1 hour ago, happy_ythogtha said:

i just finished playing the long-sought "A Phantom of Truth" in the Carcosa cycle; what a mind-bender it was! time and again my bacon was saved by so many weird things happening!

• my Stella deck now has 37 cards and, sleeved, i can barely hold it in my hand (i have small hands). she also now has four weaknesses ~ it's completely out of control.
• Akachi has played much better the last two scenarios, but her Angered Spirits card is killing me. she has three trauma at this point and i will probably have to retire her soon. : o (

random question: when you pick up an ally in one scenario, you keep them through the campaign, right? if they are "defeated" they get discarded and at the end of the scenario just go back into the deck, right? or am i doing this wrong?

You are doing it right! You keep Allies or whatever other things you may collect, throughout the campaign unless otherwise instructed. They get treated like any other Ally or player card unless there is some sort of stipulation made.

I’m playing Stella right now for the first time and let me tell you, Drawing Thin and Try and Try Again(3) are amazing with her. Her Neither Rain or Snow can have multiple uses. We used those cards with Rain or Snow in back to back Mythos phases for different investigators, since it doesn’t stipulate that the test has to be yours. Both tests were super high against the weakest ability to start with. Drawing Thin mitigates the +3 to a +1, (and gives her 2 resources or a card), I had Granny Orne too so that could bring it back to 0 if needed. In this case, failing meant taking 2 damage and losing 1 action in one case and discarding your highest cost asset in the other, but failing with Rain or Snow that effect gets cancelled so no harm no foul. Try and Try Again puts Neither Rain or Snow back in her hand, and she isn’t even done reaping the rewards of the failed test. Now she now has an extra action during her turn to boot. Yep, all in a days work for a humble civil servant!
I think I got at 6-7 uses out of her 3 Neither Rain or Snows and 3-4 times they cancelled some pretty bad stuff during Mythos and at Locations, while giving her an extra action and getting it right back in her hand. Not to mention the resource and card boost from Drawing Thin. If you haven’t tried this combo with Drawing Thin to raise the test to help you fail, and Try and Try Again to get her signature or any other skill card back, check it out. She is excels at making lemons into lemonade!
Of course as with all things, they need to be out and in play for the magic to happen. Those two cards are what I mulligan hard for with her.

It should say during the relevant resolution whether or not you keep an Ally that you encounter during a scenario, and who may end up with them - it'll either specify the lead investigator gets to add X, or that any investigator may add X to their deck, ignoring restrictions.

2 hours ago, Mimi61 said:

You are doing it right! You keep Allies or whatever other things you may collect, throughout the campaign unless otherwise instructed. They get treated like any other Ally or player card unless there is some sort of stipulation made.

I’m playing Stella right now for the first time and let me tell you, Drawing Thin and Try and Try Again(3) are amazing with her. Her Neither Rain or Snow can have multiple uses. We used those cards with Rain or Snow in back to back Mythos phases for different investigators, since it doesn’t stipulate that the test has to be yours. Both tests were super high against the weakest ability to start with. Drawing Thin mitigates the +3 to a +1, (and gives her 2 resources or a card), I had Granny Orne too so that could bring it back to 0 if needed. In this case, failing meant taking 2 damage and losing 1 action in one case and discarding your highest cost asset in the other, but failing with Rain or Snow that effect gets cancelled so no harm no foul. Try and Try Again puts Neither Rain or Snow back in her hand, and she isn’t even done reaping the rewards of the failed test. Now she now has an extra action during her turn to boot. Yep, all in a days work for a humble civil servant!
I think I got at 6-7 uses out of her 3 Neither Rain or Snows and 3-4 times they cancelled some pretty bad stuff during Mythos and at Locations, while giving her an extra action and getting it right back in her hand. Not to mention the resource and card boost from Drawing Thin. If you haven’t tried this combo with Drawing Thin to raise the test to help you fail, and Try and Try Again to get her signature or any other skill card back, check it out. She is excels at making lemons into lemonade!
Of course as with all things, they need to be out and in play for the magic to happen. Those two cards are what I mulligan hard for with her.

thanks!

oooh, i have not actually tried that combo with Stella (the Drawing Thin one). i have definitely made the absolute most of the Neither Rain Nor Snow cards; they've come in very handy. and i like so many of her cards, i rarely mulligan with her. i have had a blast playing with Stella from the start and this last scenario i was finally able to make use of her extra talent acquired from the Rougarou scenario ~ it was awesome! XD

1 hour ago, dysartes said:

It should say during the relevant resolution whether or not you keep an Ally that you encounter during a scenario, and who may end up with them - it'll either specify the lead investigator gets to add X, or that any investigator may add X to their deck, ignoring restrictions.

i'm thinking of the guy with the museum keys in the Dunwich scenario. it didn't seem to make thematic sense for him to come with the characters, so i left him behind. on the other hand, i did keep Lady Esprit from Rougarou because it kind of made sense to do so given the conclusion. i suppose i could dig up the guy with the keys, but it's been so many scenarios since then, i think i will just keep going.

Often the card back is a good hint; the security guard you refer to has an encounter card back, not a player card back, so you can't shuffle him into your deck anyway (barring sleeves). Also, his text is irrelevant outside of his scenario, so why would you want him?

If you really want to be sure though, check the resolution of the scenario. There should be a bullet point with, "any player may choose to add Lady Esprit to their deck. This card does not count towards deck size." If there isn't a sentence like that in a resolution, you can't take the ally.

On 10/14/2020 at 9:52 PM, happy_ythogtha said:

glad to hear you stuck with it! i had a similar experience, letting it sit a long time between my initial unboxing and now; there was a while i was thinking maybe i was too dumb for the game because i was really having a hard time wrapping my mind around the mechanics. never thought then to ask on a forum, but the youtube playthroughs and how to play videos really helped! good luck with the gaming group! hope they get sucked in! : D

We played the session yesterday.

Unfortunately we didn't get to finish the campaign - after 4 hours we were just coming to the end of the 2nd scenario (running around Arkham finding cultists) and we needed to call time at that point.

Also unfortunately (although not unexpectedly), I'd made massive mistake with the rules while we were fighting the Ghoul Priest at the end of the first scenario - it turns out "Retaliate" only means he gets a free hit on you if you fail an attack, not every time you attack. We didn't realise after we'd completed the 1st scenario, so we had to fudge scenario ending.

After all that, 2 of players are keen to dive into a proper campaign, and the other can't commit the time, but is keen to play again in a stand alone scenario. So I guess that's a win.

9 hours ago, SGPrometheus said:

Often the card back is a good hint; the security guard you refer to has an encounter card back, not a player card back, so you can't shuffle him into your deck anyway (barring sleeves).

oh good point ~ i'd forgotten that; that was probably why i knew to throw him back.

8 hours ago, petszk said:

Also unfortunately (although not unexpectedly), I'd made massive mistake with the rules while we were fighting the Ghoul Priest at the end of the first scenario - it turns out "Retaliate" only means he gets a free hit on you if you fail an attack, not every time you attack. We didn't realise after we'd completed the 1st scenario, so we had to fudge scenario ending.

After all that, 2 of players are keen to dive into a proper campaign, and the other can't commit the time, but is keen to play again in a stand alone scenario. So I guess that's a win.

ha! i did that too with retaliate and still forget to play it right. and this weekend i got so turned around by the final Carcosa scenario that i ascribed a retaliate action to the boss fight character even though they didn't have one (it was okay, didn't end up effecting the outcome too much, but for a couple of rounds everything was a mess--those funny videos where people fling damage at their cards in giant heaps: that was this game!). that scenario is so bonkers anyway. i laughed outloud several times when i failed skill test after skill test and the card got goofier and goofier about what to do next until you're out of options.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

as mentioned above, i finished Dim Carcosa last night and it was so off the wall and there was so much going on i'm sure i fudged some of it (like the +1 fight i kept forgetting and the random phantom retaliate action i was playing; that was how loopy i got). in the end, Stella and Akachi were triumphant by the skin of their teeth, but after the campaign, Akachi had 6 trauma, so i've decided to retire her. she now joins Roland, Wendy, and Agnes in the Shady Hills Investigator Home by the seashore.

going to give Stella a break too--feel like she really got put through the wringer; only narrowly fleeing at least two of the six mythos packs with very little to spare after Akachi had been defeated.

next up: Carnevale , probably with Wini and Carolyn; we'll see if i can get Carolyn up to snuff to take her to the Forgotten Age.

I'm taking Sefina and Yorick through my second run through of Dunwich. They spent a night at the Excelsior Hotel before they took the train out of Arkham (oddly, that night was less relaxing than they had anticipated). Now they've made it to the final scenario, an hopefully they'll do better than their predecessors, Jenny and Pete, who ended the world. Oops.

Next up is my blind run of The Forgotten Age, with Akachi and probably Minh. Skipping Carcosa because of that elusive Phantom.

On 10/24/2020 at 4:48 PM, dysartes said:

It should say during the relevant resolution whether or not you keep an Ally that you encounter during a scenario, and who may end up with them - it'll either specify the lead investigator gets to add X, or that any investigator may add X to their deck, ignoring restrictions.

Also cards that stay in your deck will have player backs, and ones that are only in play for that scenario (like museum security guard Adam Lynch) will have encounter card backs. So that's a hint if you want to know whether you might be able to keep the ally before you get to the resolution.

Been replaying through TCU finally. First time since the campaign ended. I wanted to try out a few of the new starter deck investigators, opted for Jacqueline and Stella. First two scenarios went pretty well, as did most of the third. Then I got the worst possible mythos draw in the world and Jacqueline went insane right as I was about to win. Haven't touched it since, but to be fair, I also got distracted by finally getting my copy of Kingdom Death: Monster.

I'll get back to replaying TCU eventually, but I'm hoping to start up my Innsmouth campaign next month with my friend. I'm gonna use Trish for sure. Undecided on my second. We usually play two investigators apiece in our campaigns.

On 10/27/2020 at 6:10 PM, coldt0es said:

Next up is my blind run of The Forgotten Age, with Akachi and probably Minh. Skipping Carcosa because of that elusive Phantom.

i should have saved Akachi for TFA instead of taking her through Carcosa. hope you fare better with her than i did! : D

I tried solo Roland Banks and got through the first three scenarios of Night of the Zealot, but he went crazy doing Return to the Night of the Zealot. Currently trying two Investigators - Zoey Samaras and Harvey Walters - and they have gotten through Night of the Zealot, and The Gathering of Return to Night of the Zealot, but with the physical and mental trauma they have accumulated it's tough! I was hoping to keep going with them but might have to start new Investigators for Dunwich.

On 10/24/2020 at 2:22 PM, happy_ythogtha said:

i just finished playing the long-sought "A Phantom of Truth" in the Carcosa cycle; what a mind-bender it was! time and again my bacon was saved by so many weird things happening!

• my Stella deck now has 37 cards and, sleeved, i can barely hold it in my hand (i have small hands). she also now has four weaknesses ~ it's completely out of control.
• Akachi has played much better the last two scenarios, but her Angered Spirits card is killing me. she has three trauma at this point and i will probably have to retire her soon. : o (

random question: when you pick up an ally in one scenario, you keep them through the campaign, right? if they are "defeated" they get discarded and at the end of the scenario just go back into the deck, right? or am i doing this wrong?

What do you mean by back into the deck?

The scenario guide should let you know if you keep/add any cards to your deck. If they do not say to add a story asset/ally to your deck, then you don't. But yeah, if you have added a story asset and they are "defeated" they go back into your discard and you keep them unless something tells you to remove them from your deck.

Trying to solo The Circle Undone with an... interesting Zoey deck. Yes, true solo with Zoey. With Grete Wagner and Sixth Sense she might actually be able to find clues, we'll see. Mainly, I wanted to put every remotely faith-based card in her deck and have her run around screaming and hacking suspected witches to pieces. She has four swords, two knives and two machetes, currently. The flamethrower will come later.

With the new lockdown and the mental and physical toll that takes on our health, our RttFA campaign has stalled at the last hurdle, just about to start Shattered Aeons. We tried playing it a week ago and got a few turns in before it became clear we weren't able to focus on the game at all. We're trying again tomorrow so fingers crossed!

Otherwise the only thing I now have to tide me over is deckbuilding. Lots and lots of deckbuilding. Will any of these weird and wonderful deck ideas hit the table? I don't know, but my Norman Withers deck has gone through more than 13 iterations...

On 11/24/2020 at 3:10 PM, Allonym said:

With the new lockdown and the mental and physical toll that takes on our health, our RttFA campaign has stalled at the last hurdle, just about to start Shattered Aeons. We tried playing it a week ago and got a few turns in before it became clear we weren't able to focus on the game at all. We're trying again tomorrow so fingers crossed!

Otherwise the only thing I now have to tide me over is deckbuilding. Lots and lots of deckbuilding. Will any of these weird and wonderful deck ideas hit the table? I don't know, but my Norman Withers deck has gone through more than 13 iterations...

I don’t believe we’ve gotten your “hot takes” on the Innsmouth cards yet...

Played Point of No Return from Dream-Eaters last night, with our non-Taboo group of Tommy (lead), Dexter, Trish and my Patrice (initially Desperate, and now Versatile).

Didn't end up getting my camera out, but Quantum Flux was there in my last hand to avoid that horror damage - while the Watcher was in play on the table, so he didn't go back into my deck. On the other hand, I "made a friend" during the scenario, which meant that after I used Deny Existence on the Watcher's Hunter attack, I was able to banish it back to its own dimension - the discard pile - which I found amusing. Shame I don't get to keep my friend, though.

Made it through the scenario pretty handily - Trish is a bit nuts when it comes to getting clues, and Dexter has his moments too. I was on general support and whatever my hand felt like helping me with on a given turn - though with a 51 card deck, you'd think I'd manage to avoid multiple turns where I pulled two copies of the same card...

I am at the brink of starting my blind playthrough of Guardians of the Abyss and The Dream-Eaters. My partner and I will be playing through the waking world... While my friend and their partner are playing through the dreamlands. Since we can't be together during the pandemic they've purchased Starter Decks and are planning on playing through their half of the main campaign in person by themselves. But before we split up we're going to embark on a journey to Egypt.

I also acquired a spare copy of the Whispers of Hypnos so that the two campaigns are ENTIRELY independent. We'll be playing Guardians together as a four person group online before I drop The Dream-Quest off at their house so we can all play physically with the cards. Once we've split up we'll be meeting back up to read the interludes together... As well as plot the next campaign that we'll play together online.

On 10/31/2020 at 12:22 PM, happy_ythogtha said:

i should have saved Akachi for TFA instead of taking her through Carcosa. hope you fare better with her than i did! : D

Akachi and Minh survived TFA but only just barely — I had to spend all my late game XP on horror soaks because they had so much trauma! And I had to make a story choice I didn't feel great about; I'm not sure it was in character but they had limited options. (I mean, if your other choice is going to result in insanity in fairly short order, it's not much of a choice, is it?) So all-in-all I was satisfied. I didn't think they'd survive to the end of the campaign so I'm considering that a victory, particularly on my blind run!

Next up: Back through TFA with Ursula and Finn. Trying to decide whether to add in Return or play it one more time without (I'm leaning towards the latter, so I can see how much I learned from the first run-through). And my son said he'd let me teach him Arkham if he could teach me Magic, so we're going to play Stella (him) and Wini (me), either in an Excelsior Hotel one-shot using the starter decks upgraded to 19XP, or starting Dunwich with a slightly modified Wini deck so she won't die from That One Treachery that's bad for investigators who move through their decks quickly.

11 hours ago, coldt0es said:

Akachi and Minh survived TFA but only just barely — I had to spend all my late game XP on horror soaks because they had so much trauma! And I had to make a story choice I didn't feel great about; I'm not sure it was in character but they had limited options. (I mean, if your other choice is going to result in insanity in fairly short order, it's not much of a choice, is it?) So all-in-all I was satisfied. I didn't think they'd survive to the end of the campaign so I'm considering that a victory, particularly on my blind run!

Next up: Back through TFA with Ursula and Finn. Trying to decide whether to add in Return or play it one more time without (I'm leaning towards the latter, so I can see how much I learned from the first run-through). And my son said he'd let me teach him Arkham if he could teach me Magic, so we're going to play Stella (him) and Wini (me), either in an Excelsior Hotel one-shot using the starter decks upgraded to 19XP, or starting Dunwich with a slightly modified Wini deck so she won't die from That One Treachery that's bad for investigators who move through their decks quickly.

i hear ya ~ i lost all my final game XP from finishing TFA to trauma soaks as well, but i managed to make it through without losing anyone (took Father Mat, Wini, and Carolyn)!

i really enjoyed TFA a lot. i had been dreading it because everyone said it was brutal. it was definitely a challenge and Depths of Yoth may be the first scenario that i just straight-up didn't enjoy playing at all. hated the descent, hated the wandering aimlessness of it, hated the constant worry of whether i would have to climb back out again. Shattered Aeons more than made up for it, though. that scenario was wild! and Wini kept pulling will tests on her encounter cards and she sucks so hard at will tests, so things just kept piling on! but they all squeaked out alive carrying their piles of hearts and brains.

nowhere did it say what to do with the Relic, though, for my conclusion, so i guess Carolyn keeps it? seems ridiculously op, but i ain't complaining! : D

On 11/24/2020 at 6:23 AM, tasman said:

What do you mean by back into the deck?

i meant back in the box. but yeah, i figured it out ~ thanks! : D

14 hours ago, Antimarkovnikov said:

I'm really curious to know where does this image come from? Sounds really fun!

9 hours ago, Henryillusion said:

I'm really curious to know where does this image come from? Sounds really fun!

I made it myself for my Choose your own adventure campaign guides ... I'm working on one for the Stand-alone encounters.

You can find more info about them here.

Aaand we finally got through Shattered Aeons! Resolution 3! Can confirm that Winifred is great fun and really handy in RttFA (especially in City of Archives!). However, I don't think I'll be playing her again any time soon.

On 11/28/2020 at 12:39 AM, Mimi61 said:

I don’t believe we’ve gotten your “hot takes” on the Innsmouth cards yet...

You make a good point. I'll get on that now, actually...

9 hours ago, Allonym said:

Aaand we finally got through Shattered Aeons! Resolution 3! Can confirm that Winifred is great fun and really handy in RttFA (especially in City of Archives!). However, I don't think I'll be playing her again any time soon.

You make a good point. I'll get on that now, actually...

You are the best!!

Looks like everything else I am missing has an asking price of $50 or more. Time to wait for what is in the next round of reprints.