The Act 1a card for Midnight Masks instructs to "Find as many unique Cultist enemies as you can and add them to the Victory Display." It further clarifies that not all Cultist cards are in the set-aside Cultist deck.

Does this include one copy each of the Encounter cards "Acolyte" and "Wizard of the Order"? It seems these cards would qualify since they have the Cultist tagline at the top. However, neither of those cards gives Victory points, so I'm left scratching my head as to whether they count toward the 6-card threshold to advance the Act.

This caused me a fair bit of searching the first time I played the scenario too.

To qualify as a unique cultist for the victory display they must have the Cultist trait and have the star icon before their name - which is what defines them as unique (see Unique in the Rules Reference). Neither Acolytes nor the Wizard of the Order count towards the 6 cultists you are trying to find to advance the Act and do not go into the Victory Display.

Ahh, yes--that asterisk!! I remember now about the Unique keyword.

Thanks, Assussanni!! I appreciate the quick response.

MM QUESTION #2: I just spawned one of the unique Cultists on an unrevealed location with a Locked Door attached to it. Do I need to resolve the Locked Door (either by bashing or picking lock) before I can Parley with the Cultist at that location?

Parley is a distinct action from investigating, so you are free to parley with the cultist while the locked door is attached to the location.

Well I ran out of actions before doom advanced me the end, so no chance to parley. Only managed to get two Cultists, thanks to two Obscuring Fogs, both placed on cards with 4 shroud value. Looks like I'll be running Midnight Masks again. Fun scenario, but man you really need to gobble up all those clues as quickly as possible.

That Locked Door card led to a lot of confusion. The description reads:

Attach to the location in play with the most clues, and without a Locked Door attached. The attached location cannot be investigated.

This description raises a lot of questions, which I'm hoping you guys can help interpret for me:

1. If all locations are still "unrevealed," am I supposed to peek at the "revealed" underside to see which cards have the most clues? And then assign Locked Door to one of those cards (either per Lead Invesigator's choice or randomly determined)?
2. If the location that Locked Door gets assigned to is unrevealed, it still gets flipped to the revealed side when an investigator moves to that location, right?
3. If there is only one revealed location with clues on it, then Locked Door gets assigned to that card, correct?
4. The card text seems to specifically apply to using the Investigate action. Does that mean Roland can still use his special ability to gain a clue if he defeats an enemy at the Locked Door location?

I think this card would have been better designed if it applied only to unrevealed locations, and simply restricted the card from being flipped to the revealed side until bashed in or lock-picked. But I realize I need to deal with the rules as they are. A little help would be appreciated.

20 hours ago, Sir_Blacksoutalot said:

Well I ran out of actions before doom advanced me the end, so no chance to parley. Only managed to get two Cultists, thanks to two Obscuring Fogs, both placed on cards with 4 shroud value. Looks like I'll be running Midnight Masks again. Fun scenario, but man you really need to gobble up all those clues as quickly as possible.

That Locked Door card led to a lot of confusion. The description reads:

Attach to the location in play with the most clues, and without a Locked Door attached. The attached location cannot be investigated.

This description raises a lot of questions, which I'm hoping you guys can help interpret for me:

1. If all locations are still "unrevealed," am I supposed to peek at the "revealed" underside to see which cards have the most clues? And then assign Locked Door to one of those cards (either per Lead Invesigator's choice or randomly determined)?
2. If the location that Locked Door gets assigned to is unrevealed, it still gets flipped to the revealed side when an investigator moves to that location, right?
3. If there is only one revealed location with clues on it, then Locked Door gets assigned to that card, correct?
4. The card text seems to specifically apply to using the Investigate action. Does that mean Roland can still use his special ability to gain a clue if he defeats an enemy at the Locked Door location?

I think this card would have been better designed if it applied only to unrevealed locations, and simply restricted the card from being flipped to the revealed side until bashed in or lock-picked. But I realize I need to deal with the rules as they are. A little help would be appreciated.

MM is a really hard scenario to "win", 2 cultists is actually pretty good.

1. There should always be at least one location revealed (the one you are standing on, locked door can attach to locations with 0 clues), and if for some reason there were no locations revealed then I think this card would just get discarded. EDIT: You would actually just choose an unrevealed location without looking at the revealed side and attach it there.

2. Yes, locked door only prevents you from taking an investigate action, so the location acts normally except it cannot be investigated (but clues can still be discovered through cards like Working a Hunch that automatically discover clues).

3. Yes, but locked door can also attach to locations with 0 clues if there are no revealed locations with clues.

4. Yes, as I mentioned above auto-clue effects like Roland's ability and Working a Hunch will work.

I think that the designers were trying to make Locked Door as versatile as possible so that it can easily be used in future scenarios. Actually, I think that this would make the card too tame because then the only way to determine what location it attached to (besides for looking at the revealed sides, which is a no-no) would be the player chooses, and the players could just put it at a location that they will never need to go to. However, from a thematic perspective you are right it would make more sense that you couldn't enter a location that has a locked door, IRL locked doors really don't stop you from looking through someone's journal they stop you from entering/leaving a place.

Thanks guys, I appreciate your help!

And I'm happy to hear gaining two Cultists in the MM scenario isn't too bad. I was right on the cusp of earning two more, but then I drew a Cultist chaos token which helped push the Doom count to 8 at start of next Mythos Phase. I was sooooooo ready for Roland to play Dynamite too! Ah well, I'll hope to move more efficiently at next play-through.

6 minutes ago, Sir_Blacksoutalot said:

Thanks guys, I appreciate your help!

And I'm happy to hear gaining two Cultists in the MM scenario isn't too bad. I was right on the cusp of earning two more, but then I drew a Cultist chaos token which helped push the Doom count to 8 at start of next Mythos Phase. I was sooooooo ready for Roland to play Dynamite too! Ah well, I'll hope to move more efficiently at next play-through.

IMO Midnight Masks gets MUCH easier after having played through it a couple times, knowing where the cultists will spawn and how you can deal with them helps a lot. As does Dynamite : )

I loved how "The Masked Hunter" makes his appearance. Truly one of my fav moments of the game so far. It's awesome how the designers apply such tweaks to make this game feel so fresh and dynamic. And so many scenarios yet to explore!

A bit off topic but if you like that...wait until you get into The Forgotten Age...one of my favourite moments of AHLCG innovation happens in that one. Absolutely no spoilers but when you hit that point for the first time I can guarantee it will provoke a reaction for all players that will become a memorable moment. There are these creative highlights in all the campaigns...but the one in TFA is my favourite so far.

19 hours ago, Jaync said:

1. There should always be at least one location revealed (the one you are standing on, locked door can attach to locations with 0 clues), and if for some reason there were no locations revealed then I think this card would just get discarded.

This is only partially true. Locked Door can be attached to locations with no clues, so long as there are no clues on locations in play. Locked Door can also be attached to unrevealed locations, but unrevealed locations generally have no clues on them until they are revealed, so there's rarely any reason to do so. That said, it is possible to end up in a situation where the only revealed location already has another copy of Locked Door attached, forcing you to choose an unrevealed one.

It's also possible (albeit rare) for unrevealed locations to have clues on them. You could, for example, use Vantage Point to move the only remaining clue in play to a new unrevealed location, then draw Locked Door and end up forced to attach the card to an unrevealed location. It's tough to imagine that being a good play (you're usually better off playing Vantage Point when a location is revealed; the "enters play" clause is mainly to catch the times when a location is already revealed when it enters play), but it's something to bear in mind.

(To preemptively clarify something else that often confuses new players: If a location with clues already on it is revealed, you still resolve its clue value in full. So, if an unrevealed location has 1 clue on it, and you flip it to reveal a clue value of 2, you add 2 additional clues to the location, for a total of 3 clues.)

MM QUESTION #3: One of the location cards allows Investigators to spend a certain number of resources to acquire one of the Cultists. However, players must spend one action, and the card specifies "Group limit once per game."

So one of my investigators will need to spend one action on their turn during the Investigation Phase. That part is clear. But if both investigators are at same location, is it legal for the other investigator to share resources to reach require total?

As far as I understand it, investigators cannot share resources, so I'm guessing the answer is "NO." I've read that there is a card in one of the expansions that does allow for sharing resources, which by logic means resources should not typically be shared. Can someone please confirm?

20 minutes ago, Sir_Blacksoutalot said:

MM QUESTION #3: One of the location cards allows Investigators to spend a certain number of resources to acquire one of the Cultists. However, players must spend one action, and the card specifies "Group limit once per game."

So one of my investigators will need to spend one action on their turn during the Investigation Phase. That part is clear. But if both investigators are at same location, is it legal for the other investigator to share resources to reach require total?

As far as I understand it, investigators cannot share resources, so I'm guessing the answer is "NO." I've read that there is a card in one of the expansions that does allow for sharing resources, which by logic means resources should not typically be shared. Can someone please confirm?

If it does not specifically state otherwise (investigators at your location spend X resources or something like that) then no, only the investigator preforming the action. And no, resources cannot normally be shared unless an effect lets you.