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Sunday 17 March 2019

Return to the Night of the Zealot - The Devourer Below – Solo play


So, here I am, finally at the end of my mini campaign and my experience so far has been a little jaded. The limitations of 3 actions a turn is constricting at best and with barely a fast action to his name, I felt the pinch every turn when I couldn’t get a set asset out or couldn’t move to the location I wanted to.



This time I remembered to start with a mental trauma so that’s a good start and my final starting hand was 2x Dr Milan Christopher, 1x 45 Automatic, an Overpower and a Vicious Blow. I start play on the “Main Path” and due to having 3 cultists who got a way.



Turn 1

1.       Hunch deck shows me a “Scene of the Crime”, good way to start the game off... not, as the Main Path had no damn clues on it.

2.       My first action sees my good friend “Dr Milan Christopher” enter the game

3.       I move into m 1st “Arkham Woods” location which is revealed to be “Unhallowed Ground” which forces me to take a willpower test of 4, which despite drawing the Elder sign from the chaos bag, I fail due to my low willpower stat. So I take 1 damage and Dr Milan is nice enough to take the horror.

4.       My final action sees me investigate the “Unhallowed Ground”, drawing a -1 token which gives me 1 clue and a shiny resource.

5.       Upkeep sees me get a “shortcut”



Not a bad start, got the good doctor into play, got a clue and got a nice free action to kick me off next turn. So far so good.



Turn 2

1.       Encounter deck draws a “Chill from Below” which asks me to test 3 willpower, I draw a skull token which at this stage is 0, however still causes me to fail as I only have 2 willpower and I have to discard a random card. My “45 Automatic” is the random card sadly.

2.       Hunch deck gives me a “Preposterous Sketches”

3.       I use the fast action “Shortcut” which I drew last turn to move me back to the “Main Path”.

4.       My first action was to then move into the next “Arkham Woods” location, the “Wooden Bridge”

5.       I then decided I needed some more cards in my hand so I used the hunch deck to draw 3 cards via the “Preposterous Sketches” as action 2.

6.       Final action is to investigate the “Wooden Bridge” , I committed “Perception” to the skill check to get a +2 bonus, the chaos bag gives me a – 4, which allows me to draw the test which gets the pass, a clue, a resource and the card I draw for the effect of “Perception” is “Magnifying Glass”

7.       Fast action time, I play the “Magnifying glass” no reason not to, I have the resources and I had a feeling I would need the asset.

8.       Upkeep phase sees me draw another “Vicious Blow”



So another reasonable turn, I managed to get a couple of free actions in there, to increase my productivity this round. Seekers could do with having more fast cards, or at least cards that give them extra actions, hell even Guardians could do with them.



Turn 3

1.       The agenda sadly advances, seeing a “Corpse Taker” spawning into the main path, then add a doom to cultist enemy

2.       Encounter deck then provides me another enemy in the form of “Grave Eater” who spawns with me.

3.       Another doom then gets added to the “Corpse Taker”

4.       Hunch deck shows me a “Scene of the Crime”

5.       1st thing is to fight the “Grave Eater”,  I commit a “Vicious Blow” to give me +2 to my fight, I pull a -3 from the chaos bag and win the fight, thanks to the +1 damage from the skill card, the enemy is defeated.

6.       2nd action is to move to the “Main Path”, which causes the “Corpse Taker” to engage with me.

7.       3rd action is to fight the bad guy here, this time I commited not only an “Overpower” but a “Vicious Blow” too to give me a +4 bonus. I pull the cultist token from the bag which gives me -2 and slaps a doom on the “Corpse Taker”. However this doesn’t matter as due to the bonuses I kill him in one attack and I draw “Fieldwork” from the “Overpower”.

8.       I draw “Perception” during the upkeep phase



First time I’ve really been able to fight and have a good scrap in this campaign with actual success in a short space. The Midnight Masks saw me battle some bad guys but just poking them to get the win, this felt like a more dominant fight. Shame I still haven’t got any weapons out in any of these games, considering I went with the “Bandolier” so I could play multiple weapons and tools........



Turn 4

1.       “Ancient Evils” adds a doom to the agenda.

2.       Hunch deck shows me “Working a Hunch”

3.       1st action sees me move into the “Arkham Woods” location “Tangled Thicket”

4.       Used my Hunch deck to play the fast action “Working a Hunch” to nab the clue from the location

5.       I use this player window to advance the act deck. Sadly this results in the 3 remaining cultists spawn into the “Main Path”

6.       Siding with caution, I pay 2 resources to play “Fieldwork”

7.       My final action is to draw and by a stroke of luck I get “Lita Chantler”

8.       The upkeep phase gets me a “Bandolier”



Major mistakes made during this game starting with turn 3 and it only gets worse really the longer the game went on. However, at the same time this mistake made the game a lot longer than it needed to be. So swings and roundabouts really HA.



Turn 5

1.       Encounter deck threw “Chill from Below” at me, I pulled a 0 from the chaos bag which still is a loss for me, and caused me to randomly discard “Overpower”.

2.       Hunch deck shows me “Scene of the Crime”... yet again

3.       Its go time, so I play “Lita Chantler” to replace the doctor

4.       I draw which gives me “Prepared for the Worst”

5.       Which then play to get my “Survival Knife”

6.       Upkeep phase comes round quick and I see a copy of “Dynamite Blast”



So I am preparing for a huge fight here, to try and get some bad guys in the victory display. Not realising the game should really be over or nearly over by now. However, mistakes made because of my lack of desire to read cards. 


Turn 6

1.       The encounter deck threw a “Mask of Umordoth” at me, which was attached to “Peter Warren” and he gains a doom

2.       Hunch deck gave me “Preposterous Sketches”

3.       So action 1 saw me “Dynamite Blast” the “Main Path”

4.       2nd action was a move into the “Main Path” causing Peter and Ruth to engage with me

5.       I also triggered the reaction on “Field work” to increase my fight by 2

6.       Final action saw me fight poor “Ruth Turner”, I drew a -1 from the chaos bag which saw me win the combat and defeat the cultist.

7.       During my upkeep step, I drew another “Bandolier”



As I’m writing this I have realised I either didn’t note it down or I forgot about it completely, that’s Peter’s attack against me in the enemy phase.... Note to self, in the future, don’t rush these games as I’m clearly making simple mistakes when I’m rushing.



Turn 7

1.       1 doom advances the agenda deck, forcing me to test, sadly the chaos bag pulls me a 0 token and this causes me to grab a random weakness, “Hypochondria” to go into my threat area

2.       The encounter deck then gives me “frozen in Fear”... not what I needed

3.       Hunch deck shows me a “No Stone Unturned”, useless to me at this point too.

4.       Thanks to “Frozen in Fear” my first two actions are used fighting Peter, I pull another 0 token to get me the win and I deal him 1 damage

5.       My last action is to fight again, I discard “Bandolier” to give me a +1 boost however the chaos bag gives me the dreaded autofail token. Peter has retaliate, so I take a damage, which I put onto “Lita Chantler” and thanks to the “Hypochondria” weakness I take a horror also.

6.       Upkeep phase sees me draw a “Dynamite Blast”

7.       Enemy phase sees me take another horror and damage.... this is not looking good.



Now you may be thinking, “Tom, where is Umordoth? Shouldn’t he have already been spawned?”.... Yes is the answer to that question, and again as noted, I clearly need to start reading cards properly and taking my time when playing these games. So I have now realised my mistake and I had dropped “Umordhoth” into the “Ritual Site”



Turn 8

1.       Encounter deck has me testing willpower for “Rotting Remains”, I pull a -3 token, so I fail and take 3 horror. I put 1 of these on Joe and the other 2 on “Lita”

2.       Hunch deck gives me “Scene of the Crime”

3.       1st action is to fight Peter, I pull a -2 token which still allows me to win the fight and defeat Peter.

4.       I move into “Ritual Site” as my 2nd action

5.       Upon moving into the “Ritual Site” I activate the reaction on “Fieldwork” to give me +2 to my combat value

6.       I advance the act deck, resulting in an “Acolyte of Umordhoth” being spawned with me

7.       I opt at this point to simply sacrifice “Lita Chantler” to “Umordhoth” instead of trying to fight off both these enemies. This ends the scenario with RESOLUTION 3.



The Campaign Log

1.       Investigators sacrificed “Lita Chantler”

2.       I suffer 2 mental and physical trauma

3.       I gain 3 experience points

4.       The Investigator survived

5.       The weakness “Hypochondria” would be added to my deck permanently



Thoughts, feelings and emotions

1.       I would change the hunch deck to include “Emergency Aid”, I felt like I really needed some healing power in the build

2.       Due to not using “Higher Education” once during that scenario, I wouldn’t bother with it unless it was a longer campaign or maybe it was a multi man campaign

3.       I think Seekers / Guardians need more fast of free actions as I felt a real pinch in these games

4.       On a personal note I need to take my time when playing, so many silly mistakes made during these play throughs that could have been so easily avoided had I been paying closer attention and not in such a rush.

5.       I enjoy multi man games more, playing solo just didn’t have that level of fun for me.



Thanks for reading.



I’m Big Boss.... I’m Out.... Peace

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