Ages Unwound: A World Torn Down, Again

It’s time. Again. We arrive at the abandoned elementary school. While our past selves enter through the back, we will enter through the front at the same time and finally stop the Myriad’s ritual.

This is the one scenario in this campaign that uses a little bit more of setup before it gets going. This is because this is where the previous choices and results come together and shape the encounter deck and other parts of the scenario in various ways.

As usual, we start with the involved encounter sets:
A World Torn Down, Again. Obviously.
Night of the Ritual, a rather large stack of cards that return from A World Torn Down
Agents of Aforgomon, a 3-card set that was used a couple of times already but we never drew the Victory enemy in it. Maybe this time?
The Myriad, so we are going to get bullied by Myriad Gentleman again. And Omnipresence. Oh joy.
Nyctophobia and Thugs, so i am looking forward to drawing Irregulars together with Pitchblack Night again.
Unleashed Chaos and Paradox, which are set aside and i believe that i won’t need them this game because i didn’t actually cause any paradoxes and didn’t unleash any chaos.

The initial location setup looks similar to how scenario 3 started, with some differences: We no longer get a choice to go through the backdoor. We did that then, this time we will have to take the Front Hallway. You’ll also not only notice that the starting location is different, but also that Joe is not there…. that is because he didn’t resign in A Year to Plan. He’s literally late to this now. He’ll have to sit the first round out and enter through the Sports Field at the end of round 1. Meaning that he will however will indeed be around for the first Mythos phase…

The agenda deck has three cards, the first one just offering us a 6 doom threshold and nothing else. The act deck has 4 cards in it, our objective is the same as the first time: Enter an interior location. However this is more difficult while the second agenda deck is still on act 1c. Yes, there’s a second agenda deck and it tracks where our past selves are right now. As a short rules blurb explains, it will advance based on the campaign log entries i made during A World Torn Down:
– Boundary Broken: Act 1, doom 4
– Ward Dispelled: Act 2, doom 2
– First Circle Broken: Act 2, doom 3
Long story short, we get a penalty of having to pay extra clues on this first act (and likely the next ones) if we are moving faster than our past selves did. Thankfully, i think i was fairly fast back them, so this should not be a huge problem.

Chaos tokens are looking fantastic for me! We have 3 skulls, each of which scales with the number of actions remaining. So while there will be shenanigans where i have extra actions, this will likely be mild throughout. We have 4(!) cultists which are only a -1 and if i pass i get +1 to skill tests for the rest of the round. That is stellar and a very significant reward for the Final Preparations i did last scenario. I have 1 tablet and it’s a -3 that can put a doom in play on fail. Just the one and -3 isn’t awful, but failing this would be pretty bad of course. There are no Elder Things in my bag, so that -5 that always deals a horror is not in play. Hell yeah. Now, this looks pretty great of course, but Ages Unwound has one more note on the chaos bag: I have to add a -5 token, just for arriving here. Fiiiiine.

Then there’s a bunch of conditions, but none of them are fulfilled thanks to doing all the mandatory tasks in A Year to Plan. So no further penalties.

A hefty chunk of cards is set aside and the rest is shuffled into the encounter deck. That encounter deck is a fat stack, a total of 40 cards.

And with that, we are ready to go.

Round 1

Isabelle: Loner, Offering Bowl, Aleksey, Twin 45s, Cosmic Flame
Joe: Dorothy, 2x Counterattack, Vicious Blow, On the Beat, Perception

Izzie’s start hand is fantastic. Didn’t even mulligan here, just kept the initial five i drew. While it doesn’t have a skill in it yet to start enabling her, it does have two good weapons that are well suited to take out Myriad Gentlemen, an Offering Bowl to afford them, Aleksey to afford the Bowl. And Loner which is just good.

Joe’s hand is … fine. I was hoping that i could leverage the Studious to mulligan into both a Mag Glass and Dorothy, but at least i got one of them.

As mentioned, Joe sits out this first round.

Isabelle wants to get out of the starting location. As long as the past act deck didn’t advance, there is a chance to get 2 horror at the Sports Field and i’d like to avoid that. So first action plays Loner, then i activate that to move down to the Side Building. The Side Building is a 3 shroud location with 2 clues but more importantly, it’s safe to end my turn there. I play Offering Bowl, use it (taking a damage), then play Aleksey Saburov.

In upkeep, Isabelle draws Daniel Jameson and goes to 2 resources. Joe gets nothing because he’s not there yet.

End of round, Joe finally arrives at the Sports Field. Basically, he lost 3 actions, a card and a resource for not properly resigning last game. Harsh, but fair? The Sports Field has that ability to make people there at the end of round test to avoid horror – it’s not quite clear to me if that includes Joe or if he arrives past that timing point. My read on it is that it doesn’t include him. He arrives just as we go into the next round. Alternatively, the two effects use the same timing in which case i can stack them in any order and also avoid the test. There’s a possibility here that i am not quite reading this correctly, but i am confident enough in my read to not Grim Rule this.

Round 2

(1/6 doom)

Isabelle draws Omnipresence, our old nemesis. Honestly, not that bad right now. I only have three empty locations in play, so there’s no choice on where to put them, but touching on the Playground, Front Gates and Front Hallways before the agenda advances should be possible.
Joe gets something scenario specific, You Must Not Be Seen. A potential 3 horror are to be avoided here with an agility test. And if i do particularly bad, there’s even a mental trauma in it. Yikes. I commit a Counterattack for its one agility icon and test 3 vs 3. I pull -1 and take a horror. That could have been a lot worse.

I want the two clues from the Sports Field, but i also don’t want to stick around to test agility for horror again with Joe. That means i can’t play Dorothy before i do my two investigates if i still want to be able to move. Fine. First test is 4 vs 2 and succeeds with an Elder Sign. Oh, nice. That makes up for the missed upkeep phase. Joe gets a clue, a resource and two cards. The cards are Overpower and Deduction. For my second action, i commit Perception, to make sure i can move on and not come back. I pass with a skull, grab the clue and get another card, an Insidious Truths. With the final action, Joe joins Izzie at the Side Building.

Izzie uses the Offering Bowl, putting the damage on Aleksey. This brings her to 4 resources which i use to play her Twin 45s. Loner moves her into the Front Gates, where i discard the Omnipresence.

The Front Gates are 4 shroud with another 2 clues and on reveal they have me find one of the treacheries related to avoiding our past selves. So Izzie also has to test this card, You Must Not Be Seen, now. The test is 3 vs 3 and i actually have nothing to commit here, a somewhat novel feeling with this investigator. I draw skull, which is -2 right now because i have 2 actions left. I take 2 horror, one on Izzie, one on Aleksey. With my remaining actions i don’t have anything better to do than draw cards or gain resources. I could use either. First i draw card, a Longbow. Not really what i was looking for, so i draw again: Extra Rations. Also not a skill, but not a bad card.

In upkeep, I draw Timely Intervention which is indeed a skill and Pursued which … is a weakness. The presence of Myriad Gentleman and other swarm enemies really makes Pursued a bigger deal than usually, so i probably need to get rid of that asap. Maybe Izzie can spare the actions next round.
Izzie goes to 1 resource, Joe to 7.

Round 3

(2/6 doom)

Isabelle’s encounter card is Preserve Causality. Ah, so that’s the counterpart to You Must Not Be Seen then. Sure, i will test willpower 4 vs 3. I draw a cultist, which not only is a pass, but also increases my skill values by +1 for the rest of the round! Nice.
Joe gets Time Loop and has to test willpower 2 vs 3. If he doesn’t get a +1 or Elder Sign to pass, he’ll only investigate this round… guess i am not meant to play that Dorothy. He autofails. Only investigations for him this round then.

I might as well start with Joe then. The investigate test is 4 vs 3 and i have three tries. If i fail the first two, i might consider using the Deduction, but with the chaos bag being what it is, i actually might get there without that. First attempt is a skull, a fail. Second attempt is an Elder Sign. His second Elder Sign already. Hey, i’m not complaining. He gets a clue, a resource and two cards: Another Deduction and an ECache. I have nine cards in hand, two of which are Deduction(2), so i might as well commit my On the Beat here for +2 to make the third attempt easier. I draw -1 and pass. That’s 4 clues collected in total now. Two more to go to enter the school.

Aleksey heals at the start of Izzie’s turn, but Offering Bowl put that damage right back on him. That was the last charge on Bowl and it discards. Izzie simply spends her three actions moving to Joe and discarding his weakness. I could Loner back into the Front Gates afterwards, but i think i will just stick around in case Joe draws an enemy.

Upkeep draws are second Timely Intervention and second On The Beat. Joe has to discard to hand size and drops Emergency Cache. Izzie now has 4 resources, Joe has 9.

Round 4

(3/6 doom) Next round is when i “breached the boundary” in scenario 3, i think we are well on track to match that.

Isabelle draws Rigged to Blow which threatens to punish me for staying with Joe by dealing two damage against both investigators. There is an opportunity for me to use this card to my advantage however. If i pass the agility 4 test, that’d basically give me a free move for both Izzie and Joe. Failure would be quite bad here, so i do commit my Long Bow to the test, making it a 5 vs 4 with Timely Intervention still in hand. Notably, this doesn’t cover the -5, so i also commit Extra Rations just to be super safe. Turns out i didn’t need to be that paranoid, as I draw a Cultist which is a -1 and boosts my tests for this round. Joe and Izzie both get moved from the Side Building to the Front Gates.

Joe then draws Time Reshaped and before it surges, he has to decide whether to take an extra action this turn with -1 skill or give up an action for +1 skill. I think this is another opportunity to make up for lost time from Joe’s late arrival, so i choose the extra action. the surge hits a Myriad Gentleman who engages Joe.

I start the investigator phase with Izzie who now can once again introduce the Gentleman to her Twin 45s. First action, i play Daniel Jameson. Second action, engage the Gentlesir. Third action, fire my guns. The first test is 4 vs 3. I don’t even need all that Daniel and Timely backup, I simply pull a zero and hit. Easy game. I then trigger my second shot, now at 5 vs 2. I hit again, the host body is down. With my actions spent, i Loner into the Playground, revealing it to be a 5 shroud location with 2 clues and Victory 1 where you can spend extra actions on investigation to lower the shroud. I believe this was the same when we were here the first time? I discard the Omnipresence there, of course.

Despite being only 3 intellect this round, i think i can have Joe pick up the clues from the Playground instead of the ones on the Front Gates. I don’t need to care about Victory a whole lot anymore, but there are some luxury upgrades i will still like to have for Joe at least. His first action moves him into the playground, second action plays Dorothy Simmons. He then investigates with Deduction(2) thrown into the test and Izzie commits a Timely Intervention for a further +3. The end result is a 3+1+2+3=9 vs 5. I draw a -2, so i do get the clue. I also get a card for Joe’s ability: Stock Ammo Reload. But i don’t get a resource from Dorothy, she’s not impressed.

Good round! Upkeep draws are Canteen and M1911. New resource counts are 2 and 7.

Round 5

(4/6 doom)

The past day agenda advances, signifying that our past selves now entered the building through the back door. No other immediate consequences. Next advance of the past day agenda will be at agenda 2, doom 2 of the main agenda deck which will mark the point when we dispelled the unstable ward in the classrooms.

Isabelle draws Sheldon’s Finest, a souped up version of the lowly Hired Thug we loved to bully around in the first couple scenarios. Yeah, Ages Unwound isn’t huge into the whole concept of a breather enemy and replaces them with these guys for this scenario.

Joe also draws an enemy, the Irregulars. For once appearing here without being further enhanced by other sources.

Izzie goes first, simply because i want her to be able to Loner into the building once i am done with her round and i can’t do that if Joe is already there. She shoots the Sheldon’s Finest with her pistol and Joe commits a Vicious Blow so we can conserve some ammo. Izzie also takes a horror to commit Timely Intervention from her discard pile for a total of 3+1+3 = 7 vs 4. I draw the -5, but Daniel Jameson triggers a redraw and i hit with a -1. The Sheldon boys are down and Timely Intervention reshuffles into my deck.
She then uses Loner and spends Joe’s clues to enter the building into the Front Hallway. The act advances and stuff happens.

Two more locations enter play, the Principal’s Office and Cafeteria. Both of them connected to the Hallways, but not to each other. Then, we spawn the Hound of Unmaking, a hulking beast with Massive, Retaliate and 12 health in Izzie’s face. Thankfully, as the new act points out, the Hound only makes attacks when he’s damaged. Just don’t damage it then, right? Hell, there’s effects that can ping it and enrage it, like for example the Haunted effect on the Hallways. Or the two copies of the Stirring Titan treachery i just had to shuffle into the encounter deck. At least it seems to stay in the Hallways, it doesn’t have Hunter. Our new objective: Either defeat this monster of an enemy. Or find 10 clues and bring them into the Cafeteria.

There’s definitely a world where Joe and Izzy both spend their full turns emptying pistols into this enemy in the hopes of taking it down. But for now i probably should get out of the Hallways with her since i do have two actions left. Izzie moves into the Principal’s Office with the first one. There’s another four clues there, the shroud scales with the number of completed actions. With her last action, she plays Canteen and uses it to remove her only two horror.

Joe has Irregulars to deal with still. And i think i will just have to throw a bunch of cards at it to take care of that. I play Insidious Truths, discarding Stock Ammo Reload and On the Beat. That makes the test 8 vs 5 and since this really needs to hit, i also commit Overpower. Overpower draws Bounty, which i am allowed to play her to collect 3 resources for defeating the Irregulars. I then play my M1911 and move into the Hallways.

Upkeep draws are Emergency Cache and Perception.

Round 6

(5/6 doom)

A Time Loop for Izzie. The 4 vs 3 fails with a -2. I could correct that with the Timely Intervention from my hand, but decide against it. I think i will just let this fail, choose “draw” and spend my turn restocking my hand. Better save that Timely for something more dire.

Joe gets Sheldon’s Finest, which is somewhat annoying as it will bait the Counterattack out of my hand that i was planning to keep in case the Hound is going to make trouble. Oh well. It is what it is, the criminals engage Joe.

I’ll start with Izzie because that’s easy enough. I draw three cards: Guts, Soul Link, Shadowmeld. Oh, Shadowmeld could come in clutch if i want to take down the Hound!

Joe shoots his M1911 at the thugs. He draws his Elder Sign, dealing two damage, gaining a resource and drawing a card. The drawn card is Detective’s Intuition which triggers to draw another two cards: Mag Glass and another M1911. Well, that’s fairly spectacular. Two damage go on the Thugs. I play the Magnifying Glass right away. I investigate the location and commit Deduction(2). The Sheldon’s Finest make an attack of opportunity, which i Counterattack to defeat them. The investigation is 8 vs 3 and i commit a Perception on top of that so i can make sure to oversucceed and gain my 3 clues here even if i pull a -5. I draw the -4. Perception made a difference! I gain three clues and draw two cards, one for Perception and one for Joe’s ability: Psychoanalysis and Bodyguard. With my final action, i play the Bodyguard, who is a solid replacement for the Counterattack that i was originally saving for the Hound.

Upkeep draws are Extra Rations and Overpower. Both have 3 resources.

Here’s a look at my play areas at this point.

Pretty happy with how things went so far. Especially that both investigators are pretty much untouched, with the only damage being the one on Izzie that she dealt to herself on round 1. That Offering Bowl really made setup with Izzie super smooth, without it I’d have five resources worth of asset less now. A big deal.

Round 7

(6/6 doom) -> (0/6 doom)

The agenda advances for the first time.

Both investigators test willpower, at stake is gaining an action vs losing an action. Izzie commits Soul Link and passes. Joe just accepts his fate and fails. So Izzie will have 4 actions this round, Joe will have 2.
No enemy disappeared unexpectedly during World Torn Down, so none re-appears now.
The new agenda is once again offers 6 doom worth of rounds. And gives us that ability again to save up actions from one round to the next. That could be a good way to prepare for a fight against the hound!
But first: Encounter cards.

Looks like the decision on when we engage the Hound is taken out of our hands, as Isabelle draws Stirring Titan. A damage is put on the Hound, it is now able to attack. The card surges into Lost in the Dark. Moving this round will require a test or a charge from the Canteen. Fair enough.

Now Joe. Bear with me here, cause this is going to be an outrageous surge cascade. He draws Time Reshaped and again has to decide whether to lose or gain an action. I already lost an action to the agenda, I am not comfortable going down to just 1 action with a hound staring me down, so Joe takes the extra action and lower skills for this round. This surges into Time’s Surge. What Time’s Surge does is draw three(!) extra encounter cards now, but gives you a mythos draw cancel + extra action to cash in on later. So if we survive this ordeal, that’s going to be great. Here’s what i flipped up for my three encounter cards and have to survive:

That’s six cards?! Well, Time’s Ebb (the opposite of Time’s Surge basically) just surges here without effect and so does the other copy of Stirring Titan. What we are left with as actual draws then are, in order:
Temporal Instability: For the rest of the round, failing a test will cost Joe a clue. and move him towards the Sports Field.
Rigged to Blow: The test is agility 1 vs 2. I fail, so i have to take two damage. Temporal Instability makes me drop a clue and move to the Children’s Playground.
Weight of the Cosmos: At the end of the turn, i will need to test my willpower of 1 against actions taken and if i fail as i’d expect, i’d have to take that much damage. And drop a clue. And move away. Oof.

Damn. That’s 10 encounter cards drawn this round. That is … uuuh… yeah. We survived it though and Joe now has a powerful get-out-of-jail card in his threat area that he can cash in at some point.

I start this round’s festivities with Isabelle because i am going to start messing with the Hound. Depending on how that works out, i will either Loner back out or Joe can come join. She plays Shadowmeld, then moves into the Hallway. To move, she has to test her treachery and i commit Guts to pass. Guts draws Bandages. For my third action, i use Shadowmeld to evade the hound, committing Guts from my discard again. I pass with a cultist, so i get +1 to my future tests this round. With my final action, i shoot my Twins at the hound. The first test is 4 vs 4 and it autofails. I repeat the test with Daniel at 5 vs 4 and pull a skull. Skulls scale by the number of remaining actions, which is zero. A pass! The Hound goes to 3 damage and i trigger the followup shot from the Twins, with agility 5 vs 4. I commit the Offering Bowl to make it 6 vs 4, but draw a -3. I use Timely Intervention to make the shot hit despite that. I use my Canteen to get rid of my horror and that’s it. Solid turn!

Now Joe. The combination of getting -1 to everything due to Time Reshaped and being heavily punished for any fail is rough. There’s also the fact that i will need to test against actions take at the end of the round. I think my best course here is actually to just move to join Izzie and pass my turn with two unspent actions. This makes me test Weight of the Centuries 1 vs 1 and i commit Detective’s Intuition to turn it into a 3 vs 1. I pass with -2.

In the enemy phase, the Hound readies.

Upkeep draws are Bandages and Fingerprint Kit.

End of the round, the Hound heals 1 damage, going back to 4 damage on it. Izzie discards her treachery. Joe does so as well, but first has to take one more test that tries to bait a clue and a move out of him. The test is willpower 1 vs 2 and i decide to fight this test as best I can, by committing Psychoanalysis for +2 and Extra Rations from Izzie for another +1. I pass with a skull and this nightmare round is finally over.

Round 8

(1/6 doom) – note: next round, my past selves will have dispelled the ward

Can i kill the hound this round? I’d need to deal 8 damage to it, that’s all three bullets from the M1911 and the final shot from the Twins. Seems unlikely. Let’s do encounter draws.

Isabelle draws Time Loop again and if she fails, she’d need to commit to just one type of action. With how i envision the round to go, that’d be awful so i need to pass this. I commit Timely Intervention from my discard pile and test 7 vs 3. I pass and Timely shuffles back into the deck. I am still not super happy about this, i currently don’t have great commits in hand and was banking on the three wilds from the discard pile to secure my upcoming evasion test. And while i do have another Soul Link in the discard, Izzie’s ability is sadly once per round.

For Joe, i just cash in on his Time Surge from last round now. I cancel the encounter draw and gain an action instead. I could have kept this to combat another time when cards surge into one another, but now that we are staring down the big elite, this is also a good point to use this.

Okay, Izzie first. The test to evade the Hound with Shadowmeld is 4 vs 4. Not great. I don’t have any willpower commits either, all i have is Daniel. And the knowledge that the Hound isn’t Alert, so at least I do have a couple tries here to get it done. First attempt: Skull. That’s a fail. I use Daniel to immediately try again, now with 5 vs 4: Cultist. That’s a pass and my skills are +1 for the rest of the round. Thank god for these cultists, they have really been saving my bacon this game. The Hound exhausts. Instead of doing some fringe tests for attacking, i spend my last two actions playing Emergency Cache and Cosmic Flame.

Joe is not going to deal 8 damage here, but he does have 4 actions to go ahead and do as much as he can. And i think that just means firing his gun three times, then playing the spare from his hand? Let’s see. First shot, i commit Overpower for 8 vs 4. I hit, but Overpower just finds my personal weakness. Fine. Then the next two shots, both at 6 vs 4. I pull the 0 twice, so all three shots hit. Nice. That’s 10 damage on the beast. Had i not evaded the enemy, i could now provoke an attack of opportunity to have the hound kill my Bodyguard and be defeated. But as it looks now, i don’t see how i can make that happen. So with my fourth action, i just play my second M1911, now that the first is spent.

In the enemy phase, the Hound readies.

Upkeep draws are second Aleksey and second Dorothy. Not particularly useful, either of them. Izzie is on 4 resources, Joe on 3.

End of round, the Hound heals to 9 damage on it.

Round 8

(2/6 doom) – The past day agenda advances, the ward is now dispelled. Since we did that back then without unleashing chaos, we don’t get any penalties from it now either. There is some text on the new agenda about penalties if we are at Ritual locations, but we don’t see any of those yet and the past day agenda is going to advance next round already anyway so it won’t matter.

Isabelle draws Temporal Instability. Should she fail a test this round, she’ll have to drop a clue (she doesn’t have any) and move once towards outside. I think this should be fine?
Joe draws Lost in the Dark and for the rest of the round has to test if he wants to move. I don’t think i’ll be moving with him this round, so again this is fine.

Let’s kill a dog, shall we? Joe shoots his gun at 6 vs 4 , and draws a cultist. That’s a hit and he gets +1 for the rest of the round. The hound now has 11 damage on it, out of 12 health. I simply shoot it again at 7 vs 4. Another hit and the Hound of Unmaking has been unmade to the victory display. The act advances.

Two Ritual locations are spawned. Well, turns out the text on that past agenda might matter after all if we decide to enter them this round. I don’t think i will do that however. The new and presumably final objective: Move through the two circles and collect all clues on them.
Since we already slapped the Myriad High Priest around with our past selves (in fact that is happening right now, in this and next round) we don’t encounter him here now.

With his final action, Joe gains a resource. That puts him at 4 resources, so he’ll have the option to play his weakness out next round if that’s convenient.

With Izzie, i am just going to draw three cards again. I don’t have any meaningful commits in hand right now and i do hold a treachery that punishes me for failing tests. So i might as well not do any. The drawn cards are: Breaking Point which deals a direct damage to her. Blood Ward. And Lucky Cigarette Case. Notably, these are all not skills. One is even a weakness. Meh. End of turn, she has to test the Instability treachery, with intellect 2 vs 2. I don’t really care here if i fail, even if i have to move, i can just use Loner to make up for it. I draw a skull which is a pass. Sure, I’ll take it. The treachery discards.

Upkeep draws are Timely Intervention (ah, there we go) and Stock Ammo Reload. Both investigators go to 5 resources.

End of round, Joe is no longer Lost in the Dark.

Round 9

(3/6 doom) – Our past selves walk through the portal and are removed from this scenario as they are headed for the Unstuck scenario. The extra act deck is removed from the game, from now on we don’t need to worry about that anymore.

Izzie’s encounter draw is Beckoning of Oblivion. She has three actions, so it’s just a willpower test 4 vs 3 which i can just take unmodified. If i fail i can always decide if it’s worth doing a Timely Intervention or not. I draw a -1 so i don’t even need to think about this too much.
Joe gets Night Black as Pitch, so without enemies on the board that mostly means that all shrouds are +1 this round. And should Izzie decide to use her ability or use Soul Links, that’ll be extra hurtful.

Izzie plays Bandages, just in case something bad happens. Then uses Loner to move into the first Ritual Circle. The text on it is pretty yikes, so she uses her second action to move into the second Ritual Circle as well, that way I at least have all the info right away. Here they are:

First ritual circle (red): Pretty disgusting Forced effect that inverts all player card effects that gain cards, resources or actions into negatives. Thankfully, Joe’s ability is not mandatory. “Haunted – Move to Front Gates” is also insane text to put on a card. That’s three actions lost. That being said, healing here each round? Also kind of nuts.
Second Ritual circle (purple): Investigators that are both at this location can’t interact with each other. That’s what that last line means, it pretty much opens up an instanced version of the location when you move there. Clues are still shared, to my understanding.

So that’s two locations with 4 clues each at 4 shroud. Guess i will want to play that Fingerprint Kit after all, that still seems very much worth it then. But first, Izzie has one more action. She moves back to the red circle, that healing is too good to pass up.

Joe plays his Fingerprint Kit, discarding the M1911 for it. Then he moves twice, into the purple circle. I think i am going to start at the back and leave the one that teleports me back to the gates for last.

Upkeep draws are Lethal Curiosity and Emergency Cache. ECache is a nice draw and will allow me to push that 5 cost weakness out of my hand after all. Lethal Curiosity is of course less nice and Izzie will need to test willpower(4) to avoid getting up to 4 damage. Night Black as Pitch is still in play, otherwise i’d commit my Soul Link from the discard now, but 4 horror for that seems a bit much. So instead i commit Aleksey and Lucky Cigarette Case, each of them worth a willpower icon and test 6 vs 4. I draw the -5. Yeah, let’s not. Timely Intervention makes this a pass by exactsies. That’s three cards lost to my upkeep.

I go to 4 and 2 resources.

End of round, Night Black as Pitch discards. Due to the location effect of the ritual circle, Izzie heals a horror and a damage.

Round 10

(4/6 doom) – Is it really only round 10? Feels like it’s been going on for longer.

Izzie draws Time Reshaped for a change. That sort of fits my plans. I pick the extra action, my intention is to just draw cards again. However, on the Surge i draw Chronophage, the Victory enemy from the Agents of Aforgomon set that we so far failed to meet despite using the set a couple of times. Guess that means that Izzie won’t be able to just draw cards after all.
Joe draws Weight of the Centuries and will take damage at the end of the round if he took more actions than he can test against. Truth be told, i might just take this damage, i don’t really feel like stalling out anymore. It’s time to finish this scenario.

I’ll start with Izzie. I am not a huge fan of having to test 3 vs 4 to attack here right now, so i will just evade the thing this round and care about it next round when my stats aren’t lowered by Time Reshaped. To that end, i use Shadowmeld, committing Timely Intervention from my discard pile. It fails, but Daniel retries the test and it works on the second pull. Chronophage exhausts and Timely reshuffles. I spend my next actions on drawing cards: Soul Link, Blood Ward, Guts. Yeah, that works.

Joe investigates with Fingerprint Kit, 7 vs 4. He draws Cultist, which is a pass. He gets two clues, but as usual, Dorothy is not impressed. His ability does at least give him a card, a Lab Assistant. I was originally planning on just doing ECache and weakness now, but since i got the +1 from the cultist for the rest of the turn now, i probably should make use of that. I investigate two more times, drawing a 0 and another cultist. Both successes and the zero even makes Dorothy give me a resource. Thanks, lady. Very generous. I then have to test willpower against difficulty 3. Due to drawing two cultists, my willpower is currently at 4 and i commit the Stock Ammo Reload from my hand to make it 5. I pass with a -1. Look at you, Joe. Passing willpower tests. Proud of you, buddy.

In the enemy phase, the Chronophage readies and engages Isabelle.

Upkeep draws are Cosmic Flame and Bodyguard.

End of the round, Izzie heals a damage and a horror from the ritual circle. She’s completely healed now.

Round 11

(5/6 doom)

Encounter draws are Night Black as Pitch for Isabelle and Sheldon’s Finest for Joe. I am not terribly worried about Night Black as Pitch, but Sheldon’s Finest is annoying. Izzie is already bound by an enemy and Joe has no weapon. I guess i will need to do this with Bodyguards then…

Joe moves to the other Ritual Circle, where Izzie is hanging out with her pet Chronophage. Sheldon’s Finest make an attack of opportunity, hitting the bodyguard for 2 damage. I basic punch the dudes and Izzie commits a Soul Link to make the test 7 vs 4. I pass with a -3, dealing the damage. With my third action, i investigate with the Fingerprint Kit. The test is 7 vs 5 and i commit Dorothy from my hand to make it 8 vs 5. Before i pull the token, the Sheldon’s Finest get to attack me again. Izzie plays Blood Ward, canceling that attack and healing Joe. He’s back to 0 damage, 0 horror as well now. I pull the token for the investigation and it’s a -2. Pass. I gain two clues and a card, my other Magnifying Glass. Dorothy even hands me a buck.

Izzie uses Cosmic Flame on the Chronothingy and uses Guts. The 6 vs 4 passes and she draws Blood Curse. Sure, might as well use that now, i am going to heal that away end of round. She shoots the last bullet from her pistol at the enemy, commits Blood Curse and after Daniel says no to an autofail, the Chronophage goes into the victory display. For the final action, i draw a card: Emergency Cache.

In the enemy phase, Sheldon’s Guys hit me and i take 1 on me, 1 on the bodyguard. Bodyguard is defeated and deals the final two damage to the enemy, taking them with him.

Upkeep draws are Ward of Protection and Insidious Truths.

End of round, Izzie and Joe both heal to full.

Round 12

(6/6 doom) -> (0/7 doom)

We advance the agenda one final time this scenario! Only two clues left, but Joe also needs to play his weakness out still.

Both investigators have to pull a token and will be randomly affected with fewer actions/higher skill or more actions/lower skill, just like that one treachery. Except we have no choice in the matter. Izzie draws a skull, Joe draws a -2. That means Izzie will have only 2 actions, but +1 skill. And Joe will have 4 actions, but low skill. I think i would have preferred it exactly the other way round?

There’s also a bunch of text about saving actions and having one fewer once there’s more doom in play … but i think i got this in the bag already and there’s a good chance that i finish this round. Next round maybe if the game is being difficult about it.

Does this qualify as being difficult? Izzie draws Preserve Causality at first, but that surges into Myriad Assassin who threatens an immediate attack. I don’t think i care about this attack all that much, so i just take the agility test to avoid it raw at 5 vs 3. I pass. Cool. Izzie engages the Assassin.
Joe draws Myriad Gentleman. Right, this guy is also still around. Aren’t there supposed to be four of them in the encounter deck? If my count is right that means that in the final 5 cards that are still in the deck, two more are Myriad Gentlemen. Oh joy. This dork engages Joe.

Let’s see if i can get the Victory point. Izzie has only two actions, but if she can make both Cosmic Flame attacks hit, that’d be enough. First attack i commit Guts and the 7 vs 3 just hits with a -3. Guts draws Timely Intervention. Second attack i commit Guts again, from the discard pile. Another pass and the Assassin goes to the victory display. Guts draws my second Ward of Protection and reshuffles. With that, Izzie’s turn is already over.

Joe plays Insidious Truths, discarding Bodyguard and Lab Ass. He tests 7 vs 3 and deals 3 damage to the Gentleman’s swarm card, one of which spills over to the host. He then punches the host and Izzie commits Blood Ward for two combat icons to help. The Gentleman is down but it took two actions. With his two remaining actions, he plays ECache and his weakness, Dead Ends.

Upkeep draws are Vicious Blow and Lucky Charm.

Round 13

(1/7 doom)

I only need Joe to investigate with FPK this round and pass his test and then we won.

Encounter draws are Time Surge for Izzie which i snap-cancel. No need for this toxicity on the final stretch. And Myriad Gentleman for Joe.

I take attacks of opportunity from the Myriad Gentlemen as i investigate with Fingerprint Kit. Izzie commits enough icons for this to be “anything but the autofail” and i collect the final two clues.

The act advances.

Resolution

With the ritual fully destabilized, we once more step into the timestream. But this time we are prepared and we don’t just drift along it. We navigate it towards our final confrontation, straight towards Aforgomon.

Resolution for this scenario is as short as it could be. We simply gain experience. We cleared 3 Victory locations and we have 4 victory enemies in the display: Assassin, Chronophage, Irregulars, Hound of Unmaking. The Hound is worth 2 victory, so we get a total of 8xp to spend. Cool, that should be enough for what i had in mind still.

Spending xp

Okay, i feel like this was a lot easier than i anticipated. Yes, there were some tight spots and the encounter deck sort of combo’d out on me that one time with a surge cascade. But overall, this was very manageable and i finished undamaged and unhorrored and with six rounds to spare. I attribute most of that to the chaos bag being the way it is now. Thanks to those cultist tokens, I passed all sorts of tests that otherwise would have been much bigger problems.

For upgrades, Joe gets a second Studious for sure. For the final 5xp i considered taking a Commune with the Cosmos to be able to nuke a single location, but ultimately settled on just upgrading my Vicious Blows instead. My memories of the finale are very minor because both times i got blown out very early, but i do remember some big honking enemies being around. With Vicious Blow(2) on an Insidious Truths i can deal 5 damage in one swoop, i have hopes that this sort of thing can buy me the breathing space i need. In that same spirit, i use the last point of experience to swap a Service Revolver into the deck. I cut Laboratory Assistant for it.

(Link to Joe’s final deck)

Izzie gets two Meat Cleaver(3), cutting a Bandage and the Lucky Charm from the deck to make room. Gotta be honest with you, i don’t trust my Longbows and I want another option for when the Twins run out or i don’t draw them. I think the bow is good, but this campaign specifically seems to be tailored to make 3 damage an awkward amount of damage to deal to an enemy. In hindsight i probably should have taken the Cleavers from the start. The cleavers are a considerable source of extra horror however, so i will upgrade one of my Guts into another Fearless(2) to hopefully offset that.

(Link to Izzie’s final deck)

And with that i am off to face Aforgomon in Time Runs Out. I hope that even if i fail, it’s not going to be too anticlimactic. Or maybe i even pull out a win? How the last couple scenarios went gave me some hope that i can at least put up a fight.