Return to the Night of the Zealot – Midnight Masks – Solo play

So going into the 2^nd scenario or the 3 scenario campaign was a confident investigator, I mean, I wasn’t worrying about the “Ghoul Priest” because he was dead and that’s a big plus right? I didn’t spend any of my experience points before this chapter as I wanted to save them for the “Stick to the Plan” card, however I didn’t realise until after playing this scenario, that Joe cannot pack it as its a level 3 Guardian card and he is restricted to up to level 2 cards.

My starting hand was not too bad; I had 2 copies of “Dr Milan Christopher”, “Deduction”, “Vicious Blow” and a “45 Automatic”. So I was feeling confident that I had a good range of tools off the bat to tackle this scenario as I am aware from previously playing the normal variant of it that there are plenty of bad guys to fight, so away we go. I started play at “Rivertown” as sadly, I burnt my house down in the previous scenario.

Turn 1

1.       Hunch deck revealed “No Stone Unturned”

2.       Spent 4 resources to play “Dr Milan Christopher” as my 1^st action

3.       I then investigated “Rivertown”, pulling a skull token which equated to a 0 at this point allowing me to not only gain a clue but trigger the good doctors ability to gain a resource

4.       My final action saw me move into the “Miskatonic University”

5.       During my upkeep phase I drew “Fingerprint Kit” J

Already feeling that action pinch, essentially did nothing major but used all my actions and my only firearm is stuck in my hand.

Turn 2

1.       The encounter deck threw a bad guy at me straight away sadly, the “Hunting Nightgaunt” enemy spawned with me.

2.       The hunch deck then revealed “Preposterous Sketches”

3.       So I knew I needed to get away from the bad guy, so I ditched my “45 Automatic” to up my evasion by 1 and attempted to evade the Nightgaunt. The chaos bag came through and I drew another skull, again equating to 0. This allowed me to lose the Nightgaunt, for now anyway.

4.       I then investigated the “Miskatonic University” as my 2^nd action; I managed to pull a +1 token this time allowing me to again gain a resource and a clue.  So far, so good....

5.       My last action saw me move into “Northside”

6.       “Emergency Cache” was my upkeep phase draw

7.       Sadly the “Haunting Nightgaunt” readies up

Again, still certain if this was a multi man game, even just a 2 player game, this would be different and I feel like more ground could be covered to get these clues and I would have a little more luxury time to play my handgun.

Turn 3

1.       My old friend the “Disciple of the Devourer” spawned into the “Southside” location and I was fighting against the clock I opted to just give up one of my clue tokens

2.       Hunch deck gave me a “Working a Hunch”, which was so needed

3.       I opted to use this straight away to clear the clue from “Northside”  as a fast action

4.       My 1^st proper action was to then jump into “Downtown”

5.       I then investigated, discarding “Deduction” to increase my skill by 1. Chaos bag gave me a -1 token, which saw me succeed the test, grab 2 clues thanks to “Deductiion”, gain a resource from the good doctor’s reaction and by clearing the location, gain a victory point too.

6.       I paid 4 resources to play the “Fingerprint Kit” asset to finish my turn

7.       I drew my “Survival Knife” as my upkeep draw

8.       Due to its Hunter ability the “Hunting Nightgaunt” moved into the “Northside”

Going into the next turn I gave myself 2 options, activate the act deck to get my 1^st cultist or start tooling up to fight bad guys I would face. If you hadn’t already noted from my detailed account of this game, I had not given myself 1 mental trauma from burning my house down. A mistake I wouldn’t pick up until after I had finished playing sadly and this would be the theme of my playing during this game.

Turn 4

1.       The encounter deck gave me “Mask of Umordhoth” which I eqiuipped to my pal the Disciple in “Southside” and this also added a doom to him.

2.       Hunch deck revealed “No Stone Unturned”, could have used this... should have used this.

3.       I spent 2 clues to activate the act deck as my 1^st action to reveal the top card of my shuffled cultist deck. The cultist revealed was “Wolf-man Drew”, who spawns in “Downtown”... yay!

4.       Leaving me no choice I decided to fight the cultist, discarding a “Vicious Blow” to up my skill by 1, with a -1 token being pulled I managed to succeed and do 2 damage to the cultist.

5.       With 2 health left and me needing to get him gone ASAP, I carried out another fight action and fate smiled this time and the elder sign was pulled, giving me +1 and allowing me to move the “Working a Hunch” to the bottom of my insight deck

6.       Upkeep saw me pull another “Emergency Cache”, not what I needed, not what I needed at all.

7.       “Hunting Nightgaunt” moves in to team up with our cultist friend to beat me for 3 damage and 1 horror

Survival knife is in my hand, where it probably should have been out on the field at this point. I am beating DP’d by two monsters which I don’t have a defence against at this stage and the doom is piling up now.

Turn 5

1.       Encounter deck gives me “Hunting Shadow” which sees me spending one of my clues

2.       Back to the matter at hand. My 1^st action is to keep fighting, I committed the “Survival Knife” to give me a +1 and the chaos bag gave me another Elder symbol. Which is great as I beat the “Wolfman – Drew” into the floor, but sadly don’t have any insight cards in my discard pile to put back into the hunch deck

3.       So, feeling confident I tried to again evade the “Hunting Nightgaunt” but my luck had clearly ran out as I drew the auto fail tentacles token L

4.       Not disheartened, I tried again, this time managed to grab the 0 token, thankfully allowing me to evade the Nightgaunt

5.       Upkeep phase saw me get a “Deduction” J

6.       Sadly though the Nightgaunt readies and engages with me ready for next turn

God I want these bad guys to just go away and leave me alone now. I now have no weapons in hand and still having to tackle these pesky baddies. That doom is still piling up and im feeling the action pinch once again. Where is Leo De Luca when you need him.. oh yeah, I can’t play him.... L

Turn 6

1.       Sadly the doom causes the Agenda to advance, revealing a new cultist enemy “Narogath” which of course spawns with me and engages with me...........

2.       The encounter deck gives me a copy of “Masked Horrors” which adds a doom to the agenda

3.       The hunch deck gives me another “No Stone Unturned”

4.       I have to get rid of this cultist and this Nightgaunt, so I start with the cultist, chaos bag gives me a 0 which allows me to poke “Narogath” for one

5.       I rinse and repeat for the rest of the turn, 1^st getting another 0 token and then getting a +1 in my 3^rd attempt. Giving me a total of 3 damage on the cultist, leaving him with 4 health

6.       Sadly though, not enough done to get rid of them, so I take the hit of 2 damage and 3 horror

7.       Upkeep phase sees me draw “Lita Chantler” and not a MOMENT TOO SOON!!!!

Should have dumped 1 of the horror on Dr Milan here to get him gone, but didn’t think, so sadly I knew I was about to lose him anyway to play Lita and just another learning curve sent my way.

Turn 7

1.       The encounter card “False Lead” has me do an intellect test, which I pass when drawing the +1 token.

2.       “Working a Hunch” appears on top of the hunch deck

3.       Play “Lita Chantler” as my 1^st action causing my engaged enemies to attack me for 2 damage and 3 horror, the bulk gets dumped right onto Lita, I take 1 of the horror myself

4.       I fight again with “Narogath”, drawing the skull token, still at a 0 at this point so I win dealing 2 damage to the cultist

5.       Rinse and repeat for action 3, drawing a -1 token, adding the cultist to the victory display with the Wolf-Man

6.       I take one horror and one damage from the Nightgaunt to close the turn, for some reason I haven’t noted what I drew for the upkeep phase. L

Feeling more confident now I have Lita in play, seems like I can investigate just fine for now, so its combat where I need help and boy does Lita help.

Turn 8

1.       Another “Masked Horrors” causes another doom to be added to the agenda

2.       “Preposterous Sketches” its the top card of the Hunch deck

3.       So, time to get rid of this damn Nightgaunt, so Fight time, I pitch an Overpower to the test.... I feel this may have been my draw from last turn.... I pull a -1 token to win the exchange and draw “Bandolier” from the “Overpower”

4.       I just go in for the kill without any skill increases and I get a -2 from the bag which still gets me the big W and finishes off the “Hunting Nightgaunt”

5.       My final action is to activate the ability on “Downtown” to heal 3 horror from me, in the nick of time too, I only had 1 horror left due to my error with Dr Milan earlier

6.       Upkeep phase gets me a “Magnifying Glass”

Ok, so no enemies to worry about for now, so I have a minute to breath and get some more assets into play. With losing the good doctor, I am down an intellect stat and the magnifying glass as a free action will help get me back to a good stat.

Turn 9

1.       Encounter deck sends me “On the Wings of Darkness” which I sadly fail by pulling a -4 token, this deals me 1 horror and 1 damage. However, like an idiot, I don’t move to a central location as the card instructs me too. This actually would have made my turn so much easier, but again, I’m an indiot.

2.       Hunch deck throws us “Scene of the Crime”, wow, this deck has been USELESS this game

3.       So I move into “Eastown” as my 1^st action

4.       Play the fast action “Magnifying Glass” to get me back up to a good intellect stat

5.       I investigate using the “Fingerprint Kit” , pulling a -1 token I gain 2 clues, clearing the location giving me another victory point

6.       I pay 2 clues as my final action to active the act deck to get another cultist enemy. I draw “Alma Hill” into the “Southside” location

7.       Upkeep gets me what I’ve been salivating for, “Dynamite Blast”

 Alma only has 3 health, so these explosives will sort her out with little to no effort. Just need to get over there now which of course would have been easier had I moved due to “On the Wings of Darkness”, as I should have.

Turn 10

1.       Encounter deck throws me another enemy, the “Corpse Taker” which spawns at “St Mary’s Hospital”. I think I may have played this wrong through, as I didn’t add the doom to it, I think I probably should have.  I will have to check.

2.       Hunch deck got me “Preposterous Sketches”, another useless reveal sadly

3.       I use two actions to move to “Downtown” and then to “Rivertown”

4.       My last action sees me spending 5 resources to play “Dynamite Blast”, killing not only Alma and the Disciple which has been sat there since like turn 2 HA HA

5.       “Corpse Taker” moves into the “Miskatonic University”

6.       Upkeep phase gets a “Fieldwork” for me, a little too late by this stage

I had pretty much decided at this point that I would be resigning this turn; I wasn’t going to get enough clues to get another cultist or defeat them before the doom stacked up and the game ended anyway. 

Turn 11

1.       A “Locked Door” came from the encounter desk, this was attached to “Southside” due to it being the only location with a clue, thanks to the efforts of the Disciple earlier

2.       1 doom gets added to the “Corpse Taker”, I know this was right, but I’m pretty certain now on review that he should have had one last turn......

3.       Hunch deck flips a “No Stone Unturned” which really doesn’t bother me now

4.       I move into “Southside” to see what the deal is in there

5.       I quickly realise I am not going to get anymore victory points in this scenario. So I opted to resign. This option gets me scenario resolution 1.

Campaign Log

1.       Alma Hill, Narogath and Wolf-Man Drew have been interrogated

2.       Ruth Turner, Peter Warren and Jeremiah Pierce got away, but I will get them.....

3.       I gained 6 victory points for my efforts though.

Upgrading

1.       11 XP in total and I’m heading into the final part of the campaign

2.       So I took out 2 “Vicious Blows” and 2 “Dynamite Blasts” to replace them both for their level 2 versions

3.       I used my last 3 XP to buy “Higher Education”, little unsure about this one, was tempted by “Charisma” but opted to go this way with it instead as I only have 3 ally cards in the whole deck, so feel I need to make sure I’m getting the most of all the XP at this point.

So next chapter is Return to the Devourer Below, should be interesting. I know the cultists will all be back, but with there only being 3 of them, they should be easy to kill off. Then its just tackling the Devourer himself and if push comes to shove, I will throw Lita at him to get rid of him. Ha!

Thanks for reading.

I’m Big Boss..... I’m Out..... Peace!!!