[Spoiler] The Essex County Express : Is it even playable with 4 investigators ?

[MoiMagnus 0]

Hi everyone,

I just tested this scenario yesterday, with 4 investigators, and the whole team was elimitated, two times, without having any chance to win, so we were quite probably doing something wrong.

(Note : we played with the french version, so there is maybe some translation errors in our cards)

The main problem is that doom is far to quick. At four players, due to the encounter cards, you have an average of one additional doom token per turn.

Moreover, this token is usually not avoidable, since when you draw a cultist :

+ Either the team is splited, and the cultist have to appear in a locations that is not accessible

+ Either the team is in the same place (which is also a bad idea because there is a card making lose 1 action at each investigator at your location), and you have to put the cultist at the back of the train, going to see him (paying the penalities of the location), and go back to the front (paying again the penalities of the location)

As a consequence, the first game was lost at the FIRST wagon destruction (because Daisy was still inside, so we no longer had any chance to win), at the end of the SECOND turn.

The second game was lost at the end ot the 5th turn, after 11 doom tokens. Because two wagon were destroyed simultaneously, and the whole team was inside the second one...

Is it normal ?

We play with the "difficult" chaos bag, but since we were quite lucky on tests (and in fact, very lucky with our starting hands), we shouldn't be loosing that quicky.

I don't have problem with the fact of loosing due to the difficulty, but here, the scenario would have been lost even if we were playing at minimal difficulty...

Has anybody encountered similar problems ?

 

[BD Flory 695]

I think I see your problem:

6 hours ago, MoiMagnus said:

As a consequence, the first game was lost at the FIRST wagon destruction (because Daisy was still inside, so we no longer had any chance to win), at the end of the SECOND turn.

The second game was lost at the end ot the 5th turn, after 11 doom tokens. Because two wagon were destroyed simultaneously, and the whole team was inside the second one...

 

In the first case, if losing one of your four investigators means you don't have a chance, you're probably overspecializing. This is always tempting in multiplayer, but each investigator should have a modicum of ability in each important area in the game to avoid exactly this issue, in case of unforeseen issues like elimination.

On the second case, it's obviously hard to analyze the whole game from a single sentence, but even with four players, it takes a few turns to get 11 doom down. Don't dawdle.

Broadly speaking, in four player games, try to split the team between the 2 lead cars so broken rails isn't crippling. Don't be afraid to write off passengers at the rear if you need to (and can sustain the horror), ditto cultists. Especially with the wizard, if you can throw him in the rear car, he might advance the agenda quickly once, but then he'll be gone.

Consider grabbing dynamite if you can. Though expensive, it's useful in clearing the next car (or the previous) even if you can't actually move there yet.

I'm 3 for 3 with 4 players in Essex County, 2 games on normal and one on hard. It ain't easy, and we haven't come out unscathed, but we won. Of all the scenarios so far, save perhaps the print on demands, ECE probably punishes high player counts who don't properly plan for the encounter deck the most.

Edited April 5, 2017 by BD Flory

[Gaffa 673]

I'll just mention that in our multiple 3-4 player playthroughs of Essex so far, we've found it to be the easiest of any scenario since The Gathering. The pace is brisk, but the foes are easy, and none of the locations are particularly bothersome to get through. Not a single investigator has yet to be lost to anything.

That's not to boast, but to reassure you that deck shuffles (both investigator and encounter) have a lot of power over how tough or easy you find a scenario. Had the encounter deck stacked a bunch of Ancient Evils on top of each other, we'd have lost an investigator or two a few times. We're as much a beneficiary of our lucky shuffles as it sounds like you've been suffering from a few bad beats; in a card game, you're going to see both over time.

It does help that our regular play group has a pretty good idea on how to team up and accomplish things, of course (not saying that yours doesn't). And not drawing ten Tentacles of No! in a row always helps. But Essex Express is definitely manageable. Sometimes in any CCG the cards just literally aren't stacked your way, and you take your bruises and you carry on, alas.

[MoiMagnus 0]

2 minutes ago, BD Flory said:

I think I see your problem:

In the fist case, if losing one of your four investigators means you don#t have a chance, you're probably overspecializing. This is always tempting in multiplayer, but each investigator should have a modicum of ability in each important area in the game to avoid exactly this issue, in case of unforeseen issues like elimination.

Well, the team was split in the two first wagon, so the both Daisy and Jenny were eliminated. The two others were Zoe and Pete, and if Pete want to find more than one clue per turn, it need to draw its ritual of research. So having two elimitaded peoples, including the on specialized in research, and the one who has extra actions, once you only discovered 10 clues on the 50 clues you need to discover for this scenario (Since the elimination of the two does not decrease the number of clues generated in new locations), it was not realistic to continue.

The team is able to support the death of anybody :

+Daisy is specialized in investigation, but is also able to fight the boss (with "I have a plan", or by buffing the others)

+Zoe is specialized in killing things. And in protecting the others. The main problem is that in this scenario is that the danger are not avoidable (you cannot "engage" the vortex in order to prevent the others to be killed)

+Jenny is not specialized (except maybe a little in killing things). Jenny does not a lot of things at the beginning, but once she finish her set-up, she can do whatever she want to finish the scenario.

+Pete is the second one specilized in investigation, but less than daisy, since he need either Duke, either its ritual of research, so he cannot do pass all its turns to do it.

But you're right on the fact that the team does not support the death of Daisy or Zoe at the beginning of the game.

 

[BD Flory 695]

Fair enough. Losing two investigators early out of four is pretty crippling in any scenario, regardless of team makeup.

[MoiMagnus 0]

 

9 minutes ago, Gaffa said:

I'll just mention that in our multiple 3-4 player playthroughs of Essex so far, we've found it to be the easiest of any scenario since The Gathering. The pace is brisk, but the foes are easy, and none of the locations are particularly bothersome to get through. Not a single investigator has yet to be lost to anything.

For us, the easiest scienario was "The House always win". We even had the time to make 2 "dwelve too deep" in order to have a scenario at 8XP (So we have 16XP at the beginning of this scenario). The university was a difficult but we won at 1 turn of the defeat, and the museum was mostly ok : we were about to have one-two investigator killed, but except that, it was ok.

It is the first scenario that really cause us problems.

Now that I think more a problem of our team is that it need 1-2 turn at the beginning to be opperational, and that's the first scenario that does not give any initial turns.

[MoiMagnus 0]

But thanks for the answer, we will try again soon,  hoping to have more luck.

[Starbreaker1 75]

the Express is very difficult in high player counts, but It also depends on what Train cars you pull, there are 8 and you place 6, and in one play thru

*minor spoiler alert*

When the second car is shroud 3 with 3 clues per investigator to gather in a 4 player game and the tentacle comes up once, which isnt too far off, but a total of 3 failed investigate checks means you get really behind really quickly, and also everyone has to have movement capabilities to get to the next car.  Ive played it 6 times 2 total fails and the other 4 only 1 person of the 4 total has made it, and we are playing on normal just FYI.  The train is much more difficult than the museum, IMO anyway.

[Jobu 720]

I am sorry to ask, but why do you need to pick up those clues?

[Gaffa 673]

19 minutes ago, Jobu said:

I am sorry to ask, but why do you need to pick up those clues?

Have you played the Essex Express? Kind of tough to finish it if you leave any clue behind.

[Jobu 720]

Why?  My reading says: 1.  You need to get to the engine car and 2.  there needs to be no clues in the engine car.  Doesn't mention any other locations, seems like folks are picking up clues that have no game effect except to slow you down.

What am I missing?

[Network57 561]

29 minutes ago, Jobu said:

Why?  My reading says: 1.  You need to get to the engine car and 2.  there needs to be no clues in the engine car.  Doesn't mention any other locations, seems like folks are picking up clues that have no game effect except to slow you down.

What am I missing?

That you cannot travel to the right of any location if your current location still has clues.

[Jobu 720]

2 minutes ago, Network57 said:

That you cannot travel to the right of any location if your current location still has clues.

Thanks, that is a nasty scenario.

[General Zodd 459]

Yep, it's the toughest scenario my 4 handed player group have come across in Dunwich. We've managed to rescue Dr Rice from the university, though not the poor students, we went nowhere near the Experiment! Then we got through the Clover Club successfully, and now the gangsters have our back. The museum we found a breeze, I think we got lucky with how many times the creature popped back out again, though. Finally, we all got defeated on Essex County, it's a doozy! We also got a bad run of doom in the initial encounter phase and ended up losing Zoey straight away, which was a nasty shock as her carriage disappeared! We know not to hang around at that point though, and worked our way forwards with Rex and Daisy hoovering up clues like nobodies business. We definitely noticed the lack of killy power without Zoey though, a couple of monsters really slowed us down.

[Ryric 146]

I soloed the train with Jenny and while I won, she was very beat up by the end - I think I had one each of health and sanity left at the end. Just an absolutely punishing scenario, and I only got 1 xp from one car. Everything else was just a passenger car.

[Khudzlin 734]

You can get at most 4 xp from that scenario:

• There's 1 in the Engine Car (the only one guaranteed to come up if you reach the favorable resolution)
• There's 1 in one of the Passenger Cars (75% chance to come up, since you take 6 out of 8 cars)
• There are 2 enemies with 1 each (pretty low chance to come up for only 1 player, given there are 32 cards without Surge in the encounter deck)

The first time I tried this scenario solo (with Roland), I got sucked in by the first agenda... It took me several tries to beat it.

[paulvonscott 3]

Great idea for a scenario, the one I wanted to enjoy the most, but I feel you are at the whim of fate with this one. 

There are too many cards adding doom on, plus lots of cards to hobble you and I think we got unlucky on the order of carriages (excuses excuses).

It possibly needed a buffer of an extra Agenda card (EDIT: or the first agenda requires more doom to trigger) at the start to give you a hint of what is to come.

Appreciate some teams might be better suited to others than this, but I think the four of us did as well as we could under the circumstances.  It's the first one we have lost, and while we were on the edge of losing on some of the others, at least they would have been tense and exciting either way, having had a full night's entertainment out of the pack. 

But when you've spent fifteen quid for a chapter in an ongoing £120 campaign (the cost of Dunwich and all 6 packs in the UK) and the adventure can finish you in the first turn if you are very unlucky, and in the first few turns if you don't excel, frankly it results in a very dissapointing evening.  Worse still, you could have a character leave very early and a player being out for almost all of the game, while the rest carried on.  This was exactly the situation facing us when the Treachery deck finished us off.  Perhaps it was a mercy killing.

Fortunately someone had brought Watson and Holmes, so the evening wasn't ruined.

We're moving onto Blood on the Altar next.  I think if the next scenarios is as capricious, I can see the mood of dissapointment turning to discontent. 

I would like to go back to this adventure once the campaign is over (although one of our group doesn't want to revist the experience) and I'm sure it makes a great one-off challenge, or if you have the right team is fairly straightforward, but for now, we will be walking to the next chapter wondering what horrors lies ahead.

Edited April 7, 2017 by paulvonscott

[Gaffa 673]

7 hours ago, paulvonscott said:

It possibly needed a buffer of an extra Agenda card (EDIT: or the first agenda requires more doom to trigger) at the start to give you a hint of what is to come.

"A hint of what is to come"? The Agenda only has a small amount of doom, and the storyline is telling you the train is being snatched up into the vortex back cars first. And you start at the rear of the train. That was all the hints we needed to book feet and investigate our butts off.

[StupidStupidDan 2]

21 minutes ago, Gaffa said:

"A hint of what is to come"? The Agenda only has a small amount of doom, and the storyline is telling you the train is being snatched up into the vortex back cars first. And you start at the rear of the train. That was all the hints we needed to book feet and investigate our butts off.

Not to mention that the titles of the act/agenda cards are like "Run!" "Don't Stop Running", "Seriously...why are you standing there?" etc etc etc

[Samea 141]

The very first Act Card is titled "Run!" and tells you to "make your way to the engine car as fast as you can" right on the front - it does not get much clearer than that...

[MoiMagnus 0]

I agree on the fact that the agenda are not clear at all on the fact you have to leave quickly this car. Sure the train is in danger and you have to go quiclky to the engine, but our car didn't seemed a lot more in danger than the other cars.
It was honestly a suprise for everybody (including the one who read the different textes) that the FIRST plot would, without any test, kill everyone in the last car (they could at least allow a dexterity check...).

If we had to make a theory reading only the first agenda/... it would have been that the only things that matter was arriving quickly at the engine, and that the only penalty for remaining at the end of the car would be some damages/horror, and maybe some monsters.

(Note that the acceleration of car destructions was also a surprise for us, but that one was only a surprise because we keep secret the number of agendas, so nobody was aware that there was less agendas than cars)

 

[Gaffa 673]

51 minutes ago, MoiMagnus said:

I agree on the fact that the agenda are not clear at all on the fact you have to leave quickly this car.

The scenario tells you itself that the train is being destroyed from back to front, and you start in the back of the train, and there's only four Doom until the agenda advances (*and* Ancient Evils is in the deck), and the Act card itself it titled Run!, and the text itself says to move as fast as you can...and you say it wasn't clear?

That is an impressive amount of things to overlook to say the scenario doesn't make it clear that you have to book feet.

[Samea 141]

Solid real-life advice: If someone screams "Run!" at you in big letters, just run. Form no theory about what is happening, do not stay to see what is happening, do not stop to ask. Just. Run. 

[Radix2309 355]

The double surprised my group as well, but I did the math and it seemed likely. It didn't matter as we were all ahead. We lost because my Rex got 3 auto-fails in a row without the curse. This caused me to fall behind and get sucked up, then we lost on a 50/50 Ancient Evils. Although we could have finished a turn earlier but our Pete wasted an action on Flashlight when it could have just been discarded for Icon.

[MoiMagnus 0]

7 hours ago, Gaffa said:

The scenario tells you itself that the train is being destroyed from back to front, and you start in the back of the train, and there's only four Doom until the agenda advances (*and* Ancient Evils is in the deck), and the Act card itself it titled Run!, and the text itself says to move as fast as you can...and you say it wasn't clear?

That is an impressive amount of things to overlook to say the scenario doesn't make it clear that you have to book feet.

The cars could have been destroyed 3 per 3 at the 2nd and 4th agenda, or 1 per turn starting at the 3rd agenda, the textes would have been the same : the whole remaining of the train was destroy almost simultaneously, we had no reason to think it would be progressive in that way. Even more, the whole agenda suit could have been only additional problems to slow our progression to the engine, with only the last agenda destroying the train, the textes would have been the same.

It was quite clear that we have to arrive quicly to the engine, but not that we had to leave quicly the first car. According to the way we understood the information we had, if we could choose between arriving at the engine in 10 turn, or remaining 6 turns in the first car and then teleport to the engine, the second solution would have been the one we would have chosen.

(But I guess its because our team is built to survive to everything except an instant kill from the agenda. In the university scenario, one of us manage to survive to the "10 damage from having an empty deck", and it was part of our plan because we needed one card that was at the end of its deck)