Agents of Shub-Niggurath

My take on this set: Agents of Shub-Niggurath is a set of enemies that is only used straight up in one scenario, and only with a 1 in 4 chance even there. Aside from that use in Devourer Below, only Witching Hour uses these cards but without adding them to the encounter deck. This makes evaluating these difficult, at least if you want to go deeper and look at how they are used.
So all we can do is evaluate the creatures on their own, without much context. Goat Spawn is easy to underestimate but has actually a decent impact. The Dark Young is downright terrifying, probably the most dangerous victory point enemy in all of these Agents sets… well, at least until Agents of Azathoth came around.

What it does: Goat Spawn has a middling stat line, with 3 fight and health. Evasion is only two and it only deals one damage on attack. Despite this, the Spawn does have some staying power on the board thanks to Hunter and Retaliate which can both be the cause of extra attacks and its Forced effect which will deal a guaranteed horror on defeat.

My take: At the time of this review, the Goat Spawn is really only encountered in the Arkham woods during The Witching Hour and they are encountered in a situation where players are each on their own. In this situation the Retaliate becomes a lot more relevant as players with relatively low fight might see themselves in a situation where they need to attack and take extra risks despite not actually being all that great at combat. But even taken just for themselves, these can usually be expected to cost players one or two actions and still eat up a point of sanity when they get discarded. Should an attack fail, things only get worse.

Threat level: Low to Mid. While Goat Spawn will not threaten to kill a player, it will usually lead at least to a few lost actions and some loss of health and sanity.

Dealing with it: During the Witching Hour, evading this enemy and trying to grab the required to clues to advance the scene can be a much better course of action than trying to attack. By doing so, players with low combat values can open up the way for the more combat oriented character to bail them out.
Outside of the Witching Hour, Goat Spawn doesn’t offer anything problematic that we didn’t already see many times elsewhere. Being able to deal three damage with one attack can once again save an action here and the one point of horror can hopefully be mitigated.

What it does: Five health and four combat would make for an impressive fight already. But the Relentless Dark Young also has an ability that lets it heal two damage per turn, potentially increasing its survivability by a lot. Relentless Dark Young have only two agility which makes them easy to evade, they also do not have Hunter. So unless grabbing the victory point on them is something that players do want to go for, they can be evaded and left on a remote location fairly easily.

My take: Let me start by saying that i never actually put this card into play so far. It is only used in four player games during Witching Hour (and in Devourer Below with the usual 25% chance) and that’s simply not a game mode that i play. I am not terribly heartbroken about this circumstance though, as this enemy is a really tough customer if you try to take it down for its victory point. I assume you would often rather avoid fighting it and keep your distance.

Threat level: High to Very High. It doesn’t play in the same league as a Piper of Azathoth or other Elite enemies, but this is about the most dangerous non-scenario-specific, non-Elite enemy around.

Dealing with it: Evade it and run. Alternatively, if you want to take it down, make sure you can do so in one turn. It hits hard enough that you don’t want to be attacked by it and the regeneration ability can prolong the fight a lot if the Dark Young isn’t dead by the end of the turn. To do so, you will need to move into the enemies location and then use the rest of your turn to kill it. Even if you do have the necessary three damage attack at the ready to make this feasible with only two actions left, a single failed attack (not unreasonable since it has four fight) can let this whole plan fail spectacularly.