Arkham Horror – The Forgotten Age – 4 Man Team Role Call

Very similar to what I wrote before my team started our Path to Carcosa campaign, I wanted to go into a little bit of depth about the next load of investigators we will be piloting when we boldly enter The Forgotten Age campaign.

My logic when I start a new campaign is how to fill all the real roles of the team, such as who will be our main fighter and who will be our main investigator primarily. I’ve always resigned two of us to be the inbetweener, those who may need to service both roles as we progress in the campaign and help the primary should things get touch and go.

This time however, I wanted to try and move away from our standard format, to make things a bit more interesting.  After taking our original choices for our next investigators for a test run using the Carnevale of Horrors scenario, a couple of us were not too happy with our choices of investigator. So with our Mystic and Guardian options now up in the air, it was back to the drawing board and time to review these options.

So originally I opted to go with Father Mateo, a couple of reasons really, him starting with 5xp in the bank before the first scenario would give Shaun (the player) a good lead going into the campaign and some excellent options off the bat for upgrades. However Shaun’s experience didn’t give him much faith (pun intended) on the good Father’s ability to really hit hard during the campaign. After a bit of a discussion about who we had left to chose from our stock of “unused” investigators there was only 1 mystic we had to use which was Akachi Onyele.

Now, I’m not a big fan of hers to be honest, with being limited to only 2 Arcane slots until you get some XP behind you limits her “adding charges” ability use early campaign. However, once she does get some XP behind her and gets some useful tools, her combat usefulness is up there with the Guardian class. There are some excellent spells and support tools, such as the Spirit Athame or Book of Shadows are easily useable in the deck. Upgrading to higher level versions of Shrivelling and Blinding Light can also boost the fight power of the deck, these will be searchable too with Arcane Initiate in the deck. This got me thinking that if we went ahead and made this switch, we could ditch the Guardian class altogether for this campaign and use her as our big heavy hitter instead, making a very drastic change to our group dynamic.

I had originally gone for Leo Anderson to fill the role of our Guardian class; my original though was to embrace the Guardian / Rogue crossover and try to focus on using my experience to build him into more of a Rogue than a Guardian by the end of the campaign. Utilising some of the sneaky tactics of the Rogue class while maintaining a heavy Guardian Ally front to serve as shields against any real danger I may encounter.  Sadly, during our test run of the Carnevale of Horrors, I did not really click with this character during any point of the game and I also opted to not continue with this investigator.

During the last campaign I got a taste for the Rogue class while playing as Wendy Adams, I liked it, a lot. When we played the Labyrinth of Lunacy scenario, Josh used Finn Edwards (Rogue character), to great effect in the combat role, utilising Finn’s signature card to attack bad guys attacking other people while using the Rogue weapons to make sure he could defend himself also. The ability to search for illicit cards using Finn’s other signature card really opens some doors too, especially if you have the Chicago Typewriter in the deck, the combat output can be massively boosted.

So onto Finn Edwards, his deck can only play up to level 3 Rogue cards, unless they have the Illicit trait, plus up to 15 Seeker &/or Survivor level 0 cards, also he gets to do a free “Evade” action each turn, which at first isn’t so good, but with the Rogue card pool at hand, it has loads of potential. His unique deck building inspired me to switch to a more full time Rogue character instead of a part time one. Although Finn loses a fair few of the Rogue Class cards with his deck requirements, the ones he does get are sufficient to build a solid deck. So I opted to ditch Leo Anderson for Finn Edwards as my character for the upcoming campaign, plus to try filling some of the combat functions of the group.

Our last remaining two investigators were fairly straightforward to select. Josh opted to take on the role of the Seeker this campaign, with only really 3 options left in my library to fill this role it came down to who would provide the most value to the team overall.  Out of Ursula, Norman and Minh, Ursula was the one which jumped out to me value wise. Her ability to have a free investigate action once per turn when she moves is awesome, also her ability to pack relics, gives her access to some massively useful cards once she picks up some XP. On top of the already massive array of Seeker cards, she has a lot of potential in the campaign. 

The last option was left in the hands of Stuart himself. He expressed an interest in playing as Calvin Wright, as a pretty out there character with no stat line to start with, this was a risky choice, but I feel this whole campaign will be a little risky in comparison to our safer plays previously. I like the potential for Calvin, when we played the Carnevale of Horrors, Stuart was hammering bad guys with Calvin and generally doing well at investigating too, the closer Calvin comes to being defeated, the more powerful he becomes. So I have faith that Stuart will be filling in nicely for the loss of the Guardian class as the campaign goes on. 

So the role call is Calvin Wright (Stuart), Ursula Downs (Josh), Akachi Onyele (Shaun) and Finn Edwards (Me – Tom). This rag tag collection of randoms will embark on a journey into the “Forgotten Age” come January 2019. I for one am really looking forward to seeing how these guys tackle this stage of the Mythos and what crazy crap this campaign will throw at us in comparison to the Path to Carcosa campaign.

I’m Big Boss.... I’m Out..... Peace

Building Agnes Baker - An Arkham Horror: The Card Game Story

So I wanted to give Agnes a go for my groups latest campaign (Path to Carcosa) and I came at the deck from a different angle than I usually do. Rather than thinking of how the deck plays straight off the bat, I focused on how it would play once we had accumulated some experience points. With the upgraded spell cards taking up a bulk of experience I wanted to focus on getting upgrades which would decrease the change of the level 0 spells missing their mark. I’ll go into each point of the deck and then look at upgrades after.

Arcane

So, Shrivelling and Rite of Seeking are the two basic spells in the deck, obviously one for combat and one for investigating. Unless we get an abundance of experience points, these will more than likely stay at level 0, simply because there are so many cards which up your willpower value and provide other little abilities too, however these cost experience, so best to spend it on expanding your action base in my opinion.

Accessories

Only one here and that’s the Holy Rosary, I quite like Agnes’s signature asset, however with not going to spell heavy overall in the deck, it’s not going to get the use it deserves. So, the Holy Rosary will get the slot, its extra willpower bonus and sanity buff is going to fit perfectly into the build. I was tempted by the Key, however the minus 2 sanity really put me, maybe see how these play and we can always amend where needed.

Body

Leather Coat was the only real option here, Agnes has a low enough health value to make this a priority and as it’s o cost card, I don’t have to worry about resources to get this into play. If we have enough left-over resources this could possibly become a Body Armour, but will have to see. 

Ally

Peter Sylvestre was the sure choice here, not because of his level 0 version, but his level 2 version. The extra sanity buff he provides and his willpower bonus makes him the perfect addition to this deck which is trying to increase its willpower. I also threw in a couple of Arcane Initiates too, as the deck doesn’t have a huge number of spells it made sense to play cards which could go looking for them. It’s great having so many willpower buffs but if we can’t get the spell cards out, they are useless.

Other

Ok, so Forbidden Knowledge and Painkillers take these positions. As noted earlier her lower health means Painkillers was a great include, healing health is always nice, also because it can be combined with Agnes’s ability or even the ability of Peter Sylvestre to mitigate the horror you take from using them. Forbidden knowledge can be used in the exact same way to not only trigger your ability but to simply use Peter Sylvestre to negate the horror being taken to gain a resource.

Skills

So not my usual payload of skills here, I only went with Guts and Fearless. Guts is another great way of pumping your willpower stat and then drawing a card if your test is successful. Fearless at level 0 is ok, the higher-level version is better as its gives you two willpower icons, but the ability to heal horror is great. In most of my builds I go skill heavy but I felt this deck could manage without it.

Events

Some pretty standard choices here, Ward of Protection and Lucky, were my first choices. Evading encounter cards is great when you don’t necessarily have the ability to beat them and being able to add 2 to a skill check when you would lose it is nothing to snub either. So these cards were certainly staples for this deck. I threw in an Emergency Cache too so we could make sure Agnes always had some moolah to hand. I added Drawn to the Flame to give her some clue gathering power should Rite of Seeking not make it to the board within a reasonable time, I can imagine this being one of the first cards to be cut when upgrading. Delve Too Deep also got a sneaky include, I noted that we should be trying to get as much XP as possible to use between scenarios, and two copies of this in the deck could net us 2 XP a game which again, is nothing to be snubbed. As William Yorick is on the Team he can potentially add 1 XP each game too, so the potential for gaining XP is greater with all these includes. 

Ok, so that’s the build as it stands at 0 experience and there is certainly some wriggle room for upgrades of cards already in the deck and some new additions which can be added into the deck. Cards like Ward of Protection have a couple of upgrade options now, Peter Sylvestre as previously discussed, Fearless and Lucky all have upgrade options which give their own little boost to the build.

Spirit Athame provide nice little additions when upgrading, increasing your skill value by 2 when testing a spell card is a phenomenal include and again is a cheaper alternative to upgrading the spells in the deck.  Book of Shadows is also a welcome addition later on, to restock the charges on your spell cards or a Grotesque Statue if you would rather increase your chances of pulling the right token when you do utilise your spell cards.

From the Neutral card pool, I like the idea of the Key of Ys and even the Relic Hunter card, some real potential there especially considering the deck could have a few different accessory cards.

On the Survivor class front, there is nothing really jumping out at me on the upgrade front outside of Peter Sylvestre and Lucky. A Test of Wills is one card that does intrigue me when combined with Ward of Protection you get a good range of cards that allow you to evade the encounter deck. Sadly I feel a lot of the experience points will be spent on Mystic cards.

With our new campaign starting on 11^th April 2018, I cant wait to see where this deck goes as the campaign progresses. I didn’t manage to get much noted down from our Dunwich Legacy campaign, so I am hoping to get some more noted and reported this time around. 

Im Big Boss, I’m out.... peace.

Arkham Horror The Card Game - The Rogue Class

Arkham Horror the card game burst onto the card game scene following Fantasy Flight Games and Games Workshop parting ways as partners in the gaming world. When it was announced I knew very little about the IP other than it was loosely based on the novels of HP Lovecraft, so I decided to look a bit more into it to see what the deal was and I was rather surprised. First it was a co-operative card game, so I would be playing solo or in a group to defeat the game itself rather than the other players and I quite liked this angle. I kept abreast of all the updates being released and the sneak peaks to try and get a feel for how the game would play.

From all the classes which were revealed, I felt a certain kinship to the Rogue class, which from first glance appeared to be a class focused on avoiding trouble and picking their spots to fight or clue gather. This really attracted me as generally in card games I’m a very basic player, I like simple plans and you would think this would draw me to the Guardian class of investigator or the Seeker class, but no. I liked the almost “criminal” aspect of the Rogue cards, the artwork also caught my eye more so than the other cards too, the images were in an almost noir style which was cool. Cards like Pickpocket, Sneak Attack and Burglary have great artwork which reminds me of the styles featured in Dick Tracy.

Some of the themes on the cards did deter me slightly, cards like the Switchblade and 41 Derringer were only good if you were successful by two or more in the relevant skill check and with the ever-looming randomness of the Chaos Bag, I was not a fan of either of these cards. Despite this I do feel like both fit into the overall Rogue theme of picking your spots, so you wouldn’t bother using them until you had a clear knowledge that you would win. However, the Rogue class brings us a few little gems such as Sneak Attack, Elusive and Lone Wolf. Sneak Attack allows you to deal two damage to an exhausted enemy which is just phenomenal in a class which really likes evading enemies, which in turn exhausts them and you don’t have to worry about making a skill test to do the damage either, another bonus. Elusive allows you to evade those tricky enemies and make a swift escape to another location, great when used in a combo with Dynamite Blast….. Ha. Lone Wolf allows for some extra resource generation when you are off on your own doing your thing, great with Skids ability or Jenny’s unquenchable lust for resources.

From the level 0 cards to the Rogue upgrades, there are some nifty options currently available. One of my personal favourites is adaptable, the ability to change two level 0 cards in your deck for free between each game is awesome and really does allow you to adapt to each scenario, yes, on first play through this card may not be as effective but on replaying a campaign I think this is a must. Big bonus cards such as Hot Streak are also critical to the overall Rogue game, paying 3 resources to obtain 10 resources (netting 7) allows you to build a huge stock pile of resources, which is never a bad thing.



In my solo campaign, I have just added the Exceptional card Lucky Dice to my deck, although I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, I am really looking forward to being able to mess with the token draws from the Chaos Bag. The upgraded version of Switchblade is also a great addition to the upgraded card pool, combining the fight stat boost of the 41 Derringer with the unlimited use and fast play of the level 0 switchblade makes for a staple upgrade in my opinion. I am also quite partial to the Lock Pick, adding your evasion value to your investigation stat is great and that the resources on the card won’t always be spent is great, this fits into the theme of picking your spots to make sure you don’t lose those resources. 

I know I have missed a few bits off, however you can appreciate to discuss all the cards available to Rogues would take a bit of time. I would like to mention the characters available to Rogues. First is the Core starter, Skids ‘O’ Toole, who despite is awful willpower value has the facility to be the most action efficient character in the game, his ability to spend two resources to have an additional action once per turn is phenomenal. When combined with cards like Ace in the Hole, Leo De Luca and the Guardian class card Police Badge, you could end up with an insane number of actions in one turn. Skids can splash Guardian cards up to level 2 and with his 3 fight value he can be a contender when handling the bad guys of the encounter deck. As discussed before a critically played Elusive and Dynamite Blast can be a wondrous thing to behold…. HA. Sorry. His willpower is concerning at a 2 value, but in the right team this low stat can be mitigated. What I love most about Skids, is that he is an ex-con, out of the “joint” and looking to do some good. This really is what attracted me to the Rogue class, this character’s “story” and how the Rogue cards fit into this tale of a guy who is using his criminal background to do some good was really enticing to me. 

The second Rogue character is Jenny Barnes, the dilettante. A character released for the Dunwich Legacy campaign who I was not sold on at first due to all her stats being 3 and her ability to simply gain 1 extra resource per turn not really filling me with any ideas on how to play her or which direction to take her. I was writing a piece about her which went into a bit of detail about how very wrong I was about my original take on Jenny Barnes, however I will resign myself to this piece to go into it.  I have also picked up the Hour of the Huntress book which contained an alternative art card for her and two cards you can use to replace her standard signature cards. To summarise her ability and stat line allow her a vast array of potential builds, making her flexible in solo or group games. Her back story is quite cool too, the Hour of the Huntress novella briefly revealing a bit more of her adventurous nature and just how tough she is. Again, she fits smoothly into the rogue character build with her being very tactical, picking her spots to achieve maximum impact and I am greatly looking forward to seeing how my solo campaign with her ends.

The third and most recent character is the artist Sefina Rousseau, this character really intrigues me because she is very event heavy due to her ability to house up to 8 events under her character card which can be accessed using an action once per turn. My concern here is that she has poor investigation and combat stats, despite being able to work around these with the cards available to her from the Rogue and Mystic classes, I am not sold on this investigator yet. But saying that I was not sold on Jenny Barnes at first, but now I am her biggest fan. I do like how the Rogue class and Mystic class are put together for her character’s story, the idea that she forges paintings but this has sent her into the mystic world is rather unique. Since her Willpower and Evasion are her highest stats, her ability to use the Mystic spells should mitigate her other poor stats while maintaining those cool Rogue events which deal damage or allow you evade enemies. I am sure I will give her a run out at some point, sadly with not being to play much, it is a challenge to get through the characters, I have been playing the game since release day and I have only used Roland, Skids, Jenny, Pete and Daisy so far. Leaving so many characters to try out and play.

To summarise once more, the Rogue class offers some of the coolest characters to play as, with their back stories and play styles all being so very different. This class has some of the coolest artwork and card effects available in the Arkham Horror card game. All of which fall into a cool theme of careful planning, cunning and tactical strikes to make the most of the situation you are in.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

I’m Big Boss, I’m out…. Peace.