Some initial impressions of the story cards having now played with them:

Overall the new story effects are much more advantageous for the winner to have happen. With both of the previous story card sets it was less common to see them used for fear that they would provide an opponent an advantage. If you are winning why tamper with success? However, many of the new stories have effects that are auto use for the winner. I would like to highlight a few that sprung up to my attention since we have been using them. If you do not have the Story cards yourself you can check them here: http://www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/CoC/cocdeckbuilder.html (choose, Type: Story, Set: The Shifting Sands).

A New Challenge: This is one of those stories that massively swings the game. I have seen this one change a 1-2 story disadvantage into a 2-2 and I auto win next turn for the player previously behind. Even though I have not seen the following happen yet: if used in the right sequece this story could mean getting a 2nd on the same turn.

Chaos Unleashed: Under the old story card design paradigm this one would work for both players. However, the story effect here only benefits the winner. What this means is, it will be used by any player not relying on a highly specific resource layout. This story essentially creates a 3-4 card draw with no cost and no real downside. Despite not effecting the board the Story is quietly awesome.

The Second Dragon: I owned an opponent by bringing x2 Many-Angled Things into play, causing the helpless slaughter of his characters. There are some great Characters scattered across the factions that create come into play response effects. Use of this card by a deck focused heavy on destruction may mean your opponent gets nothing out of it.

The Seventh Gate: This Story doubles the chances of getting the story of your deck's dreams into play... and it shuffles back into the deck. This one is basically the key to many gates and doubles the possibility of a specific story card effect coming into play. It is one scary story to see on the opening flip!

Worth mentioning is there are now 12 story cards. At any rate, I am hoping this will start a discussion on the strategic implications of story cards on the metagame.

Tokhuah said:

After reading the card text of 'A New Challenge' I'm a bit confused how it's supposed to work.

So, it allows the winner to redistribute all success tokens that have been placed at story and conspiracy cards that have been in play at the moment it's replaced? Or what is meant by 'revealed stories'? If so, that's insane - it can translate into an auto-win of the game if you've committed characters at any of the other stories (and there's a couple of success tokens around)!

As written it's unclear if you throw all success tokens into one big pool, but that cannot be right; surely you create two pools of tokens, one for each player?!

'Come the Dreamtime' looks like it's the little sister of 'A New Challenge'. It's not quite as powerful but more in line of what I'd expect from story card effects!

No matter what the story card effects are, I am just tickled pink to see the stories play a larger role in the game.

The success tokens do not change sides. However, you can put all of yours on a story that has not resolved yet... then resolve it. It is sort of a reverse engineered "On the Lam".

If you win A New Challenge you replace it, then can redistribute all success tokens on all stories and conspiracies as long as you place no more than 4 on any one. This can be used to allow yourself to win a story that was left unopposed, or where you know you are going to win the investigation struggle or skill check. It can also be used to prevent your opponent from being able to win what would have otherwise been a guaranteed win.

The Seventh Gate and Second Dragon are both awesome and game changing.

Come the Dream Time is a screw you card in my opinion. You win that one and then you move the stories around so the one your opponent really needed to win and had been working on is now moved someplace where he has no success tokens (or at least noticeably fewer).

I've got to say, that the new stories rock. There isn't a single one here that I feel completely comfortable about letting my opponent just win, with maybe the exception of the Village of Ash if he doesn't have a second story already in his won pile.

Tokhuah said:

Here's the text:

Disrupt: If you would place a success token at a story, exhaust Pagan Hall to instead place that success token on Pagan Hall.
Action: Exhaust Pagan Hall to move any number of success tokens from it to a story of your choice.

Now, wouldn't that be sneaky?

I'm also getting some interesting ideas about other new story cards, due to their unorthodox wording, particularly The Seventh Gate...

I'm almost sure we're going to see a couple of errata/clarifications for these story cards.

BTW, has it already been clarified if all 12 story cards are supposed to be used in a game?

Redistribute is likely not to be considered synonymous with place. The end result may be the same, but so is destroy and sacrifice.