Brethren of Ash : Spreading Flames – Blind(ish) Play

Intro and a couple disclaimers

The Chapter 2 Core Set is finally here, time to dive in. I figured I’d use the blind play of the Brethren of Ash campaign as the hook for me to do something similar to the detailed write-up of my Drowned City blind play. Since the introductory campaign, or at least its first scenario, is supposedly laid out like a tutorial, i should just be able to follow that along and overexplain it to hopefully make sense!

Speaking of making sense… one warning beforehand. I write this while playing and i don’t really editorialize it much afterwards. So expect stream of thoughts and possible repetition. I might jump wildly between third person (“Joe plays…”), first person (“I choose to…”) and even first person plural (“We then go and…”). It is what it is, two-handed solo causes minor schizophrenia, deal with it.

In the writeup i assume that you know what the player cards in the new Core do. Sorry, i know this is a hassle if you are new to the game, but linking up every Dorothy and Unexpected Courage and whatnot would take another hour or three out of my life and writing this up takes very long already – in doubt just have the Visual Spoiler (or equivalent on arkham.build, arkhamdb or wherever else) open in another tab to look up the ones you don’t know.

This play of Spreading Flames is not completely blind, i have briefly flicked through the encounter sets before and i have seen a short playthrough of it on Youtube (albeit one where the player died on the first location… hopefully i get further than that!) So i have a very rough idea of what encounter cards exist, but there will be plenty of surprises for me still because i’ve seen little of this scenario and nothing of the other two.

Oh right, obviously there will be full spoilers for the campaign going forward. Duh.

Investigators and Decks

I play solo two-handed, simulating two players. It’s my preferred way of play over true solo because it’s less swingy and also keeps many of the more interactive elements that are missing from true solo. Difficulty is Standard (that’s the second difficulty out of four). For my investigators, i am picking Joe Diamond and Isabelle Barnes and i am building my own decks instead of using the preconstructed decks. Joe is Seeker and Guardian, while Isabelle is Survivor and Mystic, so there is no overlap between the two. Both will be able to fight and clue, which should make for a solid all-rounder team. Deckbuilding with just the Core set isn’t terribly exciting of course, i don’t think we need to really get into that too deep. I took the better cards and left the worse cards in the box. The only thing really worth mentioning is that Izzie is going to lean pretty hard into her Mystic side with the spell assets to get stuff done.

Setting up Spreading Flames

Before I can take my first turn, there’s some setting up to do. The campaign book has a relatively short intro blurb about something weird being afoot in Arkham and us being on its tail, following a lead to the Miskatonic University where we are supposed to meet a friend. It’s quiet – too quiet.
I pick out a bunch of encounter sets from the box and build the encounter deck from them following the instructions. A location starts in play already, with both of my investigators at it. The rest of the locations are set aside, together with an Elite enemy, a story ally and a bunch of Fire treacheries. “You are now ready to begin.”, the book helpfully informs me. That was quick.

Lay of the Land

Whenever i play a scenario, especially when i play it for the first time, i start the game by taking every bit of information in from the initial setup that i can. First, the act and agenda deck:

For what i would have expected to be a fairly short scenario, there’s a bunch of cards in the act and agenda decks.
3 agenda cards, the first one that is visible does have a very short doom threshold however. So we are getting a few turns to set up before the agenda flips and the backside probably has something bad coming for us and the scenario properly begins. There’s an ability there that lets us discard Bystanders. I happen to already know what Bystanders are, so this makes sense to me – i’ll explain it once it’s relevant.
The act deck is 4 cards thick which seems like a lot. I actually don’t know what these are, so that’ll be interesting for me as well. Each act is usually something you need to achieve to to work your way towards the finish line. The first sub-goal is finding 4 clues (2 per investigator). The act can only be advanced at the end of a round once we have those clues available.

Next up, the scenario reference card. This gives us the token modifiers for skill tests, these are good to know in advance. We have 2 skulls, 1 tablet and 1 Elder Thing in the chaos bag right now, due to playing on Standard. The skulls will be weak in the beginning, but scale up till they are -4s near the end. The tablet is only -1 but stacks with another token. And finally the Elder Thing has the potential to put Fire treacheries into play which we probably do not want! So if I want to take a test and have it guaranteed to pass on anything but the autofail, i am going to need to test at 4 over difficulty (tablet into Elder Thing), near the end even at 5 over (tablet into skull). Honestly, when compared to Standard token modifiers from old campaigns, this looks above average. It’s definitely not holding back for the tutorial on that front.

Finally, the starting location. Shroud 2 is pretty low. Four clues on it, same as the requirement for the act advancement. Pretty obvious what the game wants us to do here, i can pretty much see the “Press X to Investigate” prompt hovering above us. We need to search the room for signs of the whereabouts of our friend that we were supposed to meet here. I don’t anticipate that this should be too difficult?

The encounter deck is 24 cards thick. Since i don’t really know the encounter cards yet, i am just not going to overthink that aspect yet. That is for later :D

Starting Hands

Joe Diamond draws his starting five cards: Hand-Crank Flashlight, Fingerprint Kit, Dorothy Simmons, Working a Hunch, Emergency Cache. That is a very good opening hand, with both resources and investigation tools. I mulligan away the Working a Hunch, hoping to maybe draw a weapon as well. I get an Unexpected Courage as my new fifth card. Perfectly acceptable.

Isabelle draws Soul Link, the Twin .45s, Premonition, Timely Intervention, Guts. I keep the pistols and the Soul Link in hand and redraw the other three cards. I get Premonition again, but also Second Sight and Cosmic Flame. Izzie has all the tools, now she only needs the money to pay for all of that.

Both also have their five starting resources. The three investigator tokens you can also see on the image I use as action trackers.

Round 1

Well then, let’s get cracking. The question is if i should clean the location in this round already or do i take it slow just in case something uncouth is waiting on the flipside of the act. Usually advancing the act is good, but i’ve been burned before by that assumption. I think i’m fine with only advancing at the end of round 2.

Joe starts, playing Dorothy. Then he investigates the location, testing 5 vs 2. And reveals an Elder Sign. First test of chapter 2 is an Elder Sign, this run is blessed. What an easy game. I gain a clue from the location and the Elder Sign gives me a card and a resource. I go up to 3 resources again and draw a Magnifying Glass. For good measure, Joe’s investigator ability also gives me a card – it’s Pursued, his random basic weakness. It enters play and threatens to deal horror when enemies appear. I probably should get rid of that soon. I can’t do that with just one action left however and since Dorothy hasn’t triggered yet, i figure i might as well just investigate again. I play Mag Glass and test 6 vs 2. I draw a skull which puts me at 5 vs 2, which allows me to gain a resource from Dorothy. What a great first turn to start into this scenario, campaign and chapter.

Izzie’s turn is much faster. Since Joe didn’t get a weapon, she will take the role of fighter now. With her first action, she spends 3 resources on Cosmic Flame. With her remaining two actions, she simply helps out Joe and discard his weakness before it can do any harm.

During upkeep Joe goes to 4 resources, Isabelle to 3. Joe draws a second copy of Dorothy which isn’t terribly useful. Izzie draws Hunter’s Instinct which is powerful, but also not what we need right now.

Round 2

(Doom: 1/3)
With 1 out of 3 required doom we draw our first helping of encounter cards!

Joe gets Wild Compulsion. He has 4 resources right now and an ECache in hand, i am fine with losing some resources here so i just take the test 2 vs 3. I draw a 0 and lose a resource. Perfectly fine.
Less fine is Cosmic Evils, the new version of the card that gave my blog its name. There’s a bit of a sadistic choice to it now, one that i think is quite well done. I have to think about this for a bit and finally decide to just take the doom. I have to trust that the design of the scenario takes an Evils or two into account and that it’s budgeted into the total doom threshold. It’s a bit unfortunate to have it right now as it will mean that the agenda will flip next round already, but hopefully that’ll be okay. The issue with the other option for me right now is that Izzie only has 5 base health and losing one of them hurts. Also, i want to use her sanity as a resource to recur skills. And who knows what the Surge brings. Could even be another Evils. If i already had soak on the board, this would probably go the other way, but sure let’s just go and Ancient Evils myself in the first mythos phase. At the very least it’s on brand, right?

Since the agenda is about to advance, i definitely want to advance the act beforehand now. I don’t want to be restrained to one location still when things are happening. Joe investigates 6 vs 2 and pulls -2. Success, but not one that Dorothy cares about. Still, i gain a clue and draw a card, my second Mag Glass. I decide against playing it, i think i want to keep the option of playing Fingerprint Kit next turn open. So instead i just investigate 6 vs 2 again. I draw -4 which is a success. Barely, but i take the last clue from the location. Dorothy is not impressed. Fine, if she doesn’t want to hand me resources, i’ll just use my last action to play ECache and go to 6 resources.

Isabelle is left without much to do. She has 3 resources which isn’t enough to play either Second Sight or the Twin Pistols. I could resource and play, but that doesn’t seem great, so i figure i might as well stock up on some cards. I use my first action to draw: Cloak of Resonance. That’s a card i can play. But might as well draw a second card first: The second Cosmic Flame. Fair enough. I use my third action to play the Cloak.

During upkeep, Joe goes to 7 resources, Izzie to 1. Joe draws his other Fingerprint Kit, Izzie draws her random basic weakness, the Gold Bug. Oof. While that card is in play, her sanity and health are both reduced by one. Had i taken the damage from the Cosmic Evils, she’d already be in striking distance of a 3 damage treachery. I suppose i will want to shuffle that thing away while my deck is still a decent size? Not sure yet how to handle this one.

Joe’s hand(6): Courage, 2x FPK, Hand-Crank, Dorothy, Mag Glass
Isabelle’s hand(6): Cosmic Flame, Second Sight, Twin 45, Premonition, Soul Link, Hunter Instinct

At the end of the round, I spend the clues and advance the act.

Two new locations enter play and one of them is occupied by the Servant of Flame, an Elite enemy that is quite terrifying. We’ll look at him in a bit. Also, a “Fire!” starts in the room we are in! Again, we’ll look at that in detail in a bit. The other Fire treacheries (4 of them!) go into the encounter discard pile, where they are now available for me to draw should i happen to fail with an Elder Thing. Let’s not, shall we.
The new act card informs us of our next goal: Reach the Quad, which requires passing by the location with the big guy in it. Helpful as ever, there is tutorial text which reminds us that evasion is a thing. We might want to take that into account, if they went through the trouble of spelling that out for us, they probably have a reason for that.

Round 3

(Doom: 3/3)
The doom threshold is met, the agenda advances. O joy.

Well, that’s almost disappointing how little is happening here. We, the assumed new player of Arkham Horror: The Card Game, are introduced into the idea that failing willpower tests leads to horror on the investigator. A good lesson to learn and one that especially Joe Diamond is going to be very familiar with very soon if things didn’t change dramatically with the new Core Set. Alright, then. Willpower tests. Joe is still unharmed, i don’t see a reason not to just take that horror on the chin. Similarly, Izzie can just do this one without any commits and see what happens. What happens is predictable: both fail and collect their horror.
The new agenda looks just like the first one, just with a higher doom threshold. 5 turns before something else happens.
Oh, by the way… Remember earlier, when i said that advancing the act is usually a good thing, that the bad things usually happen on the agenda flip instead? But that i have been burned by that before? I’d just like to point out here that advancing the act may have given us the next two locations, but it also spawned a big ass Hunter on our tail and set our location on fire. While the agenda flip was a bit of a nothingburger? Not rushing to get the clues and advancing the act in the first round was 100% the right call, that’d left me cold to what is happening now.

Right, moving on. All that yapping and we are still in Mythos. Encounter cards!

Joe pulls Unspeakable Truths. This is okay right now, we aren’t looking to find clues. And i could potentially just tank a bit of horror. I’ll see how and when i get a chance to deal with that. Probably not while my location is burning.
Izzie finds another enemy. The Mutated Experiment is a chunky enemy with a lot of 3s on him. And yet another horror related ability. This is starting to look deliberate.

So what do i do about the Servant of Flame. The non-subtle hint on the act suggests i evade him, and looking at his 4 power, 10 health, retaliate, 2 damage, 2 horror i am inclined to agree. This is basically what the Ghoul Priest from the original Core Set was. Back then, we got an overpowered ally asset to help, maybe it’s not unreasonable to think we get some sort of help with this guy as well later in the scenario?
Now, Joe isn’t really good at evasion and his only agility commit in hand is the Courage. 4 vs 4 is not something to base a plan on. Izzie however has an enemy in her face already. Still, if there’s someone who can defuse this situation, it’s her.

After some thinking time i have a plan. Isabelle starts by playing Premonition which reveals a -1. So that’s good to know! She then takes her first action and moves into the Dorms. The Mutated Experiment slaps her for 1 damage and 1 horror. I put the horror on the cloak and exhaust it, dealing a damage back to the Experiment. I open up the location (nothing here that helps me right now) and the Servant of Flame engages me. Second action, i evade. I know that i will pull the -1 from the Premonition, so i just need to bring my agility to 5 and i’m good. To that end, i commit the Twin Pistols. The evasion succeeds and the Servant is exhausted. With my third action, i’d love to move out of there, but then i’d take another attack of opportunity from the Experiment and then probably another attack later in the round. So i use Cosmic Flame to hopefully kill the mutant. I commit Soul Link (taking a horror) to test 7 vs 3 and reveal a skull. That’s a pass… but revealing skulls means i lose another charge from the Cosmic Flame which just goes straight from 3 to 1 charges here. Oh well, at least the enemy is dead.

Joe moves twice, heading straight for the Quad. It turns out to be a shroud 1 location without clues. Huh. Fair enough. For my last action with him, I play Fingerprint Kit.

In the enemy phase, Servant of Flame readies and engages Isabelle.

Upkeep: Joe goes to 4 resources, Izzie to 2. Joe draws Perception, Isabelle draws Ward of Protection.

Round 4

(Doom: 1/5)

Oh for fucks sake, how many enemies are in this deck? Joe draws Bystander. So this is the guy that the agenda deck has a specific ability for. He acts like an enemy, would cause attacks of opportunity and the like unless we handle him. If we defeat him, that causes doom, so we are usually expected to evade him. If he dies due to a Fire! treachery, that’d also be bad for us! Therefore the agenda offers us the opportunity to parley him into the discard pile without triggering his Doomed keyword. That parley uses intellect, so i suppose Joe is the right man for the job at least.
Izzie meanwhile can’t catch a break, as the Servant of the Flame apparently has a Hellhound in tow. I think i know how to handle this, but this is another of those situations where nothing can go wrong or i am once more not advancing the act this turn.

So, let’s start with Izzie then. I evade the Servant again, committing Soul Link from my discard pile using her investigator ability. That’s a horror from the Soul Link, a horror from the recursion. One of those goes on the cloak, which exhausts and deals a damage to the hound. The other horror i take on the chin. It’s only my third, this is fine. The test would be 6 vs 4, however i want to ensure myself against the -3 and Elder Thing, so i commit Hunter’s Instinct from my hand as well for another +1 to the test. I pass and the Servant is evaded. I fire my Cosmic Flame against the Hound. 4 vs 2, i pull the tablet which makes me panic for a moment, but the second token is a 0. Phew. Hound is dead, Cosmic Flame is depleted. With my final action, i move Izzie into the Quad and advance the act.

Woah, lot’s of good things happening here. Sorry for doubting you earlier, act deck! Servant of the Flame? Gone for now. The Bystander? Discarded. The burning room? Presumably burned out. What we are left with is the Quad as a central location and four other locations around it. Our new goal is collecting 6 clues and spending them at the Orne Library. The Quad has an interesting ability that allows a free movement once per round for one and two player groups. A neat way to offset some of that disadvantage that smaller groups tend to have compared to three and four player games. It’s still Izzie’s turn, i could use this to move her, but i think i will rather use this on Joe so he can start investigating those locations right away.

Joe uses the Quad to free-move into the Science Hall. It turns out to be a low shroud location with only 2 clues. And discovering them will cost a card from hand. No biggie, Joe gets a card for investigating to easily offset this. His first two actions are spent on discarding the Unspeakable Truths treachery he still has attached. It’s quiet right now, so i might as well take the opportunity. Then, he investigates the location, using his Fingerprint Kit. The test is 7 vs 2, an easy success that even nets a resource from Dorothy. He collects two clues, draws a card (M1911), then discards a card to the Forced effect on the location (Hand-Crank).

Upkeep brings Joe and Izzie to 6 and 3 resources. Cards drawn are Overpower and Timely Intervention.

Joe’s Hand(7): FPK, Dorothy, Courage, Perception, Overpower, M1911, Mag Glass
Isabelle’s Hand(4): Flame, Sight, Ward, Intervention

Round 5

(Doom: 2/5)

Joe draws Noxious Smoke, which allows him to choose either willpower or agility to test. Great, he’s bad at either. I have a Courage in hand, but decide to HODL and just let the damage come at me since i am still at full health with him. 2 vs 3, i pull tablet then -2 for a total of 0 vs 3. I take 3 damage from the Smoke, then another damage from the tablet. Oh god, Joe just went from 7 health remaining to 3 health remaining. Yeah, that could have gone better.
Meanwhile, Izzie finds another Hellhound. At some point this is just bullying.

I want to start with Izzie again, to see if she is able to handle the doggo or if Joe needs to come in and save her… somehow. Well, my Cosmic Flame is empty and i don’t really feel like testing basic combat three times in row, so i just play my second Flame and eat another attack of opportunity. That’s the second damage on her which is scary considering that the Gold Bug still reduces her max health from 5 to 4. The horror from the AoO goes on the cloak which once again deals a damage to the dog and the cloak is discarded. I kill the dog with the Cosmic Flame (using a charge), then move into the Dorms. I may need to use the healing ability there next turn.

Joe moves into the Quad, then take the free-move into Warren Observatory (3 shroud, 2 clues). I investigate with FPK and oversucceed by 2. I gain 2 clues and draw two cards: one card from my investigator ability and one from basically the same ability on the location. The cards are Working a Hunch and Deduction. Yeah, we got this part of the game well covered at least. In case something bad happens, i use my final action to replace my Mag Glass with the M1911.

Upkeep: Joe goes to 4 resources, Isabelle to 1. Draws are Scene of the Crime and Look What I Found. Joe has 9 cards in hand and discards the other Mag Glass. I don’t think we are going to need those anymore.

Round 6

(Doom: 3/5)
Despite getting bullied quite a bit by the encounter deck, i think we actually are currently ahead of where we are supposed to be. The investigation of the locations went super fast and we are close to advancing to the final act. Well, i don’t know how much doom the final agenda holds, but as long as it’s not a surprise 3 doom threshold or something similarly sinister, we should be good.

Joe draws Forbidden Secrets. Dropping clues would be bad right now, so even if i fail i probably rather take horror. But with all those cards in my hand i should be able to pass a simple intellect test, right? I commit Perception for a 7 vs 3 and pass. Perception draws me a Vicious Blow. Nice!
Izzie draws Unspeakable Truths which i am very likely just going to be riding out.

In spite of the Unspeakable Truths, i consider trying to go for the Look What I Found, but since the shroud is 3 it’s not guaranteed to succeed and brings with it the risk of damage and Fires from the tokens. So i just use the heal on the Dormitories location (which brings me back to 1 damage and 2 horror) and use two more actions to walk past the Quad into the Orne Library. There’s actually two clues here which means i don’t even need to go to the Dorms with Joe! Good info.

Joe moves into the Quad, then free-moves into the Library. With my second action, i empty my Fingerprint Kit. After committing Working a Hunch, i test 8 to 4 and pass, collecting two clues, a resource from Doro and a card (M1911) from Joe himself. The act will advance at the end of the round, so what do i do for my last action? I could play the other FPK, but i don’t really get the vibe that there’s much more clueing coming up. I rather expect the Servant of the Flame to make an appearance again. The second M1911 then in case more enemies show up in additon as well? Sure. I play the other gun and now have M1911s in both of my hands. Bring it on, nerds.

In upkeep, both investigators go to 2 resources. Cards drawn are Gather Intel for Joe and a Broken Bottle for Izzie. One of these cards is better than the other one.

The act advances at the end of the round.

Ah, as i thought. The Servant of the Flame appears again, right in the Quad. Both the Library in which we currently are and the Quad start burning. We can flee at any point now, but we do have a chance to face the Servant for a final showdown, defeating him would be our final objective if we choose to accept it. Henry Armitage shows up as a story ally and he’s a strong argument to stay for at least a turn or two as he brings enough soak to the table that he can tank the Servant for one swing on his own. I think about which of the two investigators should get him, his statboost are useful for both of them. I decide to give him to Joe, so i don’t run into an embarassing situation involving his remaining 3 health and a Smoke treachery. An interesting tidbit is that the Servant (or any other enemy) can also be damaged by throwing clues at them at a rate of 1:1. Weirdly, this scales with player count, but on both sides. So the rate stays the same, but if you are three players and have eight clues you can only use six of them. At two or four players, you could use all of them. Weird, i don’t get it.

Round 7

(Doom: 4/5)
We haven’t even cracked the final agenda yet. Seems like a good sign.

Well, look at that, there’s tutorial enemies in the scenario after all. Joe draws a Cantor of Flame, who is basically just a dude. Would’ve liked to have drawn that instead of a string of Hellhounds earlier! Joe uses Gather Intel to draw two cards, Overpower and a Hand-Crank.
Izzie gets Noxious Smoke. At 4 vs 3 i think i can just attempt this, i have Timely Intervention in hand for emergencies. For what it’s worth, 3 damage would kill me though. So i better don’t draw the autofail. Wait, i haven’t drawn the autofail all game yet, did it? Cute. Actually, you know what, i just talked myself into throwing a Ward of Protection at this. I cancel it.

So i suppose i just do a round and see how it goes? And if it’s awful i can just get out next round? Surely i will survive at least one turn. Surely.

Izzie moves into the Quad and engages the Servant. Let’s get the most difficult part out of the way first. Using the free-move on the Quad, Izzie moves into the Dorms, taking the Servant with her. Two actions left, hopefully i manage to evade the guy with them. It’s a 3 vs 4, but i do have Timely Intervention in hand to give myself +2 after the token reveal. First try is Tablet token into a +0… which is actually good enough! I commit Timely Intervention and evade the Servant. I could attack with Cosmic Flame, but it’d be a raw 4 vs 4 unless i want to burn the Timely Intervention from the discard on this. I think i’d rather draw a card here, hoping for another skill so i can keep the guy evaded through another turn maybe. I draw a card and it’s Manual Dexterity. That’s great!

Joes turn is simple. He shoots the Cantor, then moves twice to join Izzie and the big evil guy. I wish i was able to pick at least two clues on the way, but i can’t afford to stay in the fire treacheries. We got the boss in a non-burning location now, my hope is that we can just wail on him until he falls over.

In the enemy phase, the Servant of the Flame readies and engages Joe (due to Prey: lowest agility).

I get my resources and draw cards: Gather Intel and Will of the Cosmos. Joe discards to hand size, ditching a Hand-Crank and a Fingerprint Kit.

Round 8

(Doom 5/5)

Time for the agenda to advance. What fresh horrors does the scenario have in store for us?

Eh, the backsides of these agendas aren’t really that thrilling, are they? All the good stuff ended up on the act cards. I mean… fair enough. We got to do some agility tests, but i don’t really want to use any icons on that – those are much more useful for evading the big guy, i think. So i just take these tests raw. They both fail. Armitage takes the damage for Joe, but Izzie is once more at 2 of 4 health.
We got 10 doom left on the final agenda! While that sounds like a lot, it’s a bit misleading too… things are starting to burn every round now, so i am afraid we aren’t going to survive 10 rounds.
Okay, a lot depends on the encounter draws now. Please no enemies, i need to be able to focus on the boss now.

Joe draws Forbidden Secrets, but without any clues on hand it surges into Bystander. That’s an enemy, i specifically requested no enemies. Izzie gets something new – i kind of expected to have seen everything the deck had in store for us. I don’t mind a random discard, but taking a damage? That’s a big yikes right now. I pay a horror to commit Timely Intervention from my discard pile to test 6 vs 3. I pass.

Izzie engages the Servant and with her second action, evades him. If this fails, i probably just resign on my third action, so let’s hope it passes. I commit Manual Dexterity and Joe also adds the Unexpected Courage he had been sandbagging for all of the game. That’s still just a 7 vs 4 in total. I pass, and Man Dex draws me Alexsey. Mate, where were you all game. You would’ve made such a difference! Anyways, the big guy goes limp again. I attack with Cosmic Flame, committing Aleksey for 5 vs 4. Desperate measures, but we gotta get there somehow. I draw a 0 and pass. Wow. Spending a charge, i finally deal my first two damage to the Servant. Eight to go.

Joe now has a chance to unload on the Servant and he’s going to take it. Three shots. Overpower to each of the first two attacks, then Vicious Blow (and a Broken Bottle from Izzie) on the last attack. Anything useful drawn from the Overpowers also goes on the Vicious Blow attack. Plan stands, test is 7 vs 4. Attempt one: Passes with a +0. Draws ECache which is useless, but 2 damage are dealt. Shot number two draws a -2. Overpower draws another Vicious Blow. Wait, that’s actually huge! There’s six damage on the guy now and with two Vicious Blows i could deal the final four in one strike. Greedy, but i like it. 8 vs 4 passes with a -1 drawn. That’s four damage to the boss for exactsies. I was planning on just finishing him next turn with the Scene of the Crime and tossing two clues at his head, but this is even better!

The act advances -> Resolution 1.

Resolution

• We escape together with Armitage who is now added to one of my decks.
• I gain the campaign log entry that i defeated my masked pursuer.
• I gain Victory XP, including 3 bonus XP for reaching this resolution. 2 Victory on the locations, another 2 on the enemy and these 3 bonus XP make for a total of 7xp to spend before moving onto the next scenario.
• I have to choose if i want to help with putting out the flames of the burning Miskatonic University. Or if i feel like there’s no time for that. You know what, we are a PI and an ex-Cultist on a revenge spree, we don’t have time for this sort of thing.
• Due to that decision, i earn the campaign log entry that the MU burned down. Oops. From guilt, both investigators suffer 1 mental trauma. Weeeell…

Quick thoughts

I’ll probably say more once i finished the campaign, but since you probably want some early thoughts on how i thought this was:

I liked it a lot. It hit many of the same beats that The Gathering did of course, but that’s to be expected. The Gathering nailed the tutorial part and much of what worked there was carried over to the new Core. That being said, this felt a lot different despite that. Most of all, there was just no downtime here. In the Gathering you sometimes can wander around a bit in the house until you finally meet a ghoul somewhere. But this was just beat after beat after beat. So much happened despite this just being 8 rounds in the end. The enemies were really tough, i believe without the Cloak of Defiance tricks i would’ve just been bodied early on by the hattrick of 3 health enemies that came down just as the Servant of the Flame was appearing for the first time. Treacheries hit hard too. I like the new Ancient Evils variant. There were a few situations where i was a bad draw or botched test away from defeat and had to scrounge together a plan to get out of that situation. That’s quite something for a scenario that is heavily railroaded in its structure. Speaking of railroading… i am very grateful for that note on the one act that pointed towards evading the Servant at its first appearance. If i had gotten it in my head to fight there, it would a) have been a clusterfuck and b) been VERY frustrating to see him return to the set aside cards from the victory display should i have beaten him somehow. That was good railroading there!
Yeah, no big complaints. The only thing i noticed during the game was the weird player scaling on the clues you spend for damage in the end. I don’t get what that’s supposed to achieve. Oh right, one more complaint maybe… the agenda backsides were weaksauce, they had nothing. At the same time, the acts had maybe too much. Triggering so much bad stuff on advancing the act, especially the first act, is kind of bad form in my opinion.
All the fire stuff worked well for me thematically, the scenario was much more coherent than the random “oh my door is gone” and “wow a forcefield” and “there’s ice in the attic?” from The Gathering.
Early reaction is that this is a more exciting, but also more difficult version of The Gathering. And i would call that a good thing overall.