Campaign Compendium: Forgotten Age

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Overall Campaign Rating: Tier 3 as originally released, Tier 2+ with Return To
Scenarios: Average out at a Tier 3, with quite some variance in either direction. TFA is difficult and mechanically dense, which works both in its favor and against it. Challenge is a good thing, frustration isn’t. TFA walks that line and where it falls, is going to depend a lot on the players as well. I don’t think the scenarios themselves are outstanding (with exception of Threads of Fate and Depths of Yoth), but are mostly carried by the campaign wide mechanics like Explore.
Campaign structure: Linear, with the slightest of an exception being the possibility to “Turn Back Time” and replay scenario 2 at the end of the campaign with a few differences. But what really makes TFA shine for me and give it a lot of its replayability is all the meaningful decisions you make between scenarios. The Choice of supplies and whether to favor Alejandro or Ichtaca or forge your own path are impactful and can change your playthrough in meaningful ways, even more than Doubt/Conviction can do for Path to Carcosa.
Campaign mechanics: Poison is a status you can gain from various sources, most notably snakes and treacheries. It persists through scenarios and will give you trauma and make the chaos bag harder for you. Thankfully, the supplies include an antidote, so planning for the eventuality of getting poisoned is something you are able to do and need to do.
On that note, supplies are picked at campaign start and at a resupply point after Threads of Fate. The points you get to spend there are limited, the supplies are varied in their effects and you likely are going to need to make some tradeoffs here. On a blind play, their use isn’t well communicated which caused some grief, but once you are in the know it’s a neat system to interact with.
Explore drives many of the location layouts in scenarios. The location grid is still predetermined, but the order in which the locations are revealed is randomized. It’s a very good mechanic, but not without flaws. The biggest flaw is related to the circumstance that exploration attempts may run into a treachery instead. A couple of those are shuffled into the explore deck at the start and removed after drawing them, leading to a situation where somehow the jungle is most dangerous near the base camp, then gets more predictable as you make your way inwards. We’d logically expect this to work the other way round and indeed the Return To inverts this dynamic to great effect
The Return To: The Return to Forgotten Age is the biggest gamechanger among the Return To boxes by far. It revamps the Explore rules to make more sense, play better and allows the explore deck to also have enemies in it. It smoothes out many of the more difficult scenarios to be less frustrating. It overhauls both Doom of Eztli and Boundary Beyond to be a lot better, removing frustration points that previously put a huge dampener on my desire to replay this campaign. With the Return To, the scenario rankings improve in a very noticable way, to the point where i put Return to Forgotten Age even ahead of Carcosa. Without the Return, it ranks third behind Carcosa and Innsmouth because as much as i like the decision points between the scenarios that whole stretch in the middle from Boundary to City of Archives can just be a bit of a slog.
More Yapping: Much is made of Forgotten Age’s almost unique way of handing out lots and lots of experience. With some even claiming that it’s too much – a take i wholeheartedly disagree with. The important thing about XP in TFA is that it’s earned. You don’t just get it for showing up, the scenarios are hard, easy to fail and till the end you run into a consistent challenge. That’s something can’t be said about most other campaigns that came after it, that end up with flat and/or boring finales in spite of barely giving enough XP to do a cool thing and actually play with it.

Untamed Wilds

Rating: Tier 2
Highlights: I have a very soft spot for the initial Ichtaca confrontation. It illustrates how we should be able to interact with story relevant NPCs while still acting within the gameplay. Ichtaca can either be parleyed or defeated and either task is not trivial at all. The investigators need to actually have the skills to pull either option off, meaning that your party composition and cards in hand might even influence what option your are going for here. It’s peak integration of story choice into gameplay and no amount of text in extensive story passages will ever be able to match it.
The other thing about Untamed Wilds that i really like is how it prepares everyone for the campaign to come. It introduces all relevant campaign mechanics (Supply, Poison, Explore, Vengeance) and spins them into a short but brutal scenario that doesn’t pull its punches. Forgotten Age is not an easy campaign and it is not pretending to be at any point.
Low points: Untamed Wilds is famously the scenario that gives Ancient Evils its (way overblown) bad reputation. It’s here in an encounter deck of effectively 20 cards that reshuffles often, leading to extremely high variance in how many turns get lost to the extra doom from Evils. Plays of Wilds can stand or fall just purely on how many Ancient Evils get pulled in the first stretch of the scenario, before the encounter deck reshuffles for the first time.
Yapping: The other thing that Untamed Wilds is notable for is that willpower test on the agenda flip. Everyone tests willpower and whoever fails gets poisoned. I am still not sure if that’s incredibly cheap or actually a solid way to teach players about poison right from the start – after all, the campaign gives you the tools to handle the poison very well through supplies, so it’s just something to plan around. But yeah, definitely a divisive thing that can push anyone who is already frustrated by Untamed Wild’s base difficulty over the edge.
Personally, i enjoy Untamed Wilds a lot. I welcome the challenge and i appreciate that TFA asks you to give everything right from the start and it does so using the core mechanics of the campaign. As a result, it gives you an immediate thing to measure yourself against so the trickier parts of the upcoming campaign won’t sneak up on you too much.

The Doom of Eztli

Rating: Tier 5+
Highlights: Doom of Eztli introduces the Harbinger of Valusia, a recurring enemy whose life total we have to track across scenarios. She’s a cool boss enemy that has a knack for turning up at the most inconvenient times and with an imposing Vengeance number on her that points us towards evasion as a real alternative to handle her.
The scenario ends on a bit of a gimmick, as the locations get rearranged into a straight line once the investigators pick up the relic. They need to make it past all of the locations to the resign at the entry in time.
Low points: This scenario’s central mechanic is that doom gets placed on locations where it doesn’t get removed when the agenda advances. That makes Doom of Eztli snowball super hard, as early doom placed this way can completely ruin your chances to make it in time. To me personally it feels more frustrating than Ancient Evils in Untamed Wilds does.
The scenario is light on enemies which together with the doom mechanics make for a very non-interactive race against the clock while being pelted by treacheries.
Return To: In what is a difference of night and day, the Return To completely overhauls this scenario, swapping out the locations to almost completely remove the location doom. At the same time, the encounter set adds enemies to the encounter deck that are not trivial to overcome, most of all the Vengeful Serpents. I’d rank the Return to Doom of Etzli a Tier 3-, which is not a super high mark either, but of course a very significant improvement.
Yapping: I find the original version of this scenario very annoying and frustrating to play because it leaves so little room for interaction, so much so that i would put this into the bottom tier of scenarios i dread setting up. Luckily the Return To came to the rescue to redesign this scenario into something where i actually feel like my actions matter. The scenario after the Return To is barely recognizable, but in this case that might just be a good thing.
There is one other oddity with Doom of Eztli, which is that you get to retry the scenario if you fail. Or you can dynamite the place to move on, taking on a massive Vengeance penalty for doing so. I have very mixed feelings on this, i feel like this is mostly a trap, that Vengeance is going to catch up to you later and replaying is going to be almost always the preferrable option. But then of course you are being made to replay a scenario that isn’t exactly a banger, so that doesn’t feel great either. I’m not sure that having an option to replay here really adds anything, i feel like the resolution on fail should have just gone with the “blow up the temple” result without an awkward option to replay a failed scenario.

Threads of Fate

Rating: Tier 1
Highlights: This scenario takes us back to the style of scenario pioneered by Midnight Masks, where we have only a limited amount of time and have to do as much as possible. Masks is a very well loved scenario, but Threads arguably improves on it in several ways. With multiple parallel acts that can be advanced independently from each other, the progress that is being made (as well as the still open plot lines) is communicated extremely well. All of these threads exist in multiple variants, both for replayability and as a way to enhance the scenario itself as you will likely need to adapt to however the acts develop. The encounter deck is almost straight up the same one as the one in Midnight Masks, for a crass contrast with the jungle parts of the campaign. They do however add some new cultists that are no joke and complement the Nightgaunts to make this an often very fighty ordeal.
Low points: None. Well, i suppose the Nightgaunts are still just as random as they were in Midnight Masks. The setup can be a bit involved with all the different versions of the acts to figure out, but the ordeal is very much worth it in this case.
Return To: Somehow makes this already amazing scenario even better, through adding a fourth thread and the potential for the Harbinger of Valusia to show up. Return to Threads is Tier 1+ in my book and a Top 5 scenario.
Yapping: Threads of Fate’s existence is one of the main reasons why i don’t really look at the Night of the Zealot anymore, after all it replicates and improves on NotZ’s best scenario. As well crafted as the whole thing is, what really elevates Threads of Fate to the top of the heap is how it’s also extremely well integrated into the campaign, with the results of Untamed Wilds/Doom of Eztli mattering for how you start into the scenario and the results of Threads consequently also echoing down the rest of the campaign. This is that “making choices in the gameplay, not in the book” thing where I am so often complaining about that it somehow got lost in the more modern campaigns.

The Boundary Beyond

Rating: Tier 4-
Highlights: There’s some really cool enemies in this one. I like both Padma and the Serpent of Tenochtitlan, who make a terrifying couple of boss enemies. The Harbinger makes an appearance again as well. To add to these chunky enemies, there is also a couple of impactful cultist type enemies around that can’t be ignored.
Low points: Oh god, the location connections. I would be surprised if in the history of the game there was ever a game of Boundary Beyond being played where every move of an investigator or enemy was according to the rules. The issue is that the locations here can be swapped between the Present and Future versions … and with that they change where they connect to. As a result there’s one-way connections and all sorts of weirdness. While conceptually super cool and fitting, it’s a major pain to keep up with them on the table and then also need to be double and triple checked with every movement. Considering that there are a couple relevant Hunters around, this gets taxing quick.
The conditions that the investigators need to fulfill to be able to interact with the locations are sometimes quite hard and random. What’s worse is that they can fail due to the explore mechanics which means you may have to end up lining whatever condition is required again. This feels very, very bad and will randomly bite the players without much they can do about it.
The other thing is that this scenario is just really difficult in general. Big enemies, many hunters, asset hate, doom mechanics, difficult tests… it’s a lot. You are asked to stabilize up to six locations, but often you can be happy if you can limp through the exit with two of them done. Open-ended goals are good, however this is also a major turning point for your progression with Ichtaca, so if you were planning on buddying up with her, then Boundary Beyond can just stonewall you hard.
Return To: Like Doom of Eztli, this scenario gets a pile of changes to the better from the Return To Forgotten Age. The biggest change is that the swap of the locations can (for the most part) not fail randomly from Explore anymore, so if you are able to meet the conditions, you can be certain that it will go through. The explore changes also contribute to just lowering the difficulty a bit in general. This turns Boundary Beyond into a scenario that is still quite hard, but much fairer than before as it now gives you a chance to establish a foothold while the explore deck ramps up its threats in sync with your progress. I’d call Return to Boundary Beyond a clean Tier 3, held back from rating even better than that by how much of a logistical pain the locations on the board are to manage.
Yapping: Getting all six paths in Boundary Beyond is among the couple of strech goals that players can point to as genuine achievements, things that are hard to do even for seasoned players. I’ve done it in Return to Boundary Beyond more than once, but in the unmodified scenario it’s almost unthinkable to me. It’s a bit unfortunate how the base scenario only really improves once you stop going for the best result and just focus on getting two or three paths done, then surviving.

Heart of the Elders, part I

Rating: Tier 3
Highlights: This scenario puts the players back into the jungle, in a very small and constricted map alongside a smattering of dangerous Hunter enemies. It is a short and tight scenario that does one thing and does it actually quite well.
Low points: There’s just not a whole lot to it beyond “small map, Hunters, run”. If you made it here, there’s nothing terribly challenging about HotE I, and while the scenario does use its cards in a way that is notably different, there is a level of repetition from re-using a lot of the same locations and encounter cards as Untamed Wilds.
Yapping: This scenario also comes with the ability to be repeated until you finally get all paths together. I have to be straight with you, this never was a factor for me. Never had to do a repeat, never was bothered by it, it’s a complete non-entity in my book. I’ve read some hand-wringing about the repeatable nature of the scenario being exploitable, but … i mean, just don’t exploit it?
Overall, not really a scenario that stands out in any way. I like it as a short and quick stint through the wilderness, with some credible threats on my heels. But for better or worse, it’s nothing special at all.

Heart of the Elders, part II

Rating: Tier 4
Highlights: None.
Low points: None.
Yapping: This might just be the most superfluous scenario in Arkham Horror history, it does nothing interesting at all. It’s not even bad enough to really be mad about it, it’s just kinda there and you do it because that’s what the campaign book says. While part I at least has an interesting angle with the many Hunter enemies you need to dodge, part II is just the core mechanics of the campaign executed in the most basic manner. Part I is often compared to Untamed Wilds due to the similarity in the cards being used, but i feel like Part II is the one that is actually most like it due to just being a stripped down version mechanically. This would be fine near the start of a campaign, but for a scenario 6 (or 5b if you insist), this is a letdown. Carcosa’s Echoes of the Past at least tried to do something new.

The City of Archives

Rating: Tier 3-
Highlights: Making up for how bland the previous scenario is, City of Archive makes some bold and daring choices. I wish they had been made in a standalone scenario instead of being shoehorned into this campaign, but it can’t be denied that this scenario has some ambition behind it. It swaps out the investigator cards, does away with any and all campaign mechanics, uses none of the TFA encounter sets and just unapologetically gets weird. Instead of doing things with exploration or evasion, we now have to care about hand size as a central mechanic, something that didn’t come up before at all.
Low points: The same, really. How weird and different this scenario is works as much as a strike against it as it is in its favor.
Yapping: City of Archives is very divisive. I think i do like it enough as a scenario to still group it in Tier 3, but as a part of Forgotten Age i have some serious issues with it which is why i will put it on the brink to Tier 4. Taking the investigator cards from players and potentially turning their decks into near-blanks is just straight up not okay. It’s unfair and i wouldn’t fault anyone who, after their Forgotten Age run is ended by this scenario, to be bitter about it. The possibility to have this extend to the final scenarios of the campaign is downright insulting.
Once you know this scenario is coming up later, it still commands the player to care about it more during deck construction and upgrading than a single scenario should arguably be able to influence you just for its own sake. Some decks are just completely disabled here to the point where suiciding into the nearest Yith enemy is your best option for continuing the campaign.
All this baggage sadly overshadows the good parts of the scenario. City of Archives has some genuinely interesting treachery design and is mechanically dense. Figuring out its puzzle is enjoyable if your deck ends up being able to perform.
But maaan, this really should have been a standalone.

The Depths of Yoth

Rating: Tier 2+
Highlights: This scenario is the explore mechanic at its best. As we go down the Depths one by one, the board and the explore deck resets regularly and makes us go deeper yet another set of randomized locations. Since the contents of the explore deck also change, these depths are different from each other that it doesn’t just feel like repeating the same thing five times over. Basically, it’s everything that Heart of the Elders II failed to be.
Low points: There are two things that keep me from grouping Depths of Yoth with the best of the best. The first one is the pursuit zone. It works well enough to not be a burden, but it’s a bit of weirdness that exists to preserve enemies in play from one depth to the next. It’s not a bad mechanic as such, but i find it just unsatisfying enough to bother me a bit. The other thing is how the scenario scales with Vengeance. This is the scenario where all that accumulated Yig’s Fury comes back to haunt us, as we have to discard agendas from play at setup – thus giving us less time to get down the five levels while also making it so the Harbinger and Yig appear earlier. In the average play of Forgotten Age (especially once you know what sort of number of Vengeance is acceptable) this works out just fine. But in plays where you managed to get very little Vengeance, Depths is merely a stroll through the caves with little pressure as you have plenty of time and are able to finish before even meeting Yig. At the same time, too much Vengeance can mean that the scenario is almost unwinnable as you have only precious few turns while having the big enemies spawn right on top of you in the first couple rounds.
Yapping: After a bit of a mediocre stretch of scenarios in the middle of TFA, Depths of Yoth is something to look forward to. It’s a scenario that at first appears to be quite involved and complicated with its definition of Depth levels, pursuit zone and a repeatable nature involving multiple mid-scenario setups… but to its credit, it plays out very smooth and is usually just a really good time as you stumble through the caves, pick up clues and evade hunters.

Shattered Aeons

Rating: Tier 3+
Highlights: This is another finale that doesn’t shy away from throwing a challenge at us. There’s some terrifying enemies in here, including a bunch of meaty Elites. I appreciate this, as Forgotten Age is notably the campaign where the most experience is handed out over the course of the campaign, so player decks are going to be very powerful here. That Aeons still manages to be rough even when players show up with 60-70xp in their decks is a genuine achievement.
Low points: Some of the scenario mechanics, especially the ones around getting horror and/or damage for moving around under certain conditions, break up the player group in a way that was not really telegraphed at all during the campaign. As a result, a fighter might find themselves in a situation where they need to be able to clear a location from clues or be severely punished for that. Shattered Aeons favors flex investigators over specialised ones a lot, and while a bit of that is definitely not bad, this is bordering on being too much.
Yapping: I have read a lot of damning reviews for Shattered Aeons, leaving me in the belief that i like this scenario more than most do. It can certainly be a bit of a frustrating affair like many things in Forgotten Age, if you are unprepared for it. But in terms of being the finale to a campaign that weighs difficulty against generous rewards for facing it, this is appropriate enough. It does repeat some of the beats of the Dunwich finale (different dimension, locations come semi-randomly, make your way to the final location, there’s fixed safe spots along the way from which to continue, you can get reset to the start location where a big monster waits for you…) but just different enough that it doesn’t feel like a rehash.