Intro
With ArkhamLCG opening up a new chapter, i feel like it’s time to take one final big look at the chapter 1 campaigns and scenarios and see where they ended up for me in the grand picture, make one big ranking and a tierlist and all that fancy stuff. I’ve considered doing an update to the scenario reviews similar to the one i did after Scarlet Keys, but then i am updating the update to an article from three and a half years ago and … meh. Let’s do this in a way that is more future proof. I am also in the mood for something indulgent and overproduced. So let me just take a page out of that way overblown Comprehensive Investigator Review i did and turn this into a big ramble about Arkham scenarios. Actually, I’ll also rank the campaigns as a whole while at it. Oh, and let me also slap a pretentious title like “Comprehensive Campaign Compendium” on it.
I’ll do single pages for each campaign, for easier reference. This right here is the hub page, you can find the links just a bit below.
Oh right. Spoilers, btw.
All of them.
Definition of Tiers
My previous scenario reviews were putting all scenarios in one of five tiers that years ago i defined as such:
This is a system i like well enough to keep. Additionally, i might add a “+” or “-” to note that a scenario lives on the upper or lower range of that tier. So for example, if i say that a scenario is “Tier 2+“, it barely missed the cut to Tier 1. While a “Tier 3-” I’d find somewhat mediocre, but not bad enough to put it in Tier 4.
I’ll try to add enough explanation of why i rank it the way i do, which is hopefully more helpful than the rank itself anyway.
The “Return To” boxes
In the past, i have evaluated scenarios by their Return To version, because that is the one i am most familiar with by now. Due to how difficult they are to get these days, i am going to try and stick to the regular scenarios as originally released for the main score this time around.
That being said, when i feel it is particularly relevant, i will add a note about the Return To changes and how they change my view on the scenario ranking. For most, the ranking doesn’t significantly change, but i can at least think of a couple Forgotten Age scenarios where i feel like i need to talk about both incarnations of them.
Joy. I am a simple player, I get rankings, I read them and enjoy it.
Question: What are the top 5 scenarios you feel would most benefit from a Return To-style rework without completely ripping them up and redoing them?
Difficult question to answer in the space of a comment. I’d be looking at low ranked scenarios because those have the most way to improve, and among those at scenarios that are only barely missing the mark and could be fixed by swapping out some cards. Like, Return to Hemlock House could provide alternate location enemies that make them more dangerous.
However, the Return To-style replacements mostly don’t actually do much to change the way the scenario plays because it’s ultimately just a handful of cards in a couple dozen. So looking over the list of scenarios i don’t really see many where I’d think that swapping out an encounter set or adding three new cards would significantly benefit them. When Return Tos have been impactful, it’s been due to radically changing mechanics on a ground level, like RtTFA did for Explore or by basically redesigning the scenario, again RtTFA did this with Doom of Eztli. RtTCU’s most gamechanging feature is seeding agility-focused encounter cards into the replacement sets to break up the willpower dominance… but that’s again not a scenario-specific thing, but one that’s anchored higher up.
Sorry, I meant “Working within the confines of the Return To system”. Basically, you can overhaul things, but it would have to be to a degree that you could see FFG taking it if they were to officially release it, if that makes any sense. RtTFA Doom of Eztli-level changes are fine.
Almost all of the final scenarios kind of miss the mark, that sounds like a good place to start. For many of the campaigns, that’d really make a difference.