Ages Unwound: Unstuck

Setup

The time stream has spat us out in the future. We escaped the cultist that had us cornered… but how do we get back to our time now?

This scenario is basically one huge standalone within the campaign. It has its own encounter set, a total of more than 60 cards in it. Just as a benchmark, the official standalones like Rougarou and Carnivale have less than that! So clearly we once again got things going on. But the setup is done rather quick. The only set we need aside from the Unstuck set is one called Paradox and it’s set aside at the start of the game.

The eight locations that are put in play all exist in two versions in the encounter set and we are to select one at random each. The other are shuffled together and set aside. The selected locations are put in play, in a circle in random order. This is the places in the time stream we can visit this scenario. A rules blurb informs us that there might be random movement happening. When it does, we are to shuffle and draw from the set aside locations to determine the random location. Since we stepped into the future, we start the game at the location “A Disquieting Future”, depicting a possible dystopian version of Arkham. When? Who even knows. Here’s how all of that looks on the board now:

There’s four big Elite enemies in the encounter set that we have to shuffle and randomly set aside three of them without looking. The fourth one goes into the encounter deck, as just something we might encounter on any Mythos phase. You know, as a treat.

As one last bit before we are ready to go, we have to add a chaos token to the bag according to our difficulty. On Standard that means a -3 token. Speaking of tokens, here’s the token reference:

We don’t have any tablets in the bag and i am quite happy about that, the tablet token looks nasty. That being said, i am not looking forward to failing treachery tests with Joe by revealing cultists either. Doubling the effects of a failed test can be BRUTAL. The one Elder Thing is a -4 and moves locations around the board. And the skull scales from -1 to -4 over the course of the game. So our previous approach of generously fishing for -1s in the bag or just generally being only 2 over might come and bite us this time.

The agenda deck has four cards, starting at a low doom threshold of only 3. While this agenda is in play, locations are connected to their neighbors in the circle to each side. Potentially this could stop being the case later on.
The act deck has 2 cards and the first gives us a nice long-term goal. Grab 10 clues. No special requirement on where to bring them, we can just spend them as a group. There’s also an additional move option on here. For an action, an investigator can take a willpower test. If they pass, they can move to any location. But if they fail, they are moved to a random one. The difficulty is 5, but lowers by 1 for each doom on the agenda. Interesting!

Round 1

(0/3 doom)

Starting hands are decent, but could be better.

Isabelle: Long Bow, Canteen, Man Dex, Man Dex, Guts
Joe: Machete, Dorothy, ECache, Gather Intel, Scene of the Crime

The location i start at has a Forced effect that makes anyone who ends their turn there, test intellect. If they pass, they draw a card. If they don’t, they take horror and discard a card. So while i could see myself staying there with Joe this turn, Izzie needs to get out.

Izzie plays her Longbow, then moves clockwise, to the Tatterdemalion (which some might recognize as the spaceship from the Dark Matter campaign).

The Tatterdemalion also forces a skill test on me to avoid discard, random discard even in this case. But it is agility which i am much better at. Since i do however not want to risk having to discard my Canteen, i use my third action to play it. I take the agility test, committing Manual Dexterity for a 5 vs 3. For now i stay lucky and pass. Man Dex draws me Ward of Protection.

Two locations, both of them are shroud 4. I was hoping to find something easier here for Joe to go to. So i guess it can’t be helped, this is just what i need to attempt to beat. Joe plays Dorothy Simmons, then with his second action investigates the Disquieting Future at 5 vs 4. It passes with a -1. His ability draws Logan Hastings. I don’t want to attempt this again, so my final action is simply playing Scene of the Crime for the second clue. That’s one location down. For the location test, i commit Gather Intel from my hand, to test 6 vs 3. I pass and draw Bounty.

Upkeep draws are Will of the Cosmos and Dead Ends. Izzie has 2 resources, Joe has 1.

Round 2

(1/3 doom) It’s a whole new encounter deck, we’ve not seen any of this yet. Exciting!

Isabelle draws The Endless Fall and has to retake the agility test on her location again. And potentially get tossed around the locations and having to take all sorts of other tests. Yikes. I pay a horror to commit Manual Dexterity from my discard pile again. 5 vs 3 fails with a -4. That’s actually a fail by 2, so The Endless Fall does its thing of throwing me to the next location in clockwise direction. An Earth Long Dead is a 6 shroud location without clues. When i enter the location, i take a damage and a horror. No test here, you just take it. Welp. I suppose that at least stops The Endless Fall from escalating further.
Manual Dexterity shuffles back into the deck despite the failure. However, the failed Forced effect of the Tatterdemalion costs me a random card. Ward of Protection goes into the discard pile. Oof ouch owie. Rough start into the scenario!
Joe draws Dystopia. At the end of the turn, i will need to test willpower. On a fail i get a horror which needs to go onto an ally if possible. That’d defeat Dorothy if it goes through! The difficulty for the test is 1 (current doom in play), but for Joe that’s still a test he can easily fail.

All of that does complicate things. I would really like to use the Guts in Isabelle’s hand to help Joe with his Dystopia test at the end of his round, however that is remarkably difficult to engineer unless i am willing to simply move Isabelle three times counterclockwise, into the unrevealed location on the other side of our starting location. Joe could then move into that location as well and Isabelle would be there to help his test. A test which is 2 vs 1, so i could also reasonably just risk it… but losing Dorothy really would suck.
There is also another very awful plan that would protect Dorothy. And that is having Joe play ECache and Logan from his hand. That way, if the horror does hit, it can kill Logan instead of Dorothy… that would be a massive blow to his economy however and i don’t think i can let that fly either.

After way too long of indecisiveness, i finally go with the safe route that works hardest to keep Dorothy alive. After using her Canteen to heal both of the horror tokens on her, Isabelle takes three move actions, backtracking past the Tatterdemalion and the Disquieting Future into the so far unrevealed 16th Century Arkham.

Finally something with less than 4 shroud, i was getting worried. If we grab the two clues here, we even gain a Victory. Ending the turn here might cost us a horror if i fail a willpower test. Since i already spent all my actions with Izzie now, it’s time for that test. 4 vs 3 passes.

Time for Joe to follow. Ending the turn here will likely deal a horror to him, but that one he can at least take on himself instead of having to basically sacrifice his ally. He moves into 16th Century Arkham, then investigates 5 vs 3. He pulls 0, which means that Dorothy is not paying him for his success… but he does get a card from his ability and it’s his signature Detective’s Intuition which triggers to draw two more cards: Perception and Counterattack. With my last action, i have Joe play Emergency Cache and go to 4 resources. Then it’s time for his willpower tests, one from the treachery, one from the location. I test the Dystopia first and commit Guts for 4 vs 1. I pull -1, so the test would have passed without help, but I’m just happy that i got past that. For passing with Guts, Joe draws another card and it’s Insidious Truths. Then it’s time for the location test and at 2 vs 3 i just let that happen. I pull Elder Thing which is a -4 and fails the test. It also swaps the locations position on the board with the one on the opposite side of the circle, so 1600s Arkham is now on the left of the table, clockwise from the Earth Long Dead where Isabelle started her turn. Sure, i don’t think that matters too much for me right now. Joe takes a horror for failing the test.

My upkeep draws are Arcane Initiate and Lab Assistant. Initiate is an insanely good pull here, she has PERFECT timing. Next round is the one where we are one doom short of advancing the agenda, so we can put whatever doom into play without it mattering (the “Witching Hour”). I was already planning on playing Will of the Cosmos and i happily add Initiate to these plans. Now i only need to not have an enemy or treachery eat up my actions and next round should be fairly productive!
Isabelle goes to 3 resources, Joe to 5.

Round 3

(2/3 doom) Witching Hour! First round of encounter cards last round was rough, let’s hope this one is a bit softer.

The encounter deck has other ideas and throws a Velociraptor at Isabelle! The dinosaur makes an immediate attack which would be the second damage on Isabelle, but i let Joe prevent it with a Counterattack. The Raptor engages Izzie, but it is the Raptor that gets a damage token.
Joe also draws something quite impressive. Overwhelming Numbers threatens a damage and a horror on both investigators unless they pass tests against difficulty 4. I can drop a clue to reduce the difficulty of those tests to 2 and decide that’s worth it. We seem to have a lot of incoming damage in this encounter deck and at least when it comes to Izzie’s health i will want to preserve whatever i can. Joe tests combat 4 vs 2 and autofails. 1 damage and horror for him! Isabelle tests agility and commits Manual Dexterity for a 5 vs 2 and succeeds. Man Dex draws her a Guts.

Isabelle fires her Longbow at the Velociraptor. Testing 5 vs 3, i pay a horror to commit Man Dex from the discard pile for another +2. I pass and the Raptor is toast. Man Dex draws Breaking Point, my weakness. I currently have no horror on me, so it “just” deals me a direct damage. It’s the second one on her. Joe plays Bounty, creating 3 resources. He takes two for himself, the other for Izzie.
Her second action plays Arcane Initiate and i immediately peek at the top of my deck. I find a Cosmic Flame and draw it. Finally, the third action plays Will of the Cosmos, parking a horror on the Canteen (not that it matters). I grab two clues, one from the location we are at and one from the Tatterdemalion. At the end of the turn, i have to test willpower from the location again. I take the 4 vs 3 unmodified and pass.

Joe wants to pick up his clue again. The test is 5 vs 3 and i commit a Perception on top just to make sure i can move on from here. I succeed and draw two cards, a Hand-Crank and a M1911. I now have 5 clues across both investigators, half of what we need to progress the act. With the second action, Joe moves clockwise into Banks of the Nile and reveals it.

That’s a good chunk of relatively easy clues, one short of all that we need! Ending the round here risks revealing a Sandstorm. I don’t know what that is and don’t intend to find out, but either way i obviously want these clues before i move on! Before i get to that however, i want to play my M1911. Izzie’s bow currently doesn’t have an arrow in it and i want at least one weapon ready to go in play just in case.
At the end of the round, Joe has to test intellect for the location. The 5 vs 3 passes.

Upkeep draws a Soul Link for Isabelle, but Joe gets Pursued, his random weakness. Any enemy that engages him will now cost him a horror until that thing is discarded for 2 action. We can’t catch a break this game so far and now the agenda is also about to advance and without doubt do something horrible.

Round 4

(5/3 doom) -> (0/4 doom)

Let’s advance this thing.

Oh, this is a lot less than i expected. I would have put money down that one of the three set aside Elites would come into play now. So… all that happens then is that we get new random locations. That is sort of annoying as i was looking forward to just tear into those clues at the Nile, but sure. I do the time shuffle and now it’s Izzie standing at the Nile while Joe ends up at a so far unrevealed location, “Millions of Years Ago”.

There’s a lot of easy clues here as well! But if i stay, dinosaurs come out and play. I have no idea if there is smaller dinos than Velociraptors in the deck, so it’s probably best to assume for now that staying there attracts a Raptor. At least it spawns exhausted!

The new agenda is short again, with 4 doom threshold. My goal now is to advance the act before the agenda advances. That should be possible, right? Well, let’s see what the encounter deck has to say about that.

Good. Grief. Isabelle draws the one Elite enemy that I had to shuffle into the deck during setup. The Shambler from the Stars is an Aloof Hunter, so at least it doesn’t engage her right away. And it stays in aloof while i don’t use any action abilities. So no reloading my bow unless i want to get smacked. Yay… guess i got the Elite that i expected to come from the agenda flip after all.
Meanwhile, Joe draws his own enemy, but it’s much milder. The Persecuted Witch discards the top card of the encounter deck, a Sphinx enemy with way too many big numbers and ability text that i am not sad to see go away. No Hex, no Paradox, so her ability for an extra encounter card fizzles. She engages Joe who has to take a horror from the Pursued weakness.

Alright then, what can Izzie do? She can’t reload her bow without being hit and 2 vs 2 is not great for trying to investigate. I could flee towards Joe? That would spawn a dino at the location, but by next round i could have my bow ready again and take care of it. That does seem like a fine plan, i would want to stay at the location with Joe anyway, so i would spawn the dinosaur even if Izzie wouldn’t go there now as well. Also, i get to reveal the so far unrevealed Heart of an Empire (Rome) location when moving through it.

Okay, plan stands. Izzie starts her turn and uses Arcane Initiate and finds Second Sight. If it weren’t for the Shambler, i could play that now and start on the clues. As it is, i move twice and join Joe in dinosaur land. On my way, i reveal Ancient Rome.

I am tempted to just stay in Rome, play Second Sight and then investigate. But i feel like i really should be getting that arrow back on my bow now, so i stick to my original plan. I move past Rome into the far far away past and reload my bow. At the end of the round, i spawn a Velociraptor from the encounter deck at the location, exhausted and unengaged for now.

Joe takes a shot at the Witch in his threat area and defeats her. For his other two actions, he has options. I could either take care of my weakness. I could start on the clues at the location. I could start shooting at the Raptor. I think since the Raptor has 3 health, i want to use the Longbow for that, leaving investigation and the weakness as options. Joe is at 3 horror right now, but i still think i should get some progress done – i can’t just get stalled out from round to round, that way i lose for sure! So i investigate, 5 vs 2 and draw a 0. That gains me a clue and a card: Stock Ammo Reload. Since i oversucceed by 3, i also get a resource from Dorothy. With my third action, i play Stock Ammo Reload. I now have eight ammo on the M1911.

During the enemy phase, Shambler moves to Rome. The Velociraptor readies and engages Izzie. Since its ability for a free attack on engagement specifically only triggers in Mythos and during the investigator phase, i don’t need to take an attack here.

Upkeep draws are Aleksey and Vicious Blow. I am very relieved to see Aleksey!
Isabelle goes to 5 resources, Joe to 6.

Round 5

(1/4 doom)
Starting the round with two enemies already in play, this is how loss spirals happen. I need whatever happens now to not take too many of my actions away!

Isabelle gets Beckoning of Everywhen. That doesn’t seem so bad? Just introduces a little bit of chaos, but that’s fine? I pull an Elder Sign and i am not actually not sure what happens here. Nothing, i guess? I didn’t reveal a number and i didn’t reveal any of the listed symbols. Huh. I suppose the same would happen had i revealed a 0. Well, i won’t complain about small favors. Getting a freebie is only fair after the last three rounds.
Joe draws Dark Maledict. With only 1 doom in play, i have to pick just one of the options which is actually fine. I have both investigators discard a card. Isabelle drops Cosmic Flame, Joe drops Machete.

Because of how my current location works, i want to start this turn with Joe. I get right to investigating. I oversucceed by 1, gaining a card (Overpower) and a resource along with the clue. I then use two actions to discard my weakness. At the end of his turn, Joe doesn’t need to spawn a dinosaur because we already have one at this location.

Isabelle fires her Longbow at the Raptor. I hit, it dies. Arcane Initiate peeks at the deck, but finds nothing she would like to keep. I don’t want to spawn a new dino right away at the end of the round, so I move into the final unrevealed location, A World At War. Welcome to WWII France, i guess.

I reload my bow and end my turn here. If i end up having to drop a clue to the effect here, that’d not even be that bad. If the game cooperates and lets me have a moment of peace, i plan on playing Second Sight next round and hover everything straight up. But let’s take the test first. I commit Guts from my discard pile and pass, drawing a second Long Bow.

In the enemy phase, the Shambler moves to Joe’s location.

Upkeep draws are Emergency Cache and M1911. Izzie goes to 6 resources, Joe to 8. Joe has to discard to hand size. The M1911 is discarded.

Round 6

(2/4 doom)

During Mythos draws, Isabelle gets a Persecuted Witch. With two doom on the clock, the witch discards two cards off of the encounter deck and reveals Beckoning of Everywhen which has to resolve now. I draw a -1, so my location moves one step clockwise, trading places with the one where we began, Disquieting Future. This does put some distance between Joe and Isabelle again which might be something that could be a problem eventually.
Joe draws Overwhelming Numbers, also a card we’ve seen before. Since it will only hit him now, i don’t want to drop a clue. Instead i commit Overpower to the test and go 6 vs 4. I get an Elder Sign, so Joe gets a resource and draws a total of two cards: Deduction(2) and Bodyguard. Oh, those are excellent cards for me right now!

I’ve kept an Insidious Truth in my hand this whole time instead of using it on a Raptor. The idea is that i can use it as an attack on the Shambler without having to do an action ability. Now i am wondering if the Bodyguard could fulfill a similar role here. But with 9 cards in hand i probably don’t need to be too precious about them. First action, i engage Shambler. Second action, i play Insidious Truths, discarding two cards: Hand-Crank and Detective’s Intuition. I also commit a Vicious Blow, so this attack actually does the full required 4 damage in one go if it goes through. The test is 9 vs 3 and i don’t draw an autofail, so the Shambler is defeated and goes into the Victory display. With my final action, i investigate here. I don’t really want to waste a Deduction(2) on a 2 shroud location, so basic investigate it is. As a result, Joe earns his sixth clue, a resource from Dorothy and a card for his ability: Overpower. Not bad. At the end of his turn, he has to spawn a Velociraptor.

Isabelle starts her turn by using Arcane Initiate, finding Blood Curse. She fires Long Bow at the witch, defeating her. For the second and third action, I play Second Sight and use it to investigate. Paying a horror, i commit Guts to the test from the discard pile, then immediately use Canteen to go completely sane again. The test passes and i pay a charge to grab both clues. Guts reshuffles and also draws me a card: my random weakness, Lethal Curiosity. That could cause me to drop my clues again or deal a truckload of damage, neither of which i am fine with. Soul Link goes into the test, 7 vs 4 and i draw the -4. Damn. I have exactly the 10 clues i need across my investigators right now, so i don’t want to drop one. But a damage is awful, too. In the end i decide to take the damage. That puts me at 3 out of 5 damage, but my weakness already happened, so i don’t need to fear a chunk of direct damage. And i do have Aleksey coming down very soon. And if all else fails, Initiate can also soak one point. So i think that should work out!
Alright, three actions taken, if i end my turn now i need to test to not drop a clue again. So instead i will just spend all 10 of my clues now before passing. That’ll advance the act with no actions left, but what’s the worst that can happen? Eh?

Wait, that’s not bad at all! I am simply putting two locations into play and revealing my new objective: Resign. How hard can that be?

Okay, so the Timestream is connected to each of the random Adrift locations that we’ve been visiting all this time. And to open up Arkham, Present Day where we presumably can resign to return back to our time, both investigators need to be at the Timestream at the end of the round. Roger that! That does sound like we can even go and grab some more clues from everywhere and fish for XP? Unless of course something horrible happens in the near future…

In the enemy phase, the Velociraptor readies and engages Joe.

Upkeep draws are Soul Link and Vicious Blow. Good timing on that Vicious Blow, actually!

Also, i realize i didn’t give you one of these yet, so here’s a shot of the play areas:

and here’s the location grid:

Round 7

(3/4 doom)

I am feeling a lot better about my chances now than i did two rounds ago!

The Mythos Phase greets Isabelle with a Dark Maledict. Since there are now 3 doom on the agenda, i have to execute all three things: Choose an investigator to take 2 horror. I choose Isabelle. Heal a damage enemy: Fizzles, there is none. Discard cards: Isabelle discards Soul Link, Joe discards Logan Hastings. Fiiine? At least it’s not a big enemy that takes my turn away again.
Joe draws Cabin Pressure. Next time he ends his turn on a location with at least once clue, he’ll take 2 damage. It’s two actions to discard and Isabelle can’t help with that. Joe only has a single point of damage right now, so this seems perfectly acceptable and i won’t need to play around it.

Isabelle takes the last sip from her Canteen to heal the horror she just took. The Arcane Initiate peels a Blood Curse from the deck. I think the first thing to do here is see how the Timestream location looks. Surely it won’t be as simple as “just move your two guys here and the path back will open”? So my first action is exactly that: Move to the Timestream.

As long as there’s clues on the location, the Timestream will try to push me away. Fair enough. That leaves me with two options: I could just empty out my Second Sight here and presumably just grab all 4 clues. Joe also has his Deduction(2) still in hand which could pretty easily grab 3 of them once he moves in. He does still have that raptor in his face though. I was sort of hoping to be able to play ECache and Aleksey now and with how much time i still have left (there are two more agendas after next rounds advance) i should probably just play it safe now. Second and third action i play Emergency Cache and Aleksey Saburov. End of turn, i need to test agility and i commit the spare Longbow from my hand for a 5 vs 3. If this fails, it’s not awful. If it passes, i might move Joe in and secure his test with a Blood Curse. The test passes with an Elder Sign. As is tradition, i have no horror to heal whenever i pull that thing. No complaint, of course!

Joe’s turn is planned out in a fairly obvious way: Kill Raptor. Get last clue from the location. Move to Timestream. First action pans out as planned, as i shoot at the dinosaur with the M1911, committing Vicious Blow. The 7 vs 3 connects and the beast dies. Second action, the investigation is a 5 vs 2 and passes by exactsies. Dorothy isn’t impressed, but i do get my clue and Joe draws a card: Perception. Finally, the third action has Joe join Isabelle at the Timestream. Ending the turn there, he has to test agility 2 vs 3, but a Blood Curse from Izzie turns it into a 6 vs 3. I succeed and it is at this moment that i realize that Blood Curse deals direct damage. Well crap. I was planning on putting that on Aleksey. I have a short moment of weakness where i am tempted to undo the action, but i end up just going through with it. Isabelle is at 4 damage to her 5 health now. Argh. I guess that means the other Blood Curse in my hand is now a dead card… Well. Moving on! At the end of his turn, Joe experiences his Cabin Fever from the treachery and goes to 3 damage in solidarity. Cabin Fever discards.

Isabelle draws another Emergency Cache in upkeep, Joe gets a Bounty. Isabelle goes to 3 resources, Joe to 11.

End of round, the “Arkham – Present Day” location reveals:

It is where we can resign, however we can only do so while there’s no ready enemies at the location. And it comes with a random one of the set aside enemies: A frigging tank! Well, that’s scary, that thing shoots into connected locations. If it ends up on the Timestream, it shoots into literally every location on the board as everything is connected to it! I probably should make sure that doesn’t happen. The idea is doing something involving evasion and the Longbow? And hoping that no other enemy shows up, i guess!

Round 8

(4/4 doom) -> (1/5 doom)

It’s really only round 8? Gotta be honest with you, it feels like round 18. I’ve been playing on this scenario across three real-life days now :D

The agenda advances. Nothing super major happens, no further enemies dropped on our heads or similar. But we do shuffle a new encounter set into the encounter deck at this point, alongside the discard pile. It’s 4 cards in a stack of around 30, so we’ll see how relevant that will end up being. The new agenda has a threshold of 5, but already starts with 1 doom on it. So it’s effectively only 4 rounds again, but the effects that scale with doom tokens that we’ve seen start a point higher now. The skull is now also a -3 which seems relevant! There is text about Adrift locations on the backside of the agenda, but since the Timestream is not Adrift, i can ignore it.

For encounter cards, Isabelle draws The Endless Fall, but that one surges because she’s not at an Adrift location. She gets Reality Undone instead and that one is a brutal one – It’s one of those from the Paradox set i just had to shuffle in a minute ago! Both investigators need to pass willpower(3) or something awful happens. If both fail, they can’t even pick the same option which is definitely a bit more spicy than i would love here! Assuming that Joe fails and that i don’t want to go to 6 damage or horror with him and also not surge twice, that’d mean i’d have to discard Dorothy. Which then means that i can’t also discard an asset with Isabelle if she fails despite an empty Canteen in my play area. Isabelle would take 3 horror of those, i guess. So the question is, is it worth committing Soul Link from the discard pile for 2 horror here or do i just take the test unmodified and hope for the best?
I end up talking myself into taking the test unmodified. 4 vs 3 fails. Joe then tests 2 vs 3. I could throw in my Lab Assistant, but i think i better keep her in hand just in case i need her horror soak at some point. Joe also fails. I have Joe discard Dorothy from play. Isabelle takes 3 horror (one on Aleksey which will heal at the start of her turn).

All that and Joe didn’t even draw his own encounter card yet. He gets the Eager Sphinx i threw into the discard pile ages ago. The Sphinx spawns at the Egypt location which i don’t love. It’s where i was planning to go with Joe this round.

Finally it’s time to take my turns. I want to handle the tank first, so it’s Izzie’s go. She moves into Arkham Present and with her second action tries to evade the tank. Even with Soul Link from her discard (1 horror for her, 1 for Aleksey) the test is only 6 vs 4, not exactly comfortable. I draw -2 and take a deep breath of relief as i get to exhaust the thing. With my third action, i put an arrow on the bow.

Joe follows Isabelle. Mental note: If something horrible happens now, it’s because of greed. My investigators could have both resigned at this point. But obviously i am not going to do that while there’s still two agenda cards running and 4xp open on the board for the taking! Joe plays Bodyguard(2) which feels very good right now as a safety net. With his third action, he fires his gun at the tank, dealing 2 damage.

In the enemy phase, the Sphinx hunts into the Timestream location. The Panzer readies.

Upkeep draws are my second Canteen and an Emergency Cache.

Round 9

(2/5 doom)

Encounter cards this round are cards we’ve seen before, but that is not to say that they are weak… not at all. Isabelle draws Strength in Numbers which has both investigators test to avoid getting a damage and a horror. Joe drops his one clue to reduce the difficulty for the test from 4 to 2 which allows Isabelle to pass. But Joe fails his 4 vs 2 here and the Bodyguard already has to take his first two tokens. Then, Joe draws his card and it’s a Velociraptor which gets to do an immediate attack, putting another damage token on Bodyguard. Let it not be said that our man isn’t earning his keep!

Joe goes first and i simply want to shoot three shots. First at the raptor and once it’s dead, i’ll continue with the tank. Attacks on the raptor ar 6 vs 3 and both hit. The thing dies. Third attack goes against the tank, at 6 vs 3 as well but for this i throw in an icon from Bounty to make it 7 vs 3. The tank has now 4 damage on it.

Izzie of course aims to finish off the Elite enemy and fires her bow at it with 5 vs 3. I use another Soul Link from my discard to push this test into “everything but the autofail” and i do succeed. The Panzer goes into my victory display. With the second action i play Canteen and immediately use it once to go back to 2 horror on Isabelle. With the third action, i reload the bow. Arcane Initiate peeks at the deck, finding one of the Soul Links again and draws it. This Arcane Initiate <-> Soul Link thing feels really nice!

In the enemy phase, the Sphinx hunts into our location, engages and attacks Joe. This defeats the Bodyguard who then takes the Sphinx down with him. Not too shabby, you can’t really get much more value out of the guy than using all 5 of his soak points and then taking down a notable enemy in the process. Do i want a second one?

Upkeep draws are Fearless(2) and Gather Intel. Isabelle is at 4 resources, Joe at 9.

Round 10

(3/5 doom)

In the Mythos phase, Izzie draws Sandstorm which attaches to the Egypt location that still has four clues left on it. It gets +3 shroud as long as the treachery is in play. So that’s probably only an option on the last agenda, assuming that the agenda flip will again discard all persistent treacheries from play.
Joe draws a Persecuted Witch who discards three cards from the encounter deck, searching for cards she can recur. The only card that is eligible is Endless Fall, which surges into another Cabin Pressure that goes into Joe’s threat area. While being at 3 damage, this is a good deal more concerning than when i was at 1 damage. Maybe i can manage to not trigger this until the agenda advances as well? After engaging the Witch, Joe plays Gather Intel, drawing the other Deduction(2) and a Mag Glass(1).

I want Joe to have all three of his actions available this round, so i will go first with Isabelle and defeat the Witch for him. I play all of this super safe and spend way too many actions to kill a 2/2/2, but at this point i think this is fine. I engage the witch. I shoot at it and defeat it. I reload the bow. And that’s already my three actions. I use my Canteen to get rid of the last bit of horror on me. Arcane Initiate goes full meme on me and finds the other Soul Link. The deck isn’t even that small at this point, this is just weird :D

Joe moves twice, into Heart of the Empire, the roman location. There is two clues here, at shroud 4. I play Mag Glass for free, then investigate with both Deduction and Perception committed. I easily grab the two clues. Perception and Joe’s ability both draw a card, netting me the level 0 Mag Glass and an Insidious Truths. End of his turn, he needs to do the test on the location which is willpower, difficulty 3. If i fail, i get moved to a random location – which is why i over-committed to the investigation, i wanted to make sure i get it before i get yanked away. As one would predict, i fail the willpower test and get randomly booted to 16th Century Arkham, currently situated at the far left of the table. This location is 1 away from Egypt and 2 away from the Tatterdemalion, which are the two Victory locations i didn’t claim yet. Maybe i can make the Tatterdemalion happen next round?

Upkeep draws are Izzie’s Twin 45s and Counterattack.

Round 11

(4/5 doom)

Isabelle draws Beckoning of Everywhen, which surges into Rewritten Existence. Another one of the Paradox cards! For being only 4 inside a stack of 30, i sure am drawing these things. Isabelle actually doesn’t mind this. Swapping her agility and willpower could be a minor annoyance if i was relying hard on spells right now, but since i throw 3 wild icons around at everything anyways, it’s not too relevant. I guess it means i can’t throw Fearless into a willpower test now.

And Joe draws Velociraptor #2056. These things really do hunt in packs. How many of these things do i have to kill?

Oh crap, i am just realizing something. Let me break out the cursive text for this. I cheated! Timestream is connected to every Adrift location, but i am realizing only now that this is a one-way connection, the Adrift locations don’t have a connector pointing at the Timestream. To get from an Adrift location to the Timestream, one has to pass a willpower test against 5 minus number of doom on the agenda. So… i only did bypass this mechanic once, in the turn where i opened up the Arkham Present location. There were 3 doom in play, so i suppose we just have to hand-wave this now and pretend as if Isabelle and Joe both passed their willpower(2) tests. For what it’s worth, that is not an outrageous assumption. But yeah. I missed taking those tests. It is what it is, too late to go back now. Back to our regularly scheduled scenario.

Joe plays Insidious Truths, discarding Mag Glass and ECache and after passing the 8 vs 3, deals 3 damage to defeat the raptor. He then plays Laboratory Assistant, drawing two cards. This reshuffles his deck, dealing a horror to Lab Ass. The two drawn cards are M1911… and the random weakness, Pursued which goes into my threat area. Yeah, that sounds about right. With the final action, Joe moves once space towards the Tatterdamelion, into An Earth Long Dead. Whenever someone enters that location, they are dealt a damage and a horror. I put those on the Lab Assistant as well and she is already defeated again.

Isabelle moves twice, into Banks of Nile. If i am correct, the Sandstorm should pass next round which would enable me to just quickly grab the four clues there and get out. With my third action, i simply draw a card, finding Hunter’s Instinct. Initiate looks at the deck and finds nothing she wants.

Upkeep draws are Lucky Cigarette Case and Perception.

End of the round, i test against the treachery that switches up Isabelle’s stats. I commit Twin 45s for an agility test 5 vs 3, but fail.

Round 12

(5/5 doom) -> (1/5 doom)

Ah, i misplayed.

The agenda flip does indeed discard all persistent treacheries (Sandstorm and both the treacheries in Izzie’s and Joe’s threat areas), but it also moves everyone to a random location. I forgot about that. There is also some location switcheroo happening. When the dust settles, it’s not as bad as it could have been:

Isabelle is now near the Tatterdemalion and Joe is near Egypt. So from that end i can still make this work. However, there is also of course the small thing of needing to get home. The last few turns are running now and Joe will need to pass his willpower test to move back into the Timestream. And then also his agility test there to stay there. Isabelle has ways to help with that, but this could with some unfortunate intrusion of enemies at the wrong point still go south.

Dark Maledict for Isabelle is fine. I take 2 horror which i will heal at the earliest convenience with my last Canteen sip. I really went through two of those things, huh.

Roman Outpost attaches to Joe’s current location, 16th century Arkham. At the start of his turn, he’ll have to spawn a roman soldier (represented by a card from his deck) and engage it. He’ll take a horror from Pursued for that.

I start off with Joe and go through all of that. One horror and one roman soldier later, i simply move into the Nile location. The soldier takes an attack of opportunity at me, i Counterattack it and the soldier is down. No more wasting of time here, i need to get going! I investigate with Perception and Deduction committed and despite drawing the -4 from the bag, i oversucceed by 3. Deduction gives me two extra clues, so i collect three in total. Perception and my ability draw cards, so i also gain Overpower and Vicious Blow. With my final action, i investigate again, hoping to get the remaining clue. 5 vs 2 succeeds. Good turn.

Isabelle moves into the Tatterdemalion and investigates. Soul Link (soaked by Aleksey) joins the test and i pass, collecting the final clue there. With my third action i want to move into the Timestream which requires me to pass a willpower(4) test. I spend 2 horror to use my Soul Link from the discard pile again, shuffling it back and passing the test. Arcane Initiate looks at the deck, but disappoints. At the end of my turn, i need to test agility to stay in the location. Time to throw my other Soul Link at this! I go to 3 horror on me. For good measure i also throw the Hunter’s Instinct into the test to beat the -4. I draw skull which is indeed a -4 now. Phew. I kinda forgot about the skulls also being -4 now. That’s spicy.

Upkeep draws are Timely Intervention and Dorothy.

Round 13

(2/5 doom)

Both investigators draw the same encounter card and it’s a relatively mild one in the current situation. Dystopia goes into the threat area of each investigator. At the end of their turns they will need to pass a willpower(2) test or they take a horror that needs to go on an ally if possible. Sure.

Isabelle starts her turn. I go fishing for Soul Links with the Initiate, but find only my second copy of Second Sight. Eh.
Her first two actions are then spent investigating. The plan is clearing all clues from the timestream which will allow us to forget about that agility test and also allow her to commit skill cards to Joe’s attempts to enter the Timestream location. For the first attempt, i commit Fearless for a 6 vs 2. I draw Elder Thing which is also a -4. Right, we have five -4 tokens in the bag right now along with the autofail. Well, a success is a success. I heal a horror and spend a charge to gain a second clue. For the second attempt, i commit Fearless again, from the discard. This time i properly oversuceed and get to clear all my horror again. Fearless reshuffles and i spend my last charge on Second Sight to clear the location. With my final action i draw a card, Lucky Charm. Wish i had gotten this sooner, it’s one of the few ways i have to deal with direct damage on me. End of her turn, Izzie passes her test on Dystopia.

Alright, can i make Joe pass a willpower test against difficulty 3? I think it’s best if i save that for next round. Instead i play my personal weakness, Dead Ends, spending all of my resources. Then i discard Pursued. I need to take a test on my location, but failing there would only cost me resources… which i don’t have anymore. Still, i take it because the Elder Thing could move me to a random location which may be relevant. I draw -1 and nothing happens. Joe fails his Dystopia test and has to go to 5 horror.

Upkeep draws are Ward of Protection and Hand-Crank. How did the Ward dodge the Initiate all this time? Anyway, this is very nice to have.

Round 14

(3/5)

Please, nothing horrible. I want to get out this round!

Isabelle draws Beckoning again. It surges again. And again it surges into one of those nasty Paradox cards. This time it’s Uneven Acceleration and it threatens to draw up to three more encounter cards. Bruh. Ward of Protection came just in time for this nonsense.

Joe draws something new, an Aerial Bombardment that happens at his location. Leave the location? Take damage. Stay there? Take damage. Enter the location at a later point? Believe it or not, more damage. Oof. The good news is that this doesn’t impede me in trying to get out of here.

Okay, Joe first. We got three tries. Izzy spends a clue to commit Timely Intervention to his test. It’s 4 vs 2, genuinely the best i can do here. It’s enough. I draw the +1 and Joe is allowed to move into the Timestream. Second action, he moves straight on to Arkham, Present Day. Third action, resigns.

Isabelle follows.

Resolution

We did it! The timestream brings us back to a more familiar time. But as we orient ourselves, we find the current date on a stack of newspapers: It’s 1924. We are a year too early, one year before the Night of Fire and everything after it happens. Whoops.

No grand entries into the campaign log or anything, us being back speaks for itself.

We do however get experience! We got two Victory enemies in the display, plus seven Victory locations cleared. That’s a total of 9XP!

Not going to lie, this was hard earned. There were some real nail-biting moments in this where i went thinking about what to do for quite some time, sometimes literally slept on it. Great scenario and i am happy with the outcome as well.

Spending XP

Starting with Isabelle, there are a few things i want to get done here. Goal 1: More damage soak, and not just for her, but also for Joe. Goal 2: Now that i got Charisma, i want more allies. Also, Timely Intervention upgrade to get more wild icons.
Upgrade: 2x Timely Intervention level 0 -> level 3
Cut: Hunter’s Instinct, Premonition, Unexpected Courage
Add: Daniel Jameson, 2x Extra Rations
I kinda want a second Aleksey too, but couldn’t make him fit in this yet. A Blood Ward would also be nice. Maybe next time.

This is what Izzie’s deck looks like now (https://arkham.build/deck/view/tij3y4L9pGsSHEz)

Then we got Joe. I was very impressed by Bodyguard’s showing in this scenario and i am heavily considering getting a second copy. I also am somewhat taken by the idea of Psychoanalysis(3) which would help both investigators with finding what they need and also provide sanity healing for Joe which he currently doesn’t have. Another card that did essential work this scenario was Stock Ammo Reload and getting a second one of those would probably also be good. Final decision:
Upgrade: Mag Glass level 0 -> level 1
Cut: 2x Gather Intel, Hand-Crank, Machete
Add: Psychoanalysis, Stock Ammo, Fingerprint Kit, Bodyguard(2)
I don’t think i ever want to play Hand-Crank or Machete anymore with this deck. FPK at least gives me something aspirational to play in the last few rounds to convert excess money into clues while Hand-Crank is just a bad Mag Glass. As for Machete, it seems really not that great specifically in this campaign. Since Izzie now leans heavy into fighting, i can live with having only few weapons in Joe now, but ones that i am actually happy to play.

Here’s his list now (https://arkham.build/deck/view/IcZPE9GB8pTpsEX)

Next up: A Year To Plan. After a start that had me looking in control, Ages Unwound is bringing the heat now, having me in the defensive much more often. There were several turns this time where i just reacted to what happened and had to wrestle control and agency back. This scenario was close, next should be interesting as well!