Ages Unwound: A World Torn Down

Setup

We are off to try and stop the ritual that we learned about in Baxter’s mansion. For that purpose, we arrive at the condemned Elementary School…

Setup is a bit more than in the previous two scenarios, but still not super excessive. We got seven encounter sets here:
– A World Torn Down, which is of course scenario specific
– Night of the Ritual, which is also scenario specific. Well, sort of. You’ll see.
– Agents of Aforgomon, Nyctophobia and Thugs, three sets that we have seen in the first scenario before.
– Myriad and Unleashed Chaos, two new ones that we’ve not seen before

Six locations go into play immediately, the rest are set aside for now. The investigators start at the Front Gates of the school and can visit such cozy places as the Sports Field, Front Hallway or Children’s Playground.

A rather large amount of other cards are set aside, then the rest is shuffled together to form the encounter deck.

There are four cards in the agenda deck and three in the act deck . The first agenda threshold is 6 again. Apparently the ritual is already starting, there is a barrier forming and we need to get inside the school. This is reflected in the Objective on the act: Enter an Interior location. Looking back at the location grid, that means either the Rear Corridors or the Front Hallway. Either option requires a hefty 6 clues to break into. Looks like we have a choice to make whether to go in through the front door or if we sneak around the back.
The agenda also gives us a special action that we can take at any point, to call out for our mysterious benefactor and get advantages in trade for accepting Strange Assistance. Here’s the Aid from Afar card:

The token modifiers do include an Elder Thing this time. I don’t have one yet, but that means we might pick one up mid-scenario? Or maybe we could’ve gotten one if we failed somewhere, not sure. Our bag currently has three skulls which scale by half the number of actions remaining. Under regular circumstances that’d mean -1 to -2, but i can already tell you this isn’t regular circumstances. The two tablets we have are -3 and failing to them will lower all skill tests that investigator takes for the rest of the round. This could be nasty if it pops up in the Mythos phase. We don’t have any cultists, but just for the record, had we taken the Strange Assistance after scenario 1, we’d have two cultists instead of two tablets now and would get a much nicer token here.
Okay, looks like we can generally still expect a “3 over difficulty” to pass, with only the -4 and autofail beating that. Noted!

Before we are let loose, there are a few more rules to read, this is the first time the setup instructions actually do end up filling a page. Just the one, though.
– We might get instructed to record when specific events happen, noting their occurrence and which agenda we are on with how many doom on it. So every round counts, it might come into play later whether we achieved something with 3 doom or 4 doom on the agenda!
– We get a reminder of how Gaining and Losing actions works. Well, worked. The rules actually slightly changed with the chapter 2 Grimoire. For this playthrough, i will be using Legacy rules, since that is what the campaign has been built for. Most notably that means that an effect that makes us lose an action when we do not have any actions available will fail to remove anything. Actions refresh during upkeep, so notably that means that the enemy phase is in that window where i got no actions to lose.
– We are reminded of the rules for the Haunted keyword which triggers bad effects if we fail to investigate. Basically, it’s retaliate for locations. Right, i forgot that Haunted was a part of this campaign. I generally don’t like Haunted as a mechanic, but my specific team should probably not be too scared of it. I don’t remember how this comes into play in this scenario, but it hopefully isn’t too bad.

Round 1

(0/6 doom)

Isabelle: Cosmic Flame, Twin 45s, Timely Intervention, Guts, Fearless
Joe: Machete, Hand-Crank, Counterattack, 2x Gather Intel

Starting hands are fine, but not great. Unlike the previous two scenarios where the first location was a softball that was easy to investigate, we are staring down a shroud 4 right away. I wish i had gotten a Deduction or at least a Perception here to make that a bit more comfortable.

But no sense in wringing our hands over that. Joe takes the first action of the game, playing Hand-Cranked Flashlight. I could now either move into a connecting location and hope for an easier shroud or i could just try it. I think if at least one of the two remaining actions passes, then i am better off staying here, so i do that. Second action, investigate with 5 vs 4. I draw -1 and pass. Good start. I gain a clue and the card from the top of my deck is a Mag Glass. Interesting. Do i just stack the Mag Glass and Hand-Crank here? Seems like a good plan. I play the Mag Glass and investigate again at 6 vs 4. I draw skull which at my last action counts as a 0. That’s a pass and the location is cleared. Not so bad. I now have no free hand slots for the Machete in my hand, but Izzie drew a combat heavy hand again so she can take that part.

Isabelle plays Cosmic Flame. And then just takes two resource actions. Resources have been a problem for her, so i want to just get those extra actions out of the way now.

Upkeep draws are Lucky Charm and Vicious Blow. I go to 5 and 4 resources.

Round 2

(1/6 doom) New scenario, new awfulness. Alright game, what do you have for me?

Isabelle draws Temporal Stutter which heavily punishes you for failing skill tests for a round by moving you towards the starting location and dropping your clues. Here’s the thing though: I am at the starting location. I have no clues. I don’t plan on doing tests unless Joe draws an enemy. That’s a freebie.
Joe does indeed not draw an enemy, but he draws Omnipresence. This is a crazy one and might actually be my overall favorite encounter card from this campaign. A card that when drawn also draws all of its copies from the encounter deck and discard pile. They attach all to different empty locations and i need to visit those to discard them before the agenda flips. If i don’t, then the next agenda starts with an extra doom on it for each Omnipresence still in play. This is some serious bullshit if you draw it right before the agenda advances and still absolutely annoying in many other circumstances when enemies are around or you just don’t want to move. We sort of hit a best case scenario with it here, though. We want to move anyways and the agenda only just started. I place the three copies on the other three exterior locations: Side Building, Sports Field, Playground. Touching those over the next rounds should be a non-issue.
So i guess this first Mythos phase went about as well as it could have!

Isabelle moves into the Playground, expecting it to be maybe easier than the others. Well, that didn’t pan out. Playground is a 5 shroud location with 2 clues. When investigating there, you can spend extra actions to lower the shroud by 1. Oof. The location does have Victory 1 though! I decide i want full information before Joe takes his turn, so Izzie spends her other two actions, moving through the Sports Field and into the Side Building, revealing all of them and discarding the Omnipresences everywhere along the way. Here’s how it looks now:

Six clues on the board, i need four of them to enter either the Hallway or the Corridors. The Playground is definitely a lot harder to investigate than the other two. Victory 1, though… i want it. Okay, this is risky, but i am going to just do it. Joe moves into the Playground and investigates. I could spend an action to test 6 vs 4 instead of 6 vs 5. So what’s more likely to pass, two times with worse odds or once with okay odds? I don’t really feel like spending two actions just to draw one of the -3s in the bag, so i just take the first test at 6 vs 5 and see what happens. And what happens is i draw the +1 which is a success. I gain a clue and draw a card: Deduction. I want to get the second clue as well, and since its the last one, i want to make it more likely to pass and commit one Gather Intel for a 7 vs 5. I draw tablet which is a -3 and thus a fail. Fair enough.

Upkeep draws are Arcane Initiate (yay!) and Detective’s Intuition (boo!). 3 resources on Izzie, 5 on Joe. End of round, Temporal Stutter discards itself.

Round 3

(2/6 doom)

Isabelle draws Beckoning of Oblivion and has to test willpower 4 vs number of actions she has (3). Any point she fails by incurs a lost action or a direct horror. I take the test unmodified and pull another tablet (-3). It would fail, but I use Timely Intervention to turn that into a close pass.
Joe gets something similar, but different. Due to Weight of the Centuries, he will have to test willpower against number of actions taken as well, but at the end of his turn and probably get some damage from it unless he skips actions.

Joe has an interesting opportunity here to pay extra actions for his investigation at the playground and thus not have to test as high for Weight of the Centuries. Is that worth doing? Actions are about the highest price i can take, after all. Eh, let’s do it. Joe investigates the Playground, pays his other two actions to bring the test down to a 6 vs 3. He passes, clearing the Playground and drawing an M1911(2) from his deck. And that’s the turn. He has to test willpower against difficulty 1 … and true to form fails it with yet another tablet, but only takes 1 damage from it now instead of the 3 that could have been.

I don’t just want to take resource actions again with Izzie, so i start her out by drawing a card. It’s Second Sight. Neat, she doesn’t need to linger around anymore while there is nothing to shoot. I take a resource action and play Second Sight.

Upkeep draws are Longbow and Counterattack. Izzie is at 1 resource, Joe at 6.

Round 4

(3/6 doom)

As encounter draw, Isabelle gets Time Loop. If i fail a willpower test, i have to choose a type of action that will be the only one i can take this round. If i fail and only can investigate, that wouldn’t be super awful … as long as Joe doesn’t draw an enemy. I decide not to commit my Guts, saving it for later. The 4 vs 3 draws a -2 and fails. I choose investigate as my only allowed action for this round.
Joe gets another Temporal Stutter. He’s going to move a lot this round, so this shouldn’t matter, i think.
Still no enemies, but after last scenario that doesn’t really put me at ease. Also i know that at least the enemies from the Thugs encounter set (including some Elites like the Irregulars) are somewhere in the encounter deck so this is just variance, they will come out eventually.

Izzie can only investigate, so that’s what she does. Might as well do it unmodified 4 vs 3 for the first try, it’s not like there’s a point to saving actions here. I get an Elder Sign and may heal a horror. I don’t have a horror, but a success is a success of course. The ability on the location raises its shroud to 4, making it an even test 4 vs 4 for the next attempt. Failing with a tablet here would make the third try test at 5, which is something i want to avoid. So on my second test, i pay a horror to commit Timely Intervention from my discard pile and test 6 vs 4 instead. I pass, get the clue and Timely goes back into the deck. With nothing else to investigate, I have to forfeit my third action.

Joe could now take 3 move actions and advance the act, but that’s probably not a good idea with no actions left on anyone. So i will instead make a short stop on the Sports Field and try to grab the two clues there. They might come in handy later? First action move to the Sports Field, second action investigate, committing Deduction for a 7 vs 2. Easy game, i get the two clues and my action draws me my Lab Assistant. I have 9 cards in hand and would need to discard to handsize again. So instead of moving to Izzie, i use my third action to play that Lab Ass to draw 2 cards and be allowed to keep 10 cards in hand. The two cards drawn are Overpower and ECache.

Upkeep draws are Lucky Cigarette Case and Vicious Blow. Oh, is it finally time to play LCC? Izzie is at 2 resources, Joe at 5. End of round, Temporal Stutter discards.

Round 5

(4/6 doom)

We finally meet our first enemy and it’s one with Victory! Myriad Assassin from the Thugs set shows up and engages Isabelle. She also needs to pass an agility test straight away or get an immediate hit for 2 damage here! My only agility icons in hand is my Longbow though… maybe i shouldn’t have shuffled away my Timely Intervention from the discard earlier, i could have used any of the many willpower icons in my hand at that point. Well, i can’t just take a 3 vs 3 test here, those 2 damage are pretty significant for Izzie. So i suppose i need to pitch the Longbow and hope to draw the other before the guns run out. With the Longbow discarded, the test goes to 5 vs 3 and passes with -2. Phew.

Joe’s encounter card is also concerning. His plan was moving into the Interior now and his Lost in the Dark treachery asks him to take 2 horror or pass a test he won’t pass with each move until the end of the round. Yikes.

I think i do need to move Joe at least into the same location as Izzie, so she can potentially spend his clues to move inside after cleaning up the Assassin. I currently have 10 cards in hand with him, so i might as well give it an earnest try by committing Detective’s Intuition and do the test 4 vs 3. I fail with a -3 and take the two horror to move into Izzie’s location. I play my M1911(2), discarding the Hand-Crank from play. Then fire at the Assassin. The test is 6 vs 3. I commit Machete from my hand for 7 vs 3 just to take care of the -4 token. After all the Assassin is engaged to Izzie still and a fail would be pretty nasty here. I draw a 0 and the Assassin takes his first 2 damage.

Itching for murder, Izzie uses Cosmic Flame on the Assassin and commits Guts for 6 vs 3. I draw +1, pay a charge and the Assassin goes into the Victory display. Guts draws… another Guts. I got Guts for days. I don’t want to wait yet another round, so with her second action, Izzie pays the 6 clues (taking all of them from Joe) to enter the school through the backdoor. The location reveals, the act advances.

We record in the campaign log that the “boundary is broken” alongside the time: Agenda 1, doom 4. Depending on the way of entry, we get different acts now. We “snuck in the back” so we are continuing with Doorway to the Unknown and are confronted with a door that is held by some sort of warding spell that we need to break. To break it, 4 resources need to be put on Unstable Warding which attaches to the Rear Corridors. We’ll take a closer look at that in a moment. First, the rest of the locations. Front Hallway removes, so we can’t go back and take the other way, we are locked into this route now. Then three classroom locations are put into play, all of them connected to the Corridors, but not among each other. Here’s how everything looks now, including the Unstable Warding:

Okay, so we need to put 4 resources on the Warding. To put down one of them, i need to spend an action at the Corridor, pass a test of willpower or combat against 2 and spend 2 clues. The test doesn’t seem like an issue, so that’s 4 actions and 8 clues to spend at the Rear Corridors to advance. I already own two clues which is definitely helpful! If i end up failing that placement test twice, the Warding reacts and flips into something else. I genuinely don’t know what happens then. Never looked, never needed to and i don’t intend on finding out today!

Right, that’s the mid-campaign setup done, back to Izzie’s turn which still has an action left. I use Second Sight and investigate, committing Guts from my discard for a horror and Fearless(2) from my hand. The test is 8 vs 4, i pull a -2 and pass. I spend the charge to gain both clues here. Guts draws a card, Blood Curse. Then shuffles back. Fearless heals all my horror, then waits in the discard for another go later.

Another eventful investigator phase done, upkeep draws are Loner and Bounty. Aw, i wish i had Bounty to use on the 4 health enemy i just killed! Boo!
End of round, Lost in the Dark discards and Joe is free to move again.

Here’s a look at the current play area of the investigators:

I am feeling pretty good about all of this. I got barely a scratch on Joe, i got 4 clues on Izzie already, i got both jobs enabled with both investigators and my hands are full of goodies.

Round 6

(5/6 doom) Witching Hour! Time to play my Arcane Initiate! But first things first…

Isabelle draws Night Black as Pitch and attaches it to the agenda. For this round, all shrouds and evades will be +1 and all sources of horror will increase. This was rough in scenario 1, but doesn’t look so bad now.
Joe has a choice to make, as Time Reshaped makes him either lose an action or gain. If he chooses to lose one, he’ll gain +1 to all skill values this round. If he chooses the extra action, all of them will get -1 skill value. Since he’s still outside the building and will need to spend some time moving into relevant location, i choose to gain the action and just be a 1/3/3/1 investigator for a round. However, that’s not all because Time Reshaped surges… into Irregulars, the enemy that already comboed with Night Black as Pitch to great effect in the first scenario. So we are doing this again, huh. The difference is however that i now have ways to deal 3 damage in one go, so maybe i can just burst my way past him. I also have Counterattacks to avoid a worst case, that Counterattack would even stop them from shuffling back into the encounter deck from their ability. Joe reacts to their appearance by playing Gather Intel, drawing his personal weakness Dead Ends and Insidious Truths.

Let’s see what we have then. Joe could attack with his pistol and commit both Overpower and Vicious Blow to test at 3+2+2+1 = 8. Meanwhile, the Irregulars sit at 3+2 = 5 combat this round. Yeah, that works. I test and pull a tablet (-3), a pass. 3 damage are dealt to the Irregulars and they go into the victory display. Overpower draws a card: Deduction. I play Bounty, taking me to 5 resources. Three actions to go. Not going to lie, seeing the Irregulars and the Night Black as Pitch together there gave me a short moment of panic, but this wasn’t a big deal after all. Joe moves twice, into one of the classrooms.

It’s just a shroud 2, but the night is still dark and full of terrors, so it’s actually shroud 3 right now. Meanwhile, my intellect is down by 1, so this would just be a 4 vs 3 after all. That being said, it’s my last action and that means the Haunted effect here does nothing. I don’t have anything better to do, so i just investigate here, with Deduction for a total of 5 vs 3. I pull skull which is a 0 on my last action, so i gain both clues from the location. Joe’s ability draws Machete.

Izzie plays Arcane Initiate and immediately uses her ability, finding Ward of Protection. Always nice to have this in your back pocket. She then spends the rest of her money on Lucky Cigarette Case and with her last action, attempts to put a resource on the Warding. I commit Guts from hand, test 6 vs 2 and draw skull, once more a 0 on my last action. Two clues are spent, the first token goes on the Warding. I draw two cards, one for Guts, one for LCC: Soul Link and Emergency Cache.

Upkeep draws are Guts (lol) and Perception. Guts for days!

Round 7

(7/6 doom) -> (0/6 doom)
We got an agenda to advance!

Time goes weird again. If there was an enemy around, it might disappear unexpectedly now… but there isn’t, so i ignore that part. I also have to take willpower tests here, possibly gaining or losing actions. Izzie throws in Guts from her hand, testing 6 vs 4 and passes. She gains an action and draws Manual Dexterity. Joe tests 2 vs 4, draws -1 and fails by 3. He loses an action.
The new agenda has 6 doom threshold again and gives us an interesting option. If we pass with at least 1 action remaining, we get an extra action on the next round. That might come in handy! The agenda also retains its ability to call for Strange Assistance, but currently it looks like i won’t need that. I move on to encounter draws!

Ugh, this dork again. How often do i have to teach you this lesson, old man? It’s the Myriad Gentleman, back for more and engages Izzie. In his form as a regular enemy, he is just a 2/2/2 with swarming 1 that gets stronger the more of him are around. If he escalates through multiple copies, then defeating one host body can weaken the others. At two player, this is probably not too relevant, but it’s a good safeguard for four player. Fun fact: Four of this encounter card are in the encounter deck.

Ha, i spoke too soon. Joe gets a Myriad Gentleman as well. Looks like we get to partake in this ability after all. Neither investigator should have too much of an issue with these guys. Hm, i will note though that the Longbow is uniquely bad against them. Luckily i got the Twin 45s on the table instead which are uniquely good here!

Isabelle goes first. Arcane Initiate looks at the top of the deck, finds no spells. For the first of her four actions, she uses her Twins pistols to fire at the Myriads. I use Soul Link to get the combat test to 6 vs 3, the horror for Soul Link i put on the Initiate. I hit with a zero, so the swarm card is defeated and i get to draw a card for LCC. It’s my weakness, Lethal Curiosity, which inserts itself rudely into the fight to have me test willpower(4). I secure the test with Blood Curse, opting to take a guaranteed damage here to prevent worse outcomes. With that business out of the way, i take my second shot from the Twins, using agility and committing Manual Dexterity from my hand. 5 vs 2 hits, the guy is down. I draw another card for Man Dex, it’s an Emergency Cache. When the host body dies, it takes one of the swarm cards on Joe’s copy of the Gentleman with it. A lot happened, but that was only one of four actions! With my second, i attempt to put another thing on the Unstable Warding, paying a horror to add Guts from my discard pile to the test. I pass and spend my last two clues to add the second resource to the Warding. Guts draws a Premonition, then shuffles back. With the last two actions i play Emergency Cache and Loner. I use Loner to open up another Classroom, finding a location with 2 clues and Shroud 7. When investigating there, the shroud is lowered by 2 for each action the investigator has remaining. So if i start with 3 actions next round (not a given in this scenario), i’d test against 3 on my first action. Seems doable, but also easy to disrupt if the Mythos phase costs me actions or an enemy appears. The location has a Haunted effect that spawns enemies if i fail there.

Finally, it’s Joe’s turn. He has a 2/2/2 enemy in his face and two actions to try and beat him. It’s a quick turn, i simply shoot the enemy, defeat it. Then move into the Corridors where i hope to spend my two clues for the third progress on the Warding next round.

Upkeep draws are Canteen and Scene of the Crime. Izzie is at two resources, Joe at 6.

Round 8

(1/6 doom)

Isabelle and Joe again draw the same encounter card. And it’s again an enemy. But it’s just a common Hired Thugs. At the risk of sounding cocky, the encounter deck will need to come up with something better if it wants to stop me right now. Both investigators engage their enemy and go on with their turns.

Joe shoots the guy unceremoniously with his first action. With his second action, he tries the test to spend clues for the third Warding. He tests combat, 4 vs 2 and improves his chances to 5 vs 2 by committing Scene of the Crime for its icon. He passes, both investigators are now out of clues. With his final action, he moves into the last classroom.

Another Victory location if i can get the four clues that remain on it. Due to a Forced effect on the location, Joe will need to draw an extra encounter card at the end of the next Mythos phase. Welp. I was asking for things to start trying to stop us. “Haunted – End your turn” is diabolical text in context with this Forced effect, by the way. Damn.

Izzie uses Cosmic Flame on her Thugs, going to 3 horror to commit Fearless(2) from the discard pile. 6 vs 2 oversucceeds. After spending a charge from the Flame the Thugs are down, she goes back to 1 horror on her and Fearless shuffles back into the deck. Lucky Cigarette Case draws a card, Second Sight. Arcane Initiate peeks at the top of the deck, but doesn’t find anything because as it turns out Auguries aren’t Spells. Investigating the location would now be against difficulty 5, so i think i got a better idea. I play Emergency Cache, then pass my turn with an action still left. That means i get an extra action next round due to that ability on the agenda!

Upkeep draws are Guts and M1911. Guts for days! Both investigators hold 7 resources.

Round 9

(2/6 doom)

Isabelle draws Temporal Stutter. Until end of the round, she’ll need to be careful not to fail tests or she faces the consequences. Fine. I’ll just not fail then.
Joe gets Weight of the Centuries again, threatening a bunch of damage scaling with actions taken. Since he has to draw an extra encounter card from the location effect, he then also pulls Rigged to Blow. Thing is, i don’t want to leave the location but with Weight of the Centuries on me i also don’t want to take damage. Time to let the chaos bag decide. I test 2 vs 2 and draw an autofail. Well then. Joe takes 2 damage, taking him to 3. If he were to fail his Weight of the Centuries by 3 at the end of the round, he’d be at death’s door. So… i don’t know. This location is rough, staying here to draw more encounter cards again next round seems unwise, there’s a pretty straight line visible that would lead to Joe getting defeated.

Okay, time to decide how to approach all of this. My plan is this now: I go with Isabelle first and have her advance the act. Then, depending on what happens, i decide whether i should go through the effort of cleaning those 4 clues from the Victory location… somehow.

Arcane Initiate finds a Blood Curse in my deck. Neat. Then Isabelle investigates. She has four actions in total, so three left after initiating the test, meaning the shroud of the location goes from 7 to 1. A test 4 vs 1 doesn’t even need the usual Guts. I pass, spend the charge from Second Sight and grab the two clues. I then Loner back to the Corridor and with my second action try to put the fourth thingy on the thingy. I do commit Guts for this, testing 6 vs 2 again. I pull -3, which isn’t the oversuccess i hoped for, but good enough to pass and advance the act. First, i do draw from the Guts though, some Bandages. Those might actually come in handy. Alright, back to the act advance:

We note that we “dispelled the ward” at doom 2 of agenda 2.
We didn’t unleash any chaos, so that middle part is ignored.
But we do face off with the Myriad Gentleman again. He’s at a Ritual Circle, where he put on his robe and wizard hat.

The new and final act has a simple goal for us: Clear all clues from the Ritual Circle. Even the game doesn’t care whether the Myriad Man survives or not. But let’s take a closer look at him.

Eight health, four combat. Alert and Retaliate. He can’t leave his Ritual Site. No abilities relating to his myriadness, but he can push us out of the circle with his attacks. Pretty sure i can take him unless the Ritual Circle has something nasty on it. To prepare I play Bandages, then end my turn with an action left that i will take over into the next round.

Joe… i don’t want to see you die here. Maybe we just let this one point of Victory go. He moves out of that dangerous location back into the Corridor with Izzie. There, he spends his second action to play his weakness Dead Ends, paying 5 resources. The scenario could be over any moment, this seems like a good moment to get rid of the thing. Then he too ends his turn with an action left, preserving it for next round. Joe has to test Weight of the Centuries 2 vs 2 and Isabelle commits Lucky Charm to the test to make it 3 vs 2. He draws a 0 and passes.

Upkeep draws are Soul Link and Bounty. 5 resources on Izzie, 3 on Joe.

Round 10

(3/6 doom) Both investigators have four actions this round, let’s make it a good one! The goal should be to take down the Gentleman this round, then clean the Ritual Circle the next.

The Mythos phase tries to stop us by throwing Time’s Ebb at Isabelle. That doesn’t even do anything this round! Ah, but next mythos phase i do need to lose an action or decide on someone to take an extra two encounter cards. So i will very likely sacrifice an action next round… if the Myriad Gentlemen is down then, that is all fine by me, i think.
Joe gets Beckoning of Oblivion which tests at the number of available actions. So it’s an intellect(4) test at the threat of up to 4 lost actions or horror. Yikes. I use Perception to test 6 vs 4 and succeed by exactsies. Perception draws Dorothy Simmons.

Before i decide who goes in first, i play Premonition and find an Elder Sign. Oh, that’s spicy! Joe definitely has the better Elder Sign effect, but Isabelle could use it to make her first pistol shot hit without any commits. That combat test is always a bit awkward… I think that’s a great idea actually.

Isabelle goes first, uses her first action to move into the Ritual Circle and engages the Myriad Gentleman.

Only two clues on the Circle, i could basically end this scenario at any point. Well, i could advance the act, which i assume will end the scenario. It’s a pretty safe bet though.
While at the Circle, i can’t end my turn prematurely, which is probably intended to force me to test against Alert, Retaliate or Haunted with all my actions. Speaking of Haunted, that effect makes my brain hurt. I assume the idea here is that my actions don’t refresh from one round to the next when this hits me? Seems like a rules nightmare… i think i will just try to not fail my investigation here so i don’t need to think about the implications of this effect too much.

Second action is activating the Twin 45s. The first shot is combat, testing 3 vs 4. I resolve the Elder Sign on Premonition which turns this into a hit and heals the only horror i have on me. That’s the first 2 damage for the Gentleman, 6 to go. I trigger the second shot on the pistols, testing agility. I take two horror to commit Soul Link from the discard pile and test 6 vs 4. I pull a 0 and hit again. Soul Link shuffles back, LCC draws me my second Longbow to hand.
Arcane Initiate takes a look at my deck and finds my Soul Link again. Ha. Soul Links for days.
I have two more actions and need to do 4 more damage. The autofail should literally be the only thing that is able to stop me here. I use Cosmic Flame and commit Blood Curse to the test. The damage from the Blood Curse is immediately healed by Bandages. I pull a 0 and pass. I spend the last charge from the Cosmic Flame and Myriad Gentleman is at 6 damage. Finally, i shoot the pistols again. I won’t be getting a second shot and i have to test combat, but at this point that seems irrelevant. I spend 2 horror and commit both Soul Links from my hand for +6 to the test. I hit and the Myriad Gentleman goes into the Victory Display.

Joe, can you play us out, please? Joe moves into the location and starts investigating. I don’t have any clue compression on hand, so i will need to pass two tests here or get frozen in time with that weird Haunted thing. Second action plays Dorothy, so i am testing 6 vs 4 as a baseline. Isabelle commits Second Sight from her hand to take it to 7 vs 4. I gain a clue and a card, my (upgraded) Magnifying Glass. I play the Mag Glass, discarding my M1911 in the process and use my fourth and last action to investigate again at 7 vs 4. I succeed again.

As i pick up the last clue from the Circle, the act immediately advances.

Resolution

We fight our way past the cultists to the Ritual Circle, with time breaking down around us, giving us flashes of other timelines. And also the revelation that this isn’t the only Ritual Circle, there’s two more.

In the campaign log, we note that we “broke the first circle” and that we did so on agenda 2, with 3 doom on the clock. Then we move to resolution 3.

Trying to push through to the other circles, we are overwhelmed and have to retreat. Backed towards a rift in reality, caused by our sabotage of the circle, there is only one way out… through the rift.

We step into a portal into the future and note as much in the campaign log as well. Then, we have to adjust our chaos bag. Instead of zero cultists and two tablets, we now have two cultists and one Elder Thing. And zero tablets. Also still our three skulls, of course.

The campaign log also gets an entry signifying that we “eliminated the High Priest.” Well yeah. If more Myriad Gentlemen show up, we’ll eliminate those too!

As for experience, we got three victory locations and three victory enemies for a total of 6xp. That’s not bad. We had to leave one Victory location on the board unclaimed, but i believe that was the right call.

Spending XP

I am surprised how well this scenario went to be honest. There were some moments where a different decision could have caused problems or where an untimely -4 or autofail could have complicated things. But especially Izzie was just always in control as long as a test was involved. We are still doing a lot of uncomfortable testing of just 2 over difficulty here and there, but we are at least able to do that consistently. Well, except for Joe with his treachery tests, of course.

For Izzie, i make this simple. I buy two Permanents: Relic Hunter and Charisma. Relic Hunter allows me to keep my survival accessories in play together with LCC. And Charisma right now lets me keep both Aleksey and Initiate in play. Those two alone wouldn’t be enough, but i do plan on getting some more allies with the next round of xp. Maybe it would make more sense to get the allies first, then buy Charisma after the next scenario, but honestly i am pretty happy with where Izzie’s deck is right now.

For Joe, i will be getting one Stock Ammo Reload. Now that i upgraded my M1911s, it seems worth it to double up on them. In exchange i cut a Machete, those seem remarkably bad against all these big enemies and Myriad Men. I also find that i am severely lacking some clue compression. While the upgraded cards don’t really have a whole lot i can do there, i can at least upgrade my Deductions to level 2, to keep them in hand for the occasional 4 clue location. I was also genuinely considering paying XP to grab level 0 Fingerprint Kits… maybe next time. I could see myself tossing the other Machete and the Hand-Crank out for them.

NEXT UP:

See you for scenario 4: Unstuck.