Ages Unwound: The Myriad Gentleman

Setup

After surviving the attempt on our life, we start researching who has it out for us. We find out that the Sheldon gang was likely behind it, and also that the Sheldons recently have found a new benefactor, one Joseph Baxter. Time to pay the man an unannounced visit. The scenario starts just as we scaled a wall and let ourselves drop onto Baxter’s lawn.

There is some immediate blowback from the decision not to take the package that was offered to us in the previous Interlude. Since we had to do the legwork to get on Baxter’s trail ourselves instead of just having it served to us, the agenda is going to start with 1 doom already on it.

Other than that, the setup is again minimalistic. We fetch 5 encounter sets: Myriad Gentlemen, the scenario specific set of course. Shifting Reality we’ve not seen yet. Unravelling Years makes a return from the previous scenario (it’s the one with the little tombstone, like Memories Fade to Dust). And we fetch Agents of Yog-Sothoth and Locked Doors from the Core Set. I considered using chapter 2 cards in their stead, but ultimately went with the original encounter cards. If i am not mistaken, this is the only time the campaign reaches for the Core encounters.

Four locations start in play, a handful others are set aside. Most of the scenario specific Myriad Gentlemen set is set aside as well. And that’s it, we are ready to roll. There is a small rules blurb about “Copies of Enemies” to read and it informs us that copies are created by using the top card of a player deck and putting it into play, then treating it as if it was the original enemy. If such a copy gets defeated, the player card goes back under its owners deck. Basically, it’s like swarm but they are simply treated as their own enemy card.

Like the setup as a whole, our starting Lawn location is once again dead simple. 1 shroud, two clues, an option to resign. It is connected to all three of the other ones around it: Stables, a Hedge Maze and an Ornate Fountain.

The token reference is somewhat spoilery, referring to Myriad enemies and to creating copies of “The Myriad Gentleman”. None of this matters immediately, but will soon enough of course. The cultist is only a -1 and deals damage to a Myriad enemy, so it’s even a good thing… however remember that due to our decision in the Interlude, we don’t have any cultists in the bag anymore. And instead have a second tablet. Presumably that would have been reversed had we accepted the Strange Assistance. A worse chaos bag and a doom? Talk about some immediate impact from our choices!
I’ll note also that Elder Things are still not part of the campaign. As for test modifiers… those seem very weak. The -2 on the tablet we should be able to routinely beat and the skull is only a situational -3 which isn’t all that horrible either.

The act and agenda decks do again have three cards each, promising more twists and turns. But their initial state is yet again as basic as it could be… No abilities on either of the cards, just a doom threshold of 6 and the requirement to find 6 clues which we may spend at the end of a round to advance the act. Guess I’ll just start investigating … according to the token reference we’ll be able to meet this Myriad Dude from act 2 on. Shouldn’t take long.

Round 1

(1/6 doom)

Starting hands after mulligans aren’t too bad.

Isabelle: Cosmic Flame, Twin 45s, Aleksey, Ward of Protection, Guts
Joe: Mag Glass, Mag Glass, Hand-Crank, Machete, Insidious Truths

Joe will be able to fill both his roles as usual. All those investigation tools are a bit overkill though. Izzie is locked into fighting for now, she didn’t draw any investigation support. That being said, dropping Cosmic Flame and Aleksey early, then starting to save for the Twins is a solid plan! Considering that this scenario features quasi-swarming enemies, having some extra firepower seems wise.

Isabelle starts us out, playing Cosmic Flame. I consider just trusting in the weak chaos bag to test 2 vs 1 for clues, but ultimately decide to instead take a resource and play out Aleksey. Seems like the more solid route that has me ready to brawl right away.

Joe plays out a Mag Glass, then investigates twice for two easy clues, drawing a Deduction with his investigator ability in the process. With his final action, he plays Machete.

Upkeep draws are Gather Intel and Hunter’s Instinct. Izzie now has 1 resource, Joe has 2.

Round 2

(2/6 doom)

Our first Mythos phase of the game has two treacheries for us.

Isabelle draws Skills of Another Life, a crazy card that makes us discard two random cards from hand… but then we draw one of the top 3 cards of Joe’s deck into Isabelle’s hand. Yes, this bends regular rules about card ownership, but we are in custom content territory now where things can get a bit funkier. By the way, if you are a solo player and wondering how this works in solo, there is a bit about constructing a small generic 5-class “dummy” deck following some basic guidelines at the campaign start that will act as a stand-in for another player for effects like this. Definitely a mechanic where playing actual multiplayer (or two-handed solo like I do) hits a bit better, though! Anyways. I like the cards in Izzie’s hand, so i Ward of Protection this right away. I am a bit miffed to use Ward right on the first card that pops up, but i got good stuff in hand and i don’t want to lose them for whatever random card in Joe’s deck. Izzie gets her first horror and puts it on Aleksey, pays her only resource and uses up the Ward… maybe i will eventuall get to dig it out again with Hunter’s Instict? Sounds like something that’d end up being worthwhile.
Meanwhile, Joe’s Memories Fade to Dust. His Mag Glass doesn’t help with the intellect test, so i commit the Hand-Crank from hand to test 5 vs 3 and pass.

Joe uses his first action to move into the Stables. Stables is a shroud 3 location with two clues, but to investigate here, i have to use my combat skill instead of intellect. Joe might be the Seeker best equipped for this turn of events, but even he can only test 4 vs 3 here. Well, might as well try. First attempt pulls a -2 and fails. Second attempt pulls a tablet which counts as a -2 and fails. Welp. Turn over.

Isabelle can’t really do a whole lot here. She could test the Stables at 3 vs 3, but that seems dodgy. I consider just taking 3 resources here which would allow me to play out the Twins next round. But that doesn’t seem super great either, so i just draw a card with my first action, to see if that opens up any new ideas or maybe even finds an ECache. It’s an Unexpected Courage. Useful, sure. Immediate impact… not really. So i draw another card. Soul Link. Same deal, really. For my last action i could either move to Joe, draw another card or take a resource. I decide to move to Joe, that way he can Gather Intel should she draw an enemy and she can potentially help his treachery tests with her skills.

Upkeep draws are Timely Intervention and the second Machete.

This was not exactly a super productive round. Let’s hope the next one goes better.

Round 3

(3/6 doom)

Isabelle draws another treachery from that crazy Shifting Realities set. Here’s Aspects of Infinity, a Power with Surge that has us select two out of four options. Each option has a good and a bad side and we basically have to execute one good side and one bad one. We can take or heal 2 damage or horror, we can lose or gain 2 actions and/or we can draw an extra encounter card on top of the Surge or lose Surge. Okay, so let’s see. Since i have Aleksey in play and was able to buy two horror healing cards before the scenario, i feel pretty okay with taking two horror here, even though Aleksey can’t help with it right now. He still is carrying last round’s horror around.(*) That’s the bad side chosen. For the good side, i could either gain two actions or stop the card from surging. Since i don’t have anything super good to do with my actions right now, i choose to lose Surge. In the end, the treachery ended up costing Izzie 2 horror, which is not great, but also not terrible.
Joe draws Offer of Power from the Agents of Yog. I either draw 2 cards and take 2 doom or i take 2 horror. I want to get my clues before the agenda advances, so the doom is out of the question for now. Joe takes 2 horror, just like Izzie did.

(*) Edit from the future: Reading this back later, i am realizing now I forgot to heal the horror from Aleksey last turn. I could have soaked one extra horror from the treachery here with him. Oops.

And with that it’s back to the issue of the clues on the Stables. I don’t really want to use my Soul Link or Courage here, so maybe i should just continue brute-forcing it with Joe? He’s bound to succeed eventually, right? There’s actually a lot of tokens in the bag that win here. Fine, let’s go.

Joe investigates, 4 vs 3. First attempt pulls a -1. Success! I gain a clue and a card, Emergency Cache. For my second attempt, i commit the Machete from my hand and test 5 vs 3. I indeed draw a -2, which this time passes. With his final action, Joe moves to the Fountain. It’s another 3 shroud, 2 clues location. Its ability lets me spend an action to heal a horror and a damage, once per round. That seems actually pretty good for a location based heal!
At the start of Izzie’s turn, Aleksey heals his horror. She follows Joe to the fountain. There is a world here where i use the skills in my hand to gain these two clues and advance end of this round… it would cost a lot though and be a bunch of effort to achieve something that Joe can do super easily next round with a Deduction. So instead, with her final two actions, she does some more setup since there are also still no enemies around to fight. She takes a resource action and plays Hunter’s Instinct. That way, once an enemy shows up, she’ll regain her Ward. Seems good!

Upkeep draw for Izzie is Loner, but Joe does get his random basic weakness, Pursued. If enemies show up, it results in horror for him unless someone discards the thing for two actions. I probably should get on that before we got swarm-like enemies around. Isabelle has 1 resource, Joe has 4. Both have two horror on them.

Round 4

(4/6 doom)

I’d really like to get the final two clues this round, so this better not be anything too awful.

Locked Door. Solid attempt at stalling, game. Sure, i’ll break through a Locked Door first.
Then it’s Joe’s turn to draw Skills of Another Life and this time there’s no Ward to prevent it. I discard two random cards and get lucky: I discard Mag Glass and ECache, which would be the two i would’ve discarded as well if i had been given a choice. Joe then gets to draw one of the top three cards from Izzie’s deck: Look What I Found, Guts or Soul Link. I decide to take the Soul Link, as i can use that to break through the Locked Door.

Joe spends his first action knocking on the Locked Door, committing Soul Link (which goes into Izzie’s discard). This costs me a horror, but the 7 vs 4 test succeeds. For my second action, i investigate with Deduction. It’s 5 vs 3 and i commit an Unexpected Courage from Izzie to take it to “anything but the autofail”. I pass, collect two clues and draw Scene of the Crime for my ability. With Joe’s final action, I just draw another card and gain a new ECache. If only Isabelle could draw hers sometime.

Speaking of Izzie, her first course of action is to discard Joe’s weakness for him. Then she just takes a resource as we wait for the end of round.

Upkeep draws are Premonition and Perception. They go to 3 resources and 5 resources.

End of the round, we spend our 6 clues and advance the act. A bunch of stuff happens!

The Myriad Gentleman finally shows himself. He is however not put into play, he just lingers around the agenda and instead we will for now only meet his proxies that are spawned by abilities. One such effect happens now, spawning a copy of him with each investigator. The lead investigator would get even more copies on them if “he was ready for us“. Which he isn’t, i assume because we got here before the agenda ran out. Phew. Anyways, both investigators are now engaged to the top card of their deck which represents a copy of the Gentlesir. Greaaaat. Note to self: Don’t forget to play Gather Intel once i am done with all of this. As one would expect, the Gentleman isn’t super terrifying on his own, but starts to ramp up if multiples of him are in play. He also has abilities that are supposed to do a similar job to what the Swarm rules do with regards to spill over damage and multi-evades.

We also get access to the Gentleman’s mansion now, six locations in total, accessible through the Maze or the Lawn. Here’s the full location grid for the rest of the scenario, with connections represented through adjacency, except in one case where i had to use an arrow to help out.

All Myriad treacheries from the set aside area enter the encounter deck now, a total of eight of them. Also the encounter discard pile shuffles back which was the style at the time.

Finally, a look at the new act: We are to find 8 clues now and bring them to the Landing, in the middle of the mansion. We are also informed that any enemy search effects now spawn a Myriad Gentleman instead.

Alright, intermission over! Two enemies in play, stuff is starting to cook. Time for a Mythos phase to crank up the heat. WAIT WAIT WAIT… actually, i play Gather Intel before that happens. Drawing two cards: M1911 and Counterattack. Oh, that Counterattack is not bad here, these guys are only 1 health after all! Alright, now we can continue. WAIT WAIT WAIT… actually, Isabelle also uses Hunter’s Instinct to return Ward to her hand. Alright, that was it for real now.

Round 5

(5/6 doom) One more round before the agenda advances. The goal is defeating the two gents on us and making it inside the house? Sure, that sounds achievable. Unless…

Yith Observer? I suppose that is one way to keep us busy a bit longer. How inconvenient. Well, Izzie engages the big guy, i guess.
Joe draws Locked Door, but since there are currently no clues in play anywhere, i get to attach it wherever. I park the Locked Door on the Stables.

Joe attacks the Gent engaged with him, swinging the Machete. The test pulls a skull which is a -3 now because a Myriad enemy is at our location. At 6 vs 3, it still passes however and i use the exhaust to deal two damage, one of which i am allowed to spill over to the Gent engaged with Izzie. Both are defeated and i get my cards back under my decks. Joe then engages the Yith and with his final action plays Insidious Truths, pitching ECache and M1911. The test is 8 vs 4 and succeeds, dealing 3 damage. Unless something really weird happens, the Yith will die to Counterattack in the enemy phase. I got to say, that was pretty clean.

Isabelle plays Loner with her first action. I use it to move into the Hedge Maze, just in case it’s a Victory location i at least want to know about it before moving on.

Okay wow, that is indeed a Victory location and it’s not an easy one. I don’t think we currently have the means to cleanly just grab the two clues and move on. Something to keep in mind for later and grab on our way out.
With her second action, she breaches the mansion, entering the Entrance Hall. 3 Shroud, but no clues. A Forced effect that says that after revealing the location, at the end of the round, two copies of Myriad Man spawn here. Notably, the guys do not have Hunter, so if i were to use my final action to move out of here, they’d not follow. Or i could just stay, so I can defeat them next round. I think that’s the better plan, actually. For the third time this scenario, I simply take a resource action and wait.

In the enemy phase, the Yith attacks Joe, but gets Counterattack‘ed to death. Yith Observer enters the Victory Display.

Upkeep draws are Arcane Initiate and Logan Hastings. Izzie is at 3 resources, Joe at 2. Here’s a quick look at the current play area:

At the end of the round, two Myriad Gentlemen spawn in the Entrance Hall and immediately engage Isabelle.

Round 6

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

The agenda advances!

As expected, this is where we could have picked up the “he is ready for you” thing, had we been too slow. Instead, we just get another copy of Myriad Boy on each of us. It really pays off that both of the investigators are able to fight. Notable development here is that Isabelle is now engaged by three of these nerds, so they do get +1 to combat and agility as per their gametext.
The new agenda threshold is 6 again. I still need 8 clues and also need them in a specific place. That’s not going to be trivial if i want to get it done before the final agenda flip.

But of course that is not all, as we also have a regular Mythos phase.

Another Offer of Power, this time for Izzie. I take the two horror, one for Izzie, one for Aleksey. I briefly considered Warding the card to save a sanity, but i actually want to keep the resource so i can finally play my Twins next round…
Joe meanwhile goes Out of Phase. He fails a willpower test by 4 and as a result will not be able to interact with Izzie’s threat area (and vice versa) until the end of the round. Also, he has to spawn another Myriad Gentleman on him. That means he won’t be able to exhaust the Machete to kill both at once. Thankfully, they only have 1 health so this is not as bad as it could have been…
Before the Investigation phase starts, i play Premonition as a way to make sure i don’t lose an extra charge to a skull when i use Cosmic Flame now. I reveal a -2. Sure, that works.

Aleksey heals the horror on him while Izzie starts her round by using Cosmic Flame on one of the Gentlemen engaged with her. The test is 4 vs 4, i know i will draw a -2, so i commit Guts to pass. I do spend a charge on Flame to kill two Gentlemen. Guts draws me Second Sight which is an interesting option. But directly competes with the Twins for my limited resources and right now it looks like i need the combat capabilities. For the final, now solitary gentleman, i test Cosmic Flame again, 4 vs 3. I want to draw more cards, so i commit Guts from the discard for 6 vs 3. I succeed and defeat the last dude. My draw for this Guts is Canteen. Oh, that’s really good and i want that in play even if it puts the Twins (and Second Sight) out of reach again. With my third action, i play Canteen and immediately use one of the supplies on it to go from 4 to 2 horror. I decide against using Loner to open up another location, to avoid more shenanigans.

Joe might not be able to exhaust his Machete right now, but he can still use it as a Knife. He attacks twice, with 5 vs 3, hoping to take out both of the enemies in his threat area. The first test passes with a 0, the second one autofails. Oh well, one down at least. Nothing else to do than swinging a third time and hope to get the other Gent as well. He passes with -2 and there are once again no Myriad Guys on the board. That being said, Joe is out of actions again and still at the Ornate Fountain, two locations away from the Entrance Hall. This clone boy is really good at stalling us out!

Upkeep draws are ECache for Izzie and Bounty for Joe. That ECache really opens up some plays, very happy to see that! There might be a Second Sight in Izzie’s future after all which would be grand, considering how stalled out Joe is. Bounty is looking less exciting, these enemies all have only 1 health.
Regular income brings both investigators to 3 resources.
End of round, Joe discards Out of Phase.

Round 7

(1/6 doom) Let’s see what fresh horrors await us…

Isabelle draws the other Locked Door, which attaches to the Hedge Maze. Not great. If i eventually want those two clues and the Victory, that’ll take some effort. I consider Ward of Protection here, but decide against it – the encounter deck has worse things in store and i should stay ready for that.
Joe draws once again Skills from Another Life and has to discard two random cards from his hand. This time i get less lucky and have to discard Perception and Logan, the exact two cards i would’ve kept if i had the choice. Ouch. I do get to draw a card from Izzie’s deck again however, so Joe gets to choose between Timely Intervention, LWIF and Arcane Initiate. Having Timely Intervention on call as Joe sounds amazing, i grab that and shuffle the other two back.

It’s finally time to explore the mansion a bit. Izzie uses Loner to dash into the Kitchen. The Kitchen is a Victory location (yay!) with only 2 shroud (yay!) and 4 clues (yay!). When revealed, two Myriad Gentlecopies spawn there however (boo!). There’s also a location ability that allows discarding a Gentlemen for each oversuccess on a willpower(3) test. I basically would have to pass a willpower(5) test to get rid of my two enemies in one go. That sounds like a good opportunity to save a charge on the Cosmic Flame, actually. So my first action is attempting this test, committing Soul Link (parking the horror on Aleksey). I pull an Elder Sign, which heals a horror. I don’t mind that! Of course this also means i oversucceed by enough to discard both nerds that just spawned on me. With the remaining two actions i play ECache and Second Sight. In the back of my mind i start formulating a plan to eventually move into the Hedge Maze with Izzie, discard the door, grab the clues with Second Sight and move out again wih Loner, all in one round. Not the worst plan!

Joe’s turn is simple: He moves three times and joins Izzie in the Kitchen.

Upkeep draws are Guts and Lab Assistant. Izzie now has 3 resources, Joe has 4.

Round 8

(2/6 doom)
Will I be able to clean out the kitchen this round? Not if the Myriad Gentleman has a say in it!

We are finally getting some of those Myriad treacheries that were shuffled into the encounter deck on the act flip.
Isabelle draws They Just Keep Coming, which spawns a Gentleman on each of three specified locations if they are revealed. Only the Entrance Hall is revealed right now, so i get off easy here, with only one Gentleman spawning.
Joe then gets Not Welcome Here, which moves that freshly spawned Gentleman to one of us and then spawns additional copies until the chosen investigator has three of them in their threat area. I choose to have Isabelle engage them, so Joe doesn’t have to ineffectively wave around his Machete again. Isabelle uses Hunter’s Instinct, recovering ECache from her discard pile.

Joe starts the round playing Scene of the Crime and collects two clues. Then plays Lab Assistant, drawing Perception and Dorothy. Finally, i have him investigate the Kitchen once, at 5 vs 2. It succeeds, giving him the third clue and drawing him an M1911.

Aleksey heals. Isabelle uses her Cosmic Flame on her gentlegroup of attackers and i commit Guts from my hand to make the test 6 vs 4. It succeeds and after spending a charge from the Flame two copies disappear. Guts draws Bandages. I attack the remaining Gentleman with the Flame again, committing Guts from my discard as well. 6 vs 3 also connects and the guy is done. Guts reshuffles and draws me my other ECache. With one more action to go, i use Second Sight to investigate 4 vs 2. I draw -4 and fail. I could turn it into a pass with Timely Intervention, but that doesn’t seem worth it, so i just end my turn here.

Upkeep draws are Manual Dexterity and Gather Intel. Izzie now has 4 resources and two ECache in hand! Meanwhile Joe sits on 1 resource and has a Bounty in hand which is decidedly less great.

Round 9

(3/6 doom) Okay, 3 more rounds to collect 5 clues and bring them to the Landing if i want this done before the agenda flips. I am not super optimistic about this. Unless i really am able to get some stuff done this round, any bit of disruption could easily stop me from getting there in time.

Isabelle’s encounter draw is Aspects of Infinity, so she has to choose 1 good and 1 bad thing again. I decide to go with “Take 2 horror” and “Gain 2 actions.”. One horror goes on me, one on Aleksey. That man has done work this scenario! Aspects does surge into Ex Uno Plures, another Myriad card. An agility test threatens to spawn up to 3 new copies of the Gentleman. I want none of that, so i commit Manual Dexterity and pass. Man Dex draws me Will of the Cosmos. Oh, maybe i can manage to play that twice to clear the Hedge Maze without evan having to go there! In the player window opened up by the test, i also use my Canteen to clear all horror from Isabelle.
Joe’s encounter card, Fragmented Existence, is a weird one. A willpower test and if i fail it, i take 2 damage and that’s it. However, if i pass i get this card in my threat area and that’s actually a good thing because i can use it for a testless emergency evade against every enemy i am engaged with. Using that evade will draw an encounter card, but it could potentially save my ass. Joe draws a 0 for his 2 vs 3, so he could actually succeed this with the Timely Intervention he nabbed from Izzie earlier. I do decide against it though, i think it’s better to keep it in hand in case Joe needs to pass his own Ex Uno Plures or similar in the future. He takes his first two damage.

Joe tries to investigate the final clue off of the Kitchen, but autofails. The second attempt succeeds, giving the clue and drawing an Overpower. He then moves into the Parlor with his last action.

Revealing this location spawns another two Myriad Copycats, but due to the text on the location, they don’t engage Joe yet. They will do this at the start of next round, but if things go as i want, they won’t be alive for that. Parlor has another 2 clues, at shroud 3. And another point of Victory if i clear it.

But first things first, let’s murder some dudes. Isabelle starts her turn with 5 actions and Aleksey heals. She moves into the Parlor and with her second action, attacks a Gentlecopy. I commit Arcane Initiate to test 5 vs 3 and succeed. Spending my last charge on Flame, i burn both of the enemies. Action #3 is used to play the Twin 45s. Action #4 is used to investigate with Second Sight. The test is 4 vs 3 and i pass with a skull (-1). I spend the charge from the spell to gain both clues. With her final action, Izzie plays ECache. Then she uses Loner to get back into the Entrance Hall. Good turn!

In upkeep, Joe draws a Hand-Crank, but Izzie gets her random basic weakness Lethal Curiosity. She has to pass a willpower(4) test or take a bunch of damage and/or drop clues. This would be fairly horrible right now and just in general is a disaster waiting to happen this campaign. Aleksey and I take two horror to commit Soul Link from my discard pile, testing 7 vs 4. I pass.
Izzie goes to 4 resources, Joe to 2.

Round 10

(4/6 doom) Last turn was productive, i might actually be able to make it before the agenda flips!

Isabelle draws Accelerated Decay and has to put it on an asset of hers. That’s actually kind of interesting, i could use this to get rid of something after i put doom on it with Will of the Cosmos… I attach the treachery to my Canteen which only has one charge left.
Joe draws Ex Uno Plures and might find himself accosted by a bunch of dudes here. The test 2 vs 3 reveals a -1 and i use Timely Intervention to pass by exactsies. Spending Timely Intervention here basically defeated two Gentlemen, that seems very much worth it.

Isabelle wants to use Will of the Cosmos this round, so she uses Loner to move into Landing in search of clues. She finds 2 of them there, on a shroud 2 location. The Landing has an ability that allows shooting into the Entrance Hall, cute. Also cute: Some player count difficulty scaling for 3+ players that i get to ignore. Anyways, i think i can do better with my autosuccess clue card than a 2 shroud location, so i use my first action to move right past the Landing. The Study is sealed and i can’t enter it, so i move into the Master Bedroom. And bingo, that one is a 4 shroud with 2 clues, Victory and some annoying abilities.

With my second action i play Will of the Cosmos, putting a doom on my Canteen and taking a clue from the Bedroom and the Hedge Maze. I realize that both of my investigators now have 4 clues and i can advance the act this round! That kind of crept up on me. So while i am tempted to finish off this location now, i move back to the Landing with my final action. I use my canteen to heal the last horror from me, then discard it to Accelerated Decay along with the doom on it.

Joe moves twice, joining Isabelle at the Landing. He investigates 5 vs 2, passes and picks up a clue and an Overpower.

Upkeep draws are Guts and Vicious Blow. Joe has 9 cards in hand, but thanks to Lab Ass that is allowed.

At the end of the round, i pay 8 of my 9 clues (leaving one on Isabelle) and advance the act. I run into the real Myriad Gentleman now, the guy the others are just copies of.

We reveal the study and The Master of the House spawns there alongside two of his reflections. He’s relatively dangerous and can hit quite hard if enough of his goons are still on the board. Thankfully i have so far cleaned up all of them. Still, i probably will have to evade him for a round or two while i finish him off.

Here’s the Study:

Myriad Prime is not leaving his study and while we are there, new copies of him spawn there. Our objective to finish the scenario is actually just to spend 4 clues in the study, so we could just ignore him. But we are of course going to take him out and also clean all the Victory locations. Scenario 1 I missed some XP, i want to make up for that now.

Round 11

(5/6 doom) I hope to draw an enemy here, so i can recover Will of the Cosmos and play it while the doom doesn’t matter because next round we’ll advance anyways!

I don’t get my wish. Isabelle draws Offer of Power, once again taking 2 horror, sharing the load with Aleksey. Joe gets Skills from Another Life again, for the third time this game. His random discards are the two Overpowers. Boo. He then gets to choose between three of Izzies cards again: Bandages, Will of the Cosmos, Lucky Charm. Hahaha, that works too. I grab Will of the Cosmos. What a silly game this is.

Joe’s turn is simple then. Move into the bedroom. Play Will of the Cosmos. Back out of the bedroom. I grab the final clue from the Bedroom and from the Hedge Maze this way. I put a doom on the Mag Glass.

So anyway, i started blasting. Izzie moves into the Study and engages the whole gang in there. Hunter’s Instinct returns Premonition to my hand, then discards itself. I play Premonition, revealing a skull which is a -3 with all these Myriad dudes in my face. Not great! That means a Man Dex from my discard wouldn’t be good enough to evade Myriad Prime but i do have a Soul Link in the discard as well. I take 2 horror to recur Soul Link as i use my second action on an evade of the big man. The skull applies, the test passes and the Gentleman is exhausted. Soul Link shuffles back into the deck.
With the final action, Izzie uses her pistols. I don’t really have anything great to commit to the combat test. While i do have a Courage in the discard, her ability is once per round. So it’s just a 3 vs 3… and i pull an Elder Sign. Woah. I was fishing for a -1 so that i can Timely Intervention the test to pass, but that works as well! Both copies fall and i heal a horror. I can now take my second shot if i want, using agility against the Elite enemy. It’d be 3 vs 4, but i do still have that Timely Intervention, right. Sure, why not. I commit Bandages to make it a 4 vs 4 and pull a -3. Fiiiine. I miss.

In the enemy phase, the Master of the House readies and engages Isabelle.

Upkeep draws are Look What I Found and Bounty.

At the end of the round, the Forced effect on the Study spawns a Myriad Boy in Izzie’s care.

Round 12

(7/6 doom) -> (0/5 doom)

Time for the final agenda.

Reality gets all fucky-wucky and as a result, each investigator has to discard 3 cards or take 2 horror. I discard ECache, Will of the Cosmos and Guts with Izzie and I discard Hand-Crank and both Bountys with Joe. Then both look at six cards from the other investigator’s deck and draw 2 of them. Joe actually only has 5 cards left in his deck. Two of those are his signature and his weakness, leaving Izzie to pick two out of Deduction, Insidious Truths and Psych Student. I take Truths and the Student. Joe looks at Bandages, LWIF, Lucky Cigarette Case, Cosmic Flame, Second Sight and Blood Curse. I pick LWIF and Blood Curse for him. Also, it’s been a while since I’ve shown you a snap of the play area and since a lot of stuff has happened recently, this is a good moment. Behold:

The new and final agenda has 5 doom left for us. While it’s active, all Myriad treacheries gain surge… which is the sort of bullshit that is signaling pretty strongly that we need to get out of here. But first: encounter draws!

And Isabelle draws the other Yith Observer. Because being engaged to the Prime Myriad and one of his lesser selfs wasn’t enough apparently. Well, time to crack your knuckles and earn some Victory, i guess!
Joe draws Accelerated Decay and puts it on the Lab Assistant. Sure, that’s no big deal.

Alright, so Joe. He has three cards left in his deck, one of which is his signature that would draw the other two cards if i were to get it now. And one is his weakness. In other words, if i take a draw now, i got a 2 out of 3 chance to get my weakness in hand. The third card is a Deduction. Maybe i want to draw those things before joining the Study? Reshuffle my deck and get the weakness out of the way before i finish the scenario? I am actually not really sure what’s correct here, but after some thinking in circles i just decide to go for it and investigate the Landing. That way i get the clue and a card and know more. It’d also give me my fourth clue, meaning i can end the scenario at will if shit really hits the fan with back to back to back Myriad treacheries surging into each other or some nonsense like that. So, first action i investigate, 5 vs 2, and succeed. I gain a clue and the draw from my ability does indeed give me my signature which triggers to also draw Deduction and Dead Ends. With my second action, i play Detective’s Intuition, healing a horror (down to 2) and gaining 2 resources (up to 6). For my third action i play the M1911, discarding the Mag Glass from play to make room.

While Joe is dicking around outside, Isabelle is hanging on for dear life in the Study. Aleksey heals, then Isabelle starts her turn by playing Insidious Truths, discarding LWIF and the Student and targeting the Yithian Observer. The test is 7 vs 4 and succeeds, dealing 3 damage to the Yith. Second action, i use my pistols. The combat test goes against the small Myriad Clone, testing unmodified 3 vs 3 which I don’t expect to succeed. And indeed I miss. The second shot, using agility, targets the Yith again and i commit Man Dex from my discard, for a 5 vs 4 with Timely Intervention still in my hand as backup. I pull the skull (-3), so i do need that Timely Intervention, but the shot hits. The second Yith enters the Victory display. I draw a card for Man Dex (which reshuffles) and now have two Wards of Protection as my only cards in hand. I use Cosmic Flame with my final action to attack the baby Myriad and commit a Ward of Protection for its wild icon to make it a 5 vs 3. I pull a -2 and hit, the guy gets defeated.

In the enemy phase, Myriad Prime hits me for 1 damage and 1 horror, both of which get tanked by Aleksey.

Upkeep draws are Cosmic Flame and Counterattack. Joe has to reshuffle his discard pile into a new deck, taking a horror (on Lab Ass). End of the round, a new Myriad copy spawns on Izzie.

Round 13

(1/5 doom) This could easily turn bad still. I am somewhat afraid of having a bad cascade of surges here that could potentially bury me in Myriad Gentlemen.

Isabelle draws Aspects of Infinity, so for the third time, she has to play “good news, bad news” with the encounter deck. I think it’s pretty clear i have to cancel the surge here, because as mentioned a surge chain is the worst that could happen to me right now. Losing two actions is also out of the question. So as the bad effect, i decide to take 2 damage. This is risky because i didn’t draw my weakness yet, but i want to keep my options open to use my sanity for my ability and to tank treacheries.
Joe gets Fragmented Existence, that weird one from earlier that can give you a decent emergency evade if you manage to pass a willpower(3) test here. That could actually be really useful here and get me out of a sudden Myriad incursion, so i think this is worth using Blood Curse for. I test 6 vs 3 and pass and now have a testless emergency evade on call. I do have to take a damage from the Blood Curse, of course.

Joe moves into the Study and investigates. I commit Deduction and Perception to test 7 vs 4. I pass, but i do pass with a skull, which has a bad effect from the Accelerated Decay on Lab Assistant. I have to put a resource on Decay, then take as many damage. I take a damage, put it on Lab Assistant and she’s gone, alongside the Decay. But a pass is a pass, even if it costs an assistant. I collect two clues and draw two cards (one from Joe’s ability, one from Perception): Insidious Truths and my second Deduction. Oh, nice. I investigate with my final action as well, committing Deduction, Dorothy and LWIF for a total of 8 vs 4. I grab the last clues that i needed to clear all locations. Now i only need to get rid of the Myriad Man … and play the weakness in Joe’s hand, of course.

Izzie’s turn. Aleksey heals a damage. Izzie uses Loner to go back into the Landing. Myriad Prime cannot leave the Study per his gametext, so he stays back and engages Joe. Izzy is still engaged to a clone, so she tries to get rid of it using Cosmic Flame and a Guts from the discard pile. This succeeds with an Elder Sign, healing the horror i just gained for replaying Guts. Guts reshuffles and draws me a Lucky Charm. The enemy is gone. That was only my first action, so i continue by playing a new Cosmic Flame, discarding Second Sight. With the final action, i play Lucky Charm and move a damage token from Isabelle to Aleksey. Aleksey has been CRAZY good this game.

In the enemy phase, Joe takes a damage and a horror from an attack by the Myriad Elite, bringing him to 4 damage and 4 horror. I really would’ve liked to Counterattack here, but i need the 5 resources next turn.

Upkeep draws are Fearless and Mag Glass. Izzie goes to 3 resources, Joe to 5.

End of round, a Myriad Gentleman spawns on Joe.

Round 14

(2/5 doom) Die already!

Ugh. Here we go with the Myriad surging. Isabelle draws Not Welcome Here and has to choose an investigator to become the Myriad’s new target and spawn new Myriads until they have three engaged. Joe is already engaged to two, so this spawns just one new copy in his threat area. Not so bad, but of course the card now surges. She draws Memories Fade to Dust. I Ward of Protection it to take the worst case autofail off the table.
Joe draws Not Welcome Here as well and chooses himself. Nothing happens, but the card of course surges… into another Memories. This is fine, i assume i can pass the test? I commit Gather Intel and Mag Glass for a 6 vs 3. I draw a tablet which is -2, so i succeed.

Okay, time to hopefully close this out! Joe uses the evade ability on Fragmented Existence. As a cost to do so, he has to draw an encounter card. The third Memories Fade to Dust pops up! Well, i am all out of commits, so i just have to test this 4 vs 3. I fail with a tablet(-2). The symbol effect of the tablet spawns yet another clone baby on Joe. Since i fail by one, i decide to discard a random card – hey, this could potentially hit my weakness! It doesn’t, though. Counterattack is discarded. Then, all enemies engaged with me, including both the Elite and the three copies, are evaded.
With my second action i spend all my money to play my weakness, Dead Ends. Has to be done, no way around it. With my final action, i shoot the M1911 at the Elite, committing Vicious Blow and Insidious Truths. 7 vs 4 hits, dealing 3 damage. 3 more to go. Over to you, Isabelle.

Aleksey heals 1 horror, then Lucky Charm moves one of Izzie’s horror tokens to Aleksey. She moves into the Study with two actions left. I don’t have a 3 damage attack, so i have to hit twice. Should i miss the first time, i could try a hail mary with my pistols, but without any combat commits that doesn’t look like a good plan. Let’s just not miss then. Cosmic Flame activates, i commit Fearless from my hand for 6 vs 4. Could be better, but it is what i have. I draw -1 which means i hit. I heal a horror from being Fearless and i spend a charge to deal an extra point of damage. For my third action, i use Flame again. This time spending a damage and a horror to commit Blood Curse from my discard. If 8 vs 4 hits, i can go home.

I hit.

The Myriad Gentleman is defeated.

This nightmare is over.

I pay the clues to reach Resolution 1.

Resolution

Searching the manor, we find notes about a ritual that is about to go down in a run-down elementary school near Southside. It’s purpose? To reforge time itself for the glory of Aforgomon… yeah, let’s not, shall we.
We also find further proof that it was indeed Baxter aka The Myriad Gentleman who put out the hit on us, as retaliation for something we did in Cairo? We never even have been to Cairo. How strange… So anyway, we got a ritual to disturb!

We record in our campaign log that we “learned of the ritual”.

For defeating the Myriad Gentleman, we earn his weapon, the Aforgomon’s Blade… if we want it.

Aforgomon’s Blade is a pretty sweet weapon, on par with something like the Timeworn Brand from TFA. However, if i decide to take it, that investigator also has to take the Gaze of Aforgomon weakness which can be pretty brutal. The weakness threatens physical trauma, which makes me not want it for Izzie at the very least. As for Joe… maybe? 5 resources are a lot, though. I think it’s best to decline, we should be able to manage without it. I know, i know, boring. But i actually do want to win :D I think if it had +2 to the test, i’d have taken it but i don’t want to spend 5 resources on a weapon that will have me test 5 vs 4 all day with Joe.

Finally, we earn experience. 5 victory locations plus 3 victory enemies make for a sum of 8xp earned per investigator. And earn it we did! Feels good, we can some real noticeable upgrades with this!

Spending XP

So, do I just get two Longbows with Izzie? Plus another Canteen? I don’t really see anything wrong with this plan, so let’s just go ahead with that. To make room, i remove both copies of LWIF and one Arcane Initiate. In other news, i am having a bit of regrets over not taking Daniel Jameson in my starting deck. I might spend 4xp on Charisma + Daniel after the next scenario.

Joe similarly has to gear up his combat capabilities, as we just seen the enemies in this campaign don’t mess around. Now, his options are somewhat limited in that regard due to only getting up to level 2 Guardian, but upgrading our M1911s to level 2 is the least we can do. I am also kind of vibing with getting myself a Bodyguard(2), that seems like it could save us at some point. And the second Counterattack for good measure. That leaves me with 1xp, and i might as well upgrade a Mag Glass with it. I need to cut two cards from the deck and that’s actually somewhat difficult. In the end, i decide to let a Hand-Crank and the Psych Student go.

These upgrades slant heavily towards fighting over clueing, but that is intentional from my end. I am very afraid of the Elite enemies that we are about to meet in the following scenarios…

Deck Performance

Since there’s no Interlude this time around, let’s take a step back and review how the first two scenarios went.

Joe Diamond has done well in his flexible role of being both a fighter and a cluever. So far, setup was quick and effective, with a tool and a weapon coming down on round 1 he’s immediately capable. I started him out with 4 allies and got him an immediate Charisma after game 1, but that hasn’t really come into play yet. His resource situation simply didn’t allow for multiple allies. Holding two Bounty while all enemies only have 1 health was sort of a worst-case scenario though. Having to random discard my Logan didn’t help either. So hopefully this improves going forward, because i can’t really do too much about it with upgrades anymore. I can upgrade my Mag Glasses to shave off one more resource cost and that’s kind of it unless i want to pay xp to add some more level 0 skills to bring the total cost of the deck down. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Two ECache, two Bounty and his signature should really be enough income even when Logan isn’t around.

Isabelle Barnes has handled a remarkable amount of crap that got thrown her way. Her ability to spike test values has proven a good problem solver, like with that jacked up Irregulars in scenario 1 where she pulled off that crucial evade. Buying two pieces of horror healing from my first 4xp paid off very well this scenario, thanks to the Canteen i was able to keep my horror down to a point where her signature would never deal her more than one or two points of damage while still using her ability as required. Aleksey of course was an all-star in this scenario, without him i couldn’t have taken horror on those Aspects of Infinity and might have been forced to lose actions or draw extra encounter cards.
My gimmick with Isabelle was including a Lucky Cigarette Case at the cost of 5 extra deck size. The LCC hasn’t come up yet… but i also don’t feel like the extra deck size mattered yet. My cards are all good and so far i have not had problems getting my weapons or spells.
Speaking of spells, Cosmic Flame was a real good card against the replicating enemy of this scenario, that ability to just attack for 1 without spending a charge came up multiple times. Her Twin pistols also worked out nicely. I have high expectations for the Longbow, i hope it’s enough to take down some larger bosses with a combination of Longbow and Cosmic Flame.

That being said, both investigators did a lot of somewhat dodgy testing of one over or two over difficulty and there’s been a decent amount of failed tests as a result. Arguably the reason i did well enough was a somewhat lenient chaos bag with low modifiers. Once those ramp up, i might be in trouble and will have to ration my icon commits better than i have so far. All the game needs to show is a -3 with a bad symbol effect attached that i need to play around and a lot of the tests that i took in this game become ill-advised.

With these cheery thoughts in mind, see you soon for scenario three, A World Torn Down!