Flesh and Blood TCG - The Beginning

So, when I first heard about this game via Team Covenant on their podcast and YouTube channel, I didn’t pay much attention. After all, it’s a trading card game (TCG) and I had no intentions of ever getting into that trap again after my experiences with Yu-Gi-Oh / Vs System / Raw Deal. Boy was I wrong.

 

I saw the starter decks being sold on pre order via the Bearded Card Trader and I figured, I’d give the starter decks a punt, three of the four ( I don’t know why) and then waited for my pre order to arrive. In the meantime, I saw more F&B content being posted onto the Covenant YouTube channel and heard more and more via their podcast too. So, when I saw the latest Blitz decks being available for pre order on Zatu Games, I opted to also pick them up too…… you see where this is going.

 

Anyway, the original starters arrived, and I opted to keep them sealed until I would actually get to play them. However, the same cant be said for the Blitz decks. Although at first I saw the prices of F&B sky rocketing online, so a part of me thought “I might just hold off and resell for some money”… which lasted all of 2 hours. I opened the Levia and Chane Blitz decks first, because as you may already know, I’m much more aligned with the bad guy side of things in… well… everything.

 

I stared at the cards for hours, with no clue what they meant, did or how they would be used in the game. From there I ventured into more online content of the game to learn how to play. I watched a few of Covenant’s live plays, a few “Learn to Play” videos and some deck build tips videos.

 

The game itself seems and on paper reads, very complicated. Between layers, combat chains and keywords such as Boost, the game screams complex. However, when you just watch the game being played, its not that complicated. You take the LCG Marvel Champions cost system to play cards, mix it up with a UFS style of combat, throw in a sprinkle of Warhammer 40K Conquest and you get a game which brings a lot of depth!

 

With only one action point per turn and only four cards in hand (most of the time), you must think about each move, not just their costs, but also the follow up from that as well. As the opponent, you need to select which cards you are willing to bin to defend your health, as when it gets to your turn, you will only have left, what you had left at the end of the attackers turn. Should you bin your whole hand, your turn can be a massive waste.

 

There is the “arsenal” slot too, which you can use to keep that key card for later or put your opponent on edge, not knowing quite what potential massive hitter you’ve just put in a key position on your board.

 

This all brings a wonderful level of interaction between the players, something I’ve felt is missing from the main TCG I’ve played over the years, Yu-Gi-Oh. Where you just sit there and wait for the end in what will most likely be a One Turn Kill (OTK) or First Turn Kill (FTK) situation. A most depressing thought when sitting down to play.

 

My friend Stu and I sat to play the Levia and Prism Blitz decks off against each other. Although it took over an hour to play this 15-20-minute game, you can understand why when you have two people that have no real clue what they are doing. Yet, at the end of the game, it was really close, and I couldn’t think about anything else, but playing again. Now I’ve not felt that way about any competitive game since Warhammer 40K Conquest.

 

I toddled off and bought a sealed box of the Arcane Rising booster set from eBay. Once it came, I had this mad idea of keeping it sealed, using the Blitz decks to get my mates into the game and then suggesting a sealed or draft event with the box. Boy, that lasted a week I think, then I opened the boosters. I also bought an additional 18 booster packs and pre ordered 12 Monarch booster packs too. I’ve also spent an unfathomable amount on single cards via eBay and Tecklo Cards.

 

What did that leave me with you may ask? Well I have opted to only go with Blitz decks now due to the lack of playsets in my possession. So I have built Dash, the Mechanologist hero first. Essentially, I love her artwork, she looks like a mix of an Al Bhed from Final Fantasy X and one of those Steampunk people. Also reading how the Mechanologist cards operate, I really liked the idea of this fast furious assault which can take place should all the cards come together in the right way. The Boost keyword makes this possible, by banishing the top card of your deck and (fingers crossed) revealing another Mechanologist card, the card your playing gets Go Again, a critical piece of the puzzle. Go Again essentially means you get another action this turn.

 

Her ability to grab a cost 2 or lower item from your deck to start the game with is phenomenal and gives this flurry an initial boost (pardon the pun). Playing Dash you get this feeling of flying an X-Wing down the Deathstar trench, that fast break-neck assault where should you put a foot out of place, it will all fall apart quickly. I love it. Its so different to anything I’ve ever played before and its an exciting playstyle. Of course, you can play a different style where you focus on the Mechanologist guns, but I like the Boost Flurry style myself.  

 

The other deck I opted to go with was the Runeblade warrior Viserai. This character is the polar opposite of Dash in almost every way. His combination of witchcraft and swordsmanship gives him a much different feel than Dash as the speed is replaced by a more tactical approach. Where Dash throws this flurry of smaller attacks to weaken their opponent, my experience with Viserai is that you build up your Runechant tokens and then throw a biggish attack to hit your opponent for both Arcane (using the ability on the tokens) and standard damage. My play testing saw me generate a whopping nine tokens over two turns, so when I played an actual attack, all the tokens abilities triggered, with all of them being destroyed to deal 1 Arcane damage per token to the opponent. Good luck defending that!!

 

Although this feels almost brutish in its deployment, it doesn’t have that mindless Hulk style violence feel that the Brute characters exude in their playstyle. Runeblade have this almost Warrior-esque vibe while throwing in a sprinkle of Wizard Arcane damage style. Overall I am really growing to enjoy that Runeblade style of play.

 

Onto the third and fourth decks, at the time of writing this, haven’t been built yet. My current choices are Levia, the Shadow Brute and Rhinar, the normal Brute. Although, Rhinar is currently subject to change. Two Brute decks, may just be overkill when I want to experience multiple styles of play.

 

Regardless of what happens with my next two decks, I can tell you this with a level of certainty, I’m gonna enjoy playing the decks I end up building.

 

In summary, the play experience you get with Flesh and Blood is very interactive, its engaging with the people playing on both players turns and this brings you into the game in a way I’ve never really had in a competitive environment. Yes, the rules seem abundant and overly complicated, but when you actually just sit and play, it all kind of comes together. This game, the mechanics, the lore and the artwork, all come together to bring a new kind of game, which gives you a different feeling with every hero you play.

Thank you for reading, you can follow me on Twitter @bigboss010 or on Instagram @bigbossbookclub and even check out the podcast on Spotify:  

 

https://open.spotify.com/show/4WzsTV3YrQPfLWplbCWWFi?si=WN3w63NCQw6CJ2OwOsEcqQ&dl_branch=1

 

I’m Big Boss….. I’m out….. Peace!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arkham Horror The Card Game - Who Is The Best SOLO Investigator?

 

This question could result in years of debate. I’m not here for that, however, I’d like to throw out some ideas I’ve had to try to answer this question.

I think we need to ask the question first, what makes a good solo investigator? Is it the class? The deck building requirements? The stat lines? We could talk for hours about all of these too! So I’ll talk about a couple of things which I feel are really important to solo play and which investigators are best suited to take advantage of this.

In Arkham Horror, the most valuable resources in my honest opinion are Actions and actual Resources. In solo play, you don’t have tag team partners to rely on should your turn not go according to plan or even to pick up from where your turn leaves you. So actions are more valuable than any asset in solo play, unless that asset gets you more actions of course. The more actions you have in your turn, the more you can do, whether that is combat or investigating.

Now actual resources are just a step behind in value, resources get you the tools you need to get you where you need to be. Whether that’s buying allies or whether that’s purchasing assets. Resources can help boost stats or even allow you to avoid testing altogether.

Once you’ve established that you need actions / money to get by in the game, I would always say it makes the class choice all the more easy, for me this leads me nicely to the Rogue class. I know what you’re thinking, I always talk about how Rogue is my favourite class in Arkham Horror LCG, but please hear me out. The Rogue class has become a lot more prominent in terms of being able to investigate, especially with cards like Lock Picks, Lola Santiago and Intel Report to name but three. Since this stat is one of the two main stats in the game, this faction more than holds its own in the modern card pool.

The other main stat of course being combat, which of course Rogue’s have their own stockpile of ass kickery which they bring to the table varying from the 38”  Derringer, Lupara and Chicago Typewriter. The Rogues are able to bring a good deal of combat skill to the game should they need to especially with tactics such as Sleight of Hand, allowing some of these weapons to slip in as a fast action, let off their ammo and then return to hand to be used again later. Rogues are tricky and sly if nothing else.

Rogues also get cards like Hot Streak, Faustian Bargain and Pay Day, which gives them a huge resource advantage. As already mentioned, these cards allow you to play those investigation and combat assets notes above. Whoever said money won’t solve your problems, never played this game I can tell you.

Actions are a Rogue’s best friend, no other class can get these extra actions in the same way. Let’s start with Leo De Luca, this ally asset grants you an extra action each turn, what more is there to say. Once you start gaining experience points, this progresses further with cards such as Fence, which gives any Illicit card either a -1 cost reduction or the Fast trait, which means it won’t cost you an action to play it. Ace in the Hole, grants you a one off bonus of three extra actions.

Yet one of the most consistent ways of getting extra actions is with the Rogue’s own abilities. Tony allows a combat or engage action, provided they are on his bounty list. Skids can simply buy another action with two resources and Finn can only use his extra action for evading. Still these are great options in all cases. Although lets ignore Tony for now, his investigation stats aren’t much to be desired when playing solo.

This leaves us with Skids O’Toole, Jenny Barnes and Finn Edwards. Let’s look at Skids first. He has a solid stat line with 3 combat and 3 investigation, which will be fine early campaign I’d imagine with the support which is available at that time for you. His deck building allows him to play up to level 2 Guardian cards. This does give you access to some action gaining cards like Police Badge, which also boosts Skid’s pretty poor Willpower stat and even some nice investigation support too, with cards such as Scene of the Crime, allowing up to two clues to be grabbed from a location. His ability to pay two resources to gain an action once per turn is also pretty useful in itself. You may not need this ability each turn but will be incredibly useful when its needed and cards such as Leo De Luca to hand will mean Skids can get an impressive five actions a turn with little effort.

Skid’s weak point is his Willpower stat, at only two it brings terrible peril when facing the mythos. However Guardian do provide some skills which can help buffer this though, so I guess it’s a risk going into the campaign. If the deck is built to truly utilise the actions, you can mitigate this weakness by being able to get through the actual scenario much quicker, therefore, lowering your exposure to the mythos.

His fight stat allows you to be reasonable in combat if needed, but his four evasion stat means he gets a boost when using Lock-picks and can evade consistently. These evasions can allow you to trigger cards like Pickpocket, which being illicit could be played as a fast action under Fence and when you evade allows you to draw a card, so again, utilising that action efficiency to get a free card draw. All these triggers, free actions allow you to take a real advantage during the game and can result in a much quicker win.

Now of course that leaves Finn, who’s use of the Illicit cards can really work towards good action economy when combined with Fence and because he can access a limited number of survivor or seeker cards, he can also gain some action economy.

Finn’s ability is a useful one for enemy management, as he can evade for free once per turn, which maybe a great way of saving combat actions for when they really needed. His dual stat line of four on evasion and intellect mean he can really work the evade angle and the Lock-picks card, by investigating at a total value of eight when using this card. His signature cards are all Illicit so can work with Fence to be either reduced in cost or made to be a fast action, making them free. 

Sadly his Willpower is really low at a stat of one and won’t be helping you no matter what skills you pack in your deck. So you might as well focus on doing the rest well. If you went with the Survivor splash you could include Lucky, Look What I Found or similar card to take advantage of those failed tests to try and succeed instead. However, I think I’d rather go with a Seeker splash and use Working a Hunch and Field Work to sure up my action economy. Working a Hunch allows you to get a free clue with its ability and Field Work triggers when you enter a location and gives you +2 to a stat of your choice for the next skill test you make. Both of these give you stuff for what is essentially free of charge outside of their own resource cost or initial action cost in the case of Field Work.

Very similar to Skid’s Finn can fight if he needs to, but the evasion maybe the better part of valour when dealing with enemies and can also get the effect from Pickpocket if in play, so gets that extra card. Finn with Pay Day can draft a massive amount of resources should he have a great turn. Between his own free action, his standard three actions, a free illicit action from Fence, a potential sneaky free Working a Hunch and a Leo De Luca bonus action, giving a total of seven potential actions. If Pay Day was that free Fence action, you’d get 7 resources, for just playing your turn and I don’t think anyone would complain about that.

So Jenny Barnes, at first look she doesn’t seem like the perfect solo investigator. She has a three stat line across the board and doesn’t scream a specific route to play. However, that makes her unbelievably flexible. Her ability means you get an extra resource each turn which is action saving if nothing else, so like Preston she can gain a good resource pool quicker than most investigators. She can also play up to five level zero cards from any other faction in her deck as part of her deck building requirements. Some useful contenders would be Dr. Milan Christopher, he gives you that extra intellect and allows you to gain a resource when you successfully investigate a location. Of course you lose Leo De Luca in the process, but the resources and be levied against tests in the game to provide a substitute to the extra action. 

Cards such as Lucky from the survivor class are an option, as they can sure up her rather bland stat line, but truth be told the potential is endless for those five splash cards. Arcane Studies from the Mystic class allows her to boost her non Hard Knocks stats (Intellect and Willpower) using your resources too and was a choice I went with when I made her for a solo campaign. Between cards like Dr Milan, Lone Wolf, her own ability and other resource generating cards, she can get herself a good resource pool. Then adding the standard array of Rogue upgrades, she can get massive stock piles of cash to use as she wishes and additional actions to make them more effective. 

Throw in the Rogue cards which give you bonuses for having lots of resources, these include Money Talks and Well Connected which give you better benefits the more cash you have. So, although she doesn’t get the standard extra free action the other two offerings have, she makes up for it with having the highest Willpower to tackle the Mythos and being able to generate an insane number of resources, should you get the engine going.

I think outside of the Survivor class and Ursela Downs, you’d be hard pressed to find a better solo play investigator, than from these Rogue class heroes. With their action generating cards and resource generating cards in abundance, they allow for tremendous economy in solo and multiplayer games. However, in solo, where this is even more critical, it shines the brightest.

Thank you so much for reading. I hope to get a few more articles done moving forward and you can also check out my new podcast, the Big Boss Book Club on Spotify, Anchor and Google Podcasts.  

I’m Big Boss…. I’m Out…. Peace