hound if you know that Unbound Beast is about to come up. For off-class access, Skids, Joe and Tony probably don't have the willpower, which is a shame because Tony and Joe could always use more fighting options (though Joe with Higher Education can handle the Willpower issue) and Diana has access to lots of other spell events and assets that don't cause her lots of damage so it's not likely to be that solid for her, so that just leaves Yorick - who could maybe make use of it but also has Brute Force to fill that gap - and that's basically it, since there's surprisingly few investigators with off-class Guardian access. In terms of cards that have been announced, it might work well for the upcoming Sister Mary, whose Willpower is higher than her Combat, and it has the Spirit trait so it potentially synergises well with Boxing Gloves (though they only give a Combat bonus so won't help you hit) and the upcoming Nathaniel Cho will be able to add an extra point of damage onto it.

However, Nathaniel's deck also presents a much bigger problem for Blood Eclipse - namely, that he will be coming with a large amount of damage and combat events in Guardian, without the need to take 2 points of damage to use them. So I feel like Blood Eclipse will quickly become overshadowed for most investigators. Ultimately, therefore, it's still going to end up being a niche effect. But it's certainly a better choice for that niche than the level 3 version!

The flavour of the card is kind of cool - blood magic and self-sacrifice is a very fitting theme for spells in a horror setting, and it's cool to see spells in non-Mystic classes, but it ultimately feels like it's lacking a little something - flavour text to explain exactly what's going on, or slightly more unique mechanics, I don't know. I like the art, though, it's quite evocative.

Survival Knife (2)

So Survival Knife (0) is pretty cool in conjunction with one-handed weapons - like Machete or something. I've had a lot of fun with a retaliation build using Survival Knife and Aquinnah on William Yorick. It's really more like a form of action compression - you can get an extra attack each round, as long as you're willing to take an attack in the enemy phase to do so. This also makes it potentially useful for Zoey, because she likes engaging enemies and using a Machete or Timeworn Brand. But it has a major limitation in that it permanently takes up one of your hand slots - this means not only that it doesn't work well with two-handed weapons, but also that it prevents you effectively using a Flashlight or other one-handed utility card like the Blackjack (2) or Lantern (2) since you'll ideally want a "proper" 2-damage weapon in your other hand to fight in the Investigation Phase (the "full tank" build with 2x Survival Knife is funny but not effective). You could run Bandolier, of course, but I still think that's a pretty terrible card - maybe Bandolier (2) if you really want that willpower as well, but otherwise if you're using Bandolier just to be able to include Survival Knife, its cost de facto goes from being an affordable 2 resources, 1 card, 1 action to a completely terrible 4 resources, 2 cards, 2 actions. Because it interferes with Flashlight, it's more useful on high player counts where you can afford to devote yourself full-time to the job of enemy management - but certain builds like Zoey using spells to investigate, or Tommy using events like Winging it, could use the Survival Knife and still get some clues.

If you already have a build using Survival Knife (0), upgrading to Survival Knife (2) is a good idea, but it doesn't really do much to expand its range of applications. The action-triggered attack is now at +2 rather than +1 - but it's more or less an emergency option or a way to avoid using ammo to kill a Swarm of Rats or Acolyte anyway so it's just a little extra bonus. It has 2 Combat icons rather than 1, meaning that it works better in conjunction with Well Prepared, and since you probably only want one copy in play, the second copy can be used as a decent boost card. The changes to the response ability are more noteworthy - the attack now happens before the enemy attack, meaning that if you kill the enemy with your counterattack, you don't get hit in the first place, and it doesn't require that you take damage from the enemy attack, meaning that you can use it to counterattack enemies that only deal horror.

While it still more or less has the same applications - tanky Yorick or Tommy focusing on one-handed weapons and wanting a few extra attacks - I think it could also be worth considering using for investigators like Roland Banks, as a way to kill off enemies before they can hit him in his low horror, though it will be a shame for him to miss out on Flashlight or Hawk-Eye Folding Camera. Sadly, Carolyn Fern isn't allowed to take it, but I think the upcoming Sister Mary might end up finding it to be useful alongside using spells as her primary means of attack - sure, she only has 3 Combat, but a free attack at base 5 skill for 2 damage can nevertheless do some work.

It's a nice boost and the mechanics are cool and feel very satisfying - the art is pretty nondescript but it does at least have that "survival" theme with the tough leather scabbard.

Truth From Fiction (2)

Truth From Fiction (2) is again just an improvement in basically every way. It costs 1 less (certainly appealing unless you're Joe); it has an extra icon (certainly appealing for a situational card since it doubles as a boost); it adds 3 secrets instead of 2, or can be used to add 2 secrets even if you aren't on a location with a clue; and you can share the secrets among investigators at your location (situational at best since I can't see myself taking this just to give secrets to another investigator). There's really not all that much to talk about with it, really - if you're using cards that rely on "uses (secrets)", and want a way to 'reload' them, this is what you should use. There's a lot of those cards, but relatively few that are so powerful that I'd want to spend 2 exp for the opportunity to spend 1 resource, 1 card and 1 action to get 2-3 extra uses on them. If you're doing a full "command centre" seeker build where you stay in one place, protected by a Barricade, and use cards to investigate remotely, you want more uses of In The Know. If you're using Ancient Stones (Knowledge of the Elders), if it doesn't already come into play with more secrets than you could ever want, you could get even more overpowered testless damage. If you're using Pnakotic Manuscripts or Old Book of Lore (3), you could get some great extra use from your powerful card at a decent-but-balanced cost. And, if you get the upcoming Harvey Walters investigator pack, you could get even more use out of the disgustingly powerful The Necronomicon (Petrus de Dacia Translation) that has been previewed. And if you're using Mr "Rook" (at least until the next Taboo list, I expect) you will get lots and lots of extra value from him - assuming you aren't already getting enough uses by killing him off and playing a second copy, and recharging with Astounding Revelation. There's a few other Seeker cards with "Uses (secrets)" but I don't think they're worth using or recharging.

So basically, half of the viable Seeker targets are quite solid and the other half are incredibly powerful. However, if you have access to Mystic cards, there's a few extra targets available - Mind's Eye, Dayana Esperence, Scroll of Prophecies and Forbidden Knowledge. Scroll of Prophecies is decent but not worth spending exp and the cost to recharge unless you're using it as non-parallel Daisy Walker as the main card you activate with your investigator ability; Dayana Esperence is level 3 so the only person who can use the combo is Luke Robinson (or Lola, I guess ) - if you are going all in on events and using Dayana, you want to get as much value out of her as possible so this could be a good combo; there's not really anyone who can use both Mind's Eye and TFF (2) and also wants Mind's Eye (I guess the level 0 version of TFF and Mind's Eye might be worth it for Norman), and it's much less efficient than additional copies of Mind's Eye in terms of recharge; and Forbidden Knowledge simply isn't worth recharging.

Since this is a level 2 card, you can wait to take it until you know you need it. Have a card with "Uses (secrets)" and wish you could use it more? Buy Truth From Fiction (2). This makes it interesting as an upgrade card - you might not want to take the level 0 version, since aside from Mr "Rook" there's not many good level 0 targets for it, and instead you can wait until you need it to buy the upgrade and use up those deck slots. The level 0 version does have two matching icons, of course, so you aren't that heavily penalised for taking it without many uses for it until you have completed a scenario or two, but it's a different way to build and plan your deck, which is cool. This is a solid card, but since all it does is give you more uses of other cards in your deck, it all depends on what targets you have for it.

I really like the art and the concept it implies, especially on the meta level of a game based on written fiction, and the flavour text is on-point and reinforces the idea of drawing lessons from fiction.

Ancient Stone: Transient Thoughts (4)

Let's start by looking at the pattern with the “identified”/“translated” cards and the Return to... boxes. In each of the sets (except for Dream Diary) there is one incredibly overpowered option – Strange Solution: Acidic Ichor, Archaic Glyphs: Guiding Stones and Ancient Stone: Knowledge of the Elders, with the other variants being balanced and fun but taking a back seat to the overpowered choice. And in each case, the new version added in the Return to... box has been perfectly reasonable. Strange Solution: Empowering Elixir is a perfectly valid economy option, Archaic Glyphs: Markings of Isis is another solid economy card, and now Ancient Stone: Transient Thoughts provides extra movement.

Having said that, I think this upgrade is pretty strong. Assuming you get a decent number of base secrets (6 seems like a reasonable baseline), this will provide you with 6 turns of a free move during the Upkeep phase, plus extra free moves tacked onto your other draw power – getting 3 free moves for Cryptic Research at Fast speed could completely turn a scenario around. Moving is one of the most fundamental actions in the game, so being able to do it for free provides a lot of action compression. There's obvious, inherent value here – with the Minds in Harmony version of Ancient Stone, anyone other than Carolyn Fern will find it very situational, and even the ludicrous Knowledge of the Elders version doesn't do anything unless you have a monster you need dead, but free movement is basically always worth having. Moving also has a lot of extra synergies you can play into – take a Guardian friend along with Safeguard, trigger Fieldwork, and obviously Ursula Downs loves the option to get a free move to tack her free Investigate action onto.

But unfortunately, this card is basically completely redundant. For 2 resources and 4 experience per copy, you get a large but finite number of free moves – but for 3 resources and 1 experience per copy, you could pick up Pathfinder and have free moves every turn. Certainly, Transient Thoughts lets you pull off some huge moves and absolutely jump around the map if you combine it with lots of draw effects, but I'm kind of left thinking “so what?” - there's certainly times where moving lots of times all at once would be very useful, but you have to put together the combo to do so – while enemies won't interfere with your free moves as such, you still need to play the cards and/or take the actions to draw cards, and for an occasional trick, it's absolutely not worth the effort to identify or the experience cost. If you instead want to be able to occasionally make big moves, Esoteric Atlas also competes with Transient Thoughts, and lets you leapfrog over enemies and “after you enter” effects. You can't even use this on Doom of Eztli to escape the temple, or Search for Kadath (unless using an early side scenario or something), because you need to buy the Ancient Stone (1) and then identify it, meaning it won't come online until scenario 3 at the earliest. And it takes up a hand slot – an extremely contested slot for Seekers between investigation tools, cameras and all manner of tomes.

If Pathfinder gets taboo'd or something, this card could be a very solid option for Ursula, but as it stands there's no point in taking it. It does make Ancient Stone a bit more interesting with Shrewd Analysis, but let's be honest – if you're a seeker upgrading Ancient Stone, all you care about is Knowledge of the Elders, so there's no point gambling on Shrewd Analysis to save 3 experience.

Art is still nondescript and flavour is still very vague. It works with the exploring ancient ruins theme of the cycle but there's really not much of interest here!

Decorated Skull (3)

Decorated Skull (0) is an odd card, because it essentially is not worth using for its effects by itself. You can charge it up by having enemies, Ally assets or other investigators(!) defeated at your location, and use one charge, as an action, to draw a card and gain a resource. Since it already took you an action and a card to play, you need to do this three times to get any profit compared to just taking the Draw and/or Resource actions – and it's taking up your Accessory slot, which could instead be used for the far more useful and powerful Lucky Cigarette Case. No, Decorated Skull (0) was all about the janky synergies mainly on non-Rogue investigators – collecting charges to spend for huge swings with Torrent of Power, or for Akachi to use to solve her signature weakness and cash in with her signature asset. None of the existing synergies were very good , mind you – though I am really looking forward to combining it with an announced card coming out in the Innsmouth cycle – but they were pretty fun and stylish.

Decorated Skull (3) is designed to make the card actually useable for its intended economy purpose, and as a level 3 Rogue card is also completely unsuitable for use in the janky combos (I guess Akachi can still take it but she probably won't). That's actually cool for design – the level 0 version is an unlikely keystone to weird strategies, whereas the level 3 version tries to make it actually work as intended. But is it worth it? Being able to spend 3 charges all at once for 3 cards and 3 resources certainly makes the action inefficiency less punishing, but it does come up against three problems – the first being that it will take a while to be properly charged up and be a good investment, the second being that Rogue already has outstanding card draw and resource economy cards which are easier to use than this, and the third being that 3 experience per copy is very pricey for what it offers. This is absolutely not a card you can just throw into a deck and hope it makes you rich – that's what Hot Streak and All In (and many other cards besides) are for.

However, I think it could find a place in specific decks – if you are playing as Tony Morgan, for example, this is a pretty good one-card solution to economy and card draw, opening up the rest of your deck to be used for combat tools and events – I wouldn't take this on a big money Tony deck but it could do solid work for a less combo-focused deck. If you have 9 exp to spare, you could take Relic Hunter and potentially have two copies in play at once, both collecting charges each time something dies at your location – I really want to try out that deck. And there's something very cool about it in general – drawing the life force from enemies and friends alike and cashing it in to keep you going is very morally dubious and spooky.

Even in the right deck, it's not necessarily smooth sailing – the slot conflict is a very real concern, between Lucky Cigarette Case, Crystalliser of Dreams, Garotte Wire and potentially off-class cards, and Tony already has a means of making money for killing enemies in the form of his bounty cards so you need to be sure that you can make good use of the economy this offers.

As I alluded to, the mechanical flavour is amazing. I like the art, though it's a bit incongruous as a Rogue card – I guess Rogues are morally flexible enough to use it and “borrow” it from the professor's study or whatever. And the “Doom Begets Doom” subtitle is pleasing.

Colt Vest Pocket (2)

Urgh...I am so unenthusiastic about this card. The Colt Vest Pocket (0) was the perfect example of rogues not being allowed nice level 0 cards – cheap in terms of resources, but you had to play it the turn you wanted to use it, it wasn't even fast , it didn't even prevent attacks of opportunity, and it disintegrated at the end of the round in an absurd flavour fail. Not a worthless card but only because Rogue has so few good options at level 0. It was basically a stopgap option to use as a one-time combat trick and combine with Sleight of Hand until you got Lupara. With 5 ammo you could use it as part of a mega combo turn where you take loads of actions and shoot loads of times, but with its meagre +1 to Combat, it wasn't exactly great for triggering Quick Thinking/Double or Nothing combos to keep the action train going or anything.

The level 2 version gives an extra +1 to hit for a total of +2, and doesn't disintegrate at the end of the round until you actually activate it! So the flavour is slightly less ridiculous, since you can at least take out your gun before you break down the door, but it still falls apart once you pull the trigger – when your weapon dealer told you the guns fell off the back of a truck, I guess they meant it very literally, since the workmanship is clearly terrible! Honestly, if they kept the bonus to +1 and this card were level 0 it would still be absolutely fine – 2 exp for this is a complete joke.

That said, there's some good synergies here. Another one-handed weapon is always solid for Rogue fighters like Tony or Finn if they want to still use a Flashlight to investigate, and it synergises well with Joey “The Rat” Vigil (3) as a card to play as a free trigger and then discard as a free trigger before it has a chance to disintegrate. The taboo to Sleight of Hand makes the Colt Vest Pocket more attractive because you can no longer Sleight out a tommy gun or whatever. And the CVP (2) only gets discarded if you use its action ability, so if you spend the ammo for Warning Shot, it won't fall apart just yet.

For the vast majority of people, though, this is utterly outclassed. The level 0 version at least had very little competition in Rogue, but this upgrade is not worth the experience compared to a Lupara or a Switchblade (2). And, without spoiling too much if you have been avoiding the FFG announcements, it may become even more outclassed once Winifred comes out.

This card might find a place in a deck somewhere, but even then the experience will be a bitter pill to swallow. Just a disappointing card all round.

As I said for the level 0 version, the art is pretty meh as well – I guess it's been dropped as part of an assassination attempt, maybe hidden in a bouquet of flowers? But the background just doesn't interest me in the same way as, say, the Flamethrower or the .45 Thompson.

Mists of R'lyeh (2)

In comparison to the level 0 version, this gets 1 extra charge and a rather paltry +1 to the skill test. I guess it had to be pretty minor since the level 4 version only provides a +3 and no extra benefit (compared to Rite of Seeking (4) which also gets you an additional clue, or Shrivelling (5) which adds an extra damage). But if you like the level 0 version, this upgrade is solid. As a level 2 card, off-class Mystics can take it – it might find a place in certain Daisy decks (especially if using the Parallel Daisy front) or for the upcoming Sister Mary, but that's about it, since Patrice is probably better off with Mind's Eye and Sefina would probably prefer Suggestion.

So it's a stepping-stone to the level 4 version, or simply a way to save some experience if you don't want to spend that much on an evade solution. That's fine by me! If you're using Arcane Research, this can help by letting you space out upgrades more and make sure you use Arcane Research every scenario, and having 5 base charges means it works better with any synergies such as Akachi. Also, it can be useful for Norman Withers, since he can only take a small number of level 0 Mystic cards but any number of level 1+ Mystic cards, so this gives him an Evade option (to cover his base 1 agility) that won't impact his ability to take vital level 0 cards like St Hubert's Key.

That's basically all I have to say about this card. It has slightly better numbers than the level 0 version, and if you intend to rely on that all campaign, is a worthwhile upgrade, but that's it – the same card just slightly better. If anything, it's limited by the fact that Mists of R'lyeh (4) is so unexciting – if Mists (4) did something more impressive, this might have been able to justify a more substantial +2 bonus or something. Ah well.

I still love the art on this card. It's lovely and creepy, and the heavy green filter evokes both the jungle theme of the cycle and the oceanic vibe of its R'lyeh connection.

The Chthonian Stone (3)

I'll be honest – I haven't included The Chthonian Stone (0) in a deck for a very long time – I think I only used it once, soon after TFA came out. It's not a bad card, but it is very expensive to keep having to replay, and hand slots are at a premium for mystics as well. There are some very nasty symbol effects it can be good to seal away (especially in TFA – that Hard/Expert Elder Thing is unacceptable in the first 2 scenarios), but it has never made the cut.

The level 3 version makes the reliability and economy hit far more manageable. By adding 3 charges which are lost when you draw auto-fail, it stays in play far longer, and it costs 1 fewer resource so it's not as big a hit when it does return. If you have a particularly nasty token to seal up (for instance, if you're not Forging Your Own Path in TFA and therefore only have 1 Elder Thing to worry about), this can be a solid way to do that. Since it has “Uses (Charges)”, it also synergises with a number of effects – Akachi can give it an extra charge and eventually trade it in for resources with Spirit Speaker, you can fill it back up with Recharge and Enraptured, and so on. It has the Relic trait, so Dr. Elli Horowitz can find it for you and hold it without using up a hand slot (at least until it runs out of charges and you need to play it normally).

However, 3 experience points is a big ask, especially for Mystic. If you're running a full support mystic, you could use this to seal up something nasty and help out the team, but generally this is really unlikely to be a good use of your experience – for your average Mystic, experience is always tight. I feel like this could have been level 2 instead without any problems. That's been the story with a number of cards in this box, really – not a bad effect, but way overpriced in terms of experience. But this will be the last card here to be too expensive in terms of experience!

The art and flavour are sort of “fine”. Mechanically, the Seal keyword didn't have as big an impact on the game as a whole as one might have initially thought. It doesn't grab me in any way, really – it's a spooky idol, and the Arkham Files are full of those.

Alter Fate (1)

Alter Fate (3) is an amazing card – one of the most important upgrades for Patrice, worth using for Calvin to deal with treacheries that mess with his stats, a strong argument for taking Father Mateo or Marie Lambeau, and just generally a really solid answer to all manner of problems – like a retroactive Ward of Protection that can completely turn scenarios around.

Alter Fate (1) is...okay. It costs 2 additional resources and loses the Fast keyword. That's an enormous drop in flexibility and efficiency – part of what makes the original version so strong is that it can be played without much drop in tempo, quickly solving problems for the team, whereas this is ponderous – you really need to use it on a really horrible persistent treachery in order to actually get value from it. The effect is still so potent that it can nevertheless do great work, but it's so much weaker in comparison to its level 3 counterpart.

Obviously, this could make a good stepping-stone to the level 3 version if you don't have the experience for it yet, which makes sense but you'll really wish you had the upgrade. However, it can also be taken by off-class Survivors, which is where I think this card might shine. It might not be that good for Minh or Mandy, both of whom can find other solutions or take treacheries on the chin, though if they're leaning more into a support role, it might work out well for them. Preston Fairmont and Survivor Tony Morgan seem like the main people who might want this – with 1 in every stat and no Inheritance in the Mythos Phase, Preston is often at the mercy of the encounter deck, and Tony with his 2 Willpower and Agility can also suffer at the hands of a Frozen in Fear or similar card. Preston often doesn't really care about the resource cost – dipping into his inheritance for a turn to guarantee solving a problem is an easy trade-off – and Tony often can't afford to be hindered if he's the main monster-hunter for a team.

The flavour is very Survivor-y, which I really like, and is supported by the flavour text. Unfortunately, the art is absolutely abominable – perhaps the worst player card art in the entire game (certainly worse than Baseball Bat) – I get that they were kind of previewing TCU and its tarot theme but it looks ludicrous and not suited to the game at all. It's particularly bad since the art depicts The Tower XVI being torn apart, but Alter Fate doesn't do anything to help against The Tower XVI at all (it's a weakness card, it's not a treachery card and it's not in play). Complete fail in terms of the art.

On Your Own (3e)

I've used the original On Your Own (3) in an old Wendy Adams combo deck that isn't meant to be fun to play at all and instead demonstrates a loop to break the game. Apart from that, it just isn't a very good card – it's expensive to put into play so you can have a tough time actually getting any benefit from it, it costs a lot of experience, if you use it you shouldn't be taking allies at all so you essentially have to build around it, but if you don't draw it early you're out of luck, and Survivor has amazing allies to use. It was a cool idea that didn't land.

This is a revisiting of that idea that really does work for me. It still locks you out of the excellent Survivor allies so it's definitely not a card for every deck, but it's a really cool effect. Being permanent, you can build around it safe in the knowledge that your deck will always be able to draw on it, and there's no economy hit to balance out. And that's exactly what this card is for – building around. You can use it for an event-heavy build, like Wendy using her signature asset, or Patrice playing lots of events, or Calvin compensating for his stat problems with events, or “Ashcan” Pete using as few assets as possible. You can use it simply for the economy benefits, as there are a great many 2-resource Survivor cards that are worth including in many decks. You can combine it with Dark Horse to use Lucky! and “Look What I Found!” and so on while still having Dark Horse active.

Note that it only provides the discount for Survivor events – there's plenty of good Survivor events to use, but making good use of it does require that you build your deck correctly – this makes it particularly useful for Survivors without much access to off-class cards (“Ashcan” Pete, Calvin, Silas, Rita and Stella). Survivors have good non-ally soak cards, but it's still worth considering that not including any allies does leave you substantially more vulnerable to damage and horror – Rita and Silas, for example, get a huge amount of benefit from Peter Sylvestre, and Calvin needs lots of soak because of his low health/sanity and need to take damage/horror for his stats. You can compensate with events such as Perseverance, of course, but it's still a major downside of not including allies. For a Dark Horse or Patrice build, you might be better off simply using Madame Labranche.

One point worth considering, with the most recent FAQ, is that if you take On Your Own (3e), all cards that take up Ally slots in your deck will be immediately removed and can be replaced with level 0 cards, so you also get an opportunity to rejig your deck when you purchase it.

All in all, this is just a very cool card. I love cards you can build around, and this is definitely one such card. It's also cool to move away from Ally cards since many of them (especially unique allies) are very powerful and can be a little boring to build with.

The mechanical flavour is pretty cool, especially for Survivors, though the art isn't all that evocative of the idea (in fairness, it's not an easy thing to convey visually).

Backpack (2)

Backpack (0) is a bit of a sleeper – it's potentially a very useful card, allowing any investigator to find crucial assets – it may seem a bit slow and expensive, but if you think of it as a neutral Draw 3 (assuming you can find 3 valid targets) that prioritises cards that you really want to see, it feels quite powerful. But since it only searches 6 cards, you need a good bit of luck and/or a deck full of Supply / Item cards.

This upgrade is a big upgrade. By doubling the number of cards you search, you massively reduce the chance of not finding 3 targets, and you're more likely to find specific useful cards (a weapon for a monster-hunter or a Fingerprint Kit for a seeker or whatever). The resource cost is also reduced – 1 resource, 1 card, 1 action for draw 3 is definitely worth considering, given that neutral cards tend to be overcosted compared to class-specific cards.

There's a few issues, though – it takes up the Body slot, which is one of the less contested slots but is starting to get a decent number of good options and means it doesn't work with Flamethrower, and many classes already have good cards for what it does – Guardians can use Stick to the Plan and Prepared For The Worst to search up weapons and Supply cards, Seekers have loads of powerful search and draw cards and Rogues have excellent draw as well, while many Mystic and Survivor builds don't emphasise Item and Supply cards.

Backpack (2) has some particular synergies – William Yorick can use it to find various Item cards to fight and soak with and the Emergency Cache to pay for them, and then discard it to play a sacrificial Leather Coat – sometimes it could even be worth replacing while it still has cards attached just to drop them in his discard pile so he can pull them into play with his ability and save actions, and he can then replay the Backpack from discard for more pseudo-draw with better action efficiency. Mandy loves Search effects, and can use her ability to attach 4 cards or search 15 deep – at the moment it's pretty useless for her given the plethora of powerful Search effects in Seeker but I expect a taboo to Mr “Rook” in the near future. It's also worth considering for Finn Edwards, since he can't take All In as he's limited to 0-3 Rogue cards, and it can pull out both of his signature cards as well as working with Contraband for Fingerprint Kit, Chicago Typewriter or .45 Thompson.

The art is cool – that jungle background plus the blood spatter. The mechanical flavour is pretty straightforward but at least it makes good sense, and it feels pretty cool.

8 hours ago, Sooner535 said:

I wonder, this would actually be a good place for it. So I reverently moved and had misplaced my other return it’s handbooks, anyone able to upload copies of each one? (Including this one if you’d please) so I can download them and have them on paper? Without having to buy the sets again? Or would a site have them? I also can’t seem to find my forgotten age one 😕 I’ve been having to move around a lot recently and it’s just been heck for stuff in general lol

They have pdfs of all the campaign booklets on the site under Products: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/arkham-horror-the-card-game/

It doesn't look like RttFA is up there yet, but give it six months.

Thanks for that

23 hours ago, Allonym said:

On Your Own (3e)

I was kind of excited about this card. I have never used On Your Own 3, because it seemed like I would be trading too much on a wing and a prayer that it would come out early, if at all!
The idea was always intriguing though. I think it’s because it plays into the whole Survivor idea at its most “survivor-y”. Using events and circumstances as they are happening, to execute plans with very little ‘planning’ involved. Flying a little too close to the sun, because you have little choice. The ‘escaping from Innsmouth’ part of the story comes to mind. No allies, no well thought out plan, but plenty of using what was available and what was learned, to try to stay a step ahead and live to see another day.
I don’t know if Ash Can would really want it with Duke and for the campaigns which earn you allies and not much else, it may not the best choice.
I initially thought Wendy, Rita, or William would be good candidates. Silas and Stella (I assume) are probably too Skill oriented. If you ever decide to give it a whirl, I’d be interested in your deck strategies.

3 minutes ago, Mimi61 said:

I was kind of excited about this card. I have never used On Your Own 3, because it seemed like I would be trading too much on a wing and a prayer that it would come out early, if at all!
But the idea was always intriguing. Maybe strangely for me, who generally builds pretty conservative decks. It plays into the whole “survivor” idea. Using events and circumstances as they are happening to execute plans with very little ‘planning’ involved. Flying a little too close to the sun, because you have little choice. The actual ‘escaping from Innsmouth’ from the story comes to mind. No allies, no well thought out plan, but plenty of using what was available and what was learned, to try to stay a step ahead.
I don’t know if Ash Can would want it, because of Duke and for some campaigns which reward you with allies and not much else, it may not the best choice. I was thinking Wendy, or Rita, or William may be good candidates. Stella and Silas are too Skill focused. Well, I’m assuming that with Stella anyway. If you ever decide to give it a whirl, I’d be interested in your deck strategies.

So, with "Ashcan" Pete, Duke won't be affected by it, since the restriction is 'Your investigator gains: " Deckbuilding Restrictions: No assets that take up an ally slot."', and Duke does not take up any slots. Story reward ally assets are certainly a consideration but it depends on who they are - there are some who are really amazing and others you can happily do without.

I'm not sure about William Yorick - on the one hand he often does have major resource problems (unless you're running Drawing Thin or something), but his ability works really well for cycling allies back in so it would be a shame to miss out on that option. Which is not to say that it's definitely not an option, just only for certain decks.

Wendy would be a very strong candidate since she's so survivable anyway and has event synergy, though she has an amazing array of allies available to her with her secondary Rogue access. I can very much imagine a Silas build that has lots of skills, quite a lot of events and very few assets - with the cards we've seen so far for Stella I tend to agree since there's lots of assets that work well with her so not much room for events, but then again with 8/8 Health/Sanity she has the survivability to not need allies to soak. I agree with Rita as well because there's loads of really nice events for her and she has minimal access to non-survivor cards, but if you're not using Peter Sylvestre you really need to do something about her 5 base sanity and middling willpower.

24 minutes ago, Allonym said:

o, with "Ashcan" Pete, Duke won't be affected by it, since the restriction is 'Your investigator gains: " Deckbuilding Restrictions: No assets that take up an ally slot."', and Duke does not take up any slots. Story reward ally assets are certainly a consideration but it depends on who they are - there are some who are really amazing and others you can happily do without.

That’s right! I haven’t actually ever played Ash Can, (weird, I know), so that didn’t even bing my radar. I will have to look at him more closely.
I guess with William, in my one play through with him, he rarely had any allies in his discard pile, so didn’t think of it in that light either. I was generally getting other assets back with his ability like Lanten and Shovel, so was thinking more along the lines of having more events in his deck, knowing you could get assets back. We were running Leo in that campaign who was the main dispatcher of allies!
This is exactly why it’s so good to have you back!

1 minute ago, Mimi61 said:

That’s right! I haven’t actually ever played Ash Can, (weird, I know), so that didn’t even bing my radar. I guess with William, in my one play through with him, he rarely had any allies in his discard pile, so didn’t think of it in that light either. I was generally getting other assets back with his ability like Lanten and Shovel, so was thinking more along the lines of having more events, knowing you get assets back. We were running Leo in that campaign who was the main dispatcher of allies!
This is exactly why it’s so good to have you back!

❤️ gonna make me blush!

You could definitely do a Yorick build without allies, to be sure - Lantern and Shovel are obvious choices, as are Leather Coat and Cherished Keepsake, or simply weapons like Baseball Bat, Old Hunting Rifle, Knife, .45 Thompson...

I guess that's my bias showing through - I have played him a lot with Aquinnah or Guard Dog so I'm just used to recurring allies.

14 minutes ago, Allonym said:

❤️ gonna make me blush!

You could definitely do a Yorick build without allies, to be sure - Lantern and Shovel are obvious choices, as are Leather Coat and Cherished Keepsake, or simply weapons like Baseball Bat, Old Hunting Rifle, Knife, .45 Thompson...

I guess that's my bias showing through - I have played him a lot with Aquinnah or Guard Dog so I'm just used to recurring allies.

Well, it’s sincerely meant.
Your William deck approach has your guardian prowess showing! Making use of his and your strengths.
I think I’m kind of the opposite of you. Always the seeker, because nobody else wanted the job, or Mystics because they can be pretty good clue getters with everything else. Then I kind of discovered Survivors, who are fast becoming my favorite class. As a result, I have hardly played any guardians, so don’t really know how to capitalize on the guardian traits. Zoey and Carolyn are pretty much my big foray into that class. And Carolyn is hardly your typical Guardian.
Maybe it’s time for me to branch out and save the world, instead of saving just little ‘ol me!

On 8/23/2020 at 2:07 AM, Mimi61 said:

Well, it’s sincerely meant.
Your William deck approach has your guardian prowess showing! Making use of his and your strengths.
I think I’m kind of the opposite of you. Always the seeker, because nobody else wanted the job, or Mystics because they can be pretty good clue getters with everything else. Then I kind of discovered Survivors, who are fast becoming my favorite class. As a result, I have hardly played any guardians, so don’t really know how to capitalize on the guardian traits. Zoey and Carolyn are pretty much my big foray into that class. And Carolyn is hardly your typical Guardian.
Maybe it’s time for me to branch out and save the world, instead of saving just little ‘ol me!

Guardians and Survivors are my favourites! Though Carolyn is probably top of the list, competing with Patrice. I'm happy to play a clue-gatherer, but just not a typical Seeker!

I'm still deciding who to take to Return to the Forgotten Age when I finally get around to playing it.

On 8/21/2020 at 8:17 PM, Allonym said:

So I want to discuss the player cards first.

...

Yeah, but could you go into more detail about them?

Holy cow! I don't think I have that many thoughts on even 1 of those cards (before); maybe The Chthonian Stone & Decorated Skull. Both of those cards I include in my test-the-waters decks of Ursula & Leo, the later to pay for the Lightning Gun and copious amounts of allies he runs with.

39 minutes ago, Duciris said:

Yeah, but could you go into more detail about them?

Holy cow! I don't think I have that many thoughts on even 1 of those cards (before); maybe The Chthonian Stone & Decorated Skull. Both of those cards I include in my test-the-waters decks of Ursula & Leo, the later to pay for the Lightning Gun and copious amounts of allies he runs with.

Yeah I really just felt like I wasn't giving the cards a proper look.

Basically, going way too in depth into cards is how I procrastinate from work!

29 minutes ago, Allonym said:

Yeah I really just felt like I wasn't giving the cards a proper look.

Basically, going way too in depth into cards is how I procrastinate from work!

Well, I'm certainly not doing that right now!

What on earth am I going to do when the investigator decks drop, I'd be surprised if they end up with fewer than 80 new player cards...

1 hour ago, Allonym said:

What on earth am I going to do when the investigator decks drop, I'd be surprised if they end up with fewer than 80 new player cards...

I do enjoy reading the thorough analysis, but yes, you better get some wrist braces or you may end up with some serious carpal tunnel.

I already type for a living! I should look into that...

45 minutes ago, Allonym said:

I already type for a living! I should look into that...

Maybe look into a good dictation app!

Was anyone else disappointed that the RttFA booklet didn't make any changes to the initial Supply situation? I mean, I get that you probably shouldn't play RttFA as your first exposure to TFA campaign, but there are going to be some people it happens to - I've played Return to Dunwich, for example, but never a vanilla Dunwich run.

I was hoping for either 1 more supply (per player) for 3 or 4 player groups, a rewrite of a couple of the descriptions of the more crucial items that you might not expect a lack thereof to cause so much damage, or something else entirely - not for the start to be left alone.

I do appreciate the change part-way through the campaign, though it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.