and the truth is, if you pick the garlic press over the coffee filter, you'll just get screwed over some other way. i quickly learned that not getting one of the things you think ought to be the most critical ended up being the least punishing. i loved TFA (except Depths of Yoth, which i thoroughly hated), but i agree that true-solo would be a nightmare. i took three investigators because others had said it was difficult, and barely scraped by on several scenarios, but also had a blast (except, again, Depths of Yoth, which i still thoroughly hated). : D

i meant back in the box. but yeah, i figured it out ~ thanks! : D

i hear ya ~ i lost all my final game XP from finishing TFA to trauma soaks as well, but i managed to make it through without losing anyone (took Father Mat, Wini, and Carolyn)! i really enjoyed TFA a lot. i had been dreading it because everyone said it was brutal. it was definitely a challenge and Depths of Yoth may be the first scenario that i just straight-up didn't enjoy playing at all. hated the descent, hated the wandering aimlessness of it, hated the constant worry of whether i would have to climb back out again. Shattered Aeons more than made up for it, though. that scenario was wild! and Wini kept pulling will tests on her encounter cards and she sucks so hard at will tests, so things just kept piling on! but they all squeaked out alive carrying their piles of hearts and brains. nowhere did it say what to do with the Relic, though, for my conclusion, so i guess Carolyn keeps it? seems ridiculously op, but i ain't complaining! : D

bwhahahaha ~ gosh dang teensy tiny print! (goes to show how carefully i read the rules). XD thank you!

she's been good for me so far for this purpose playing through Carnevale and now starting Forgotten Age. i let Wini and Father Mat forge ahead and meet all the ghoulies and she hangs back and cleans up the clues. i do think i leaned too hard into her guardian fight/defense abilities in building her deck (especially for a character i routinely keep out of combat), so i may do some tweaking between scenarios.

i should have saved Akachi for TFA instead of taking her through Carcosa. hope you fare better with her than i did! : D

thanks for the tip! i'm just about to start TFA! i've found not destroying things along the campaign has turned out to be rather rewarding. errr...though i did have a little mishap in that speakeasy in Dunwich. XD ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ i want to echo the sentiment of "buy what you can while it's available" (without paying those ridiculous gouging prices!). i was one of the lucky ones during that 30-second window to grab a copy of Phantom of Truth, but i also decided to just finish picking everything else up as well so i don't get stuck somewhere in the middle of the campaign. if you can afford it, stay well-ahead of yourself.

definitely pick investigators with high sanity and/or multiple allies to soak it up and/or cards that heal horror. and yes, you're going to get pulverized, but it's going to be awesome fun. : D

i ran it with two green decks (Nathaniel and Stella). neither had any leveled-up cards and it was quite a hoot! if you are running solo with a single investigator, though, i agree you probably want to use the standalone rule for xp. pay very close attention to the instructions on the Agenda and Act decks. i'm not the only one who apparently missed critical a step going forward that deeply impacts the game. : D

ha! i play solo, so i only ever bought one core. now i have so many investigator cards, they're stacked up like crazy on my desk. if anyone is looking for an extra something in particular, if i have an extra and it's not in one of my decks or something i'd likely play, i'll probably be happy to share it! : D

i'm doing this, though some of the base encounter cards keep traveling box to box as i am playing through the scenarios. i feel like at the end of all of this, i'll end up reorganizing the whole thing. Return to the Night of the Zealot is practically empty, so i'm guessing i will also store my standalones in that box. the one thing that is driving me crazy is that the scenario set-ups just show you the symbols. only two cycles in, i now i have so many encounter set dividers that i have to flip through everything to match things up. sure, the symbols have names, but those appear nowhere in the instructions or on the cards, so alphabetizing the storage box is almost pointless until you memorize what they are. also, sometimes you're told to go fish out of previous scenario story cards (not strictly encounter card sets). at this point i've only got a handful of encounter sets memorized: Locked Doors, Ancient Evils, Rats, and Agents of (Unspeakable Name), etc., but that's four out of what, 40? XD Forgotten Age has more than seven new encounter decks just in the core box. this is about to get even more interesting! that said, i do really like the Return to boxes for this purpose. hope they put out ones for Circle Undone and Dream Eaters soon enough or else I'm going to run out of space!

if you want to maximize your bang for buck, also considering low cost cards with great mileage. i love the shotgun and bought it right away too, but it's expensive and won't help you if you have no resources to use it. having some smaller low or no-cost cards to boost your weaker stats or gain resources will really help in a pinch.

oh good point ~ i'd forgotten that; that was probably why i knew to throw him back. ha! i did that too with retaliate and still forget to play it right. and this weekend i got so turned around by the final Carcosa scenario that i ascribed a retaliate action to the boss fight character even though they didn't have one (it was okay, didn't end up effecting the outcome too much, but for a couple of rounds everything was a mess--those funny videos where people fling damage at their cards in giant heaps: that was this game!). that scenario is so bonkers anyway. i laughed outloud several times when i failed skill test after skill test and the card got goofier and goofier about what to do next until you're out of options. ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ as mentioned above, i finished Dim Carcosa last night and it was so off the wall and there was so much going on i'm sure i fudged some of it (like the +1 fight i kept forgetting and the random phantom retaliate action i was playing; that was how loopy i got). in the end, Stella and Akachi were triumphant by the skin of their teeth, but after the campaign, Akachi had 6 trauma, so i've decided to retire her. she now joins Roland, Wendy, and Agnes in the Shady Hills Investigator Home by the seashore. going to give Stella a break too--feel like she really got put through the wringer; only narrowly fleeing at least two of the six mythos packs with very little to spare after Akachi had been defeated. next up: Carnevale, probably with Wini and Carolyn; we'll see if i can get Carolyn up to snuff to take her to the Forgotten Age.

so common! sounds like you're doing it just right! and welcome to the game. : D luck is always going to be a big factor in this game, but as you learn to play your cards more efficiently, you can lessen the impact of the chaos bag to some degree.

thanks! oooh, i have not actually tried that combo with Stella (the Drawing Thin one). i have definitely made the absolute most of the Neither Rain Nor Snow cards; they've come in very handy. and i like so many of her cards, i rarely mulligan with her. i have had a blast playing with Stella from the start and this last scenario i was finally able to make use of her extra talent acquired from the Rougarou scenario ~ it was awesome! XD i'm thinking of the guy with the museum keys in the Dunwich scenario. it didn't seem to make thematic sense for him to come with the characters, so i left him behind. on the other hand, i did keep Lady Esprit from Rougarou because it kind of made sense to do so given the conclusion. i suppose i could dig up the guy with the keys, but it's been so many scenarios since then, i think i will just keep going.

i just finished playing the long-sought "A Phantom of Truth" in the Carcosa cycle; what a mind-bender it was! time and again my bacon was saved by so many weird things happening! my Stella deck now has 37 cards and, sleeved, i can barely hold it in my hand (i have small hands). she also now has four weaknesses ~ it's completely out of control. Akachi has played much better the last two scenarios, but her Angered Spirits card is killing me. she has three trauma at this point and i will probably have to retire her soon. : o ( random question: when you pick up an ally in one scenario, you keep them through the campaign, right? if they are "defeated" they get discarded and at the end of the scenario just go back into the deck, right? or am i doing this wrong?

good point about the balance of Harvey and Nathaniel. Nathaniel has been the first character i've really burned through the deck (and not at all efficiently, either!). i played Daisy early on with NotZ but couldn't figure out how best to use her skills and assets. but that was so early on when i first bought the game and i was struggling with the rules. i'm hoping when i get a deck together for Mandy i'll understand better what i'm doing ~ ha! Excelsior sounds awesome! i definitely want to have Carcosa and another cycle under my belt before i attempt it, especially since i want to make sure my team is really solid. and i don't mind long at all! sometimes i see a short act or agenda deck and think: oh nooo, this is going to be over too quick! : D

yeah, i have made these kinds of modifications to my own tastes as well. if i don't like a rule, i bend it (consistently, though, not circumstantially). and i've tinkered with the chaos bag to be not quite so brutal ~ i want to enjoy playing instead of getting killed two locations into a scenario. even so, i've had plenty of challenging moments (and have fled every Carcosa scenario so far). and when i play with Wini, i throw a couple of extra negative modifiers in because she definitely was kinda outta control in NotZ, so she needs more heat.

you'll have to pry DoN out of my cold dead hands. i love that card! XD

what a great story! looking forward to Murder at the Excelsior Hotel and would love to do it like you did, with a full complement of characters. i am still working my way up to a four-player team. Father Mat, Stella, and Wini are definitely in but so far my first outing with Nathaniel was a huge whiff, and Akachi is doing so poorly in Path to Carcosa, i might have to switch her out. I guess I don't need to two mystics on my team anyway. I'm thinking either Carolyn or Mandy might be my rounders but i haven't played with either of them yet. i definitely need a Seeker! i didn't pick up Harvey; how do you find he compares to the other Seekers? ~ * ~ i'm now three scenarios in with Path to Carcosa and while Dunwich had its moments of stressing and freaking me out, Carcosa is a whole 'nother level of anxiety; i'm not squeamish, but found myself actually not wanting to look at some of the pictures! i'm also starting to get really nervous about Forgotten Age and Dream Eaters based on some comments i've read about nightmarish scenarios in those. i love the Lovecraft theme, monsters, don't bother me, but i think i might need something to play on the side that's more thematically fluffy. XD also, as mentioned above, i'm not doing well with Akachi, can't seem to get her going, which is a shame. if she fumbles this next scenario i might have to tag Father Mat back in. the other thing i'm doing totally out of the rules is playing Duke as a third investigator (just to get a sense of whether i can handle three). he has no cards, and i'm only giving him one action per round, not using him to buffer damage/horror like an ally. he's found a few clues, killed some cockroaches, but honestly hasn't helped much beyond that so far, and was totally useless when i got swarmed at the end of Echoes of the Past! on the bright side, nobody's died yet (technically), so i'll keep him for the moment.

this is true. after i got him killed for the fifth time in the final NotZ scenario, i decided to permanently retire him to go play with all the new characters instead. and there's so many to play with now i'm not sure i'll ever bring him back.

i guess the recent insinuation that there would be no reprint on this scenario has got the scalpers feeling very bold! XD

that last scenario is mean. technically everyone is dead if you resign. i say you get a do-over (and now you know not to give up!) XD otherwise, yes, you could start over with new decks either from the beginning or from that scenario (that's actually what i did).

hahaha ~ this is the best! Stella has some good cards; i'm looking forward to getting her some xp so she can upgrade. haven't played with either Patrice or Sefina yet.

do you mean Wini or Ursula? i know a lot of people like Ursula, especially for that expansion. I haven't made a Seeker deck yet, so she is one of the characters i'm contemplating. glad to hear you stuck with it! i had a similar experience, letting it sit a long time between my initial unboxing and now; there was a while i was thinking maybe i was too dumb for the game because i was really having a hard time wrapping my mind around the mechanics. never thought then to ask on a forum, but the youtube playthroughs and how to play videos really helped! good luck with the gaming group! hope they get sucked in! : D i already don't remember what i used to put Seth Bishop down (was also playing Father Mat); sorry to hear about poor Trish! there's some scenarios where even when you make it out alive--even when you win--you get dealt trauma in the Resolution. that's one of those rules i tend to, uh, skim past. XD