Campaign

The fact that Diana Stanley can cancel so many negative effects allowed us to perform fairly well at the start of the campaign, even when starting scenarios very slowly / poorly. It became harder after The Miskatonic Museum.

The campaign started before the taboo list, so there is no restriction around Higher Education and Machete here.

The House Always Wins

Slow start, our decks weren't really prepared to not have any resources, but we did what we could, and in the end, we managed to save Dr. Francis Morgan, after I solely managed 2 Conglomeration of Spheres (thanks to Detective's Colt 1911s and Vicious Blow). I even managed to identify the Strange Solution while having nothing to do but wait for Diana before resigning.

=> R2

4 XP:

• 1x Higher Education
• 1 XP left

Extracurricular Activity

Slow start again, but since it's more a classical scenario (it's possible to investigate), and Diana had her Rite of Seeking, we advanced quickly enough, and we decided to kill the The Experiment.

=> R3

4 XP (+1 left):

• 2x Prepared for the Worst => 2x Ever Vigilant
• 2x Tooth of Eztli => 2x Fingerprint Kit

The Miskatonic Museum

With almost no way to evade, we were forced to kill the Hunting Horror several times, Diana trying to limit the number of times it was called back. Ever Vigilant in the starting hand is always a nice thing. We didin't investigate every room, but still manage to get 4 XP.

=> R2

4 XP (+1 left):

• 2x Vicious Blow => 2x Vicious Blow

In retrospect, this upgrade was a mistake, I should have upgraded Strange Solution.

The Essex County Express

This is where it all went wrong… The Conductor slows you enough that the rest of the encounter deck will really hurt you. Drawing 2 Helpless Passenger with The Conductor alive in a Train Car that inflicts 2 damages has forced us to abandon them, taking enough horrors that made the 2 consecutive Emergent Monstrosity not a real pleasure to deal with.

In the end, I was defeated by a Violent Commands that I couldn't deal with, and my partner was murdered by the abomination…

Our first trauma of the campaign, but with everything stolen, I fear the end of the campaign will be tough…

=> R1

3 XP:

• 2x Magnifying Glass => 2x Magnifying Glass
• 2x Bandolier => 1x Pathfinder

Blood on the Altar

From there on, it was really hard. Our decks are too slow and don't have enough (static?) boosts to correctly handle the tests we faced. The start of the scenario was good enough, we manage to investigate everywhere, and handle all the (big) monsters thrown at us, but in the end, I became crazy after encountering two rounds consecutively Rotting Remains with no resource to use Higher Education, and taking 2 horrors per round with already a mental trauma finished me (I oubviously didn't see any Logical Reasoning or Delay the Inevitable at the right time). My partner resigned shortly after.

=> R1

2 XP:

• 2x Strange Solution => 2x Forewarned.

The reasoning at the time was that I would never have the time or experience to upgrade the solution, and that I needed to better protect myself from the encounter deck.

Undimensioned and Unseen

We didn't ever manage to kill one Brood of Yog-Sothoth, before miserably dying by one of the other monsters the encounter deck throwed at us. And one more trauma for the road. We started to be a bit annoyed failing two scenarios consecutively, and I'm not sure we played them the best we could (we were maybe not concentrated enough on our possibilities of failure, and not checking our health or sanity total enough regarding the dangers that were ahead of us in the scenario).

Fun fact: I never saw the Forewarned.

0 XP.

Where Doom Awaits

At this point, since we started to not really enjoy the scenarios, to take the complete XP we had (17 XP), and built our decks from scratch, just to see if we could better play the investigators we had.

For me the main changes were to use more static boosts (Death • XIII and Beat Cop / test-less clues (adding Scene of the Crime to the already Working a Hunch in the hunch deck), as well as try using active cards (clue finding / monster fighting) instead of reactive one (like Dodge), to gain some tempo and be proactive in the scenarios. I still tried to keep the spirit of the deck, not taking Dr. Milan Christopher).

Our decks this time worked much better, and we manage to complete the scenario without too much trouble.

=> R1

4 XP (I won't detail what I did with them since the deck was fairly different from the precedent changes).

Lost in Time and Space

Well… this one was not really good. We didn't manage to do anything, and quickly were driven insane by Yog-Sothoth.

Opinion about the cards

• Charles Ross, Esq. is better than I expected (this deck was meant to test an alternative to Dr. Milan Christopher, just to have fun with other cards), and the fact that Charles can help our friends was at some time invaluable. But he doesn't produce resources, so he can't fuel Higher Education, and he doesn't give a passive boost to intelligence… I'm wondering if I should use Dr. William T. Maleson as starting ally, or if Dr. Milan Christopher is still the better one ;
• Delay the Inevitable in the hunch deck is like a free Dodge, albeit you can't really choose when you have it (but it can eventually save you from Beyond the Veil too). It's a card that always helped us, either to play more aggressively by cancelling an opportunity attach, gaining tempo, or to deal with monsters, encounter deck… I really liked it;
• Steadfast is as good as it seemed;
• It seems that after I took Tooth of Eztli out, I often struggled with agility or willpower tests, which is an indication that I maybe shouldn't have :-D In a campaign full of "-1" to your competences, the bonus of the Tooth of Eztli makes sometimes all the difference. But then again it's possible that I hadn't enough static boosts for intelligence and strength to be able to better choose my skills to cover agility and willpower as well;
• I never used Bandolier, and never wanted or needed to play it when I had it in my hand;
• Guard Dog has often been an additional weapon, or a tempo management card, and with our slow start, a great help;
• I often didn't need Prepared for the Worst, because Diana was a big help in dealing with monsters as well if needed, while I was getting clues everywhere to advance.

Opinion about the deck

• I was not always efficient enough in getting several clues, especially when not drawing Deduction. I (now ;-)) understand why people think about Scene of the Crime or Fingerprint Kit.
• I messed up the deck-building (not enough resources at the start of the campaign, bad upgrade choices, not enough combat boosts in the middle of the campaign…) All in all it could have been better :-D
• Joe is really nice to play, the hunch deck sometimes makes you change the way you planned to do your turn, but it's really to upgrade the deck to make him a powerful cluer and a powerful monster-slayer in multiplayer, especially if you don't maximize the XP you get from some scenario. I need to really carefully plan and think about the upgrade path to take with Joe Diamond, because if the start of the campaign was really fine, in the end, I almost never felt in control of the scenario…