So, we were quite excited when AH came out with the recent Scenarios. Our friends and fellow AH fans had told us that they were going to try to run through the scenarios like a campaign, using the same investigators each time. The investigators would start normally, but then keep whatever items and madness and injury cards they accumulated along the way in the next scenario instead of starting all over again and drawing new ones. This sounded terribly fun to my husband and I, so off we went.

The first scenario proved challenging for a normal AH game, but obviously easier than a game with expansions, so difficulty-wise it seemed perfect for scenario 1. Next we took our investigators (Daisy and Lilly) on to scenario 2, which was pleasantly and progressively more difficult than scenario 1 and we actually lost, but mainly because we had our heads up our... Anyhoo, we restarted the scenarios with new investigators and put Daisy and Lilly in a "dead investigator glass" (Jack Daniels) on the table to watch. OK, we're a little sick... We then started the next campaign with 2 new investigators and made it through scenarios 1 and 2 fairly well (i.e. not too many injuries or madnesses and pretty good loot). We were very much looking forward to scenario 3 and adding DH to the mix. This is where things took a turn for the EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING!!!!!!!

We have tried no less than 6 times to defeat this scenario and each time have failed somewhat spectacularly (although once or twice we did come tantilizingly close). We have tried with 2 investigators and with 4 investigators (we found that just the 2 of us playing with 6 is too confusing), we have tried to seal gates and we have tried to close gates, we have tried to ignore monsters and we have tried to defeat every stinking monster that even tries to get to the black cave, and we have tried starting our investigators out at scenario 3 (becoming extremely bored with playing 1&2 over and over again). Now I admit that having played slightly wiser and having been slightly luckier, we MAY have beaten this scenario at one point. HOWEVER, my point is that we eventually became SO FRUSTRATED with Scenario 3 that we moved on to Scenario 4 as a test case to see if this one was more difficult than 3. We defeated Scenario 4 with relative ease in ONE attempt.

Now please don't even get me started on the mathematic improbability to impossibility of defeating Tsathoggua if he awakens normally (i.e. not in a scenario), because no matter what argument you use, I am pretty well convinced that under normal circumstances it is impossible. If you get the general drift that I am bitter about Scenario 3, than you are correct. I feel that it is way too difficult for the order that it is in...at least with 2-4 investigators. I know that some of you may claim to have blown through this scenario with no problem, but I challenge you to double check the posted rules clarifications on this one because chances are, you were playing it TOO EASY.

Signed,

Disappointed AH Fan

Uhhh... Scenario three was somewhat difficult, but I beat it with a randomly selected three person team on my second try. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps other people aren't misrepresenting their abilities to beat it, and that perhaps you haven't quite mastered the game yet? I find it especially hard to believe that you have trouble beating it when you are allowing your investigators to keep their items between scenarios (which I find completely absurd— even if this does essentially take out the elder signs— it still leaves you with two Kings In Yellows as starting items)... It's very easy to deplete the decks you know... All you need to do is camp out at the Newspaper for retainers during the first two scenarios... Make a ton of cash, do a little shopping. Bleh. Keeping items between games is a recipe for breaking the game.

Personally, what I'm doing to make the scenarios fun and challenging is playing a three player team that's randomly selected out of six draws. If a character is devoured they're randomly replaced, if the entire team is devoured, they're replaced out of six draws again. So far I'm on scenario nine with fifteen more potential replacements ;'D I suspect I'll need them in scenario 10. I've already lost Mandy, Lily, Joe, and Darrell though :' ugh... Daisy should be useful in the last scenario... And Rex...

We beat it on our first try (Darrell, Mandy, Daisy and Wilson), though we did get lucky with monster draws (lots of flying monsters in Dunwich slowly feeding the Black Cave - which we just put into terror level rather than doom tokens - rather than wandering into the vortex). Also, lots of flying monsters flying out of Dunwich straight into the Arkham monster limit and ending up in the Outskirts. Still, we won by a reasonable margin, so a bit less luck and we'd still have been okay.

Tactics that might be useful: if there's a monster in the sky, you're going to get a Black Cave feeding soon. Therefore there's no point in fighting monsters that would reach the Black Cave on the same turn, since it's just as bad to get one eaten as twenty, if it happens all in one turn. Dunwich control is probably more important than Arkham control: almost certainly someone needs to be in Dunwich all the time. The usual advice to seal active locations first still applies, but especially Wizard's Hill. Almost certainly terror level increases from feeding are better to take than doom track increases, though if terror level gets to 9 and there's still plenty of space on the doom track then it might be worth not hitting terror 10 and losing the outskirts as a buffer. Similarly if you're just about to go shopping for an essential type of item. One-and-a-half on monster control, two-and-a-half sealing gates or collecting clues was our balance, swapping roles between investigators as the situation changed.

Hmmmm. That is a little harsh. But no, I don't consider myself to be a "master" of AH. No offense, but I'm not on a league, it is just a fun hobby for me. I do love the game, however, and play it quite frequently especially since the scenarios came out. I think that you have a very interesting investigator draw formula, and we are doing something similar with regards to not replaying "devoured" investigators. I did like our campaign style though, and since we don't really munchkin, but rather just kinda play the game to win, we didn't end up with "uber" investigators, especially since madness and injuries carried over. You can't really munchkin too much anyway, because you still have to get the investigators through to the next scenario. Like I said, I'm not saying that scenario 3 is unbeatable, I'm just saying that scenario 4 and scenario 5 seemed easier to me. I am looking forward to scenario 6 although we have pretty much abandoned the campaign style for the moment, as I am rather anal retentive and would like to do that starting from scenario 1. Anyways, thanks for the reply.

~J

Thanks for the reply, I'll take your advice next time we attempt it.

JenLux said:

I agree... Scenario three was more difficult than scenario four and five (and six also). Three was hard, seven and eight were hard, nine was hard (but I was able to beat it with a strong team led by Wendy), and ten ::shudder:: I beat that by sheer luck. The odds of drawing cards the way I did during the first several turns were probably less than one in three thousand.

As for not ending up with uber investigators, as you become more experienced with this game, you'll learn how to make them (and how to avoid madness and injuries better). If you're having fun with it, fine, but it's really not viable for a competition... During the two scenarios I played with an eight player team (before I decided that it was a stupid waste of time) for a high score and nearly got a perfect score... During the first scenario I actually bought out the entire unique deck (and I think also the common deck too— or perhaps that was the third scenario? I kindof did that in all the scenarios, with my eight player team, actually... Heh... Then I got bored by the end of scenario three and decided to replay it under my own terms for a challenge.

Hrm... I can't even remember how I did scenario three it was such a long time ago... I think I had Joe, Carolyn, and maybe Jacqueline... It was also a bit close. Peice of advice. Get Lure Monster. You can get some of the monsters off the gate with that, while also fighting monsters on their way to the gate in the same turn, without actually needing to go onto The Black Cave. Also, if the cave gate opens, seal it with an elder sign and some extra clue tokens (to keep from being devoured) I think I used Joe for that actually...