An Age to Remember

The Forgotten Age (or "TFA") is easily the most controversial of the campaigns. I personally liked it, but plenty of people found it frustrating. Luckily, we're almost certain to see Return to the Forgotten Age after Dream-Eaters is done, so FFG has a great chance to redeem the campaign in the eyes of the fans. So, let's get speculating, shall we?

Card Review: The Dream-Eaters

It's the most magical time of the year again: Time for a new AHLCG deluxe expansion! The newest cycle comes with a full roster of exciting investigators (whom I'll be talking about in a separate post) and two keywords. The first of these keywords is Bonded, previewed in Before the Black Throne. I have my own post on that, of course, but to say this expansion threw a curveball at it would be an understatement. In fact, it threw the glove at me, then ran off the mound to play water polo: These new Bonded cards do all sorts of crazy things with the mechanic, to the point where it's now impossible to generalize it. The other keyword is the brand-new Myriad, which lets you take three copies of a given card for the experience cost of one, making it easier to find the card and enabling effects that care about multiple copies of the same card.

This expansion's a bit of an odd one in that it's thoroughly tied to those two mechanics. Every single card I'm about to review either has a Bonded card or is Myriad (or both, in one case). The Dreamlands are weird, and normalcy is but an illusion. Let's dive in!

Card Review: Return to the Path to Carcosa

(Now there's a mouthful of a title). Welcome back, not only to my reviews, but also to the domain of Hastur! It's another Return set, and that means a whole new slew of upgrades, downgrades, and the odd sidegrade to review!

Card Review: Before the Black Throne

We've finally made it to the end of the cycle. Of particular note here is the new Bonded mechanic, which I've discussed in detail in my last post. Otherwise, we've just got a new set of high-level cards to sort through, so let's get started!

Bonds of the Occult

The Occult keyword has been taunting us ever since Carcosa's release. What makes something Occult as opposed to just an ordinary Tome or Relic? Why do two separate investigators have deckbuilding rules for such an obscure trait? With Before the Black Throne's two new Occult cards, we finally have our answer: Occult cards are cards that give their owners access to Spells while not being Spells themselves. With the original Occult card, Archaic Glyphs, that was via the Untranslated branching upgrade mechanic. With BtBT's Hallowed Mirror and Occult Lexicon, it's via the new Bonded keyword.

Card Review: In the Clutches of Chaos

Card review time? Card review time! This pack comes with a whole host of high-level cards, including two new Permanents, to make your last stand against Azathoth a fight to remember (assuming there's a universe left to remember it afterwards).

Card Review: Union and Disillusion

No gimmicks this time, just more cards!

Card Review: For the Greater Good

Looks like it's that time again already. For the Greater Good is here, bringing with it some much-anticipated cards. We have the class-specific upgrades for The Secret Name's dual-class cards, as well as the official release of a much-maligned Arkham Nights promo card, updated for a modern era. Let's start with the Neutral this time, because most of this article will be comparing the different upgrade paths:

Card Review: The Wages of Sin

Well, that was fast. The second Mythos pack in The Circle Undone is out already, which means it's time for some reviews!

Cards Review: The Secret Name

Well, the first Mythos pack of The Circle Undone has finally come out, so let's dive right in!

Carcosa Is Calling

It's probably inevitable that we'll get a Return to the Path to Carcosa sooner or later. PtC may not have had quite as many obvious hiccups as other campaigns, and it remains my favorite campaign to this day, but the Return boxes are all good fun even if they're not fixing anything. I know I'd love a fresh experience with the campaign, at least. You could consider this post my predictions, or maybe more of a wishlist, for that ineluctable return of Hastur to our world.

Replaced Core Sets

If the precedent from Dunwich holds true, we can expect a replacement for every core encounter set that shows up in two or more scenarios. That won't necessarily be the case, but it's a pretty effective way of adding some more flavor, since the core sets are, by necessity, rather generic.

Agents of Hastur

This one's probably a no-brainer. At three scenarios (Unspeakable Oath, Phantom of Truth, Dim Carcosa), it's the most ubiquitous of the core sets, and any changes to it directly impact our perception of Hastur himself.

So, what can be changed? The most obvious one is the Yellow Sign, which is nowhere near as big a deal as it should be. It's cool if you've already got a Madness in your deck, but otherwise it's just a generic "test will or suffer horror" treachery. A replacement card should have more far-reaching impacts, perhaps with the possibility of adding new Madness weaknesses to your deck if you can't draw one.

Not sure what they'll do with the Screeching Byakhee. Perhaps something that penalizes cards in hand, making it combo with Hidden cards (and, thematically, cards in hand represent your situational awareness, and you don't really want to be too aware when confronting the King in Yellow).

Ancient Evils

Everyone's favorite encounter set shows up in two scenarios: The Last King and Black Stars Rise. It's the most generic of doom accelerators, and ripe for replacement with something more thematic. I'd be interested in a Hidden version of Ancient Evils, with an appropriately nasty effect to force you to play it. Having to actively spend your own actions to advance the agenda would really make you feel like the Ancient One's puppet.

Dark Cult

Another two-scenario one, showing up in Echoes of the Past and Black Stars Rise. The most obvious change here is to tie them into Cult of the Yellow Sign's clue-stealing theme, but it might be tough to do much more with that design space with a replacement set. Perhaps they could replace the generic cultists with Lunatic enemies, since this is Hastur we're talking about.

The Midnight Masks

Sometimes I get the feeling that the devs really wish they'd made these treacheries a generic set. It's been showing up a lot in various scenarios with varying clue availability and/or requirements; in Carcosa, those are Echoes of the Past and A Phantom of Truth. It's an obvious replacement for logistical reasons if nothing else, and there's plenty of else in there. From a flavor perspective, let's be honest: Everyone ignores the flavor text outside of Midnight Masks itself, because there's no way a vague silhouette is stalking you in the rain while you're inside a library.

*ahem* Anyway, the most obvious change is to have Hunting Shadow deal horror (because Hastur) and False Lead generate doom (which would be quite handy in EotP). I'm sure we'll get something even more outre, though.

Striking Fear

Showing up in Curtain Call and Dim Carcosa, this is just the generic "You're really panicking right now (and also there are inexplicable corpses everywhere)" set. With a whopping seven cards, it also makes up a hefty chunk of the encounter deck, so replacing it would make those scenarios much more flavorful. The horror generation is pretty crucial to both scenarios, but we could do with having the stickier treacheries gain additional effects at low sanity (or high horror), just to make for a nasty surprise when Dim Carcosa rolls around.

Replaced Carcosa Sets

Dunwich only replaced a single one of its own encounter sets, and that idea makes a lot of sense. There's not as much flavor gain from outright replacing a cycle-specific set, and plenty of scenarios rely on those sets to work properly. I personally can only think of two sets that I could see using some replacement.

Delusions

This is where the easy money lies. Showing up in four scenarios (Curtain Call, Echoes of the Past, The Unspeakable Oath, and Dim Carcosa), it's the most common encounter set by far. It also leverages mechanics unique to the cycle, which necessarily makes it a little simplistic so new players can grok it. With Delusions, we have Hidden cards with a variety of different effects, but the same way to deal with them; with Dim Carcosa, we have the opposite. I think we're ready for a new Hidden set, one with a variety of effects and different ways to deal with them.

The Stranger

One mild annoyance I have with the campaign is that Hunting the Stranger isn't actually that important in the long run. It gives you one extra point of Doubt or Conviction, as well as some extra time in Dim Carcosa (which is pretty important in a Doubt run, but if you're on the other routes, you want to move quickly anyway so that the horror doesn't stack up and add a million autofails to the bag). Having some nastier treacheries that make you want to get rid of the Stranger, and possibly have different effects depending on how much hunting you've done so far, would go a long way towards making the longest-running sidequest more worth your while.

Enhanced Scenarios

I'm going to skip the obvious comments here. Every scenario could use more random locations and encounter cards to spice things up. I'm just going to comment on the scenarios that I think really deserve another look.

Echoes of the Past

Hey, we all knew this one was coming. It has a similar problem to the Miskatonic Museum, in that it relies a bit too heavily on encounter cards to pressure you. At high player counts, you can get things like The King's Edict comboing into The Cult's Search to provide you with some much-needed stress. In true solo, you might just enjoy a leisurely evening strolling through the Historical Society.

So what does it need? Obviously more effects that add doom to the current agenda. Simply turning off the "no doom during the Mythos phase" rule in general would rob the scenario of its uniqueness, but I could see that going on a treachery that attaches to the act or agenda to suddenly give you a time limit.

The Unspeakable Oath

The exact opposite problem here: The Unspeakable Oath is unspeakably brutal in low player counts (especially true solo), with your need to fully investigate multiple locations and perform a wide variety of different party tricks to impress the game into not lobotomizing you.

The simplest fix here: Replace Act 3a with a new version that has you perform "[investigator]+1" actions instead of a straight 4. It might even force 4-player groups to send more than one person to the basement.

Black Stars Rise / Dim Carcosa

Okay, these scenarios don't really need "fixing"; all I've got here is a thematic wish. Namely, it'd be cool if the degree of Doubt and Conviction mattered a bit more, rather than just which is higher (and whether you hit the cutoff for Tattered King). I'm thinking of treacheries that have their difficulties lowered or raised if you've got a large difference between the two, or perhaps that incorporate your scores into their effects directly. Something to make you really think about each individual point you get, rather than just making sure you have enough for your chosen path and then doing whatever's convenient.

Ideally, Doubt and Conviction would both become double-edged swords, so that you might decide to go all-in on one or keep them balanced depending on which you think will benefit you most in the finale. For instance, Black Stars Rise could have a treachery that sets your base combat/willpower to Conviction and your base intellect/agility to Doubt, while Dim Carcosa could have an enemy with fight equal to Doubt and evade equal to Conviction. The Doubt/Conviction mechanic is a cool concept, and making more use of it would be fun.

Player Cards

Of course, changing the campaign is all well and good, but the rehabilitated player cards have more far-reaching implications. Here's the ones I think deserve a second chance:

The Composure Cycle

I'm sure we all expect this one. Or these five, to be more accurate. In theory, the Composure cards have the advantage of being Fast, so you can play them reactively, and can hit stats that your other boosters can't get. In practice, you prefer a booster that you can actually rely on, and you can often get cross-class boosters for your off stats if you care about them. 

What do the Composure cards need to be worthwhile? I'd say level 3, cost 0 versions that have additional effects on top of their uses as skill boosters. Perhaps the ability to cancel one point of horror per turn, so they can stay around a bit longer and give you some thematic resilience.

Trench Knife

Poor, poor Trench Knife. It wants to be a weapon, but it doesn't have a damage bonus. The obvious fix is a higher-level version that gets a damage bonus when engaged with multiple enemies. It's still a little situational, but, unlike Machete, it won't turn itself off when things get out of hand.

Archaic Glyphs

Strange Solution got another upgrade path, so it stands to reason the Glyphs will as well. I personally don't really use either version, so it's tough for me to think of something that'd tempt me to use Shrewd Analysis. Perhaps a version that lets someone at your location search the top 6 cards of their deck?

Waylay

The Survivor cards in this cycle are generally pretty good. Waylay seems to get less love, mainly because it's a costly event that requires a bit of setup. A 2-cost version would suddenly become Dark Horse compatible (via On Your Own), which would be crazy good. They could feasibly make a level 3 0-cost upgrade, instead, which would obviate the need for OYO while making it a bit costlier to add and also making it a powerful event even without Dark Horse.

Knuckleduster

Behold, the mighty Knuckleduster! It has infinite +1 damage with no provisos! What's not to love? I mean, besides the fact that it greatly increases the risk of fighting in a class where most investigators have a base combat of 3, of course. It's also in the odd position of being almost strictly worse than the upgrade of a different level 0 weapon: Namely, the Switchblade, which, when upgraded, is basically a Knuckleduster that hits for 1 on a near-miss and doesn't have the downside. The obvious upgrade is a Knuckleduster with +2 or even +3 combat, making it usable for the 3-combat rogues.

Alchemical Transmutation

Mystics are another class that made off really well in this cycle. Alchemical Transmutation is one of the weaker ones, mainly because it takes a bit of setup to make decent money out of it (and, by the time you've got your will boosters in play, you probably want the arcane slots for something else). The simplest upgrade would be to drop the difficulty to zero, letting you hit the resource cap earlier. Alternatively, they could raise the resource cap, so you're more tempted to hang on to it later or even use it to replace Renfield.