I'd love to see a "Investigators Expansions Ranked", considering both the investigators that come with it and the improvement to the card pool that they bring
Top 10 all-time video from Justin. Time stamps of the best of Justin's S-tier truth speak: Time Stamps: 2:15 criticizing scenarios 11:30 The Miskatonic Museum (TDL) - role of fighters 15:00 (16:35 follow up) The Essex County Express (TDL) - player negativity 18:20 Undimensioned and Unseen (TDL) - players need to adapt 40:10 The Forgotten Age - explore mechanic in TFA v Return to TFA 45:30 The Boundary Beyond (TFA) - players blaming the scenario for losing 48:10 Undimensioned and Unseen follow up - resign immediately? 52:40 The City of Archives (TFA) - losing investigator card v losing player cards 1:10:25 The Wages of Sin (TCU) - biggest pet peeve about the game 1:19:30 In the Clutches of Chaos (TCU) - too much randomness, not enough Arkham 1:50:30 A Light in the Fog (TIC) - “the thing I like most about Arkham” 1:57:35 Ice and Death Part 2 (EtE) - scenario v campaign replayability 1:58:25 very important Alanis Morissette reference 2:04:30 The Heart of Madness Part 2 (EtE) - final scenario trend of multiple maps 2:12:30 Dead Heat (TSK) - the problem with TSK 2:14:50 Dealings in the Dark (TSK) - moving the map. Why? 2:20:10 Sanguine Shadows (TSK) - unlocking the second half of the scenario 2:22:45 The Congress of the Keys (TSK) - it’s bad 2:26:50 Preludes (FHV) - player objectives 2:28:50 Preludes (FHV) - confusion about rules - “I believe in you” 2:31:45 The Feast of Hemlock Vale - campaign structure v TSK 2:33:00 The Lost Sister (FHV) - incredible reaction to blind playthrough 2:36:00 The Lost Sister (FHV) - scary enemies and treacheries are awesome 2:40:35 The Longest Night (FHV) - surviving an enemy onslaught design done right 2:41:45 The Longest Night (FHV) - counter argument to “custom stuff is always better” 2:44:25 Fate of the Vale (FHV) - outstanding implementation of story/themes into a campaign 2:48:45 Fate of the Vale (FHV) - revisiting final scenario trend of multiple maps
Talking about Heart of the Elders, you talk about your least viewed scenarios. I think this would be a neat video, looking at your youtube stats - which scenarios get the most views and why you think that is.
Nice video as always! I haven't gotten to making a group for Hemlock Vale to see the prologues, but I still use Disappearance at the Twilight Estate to ease beginners into Arkham. I've got to try HV soon. 1:10:25 I think this is here for the people that just flip the card before actually reading what you have to do, or fully understanding the front text. There is another "gotcha" like this in the Disappearance at the Twilight Estate if you read the backside of the Act card, if I recall correctly. If you play normally this shouldn't be a problem because it is impossible to flip that Act, but I've caught beginners flipping the Act deck in that scenario because they think that's logical after ending the game, so there are people that think that way. Kind of like a "You've looked in too deep carelessly" thing, which I also liked in Carcosa with the meta spoken word thing.
This is pretty silly, but i scored each of your ratings for each scenario, where the best got 7 pts and the worst got 1, then took the campaign averages and made a list This is obviously not an accurate way to measure campaigns and their enjoyment, but i thought it was interesting Hemlock - 4.85 Carcosa - 4.75 TFA (elders part 1 removed) - 4.25 Dreamer side - 4.25 Innsmouth - 4.125 Dream eaters - 4.125 Waking side - 4 Core - 4 TFA - 3.88 Edge - 3.875 Standalones - 3.72 Dunwich 3.375 TCU (intro removed) - 3.125 TCU - 3.11 The scarlet keys 3.11
Thing in the depths seemed very easy. Hit the turtle a few turns in a row and it gradually moves to the right place. Some encounter cards literally heal it so that helps you out
Hemlock Vale saved Arkham for me. EoE was boring and repetitive, and SK was a convoluted mess. But Hemlock was tight, simple yet creative, creepy, offered a lot of choice in a set structure, and has INSANE replaybilty. "The Longest Night" was so intense it gave me chest pains. A total home run.
Haven't finished the end yet of Hemlock I agree if the scenarios were split. We had to stop due to time. It was hard to understand the abyss deck and I struggled with understanding encounter set. But otherwise, Fate was like a combination of City of Archives and Weaver of the Cosmos. The abyss deck was really unique. Hard to understand at first, but I really loved it!
It's worth mentioning that there's even an element in Hemlock that you can follow if you don't care about making any decisions, you can just folow Rosa.
I was really worried about the hemlock preludes being dumb busy work required before actually starting the game I want to play, but the prep for the next scenario plus the ability for it to give you xp down the road makes it palatable imo.
just wrapped up another playthrough of excelsior with some friends and that scenario is just... i don't know. like i've had some awesome highs and tons of fun, and other times i just get kicked in the teeth for 90 minutes and none of us had fun. it feels like the swingiest scenario available.
I put my Arkham playing for a while due to space issues while doing work on the house, I like to leave the cards out. This has spurred me on to start playing again, got Dunwich to finish, then Carcosa. Must admit I’m getting a little overwhelmed with the number of cards and organising them , guess it’s time to invest in some folders.
Right? They don't transport the feel of the scenario at all unlike other campaigns. It's just random artwork from some of the cards that were in that pack.
Just played FA - the City of Archives. (Haven't played return to FA yet) Spoiler: I think they could have added a mechanic where when you would accidentally activate your original character ability, you'd have to discard a card etc. :D
Without spoiling too much, I think there are some challenges/awkwardness in splitting "Fate of the vale" in two. You just might not have encountered them yet. On the clock being tight, I think it's true. Although I did manage to finish one positive ending on standard true solo with Alessandra, so it's not impossible. Edit: Commented too soon...
I'm sure there would definitely be some awkwardness in splitting the final Hemlock scenario into two in its current form for sure. They do flow together at least better than Scarlet Key's final at least, but I'd rather they'd be designed from the ground up as two scenarios if there's such a big scenario setup shift.
Loved the video - one of the highlights of your channel's yearly cycle. FHV Thoughts: Preludes - should have an in built skip. First playthrough was novel. After further plays it becomes a new way to mulligan that forces you to read too much text and ultimately I was playing 4+ rounds of Arkham where I wasn't 1. trying to get clues, 2. no encounter deck and 3. none to few enemies. That is just bad Arkham and not how I enjoy the game. Please someone create an opt out like the tarot deck did for TCU. Designers try cool new idea. But please just give us options to skip. Campaign - 8 scenarios that you play 6 in a different order. Simple and effective. Finale - hated it and the abyss. No investigator card, cards from deck taken and forced discards. Felt awful. Play this card game without loads of cards and with no synergy with your investigator card. Glad they did this sort of thing in the final though as I can at least play 5 scenarios and call it quits. Overall - Scenarios great. Preludes and finale gave me 4 sessions out of 9 where I didn't take an investigator with a deck I built and see how well it could get clues, defeat enemies and deal with the encounter deck. They pretty much made a subpar version of the game that in 3 of those cases was there to allow you to drive the narrative. Least favourite campaign style by far. Designers still making great scenarios. But the fun of the game is being lost in the amount of time I have to spend creating a narrative. Playing a normal scenario should create the narrative. Unfortunately now I have to play 3 preludes to talk to NPCs to read their text to know how 15 people in this town get on with one another. Then I get to play a scenario. Miss for me and I'm worried now about whether this game I love is just going to keep growing its narrative story side and move away from the core gameplay being why I set it up with friends at the table. % of time playing core Arkham vs reading/travelling/preludes has been really off these last couple campaigns.
Thanks for sharing. I totally get your perspective. I personally like FHV a lot because of the individual scenarios, storytelling in the scenarios, and the banger encounter cards. I agree 100% about the preludes. I also think the next campaign structure needs to return to comprising playing eight scenarios. Not necessarily all in the same order--see the Alice in Wonderland custom campaign, for example--but eight seems to be the sweet spot. If FHV comprised six scenarios without having to play the preludes, then okay, there would be less time involved. Cheers!
Not to spoil anyone that hasn’t played the core, but I’ll just say that we had a good laugh at the end of that last scenario in the core set 🤣. Question. Upfront this is going to sound like a really dumb question, but I need to know what you mean when you say “card pool”. Y’all say the phrase a lot, but it seems like there’s 2 different contexts for it because I don’t know if you’re referring to only cards available on a timeline, or the whole thing. (Probably did a bad job asking the question)
I'm referring to all the cards currently released at the time of the video's recording when I mention card pool. Because there is no official limit on what cards you can build decks with, it's the assumption that players will build with all of the cards available to them and for us, that's all the cards.
For some reason I was really underwhelmed by Essex express, I beat it in 4 turns by rushing right, Ive never played it before so but then I reached the engine part and was like, huh 2clues and thats that??, Like 1 part had fallen off and 0 enemies in play, is this normal or just very lucky mythos draws?
Could the statement "we don't talk about return to, return to suck" get some clarification? I think some of them, especially the Dunwich one, fixes some of the major issues many people have with the scenraios. In some cases I would even go as far as to call them erratas. If the reason they suck is that a game company should sell a finished game that doesn't need patches, sure they suck. But otherwise I would appreciate some elaboration on the statement. No hard feelings, I'm just curious! 🙂
They are slowly going out of print and there are no signs that they are being reprinted. Until there are any signs of them being reprinted in some capacity, we don't recommend them because, well, they are getting impossible to recommend. From a personal opinion, I don't think Return To's actually add as much as people say they do, so I am of the opinion that they aren't a necessary edition. I sum that up by saying they suck.
@@PlayingBoardGames Thanks for the respons. I agree with them in general not adding too much, but I still believe some is straight errata. In most cases you can quite easily play with the changes without owning the box.
@@kasperprindal-nielsen4983 I agree 100%. I play with the Dunwich errata in all my Dunwich runs, even if I'm not playing with any Return To mechanical additions.
I think Justin plays with Return errata that “should” have been how the scenario was printed, and doesn’t care much for alt. encounter cards or location variability
Return to Zealot, Dunwich, and Carcosa are really focused on making the scenarios more difficult and punishing, often at the expense of fun. Return to Forgotten Age and Circle Undone are more focused on fixing some of the rough edges, mostly making the scenarios easier/less punishing.
i hate The House Always Wins, because the first time I played it the scenario literally just broke. Ruined the experience of trying to go through the rest of the Dunwich campaign for me. :| The fact it can just break if you get unlucky, imho, makes it a scenario players should just skip.
I'd love to see a "Investigators Expansions Ranked", considering both the investigators that come with it and the improvement to the card pool that they bring
Top 10 all-time video from Justin. Time stamps of the best of Justin's S-tier truth speak:
Time Stamps:
2:15 criticizing scenarios
11:30 The Miskatonic Museum (TDL) - role of fighters
15:00 (16:35 follow up) The Essex County Express (TDL) - player negativity
18:20 Undimensioned and Unseen (TDL) - players need to adapt
40:10 The Forgotten Age - explore mechanic in TFA v Return to TFA
45:30 The Boundary Beyond (TFA) - players blaming the scenario for losing
48:10 Undimensioned and Unseen follow up - resign immediately?
52:40 The City of Archives (TFA) - losing investigator card v losing player cards
1:10:25 The Wages of Sin (TCU) - biggest pet peeve about the game
1:19:30 In the Clutches of Chaos (TCU) - too much randomness, not enough Arkham
1:50:30 A Light in the Fog (TIC) - “the thing I like most about Arkham”
1:57:35 Ice and Death Part 2 (EtE) - scenario v campaign replayability
1:58:25 very important Alanis Morissette reference
2:04:30 The Heart of Madness Part 2 (EtE) - final scenario trend of multiple maps
2:12:30 Dead Heat (TSK) - the problem with TSK
2:14:50 Dealings in the Dark (TSK) - moving the map. Why?
2:20:10 Sanguine Shadows (TSK) - unlocking the second half of the scenario
2:22:45 The Congress of the Keys (TSK) - it’s bad
2:26:50 Preludes (FHV) - player objectives
2:28:50 Preludes (FHV) - confusion about rules - “I believe in you”
2:31:45 The Feast of Hemlock Vale - campaign structure v TSK
2:33:00 The Lost Sister (FHV) - incredible reaction to blind playthrough
2:36:00 The Lost Sister (FHV) - scary enemies and treacheries are awesome
2:40:35 The Longest Night (FHV) - surviving an enemy onslaught design done right
2:41:45 The Longest Night (FHV) - counter argument to “custom stuff is always better”
2:44:25 Fate of the Vale (FHV) - outstanding implementation of story/themes into a campaign
2:48:45 Fate of the Vale (FHV) - revisiting final scenario trend of multiple maps
Talking about Heart of the Elders, you talk about your least viewed scenarios. I think this would be a neat video, looking at your youtube stats - which scenarios get the most views and why you think that is.
That's a fun idea.
Nice video as always! I haven't gotten to making a group for Hemlock Vale to see the prologues, but I still use Disappearance at the Twilight Estate to ease beginners into Arkham. I've got to try HV soon.
1:10:25 I think this is here for the people that just flip the card before actually reading what you have to do, or fully understanding the front text. There is another "gotcha" like this in the Disappearance at the Twilight Estate if you read the backside of the Act card, if I recall correctly. If you play normally this shouldn't be a problem because it is impossible to flip that Act, but I've caught beginners flipping the Act deck in that scenario because they think that's logical after ending the game, so there are people that think that way.
Kind of like a "You've looked in too deep carelessly" thing, which I also liked in Carcosa with the meta spoken word thing.
In the same veins could there be a tier list of custom scenarios from custom campaings you played?
I always enjoy hearing you ranting about the Parley effect on the heretics on Wages of Sin. I enjoy the passion with which you dislike that templating
I have a heckuva time distinguishing Scarlet Keys scenarios from each other, especially with the absence of separate art for each one.
This is pretty silly, but i scored each of your ratings for each scenario, where the best got 7 pts and the worst got 1, then took the campaign averages and made a list
This is obviously not an accurate way to measure campaigns and their enjoyment, but i thought it was interesting
Hemlock - 4.85
Carcosa - 4.75
TFA (elders part 1 removed) - 4.25
Dreamer side - 4.25
Innsmouth - 4.125
Dream eaters - 4.125
Waking side - 4
Core - 4
TFA - 3.88
Edge - 3.875
Standalones - 3.72
Dunwich 3.375
TCU (intro removed) - 3.125
TCU - 3.11
The scarlet keys 3.11
@@steffen3132 It's really interesting, thanks for sharing.
Love these videos, thanks for taking the time to talk through each scenario.
Thing in the depths seemed very easy. Hit the turtle a few turns in a row and it gradually moves to the right place. Some encounter cards literally heal it so that helps you out
Hemlock Vale saved Arkham for me. EoE was boring and repetitive, and SK was a convoluted mess. But Hemlock was tight, simple yet creative, creepy, offered a lot of choice in a set structure, and has INSANE replaybilty. "The Longest Night" was so intense it gave me chest pains. A total home run.
Haven't finished the end yet of Hemlock I agree if the scenarios were split. We had to stop due to time. It was hard to understand the abyss deck and I struggled with understanding encounter set. But otherwise, Fate was like a combination of City of Archives and Weaver of the Cosmos. The abyss deck was really unique. Hard to understand at first, but I really loved it!
It's worth mentioning that there's even an element in Hemlock that you can follow if you don't care about making any decisions, you can just folow Rosa.
I was really worried about the hemlock preludes being dumb busy work required before actually starting the game I want to play, but the prep for the next scenario plus the ability for it to give you xp down the road makes it palatable imo.
just wrapped up another playthrough of excelsior with some friends and that scenario is just... i don't know. like i've had some awesome highs and tons of fun, and other times i just get kicked in the teeth for 90 minutes and none of us had fun. it feels like the swingiest scenario available.
I put my Arkham playing for a while due to space issues while doing work on the house, I like to leave the cards out. This has spurred me on to start playing again, got Dunwich to finish, then Carcosa.
Must admit I’m getting a little overwhelmed with the number of cards and organising them , guess it’s time to invest in some folders.
Let's friggin' gooooo I was waiting for this 😁
I always struggle to recall the scenarios based on the artwork in Circle Undone; it's so random lol :D
Right? They don't transport the feel of the scenario at all unlike other campaigns. It's just random artwork from some of the cards that were in that pack.
@craftymoustache I feel like someone just didn't give a shit. "For The Greater Good" has artwork from a card that isn't even in the pack. 😄
@@sedlak87 "someone just didn't give a shit" sums up TCU as a whole pretty well in a lot of areas.
@@craftymoustache :D
Just played FA - the City of Archives. (Haven't played return to FA yet)
Spoiler:
I think they could have added a mechanic where when you would accidentally activate your original character ability, you'd have to discard a card etc. :D
That's a fun idea.
Without spoiling too much, I think there are some challenges/awkwardness in splitting "Fate of the vale" in two. You just might not have encountered them yet. On the clock being tight, I think it's true. Although I did manage to finish one positive ending on standard true solo with Alessandra, so it's not impossible.
Edit: Commented too soon...
I'm sure there would definitely be some awkwardness in splitting the final Hemlock scenario into two in its current form for sure. They do flow together at least better than Scarlet Key's final at least, but I'd rather they'd be designed from the ground up as two scenarios if there's such a big scenario setup shift.
Loved the video - one of the highlights of your channel's yearly cycle.
FHV Thoughts:
Preludes - should have an in built skip. First playthrough was novel. After further plays it becomes a new way to mulligan that forces you to read too much text and ultimately I was playing 4+ rounds of Arkham where I wasn't 1. trying to get clues, 2. no encounter deck and 3. none to few enemies. That is just bad Arkham and not how I enjoy the game. Please someone create an opt out like the tarot deck did for TCU. Designers try cool new idea. But please just give us options to skip.
Campaign - 8 scenarios that you play 6 in a different order. Simple and effective.
Finale - hated it and the abyss. No investigator card, cards from deck taken and forced discards. Felt awful. Play this card game without loads of cards and with no synergy with your investigator card. Glad they did this sort of thing in the final though as I can at least play 5 scenarios and call it quits.
Overall - Scenarios great. Preludes and finale gave me 4 sessions out of 9 where I didn't take an investigator with a deck I built and see how well it could get clues, defeat enemies and deal with the encounter deck. They pretty much made a subpar version of the game that in 3 of those cases was there to allow you to drive the narrative. Least favourite campaign style by far. Designers still making great scenarios. But the fun of the game is being lost in the amount of time I have to spend creating a narrative. Playing a normal scenario should create the narrative. Unfortunately now I have to play 3 preludes to talk to NPCs to read their text to know how 15 people in this town get on with one another. Then I get to play a scenario. Miss for me and I'm worried now about whether this game I love is just going to keep growing its narrative story side and move away from the core gameplay being why I set it up with friends at the table. % of time playing core Arkham vs reading/travelling/preludes has been really off these last couple campaigns.
Thanks for sharing. I totally get your perspective. I personally like FHV a lot because of the individual scenarios, storytelling in the scenarios, and the banger encounter cards. I agree 100% about the preludes. I also think the next campaign structure needs to return to comprising playing eight scenarios. Not necessarily all in the same order--see the Alice in Wonderland custom campaign, for example--but eight seems to be the sweet spot. If FHV comprised six scenarios without having to play the preludes, then okay, there would be less time involved. Cheers!
Not to spoil anyone that hasn’t played the core, but I’ll just say that we had a good laugh at the end of that last scenario in the core set 🤣.
Question. Upfront this is going to sound like a really dumb question, but I need to know what you mean when you say “card pool”. Y’all say the phrase a lot, but it seems like there’s 2 different contexts for it because I don’t know if you’re referring to only cards available on a timeline, or the whole thing. (Probably did a bad job asking the question)
I'm referring to all the cards currently released at the time of the video's recording when I mention card pool. Because there is no official limit on what cards you can build decks with, it's the assumption that players will build with all of the cards available to them and for us, that's all the cards.
For some reason I was really underwhelmed by Essex express, I beat it in 4 turns by rushing right, Ive never played it before so but then I reached the engine part and was like, huh 2clues and thats that??, Like 1 part had fallen off and 0 enemies in play, is this normal or just very lucky mythos draws?
Essex can be very swingy in BOTH directions. It's why it has such a contentious opinion online.
The big kahuna!
What is the big issue with echoes of the past? Just played it tonight and had a lot of fun as Yorick!
Killing machine go WHACK!
I totally agree about UnU vs WDA. WDA is the worst in Dunwich because its ultra boring
Btw I didnt climb out to the vale in my blind :)
Played the first scenario of SK 3 times and wasn’t feeling it.. Dunno if I just needed a break from Arkham.. 😅
Could the statement "we don't talk about return to, return to suck" get some clarification? I think some of them, especially the Dunwich one, fixes some of the major issues many people have with the scenraios. In some cases I would even go as far as to call them erratas. If the reason they suck is that a game company should sell a finished game that doesn't need patches, sure they suck. But otherwise I would appreciate some elaboration on the statement. No hard feelings, I'm just curious! 🙂
They are slowly going out of print and there are no signs that they are being reprinted. Until there are any signs of them being reprinted in some capacity, we don't recommend them because, well, they are getting impossible to recommend.
From a personal opinion, I don't think Return To's actually add as much as people say they do, so I am of the opinion that they aren't a necessary edition. I sum that up by saying they suck.
@@PlayingBoardGames Thanks for the respons. I agree with them in general not adding too much, but I still believe some is straight errata. In most cases you can quite easily play with the changes without owning the box.
@@kasperprindal-nielsen4983 I agree 100%. I play with the Dunwich errata in all my Dunwich runs, even if I'm not playing with any Return To mechanical additions.
What in the world is Grok? Is that some kind of Warcraft Orc term?
It means to understand something intuitively.
wait why do returns to suck? didnt they use them to fix some scenarios?
I think Justin plays with Return errata that “should” have been how the scenario was printed, and doesn’t care much for alt. encounter cards or location variability
Return to Zealot, Dunwich, and Carcosa are really focused on making the scenarios more difficult and punishing, often at the expense of fun. Return to Forgotten Age and Circle Undone are more focused on fixing some of the rough edges, mostly making the scenarios easier/less punishing.
Help! A heretic is attacking me!
i hate The House Always Wins, because the first time I played it the scenario literally just broke. Ruined the experience of trying to go through the rest of the Dunwich campaign for me. :|
The fact it can just break if you get unlucky, imho, makes it a scenario players should just skip.
Why you hate so much on Circle? It's top four for us.