Ages Unwound: Session Zero

Intro

I want to do another series of gameplay reports where you can follow along a campaign that I am playing. Basically, a Let’s Play series, but in written form instead of a video.
The challenge is this: Beat Ages Unwound with decks built from chapter 2 only. Or, more likely, reach the final scenario of Ages Unwound, then get clobbered to death there because that’s how every play of this custom campaign has gone for me so far! Or maybe i get clobbered way earlier, who knows. Either way, this should be a good bit of distraction!

Ages Unwound

Ages Unwound is a custom campaign by Olivia Juliet. It has seven scenarios and follows a plot where you get involved in time travel shenanigans and cultist activity. It’s very good. I have played this campaign before, so it’s not a blind play… but i also didn’t dissect this campaign the way i do with the official ones, so i wouldn’t say that i am overly familiar with everything in it either. It’s also been a long while since i last played it.

Some things that make Ages Unwound stand out for me in a way that makes it a good pick for a series such as this are:

• It’s difficult. Like, TFA-tier difficult. I want this to be a challenge and if this ends in me crashing and burning, then that’s a fair enough result too.
• It’s low maintenance. Easy setups, relatively simple mechanics. Ages doesn’t indulge in the sort of overwrought mechanical complexity that some other fan creations (and real talk, the official campaigns at the tail end of chapter 1) are bogged down with. Playing two-handed and also doing a write-up at the same time is already stressful enough without additional tedium.
• It’s novel. Despite its simplicity, it does some things that are notably different from what official campaigns do, making it a unique experience that is worth showing off.
• I really like the campaign and its design. I usually don’t feature custom content on this blog in the same way i do the official stuff because my dissections of the encounter cards always comes with (sometimes scathing) critique as well. That is fine for official stuff that we pay for – but when it comes to free stuff that someone poured their time into with no other expectation than getting a thank you for it, i would feel dirty ending up going over their encounter sets and being like “Meh, boring.” or nitpicking on things i would do differently. Luckily, Ages Unwound features some of my favorite encounter design (both official and fanmade) and i have no issues highlighting something that i like!

Notable mechanics as i remember them to keep in mind for deckbuilding in Ages Unwound are:

• Turn length is all messed up. The concept of time is all screwy and as a result, so is our action economy. Some turns will have 4 actions, some will have 2. Others might have 1 or 5. We might skip a turn to take a bonus turn later. Maybe we don’t draw an encounter card this round, but three next turn. There are going to be tight spots where consistency alone won’t cut it.
• Chunky Elites. While Ages won’t have you fight constantly, there are some real big boy enemies in this campaign that you need to be able to spike.
• Swarm. At the same time, the swarming keyword is a thing, so we got enemies across the whole range.
• Self-sufficiency is good. Not just because the maps might get big which can make splitting up super valuable, but also as a result of the action count per turn being somewhat unreliable. If your fighter ends up with just one action in their round, it pays off if the other investigator can also defend themselves.

Investigators and Decks

For investigators, i will be prioritizing flexibility and go with Joe Diamond and Isabelle Barnes. Izzie is going to be the lead investigator.

Joe Diamond

(This deck on arkham.build)

A pretty straightforward split between combat and seeking, as one would expect from Joe. The deck runs an array of allies, primed for picking up Charisma at my earliest convenience. Aside from the allies, this deck is fairly cheap, Bounty and ECache should easily be able to cover everything. The plan is simple: Find one of the tools, find one of the weapons, do each job at skill 5 and hopefully that’s good enough. Along the way hope that 7 health and sanity is enough to cover for getting pelted by damage and horror from treacheries and scenario effects.

Isabelle Barnes

(This deck on arkham.build)

I’ve been cooking a bit more here, most notably I wasn’t able to resist the lure of Collector + Lucky Cigarette Case. LCC should be pretty spectacular for Izzie, so i hope this works out. I am leaning towards the clue side with this deck at the start, with Second Sight, Will of the Cosmos and Look What I Found all able to help Joe with the clue effort. Cosmic Flame and her signature are the only weapons in the deck right now, but i do plan on picking up a Longbow rather sooner than later. For that reason, there’s also nothing in her handslots. Another thing i plan for is Relic Hunter so i can have two out of LCC, Lucky Charm and Canteen in play. Usually i’d avoid Ward of Protection for Izzie as she needs her sanity for her ability and skills can often do a similar job when they allow skill tests to pass… but Ages does have some real bastard cards in it and having an easy out for them is worth it.

The Campaign

I’ll be playing Standard, two-handed solo. Everything i write will be done immediately after i take an action. Basically, i will constantly switch between taking an action and writing up the consequences and my thoughts as i go into the next action. So expect trains of thoughts, misunderstandings, surprises and all the other good stuff. Obviously that also means i will spoil all of Ages Unwound. It’s basically just like you’d watch a campaign playthrough on Youtube.

Links to the individual play reports:

• Night of Fire
• The Myriad Gentleman
• A World Torn Down
• Unstuck
• A Year To Plan
• A World Torn Down, Again
• Time Runs Out

[EDIT: Hey. BK from the future here! After finishing the campaign, i also did a short deck review. Which you can find here: Post-Campaign Deck Check]

Some Links related to custom campaigns

Want to play this campaign yourself? You can!

The PnP files can be found on Mysterious Chanting.

If you want to send this to a printing service, there are two major options to make this easier for you. US folk might want to look into Inexorable Fate which can streamline the process of ordering from makeplayingcard.com considerably. Outside of the US, the shipping costs from mpc.com are kind of rough, but there is an alternative that is based in Poland. It’s called MBPrint where ordering is simple for any projects that were already uploaded there. This is where i got my cards for Ages and a couple others and i can recommend them.
There are other services, but i can’t comment on them in a way that’d be useful. MPC.com and MBPrint are the two proven ones in the community.

Finally, if you are interested in a review of this fanmade campaign (or others), then you can check out the Karkham Horror blog which covers Ages Unwound and many others.

Cheers o/