Hello!

THIS MIGHT CONTAIN MILD SPOILERS

I just finished my first campaign (Zealot) along with my wife.

After practicing the first scenario with different investigators like 6 times we built our decks and gave it a go with the rest of the campaign. My wife took the lead because she didn't knew the resolution of the scenario 1 (I read it once by mistake after first practice).

We did pretty well on the first scenario and then we did a rookie mistake because of misunderstanding the 'unique' coding of the Cultist cards... Ending up with with 2 cultist scaped and no trauma, which doesn't seemed so bad.

The thing is that on the third act we got our *** kicked terribly bad. We didn't even manage to advance the act deck once and both got killed... This was kind of disappointing but I guess it is OK for rookies like us. Once mistake that we noticed is that we took different paths in the forest, but we were also terribly unlucky with all our draws and skill tests.

Just wanted to share and see if this is common. We'll repeat the campaign and try to learn from our mistakes

Bye,

Miguel

Hi Miguel, welcome to the game!

I think your first experience is quite common. I certainly remember having to leaf through the rules to decide whether “unique Cultist” meant I could put one (but only one) Acolyte into the victory display.

The third scenario is very hard, especially if it is your first time playing it. I remember playing as Roland and getting defeated quite early by Umôrdhoth’s Wrath. Wendy soldiered on but fell just short of averting disaster.

Good luck for your second attempt!

You guys did great! We were defeated in Midnight Masks the first time through. Umôrdoth didn’t even have a chance to take a swipe at us.
It took us a while to figure out the how to determine “economy of action.” For example, sometimes it is more economical to evade an enemy instead of trying to defeat it, so you can continue doing what you came for. Like interest on credit cards, the Agenda deck never sleeps!
One tip is to mulligan hard in your opening hand for assets, because the first round is usually pretty free of distractions and you can play them and get yourself prepared.

The Night of the Zealot campaign, though created as an introduction, is by no means easy. In fact the difficulty jumps up significantly from scenario to scenario. As such, I would argue, it's not the best way of introducing new players as I am sure that many could be put off by the experience and, compared with the campaigns that come later, it doesn't have the space to develop a particularly engaging narrative. However, as FFG needed to cram the first campaign into three scenarios, it is perhaps to be expected. I certainly found it more fun to return to once I had a better card pool and a bit more experience with other campaigns.

The other thing to consider here is difficulty level. I would always advocate for playing on 'easy' level...I don't know why it is called 'easy', I've never found it to be the case...it is just less brutal than other levels.

I don't know, Miguel, whether you have any other campaigns but I would recommend giving NoTZ another go and then moving on to Dunwich or Carcosa. Don't feel that you need to get the best resolution in NoTZ before trying something else. The NoTZ campaign will allow you to get familiar with the flow of the game and iron out some the common mistakes that can be made (and we all have made mistakes at times) but, for me, the game really only came alive when I went through Dunwich and saw what a full campaign can do.

Best of luck with your next playthrough. In this campaign, just like in books and films, splitting up in the woods can be a risky strategy. Stay together, if you can, split up if you really need to.

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Just wanted to share and see if this is common. We'll repeat the campaign and try to learn from our mistakes

That's the right mindset, Miguel. I've now run through The Gathering about five times and am feeling ready to move on to Midnight Masks. It's all about absorbing the rules so you can administer a session of fluid play without constantly referring back to the rules. Although I always have ArkhamDB.com active to double-check rules I haven't yet committed to memory. Pays to double check!

Like you, I'm also trying to pull my wife into the game. The first session, well I swear there were circles spinning in her eyes. This game has SO MUCH information to absorb. So many tiny little details. She's not the kind to spend time reading through the rule book, so all I could do was push her into the deep end and pray she didn't drown. Fortunately, she was incredibly lucky with draws from the chaos bag and we easily won The Gathering. That positive experience means she's up for trying more. I guess I'll just keep giving her a refresher course and hope that the important stuff eventually sinks in.

Not sure about you, but I find that even the scenarios I lose are entertaining. It seems to be a core essence of this game that it messes with our minds and can quickly turn from good to bad. Like totally 100% EVIL!! In that sense, it's unlike any other game I've played and not the worst thing when I have to repeat a scenario due to an Epic Fail. Each game we learn a little more, hone our skills a bit sharper. I'm most certainly getting my money's worth! Hope your are too. Good luck!

I agree with this. Realising that, although you always try to win, failing can still be entertaining. It does take a different mindset...but sometimes when everything comes down to a single skill test that you just have to win...and you take an age rummaging around in the chaos bag only to draw a tentacle token...it creates an memorable experience like few other games do.

On 10/23/2020 at 5:30 PM, miguelcos said:

The thing is that on the third act we got our *** kicked terribly bad. We didn't even manage to advance the act deck once and both got killed...

Just wanted to share and see if this is common. We'll repeat the campaign and try to learn from our mistakes

so common! sounds like you're doing it just right! and welcome to the game. : D

luck is always going to be a big factor in this game, but as you learn to play your cards more efficiently, you can lessen the impact of the chaos bag to some degree.

I am very happy tp receive such encouraging feedback. We had indeed enjoyed our play through and every time we convince ourselves more to just have fun even if that tentacle token appears after and we have committed cards to get an advantage of +5 over the enemy xD...

I would definitely keep playing and would at some point purchase new campaigns. It's been an amazing way to spend time with my wife in something engaging.

Just finished a second walk-through...

At least this time I felt we made less mistakes, but we used different characters and I think we really didn´'t use them in the best way.

The result was more or less the same at the end, but at least we did very good in The Gathering xD...

I will start a new walkthrough in Easy mode. First two times were in Standard and I think it was way too much.

Easy mode...always. It isn't as easy as you might think by the name.