So what is everyone doing with Calvin? We were just not able to pass up using him with Harvey. Have others tried something else with him? How did it work?

If you did use him with Harvey, how did you then use Harvey? Did you load him up with physical weapons and use him as a scholarly terminator, never backing down from anything that could be hurt with a gun? Never having to stop and rest as long as he didn't attack something that could hit him back?

Or did you use his spells? Did you go ahead and take the sanity hits, and have him fight with spells as well as weapons, letting him be able to kill bigger things, but eventually needing to recharge at the asylum? Did you go spell hunting with him in areas that were likely to turn up new spells?

Or was he a gate closer, using his high lore to close even the tough gates, and his sanity protection to survive the harder other worlds?

Or were you an opportunist, using him against whatever was closest?

Did anyone have any other uses for the Calvin/Harvey combo?

Our group paired Harvey with Calvin and sent them monster hunting. Another player was playing Micheal McGlenn and gave his tommy gun to the dynamic monster-slaying duo and then jumped through gates. His high fight is perfect for closing those gates.

This seemed to be the best use of Calvin and we won...... unfortunately no one scored that game so we are going to replay it in a few days.

I tried a little bit of each and didn't have much luck with anything. I was delayed in the outerworld, was rather unsuccessful with the tommy gun, and wasn't even very sucessful with Dread Curse of Azathoth. We will be retrying the scenario tomorrow, but I don't know yet what we will do with Calvin.

in a 2 player game just made Harvey worth playing. Mainly he used his speed!

For my game we considered putting Calvin with Harvey. In the end we decided to put him with Michael. Major fighting skills, and enough sanity protection to keep you away from the asylum for most of the game. He machine gunned down a Gug pretty easilly, but was quite releaved when a gate opened up at his feet just before he had to deal with a hound of Tindalos

The second major advantage for putting Calvin with Michael McGlenn came up when Michael got an Elder SIgn card. giving him the ability to close a gate without any penalty at all.

Chop him up and put him in soup :')

Our first go-around, we used Calvin with Michael McGlen - he became quite the killing machine. He wasn't so apprehensive about taking on the more horror-inducing slime. This worked well until he had some incredibly poor and ultimately deadly rolls.

We paired Calvin up with Harvey on our second attempt at scenario 1. Harvey became a killing machine(6 monster trophies) and ended up sealing 4 portals on his own. We had some extremely fortunate portal-spawn points which cut down on travel time immensely. This combination was attempted in a 2 player game.

Avi: Didn't we go over this already. Calvin's card says he cannot be sacrificed for any reason... not even to make soup!

McGlen+Calvin: How did you keep him sane during monster killing? The -1 sanity damage definitely helps, but he still will likely only be able to kill 2 monsters before he goes insane. That 3 Sanity is tough to get around, even when the damage is reduced to 1 sanity per monster. Did you get +1 Will or something like that to help with the Horror checks?

We toyed with the idea of trying Calvin with McGlen, but it seemed like he would still end up insane a lot unless he had access to a lot of whiskey. It's cool to hear that it does work!

Has anyone tried him with anyone else. It seems like he could make Jenny Barnes into a better character as well.

Yes, Whiskey did play a part, as did a lot of trips to the asylum. The player using McGlen was rolling fantastically as well. The amount o travel required to repair his sanity slowed us down a bit, but the lucky placement during spawning of portals helped a great deal.

Twilight said:

It's not a sacrifice :') it's a privilege.

It seems like for Scenario 2 the same stratagies for asigning Calvin apply. The only real diference is that everyone will want to kill a monster or two to make up for that fact that no clues appear.

Dark Jco. said:

No they don't. You can pass horror checks against most monsters with low will characters now, and there are monsters that do 3-4 horror damage now (as opposed to Harvey being automatically able to pass all horror checks if he had Calvin with him).

Exactly. Harvey is no longer a sure thing at Horror checks, and other characters can face a lot more monsters without risk of going insane. The +1 speed on Calvin starts looking to be more useful than the -1 Sanity for a lot of characters. Though it still helps Harvey a lot, but there are several othre characters who will really shine with the +1 Speed.

The penalty for getting caught in the streets make having a little extra speed even a bigger advantage for some of the really slow characters.

After re-reading the scenario I realize now that the Harvey/Calvin pairing is looking less appealing and the McGlen/Calvin pairing might be the right way to go for a monster killer if your group needs one.

I also think that Calvin's +1 Speed might make "Ashcan" Pete a very viable character this time around as would Jenny Barns. Both of these characters would make great money dumpsters at the beginning of the game because they would be able to buy useful items at the General Store and run whatever items you need to you without fear of being trapped out in the cold.

If that is the case who would be the other investigators that you would use? Bob Jenkins might be good to get choice picks at the General Store. Joe Diamond with his already high Speed might be useful if he can get to the Bank of Arkham to pick up the much needed clue tokens.

We also gave Calvin to Harvey, whom I played. I'm thinking it might not have been the best choice. The sanity tanking was great, don't get me wrong, but I found that even casting Dread Curse (dealt to Harvey) I was unable to kill many monsters. SHub's +1 toughness and some abysmal rolling stopped me cold. We were never loaded with phys weapons, so at most I could only take on 3 combats. A lack of non-spell weapons forced me to rely on Dread Curse even for stupid monsters like Cultists and Maniacs. Eventually I stopped trying to kill monsters, left that to other Investegators (and partially just let the monsters run wild) and Jumped into gates. Perhaps if I had gotten Shriveling and another good 1-hand weapon things would have been different. As it stood, it didn't work.

Had some sucess giving Calvin to Pete. Pete's fight/will slider is great, and Calvin gives him a much needed +1 speed. Pete had lots of fighting capabilities with 1 less sanity damage per monster, and the ability to discard Duke if his sanity ever got in trouble so he could keep fighting. Calvin's +1 sneak was also useful, turning Pete not only into an effective monster killer, but into Super-Ninja as well.

With scenario 3 up it is time once again to start asking what people plan on doing with Calvin. it seems that Both McGlen and Harvey are here this time but is there a better combination for Calvin in the new characters? Maybe Jim Culver will be an all-star (probably not) or maybe Rita Young will show the boy around. What do people plan on doing this time around?

I'm interested in the potential of putting Calvin with Mark. I've always liked Mark, but he's constantly hampered by sanity problems. Calvin gives him really good sneak potential and a good sanity buffer. Still dangerous, with the perhaps necessary evil of corruption, but interesting.

In the first two scenarios we paired Calvin with McGlen. It seemed like a no-brainer. Generally we keep Michael on his lowest fight rating, as long as he has his tommy gun, so his will checks are decent. He still hits the Asylum regularly, but he doesn't seem like the same fool's trap that he ordinarily is in the base game. We aren't sure who will get Calvin in the third Scenario yet.

For the first scenario we paired Calvin with Harvey. Harvey ended up with eight monster trophies and 2 gate trophies. Harvey had the Shrivelling spell and an axe which combined were plenty good enough for any critters he faced. Even the toughest monsters succumbed to Harvey's onslaughts but he did have to visit the Asylum in the end.

For the next two scenarios we'll review who will benefit best from having Calvin as an ally but Harvey was definitely the right choice for us in scenario one.

so far in the 3rd sc we have had him with Michael and Wilson. Got to say the first pairing worked better.

Ok, after reading Scenario 4 it seems like the bonus to speed that Calvin gives will help out more than any of his other abilities. His bonus to sneak might be good but keeping your sneak high lowers your speed and out in the cold is not a place you want to stay this time! It seems like if "Ashcan" Pete or Jenny Barnes are taken this time around that they will NEED Calvin or risk getting killed incidentally.

It also seems like McGlen will still be a popular choice but he won't be able to camp in the streets as well. Also the great experiment will not be as exploitable this time without serious consequences.

So who will be teamed with Calvin this time? Will the tried and true tag team of Calvin and Michael McGlen still be popular or will Wilson Richards and Rita Young be zooming around the board with the likes of Gloria Goldberg? Mark Harrigan might be good while poor, poor, Sister Mary will have to sit this one out.

So what are your thoughts?

I can predict another mcglen/rita pairing! though who gets calvin swaps.

For our last 2 games, we gave Calvin to the one playing Dexter Drake. Fixed Shrivelling spell, and the ability to draw 3 and pick 2 when drawing his random spells make him one of the bettter spellcasters. Add Calvin in and he doesn't have to worry about sanity costs for over half the spells. Any monster that doesn't have magical immunity is toast.