I would definitely advise getting the rest of Circle Undone if you’re able. If there are any out of stock packs it shouldn’t be too long before they’re reprinted again, but having the first two scenarios of several campaigns would be irritating, I think. I also reckon you chose wisely not picking up Forgotten Age yet, it’s a really punishing campaign until you have sufficient experience to figure out how to tackle it, not for beginners! Return to Night of the Zealot is really good, but not an essential early purchase at all. I think you’d get more mileage at this point from completing TCU or getting another deluxe with more investigators. Finally, welcome! Hope you enjoy it!

Hidden cards are even more restrictive, though, right? At least Weaknesses *can* be discarded by an effect that doesn’t give you the choice. Hidden cards can *only* leave your hand by the stipulation presented on the card itself (if any!).

I have a rules query for those of a lawyerly bent, and wanted to check I’m not missing anything obvious before I send this anywhere more official. The question regards an encounter card from Return to The Last King from the Return to the Path to Carcosa set. If you don’t wish to be spoiled, read no further!!! Sure you want to continue? Good. So, La Comtesse is an enemy with the following effect; Forced - After you defeat La Comtesse: Place her in your hand, as a hidden card. While La Comtesse is in your hand, she gains: "La Comtesse counts as 4 cards instead of 1 while checking your hand size. Forced - After you discard 1 or more cards from your hand during the upkeep phase: Take 1 horror." My questions relates to how this interacts with Patricia Hathaway. Although it’s not a treachery, it is Hidden, and the rules for Hidden say that it cannot be discarded in any way apart from that detailed on the card itself. So, to my reading, there is no way to remove La Comtesse from your hand. Here comes Patricia, if she were to defeat La Comtesse, her investigator ability means she has to discard her entire hand (except La Comtesse), take a horror, only be able to draw one card to make her up to her hand maximum of 5, and then have to do it all over again the next round. Does this mean that if Patricia is ever foolish enough to kill La Comtesse, she will be forced to take a horror every single round until the game ends or she goes insane? Now, I was fortunate that this card didn’t come out early enough for me to have to deal with her at all, but it was an intriguing ‘what if?’ Have I got this right?

I shouldn’t worry, I would be extremely surprised if it’s not available for sale in about 4-6 months time.

Why can they never give more than a month’s notice?! I’ll have to see what I can do... Thanks for flagging it, though, much appreciated!

What might be causing confusion is that the UK got ours last week. I don’t know which other territories got it at the same time, but I know the US release isn’t for another week or so. No idea why, however, but it makes a nice change to get something early for a change!

Confirmed! My copy was despatched yesterday, so I’ll probably get it tomorrow. Much excite!

Yep, just keep you ‘Return to’ cards with their relevant scenario. My Night of the Zealot and Dunwich Legacy sets have moved out of ‘general population’ with the rest of my scenario cards into their respective ‘Return to’ box. The thing I’ve felt the need to keep buying is core sets for the original sets of encounter cards. Rather than raiding my Night of the Zealot box, I like each campaign to have their own complete set of required encounter cards, which generally seems to include the majority (if not quite all) of the core set encounter cards. As a result I have a core set per campaign now, but I minimise the cost by selling the extra player cards to friends who don’t want to buy a second core. If you’re playing primarily ‘Return to’ versions, these do tend to reduce the need for core set encounter cards, but I don’t think Dunwich eliminates them entirely. Who knows with Carcosa, though! Clearly, with just a little inconvenience, you don’t need to take this approach, and just reuse your single set, but I think that seems to answer the question you’re asking?

Where is this info from? Is it just on the GenCon site or something?

At the end of each scenario it tells you to add tally marks on the campaign log equal to the vengeance points in the victory display. Double check your scenario resolution, it should be there!

Both of the new packs have been despatched to me from Games Lore today, so looks like The Secret Name is finally out in the UK!

Thanks! Also, I forgot to address the mythos/encounter card thing. Basically that’s about avoidance/resilience. Essentially there will always be mythos cards to deal with, but you either plan to avoid/pass as many defensive tests as possible, or you look to soak it as much as possible. Seeing as test/consequence tends (generally) to be evade/damage and will/horror, make sure if you can’t avoid one of those reliably, that you can soak.

I think enemy management and killing stuff are distinct enough that you need to decide which of the two you’re doing. Essentially I think characters need to be moving the game state forwards, or removing barriers to progress. In lower player count you need a higher proportion of the former, in higher player counts you can afford to have more of the latter. If your guardian is killing anonymous Ghoul #5, he is removing a barrier to progress. If he is killing the Ghoul Priest in the Gathering, he is progressing the game state. Any solo player needs to be able to do the latter, otherwise they fail that scenario. There are other scenarios like that, so moving the game forward is often about clues, but also about killing key enemies, moving to certain locations or parleying. In order to be successful solo you need to be able to do all those things, but the proportion you focus on will vary, and if you have super limited ways of doing one of them those things (“I’ve got a plan” for example) you can’t be using them to overcome obstacles which aren’t actually progressing the game. So you need other ways of managing non-critical ‘obstacle’ enemies. I doubt I’m saying anything new here, I just wanted to point out that the divide between clues/combat/mythos cards isn’t actually that helpful to how I approach things.

Surely, if you fail the Evade test, rather than going insane, that investigator has to go into another room and play whichever earlier published campaign they have in their collection!

But Mountains of Madness is set in the Antarctic, the various Inuit tribes are all in the Arctic, there are no indigenous people (and only a handful of non-indigenous people) in Antarctica! If we’re assuming an Arctic setting for an Innuit character to appear in, I would suggest Ithaqua/Wendigo is a more appropriate theme, as mentioned previously.