Card Reviews · ArkhamDB

Ceremony Room

So you're playing your game as normal. You've completed the first two acts. You know what you need to do to complete the third and final act. There are three enemies on the board and two MAYBE three more rounds worth of doom left on the agenda. It's tight, but you can win if you just stick to the plan. And then you look and there's these two locations that don't seem to have anything to do with the scenario. Why is this even here? And you read the text on the back...

I don't imagine a lot of people would be reading reviews of individual location cards on here, but this particular one is proof of how brilliantly this game is designed. The creaters knew exactly what both the game state and your own state of mind would be when you are considering going there. In its first play through, it stokes the players' curiosity and their willingness to risk it all just to learn a bit more. The text on the back is just perfect. It knows who you are and speaks directly to your investigative gamer's soul.

7/6/21

gendrkheinz · 3

Directive

Using this directive means there is no point in Roland using police dogs in the extra ally slot. As the dogs only bite after they have been assigned damage.

Brother Xavier: Pure of Spirit is also made worthless.

7/5/21

LegendRJS · 3

The dog for sure. But Bro Xavier could still be asigned damage and horror from other investigators though. — Susumu · 383 7/5/21

A card that actually makes "Something Worth Fighting For" look pretty good. — Pinchers · 133 7/15/21

You could take the front but not the back of parallel Roland and add Agency Backup? Not sure that effectively saving 3xp on Charisma is really worth the regulation, but if you're not planning on using the allies to soak anyway maybe nbd. — swornabsent · 7 7/16/21

How would this affect allys that have a trigger that deals damage directly to the ally? e.g. #grete vagner or #beat cop[2] — mordequess · 96 12/17/21

Similar question here. — Rick Dreckitt · 1 12/21/21

For the people asking about Grete or Beat Cop: those still work fine. They deal themselves damage as part of their effect, the damage is not assigned to them. — Veronica212 · 301 2/25/22

Can anyone answer how this directive interacts with The Black Cat or Key of ay's? — thewintersloth · 1 8/5/24

Black Cat would work fine for the same reason as Beat Cop and Grete Wagner... it takes direct damage, it's not being "assigned" damage that was otherwise dealt to you. And Key of Ys isn't an Ally, so it's unaffected. — HanoverFist · 763 8/26/24

Directive

Very funny and tricky Directive card, I think. You can very strange play by triggering. Note that you may play a event during any player window as in Fence FAQ, as I know. If it's revealed that it's not true, please ignore this review at all.

Sneak Attack: you can play after the enemy attack and is exhausted. (Timing) between 3.3 and 3.4
Ambush, Under Surveillance with First Watch: you can play after you check whether the enemy is spawn or not by First Watch. (Timing) during test -- you need to find & resolve skill test from another encounter card.
Any card with fight, evade or dealing damage ("I've got a plan!", Backstab, Coup de Grâce, Flare, Impromptu Barrier, Improvised Weapon, One-Two Punch, Clean Them Out, Dynamite Blast): you can play after the hunter enemy moved but before attack. (Timing) between 3.2 and 3.3
Delve Too Deep: you could play Delve at strange timming.

However, the Regulation is strong. You can play at most 2 cards for each round. Don't forget this limit includes not only events, but also assets. If you plan to trigger , you can only play 1 card for each round. One solution is Stick to the Plan + Ever Vigilant combo. Just reveal , and play Ever Vigilant.

I think here is a dilemma that the commit-based deck seems to be suitable due to play-regulation. However, parallel deckbuilding may access limited number of skills and normal deckbuilding may access limited number of tactic/insight events.

7/5/21

elkeinkrad · 505

Ever Vigilant should not work, as it also _plays_ the cards, right? — trazoM · 9 7/5/21

@trazoM you need to reveal elder_sign to ignore regulation before play Ever Vigilant :) — elkeinkrad · 505 7/5/21

aaah, that's printed in Roland, I see. I guess it was a joke, then :D — trazoM · 9 7/5/21

The ruling for fast assets is that they can be played in any fast window **during your turn**! (Corroborated by re-reading the Fence FAQ answer very carefully) So, rules as written, you would not be able to do shenanigans with this directive during the enemy phase. Obviously, "rules as written" is very different from "rules as intended" so people should play as they want :) — Frost · 275 11/22/21

Event is not asset. There are no restriction for event. — elkeinkrad · 505 12/14/21

Additionally, Fence tells "during your turn" but this Direction doesn't. — elkeinkrad · 505 12/15/21

Good point that I missed (and TIL!) in which case it works like Chuck Fergus, for which there hasn't been a ruling as to what happens when you have a fast event without a specified point in time it's allowed to be played, which leaves us with you can basically decide for yourself — Frost · 275 12/16/21

Would just like to point out that in Arkham Horror, "playing" refers to paying a card's resource cost to place it into your play area, so you can still use the Reaction of this directive (it's Permanent, so it always starts in your play area) and still play 2 more cards from your hand. Because of this, Ever Vigilant still works, but you can only play one other card. Since it gets fast, though, you can do cool things like playing weapons while an enemy is right on top of you. So it's still very strong! — GoldPooka · 7 3/17/22

I don't believe GoldPooka is right. Not taking the play action doesn't mean you're not playing a card. — StyxTBeuford · 13053 1/29/24

Trial by Fire

...this would be an amazing card for preston were it not 3 exp. But given how it is, this card is amazing on a lot of people who can take it! Calvin loves it, Wendy loves it, Yorick and Silas love it, it's quite the card upgrade!

7/4/21

ironbrw · 17

I'm actually kind of split on whether this is good for Calvin or not. The original TBF sets one skill to 5 for the round and that's virtually all Calvin needs unless he's trying to split between fighting and investigating. 3 XP for situational utility isn't terrible, but on the other hand you're not likely to pick this up early for him (you'd probably rather take Five of Pentacles, Peter, Jessica+Charisma, upgraded Ward, etc), so by the time you would take this you probably already have a fair bit of trauma anyway. This kind of just reads like a more expensive Fight or Flight to me. — StyxTBeuford · 13053 7/4/21

Importantly, this upgrade also reduces the cost to 2, which makes it much more usable in a Dark Horse deck with On Your Own. — Death by Chocolate · 1491 7/9/21

3xp = don't use off-class, please. 4/5xp = don't use Lola, Finn, Carolyn, please. — elkeinkrad · 505 7/29/21

The Star • XVII

I really don't like Tarot cards (not Lovecraftian at all) but I get why RttCU has gone all-in on amping up Tarot for the rest of this campaign. Still, if you have Dunwich, Forgotten Age and Innsmouth runs where any investigator is running a Tarot card, it's way too 'min-maxy' for me, favouring trying to boost your stats in a slot you wouldn't use over story. Boo hiss.

7/4/21

Krysmopompas · 367

But more tarots mean the slot is far more contested, and the level three ones aren't really min maxy, they're more specialised. Surely they solve the problems you had with the low level tarots — SSW · 217 7/4/21

Hyper-specialized IS min-maxy. — Death by Chocolate · 1491 7/4/21

I dunno, I feel like the tarot cards are the least of the ways AHLCG departs from Lovecraft and mostly I dunno, speaking for myself I don't mind that kind of thing all that much. I feel like maybe for me Lovecraft and pulp and Lovecraft's successors taken together makes for a better game than Lovecraft alone. But even so, I kinda take the tarot outside of circle undone thematically to represent weird coincidences, strange luck , investigators' superstitions. The kinda folklore that just might have a kernel of truth in it, but maybe the kinda truth you're perhaps better off not thinking too hard about. And honestly, I kinda think stretching to come up with thematic justifications for out-of-place cards is half the fun of this game — bee123 · 31 7/4/21

Min/max is a role-playing game holdover term. There’s no reason your deck can’t be as efficient as you want. And there’s the taboo list if you want to have your nonsense curbed periodically. This card is basically “guardian allies are now slightly better, and for Tommy, much better.” Also Bee123 is right. — MrGoldbee · 1497 7/4/21

The level 3 Tarot (and the Level 1 Tarot) are cards that are useful to particular investigators and builds. They do take up deck space, and, if they aren't in your opening hand, they are a little expensive, so I feel it balances out. It's a card choice, like many others, and they aren't overrepresented in the deck lists, so I don't really see how it's a problem. Of course, if you or your group don't like them, you can always ban them in a "House Taboo List." I doubt MJ or Jeremy will bust down your door and tell you off — LivefromBenefitSt · 1092 7/4/21

This with Guard Dog: YES! — Zinjanthropus · 231 7/17/21