…so it’s been awhile since I’ve published anything (okay, the article on Shards of the Void(3) doesn’t count!). To put it bluntly, The Forgotten Age cycle has been an exhausting experience that has not always been the most fun to play, and that lack of enthusiasm unfortunately creeped into my own desires to write this blog. With the whole cycle now out I am glad to report that I am having more fun with the cycle and am able to appreciate it more, though there are definitely still some sour patches. Much like I did when Carcosa finished, this will be my send off to the cycle (though perhaps in a slightly more organized fashion) to cover what I liked, what I didn’t like, and what I hope we never see again. This send off for the cycle is divided into three parts:

Part 1: Campaign Reflections – I’ll discuss my thoughts on the campaign

Part 2: Statistically Speaking – I’ll look at some of the math and stats behind The Forgotten Age and its various tricks

Part 3: Player Card Overview – I’ll discuss my thoughts on the player cards this cycle, namely what I think are the best, favourites, and least favourite cards of hte cycle

A fourth part, an update to my previous article (The State of the Solo Investigators) which updated my picks for the most and least effective solo investigators was planned and mostly completed… but I wasn’t happy with it so I cut it. It’ll be back, but I plan to take a slightly different and more organized direction that I think will be more useful going forward. Hold onto your butts!

Table of Contents

1. Scenario Discussion

1.1. The Forgotten Age of course has a certain reputation, namely that it has an intense difficulty curve plotted with frustrating new mechanics. While there is definitely an element of truth to that (and more on that shortly), I do think the games design remains quite strong, and that Matt Newman still firmly has his thumb on the game he helped co-create. In particular, each of Threads of Fate, Depths of Yoth, and City or Archives easily rank among the best scenarios in the game and really demonstrate exactly what is so wonderful about this game. My favourite of the three is Depths of Yoth, perhaps because it was exactly what I needed after a rough cycle, that is, a “vanilla” Arkham experience that twists the usual mechanics ever so slightly enough for a fun, unique experience. Whereas other scenarios may struggle with the blending of mechanics and theme featured in The Forgotten Age, the Depths of Yoth seemingly does so with ease. It is a thrilling rush to the end as you escape your enemies in pursuit… while carefully navigating a Crumbling Precipice, of course.

1.2. City of Archives also deserves special mention; far from a “vanilla” experiences, City of Archives shows just how far the game can be pushed in terms of theme and mechanics. I never would have thought a card game could create the feeling of being trapped in an alien world and an alien body… but here we are; truly, a masterstroke in design. That being said, I understand some have took a colder reception to it. City of Archives brilliance lies in its narrative and how it twists the conventional mechanics of Arkahm… which of course is an anathema for those looking for a conventional card game experience who just want to play their deck. The body swapping can also prove frustrating, either due to poor planning or bad luck, which mapped with the scenarios dire consequences for failure can be truly upsetting. As much as I appreciate City of Archives for what it is, this scenario is perhaps not what we needed after both The Boundary Beyond and Heart of the Elders A&B. Further, I do think depriving player agency or imposing a bait and switch should not simultaneously be paired with the games harshest penalty (being stuck as a Yithian… or losing the campaign). Those feelings aside, hopefully once our wounds are healed we can look back and see City of Archives as a triumph in design.

1.3. City of Archives is not the only scenario to suffer by association. Whenever I think about The Untamed Wilds and Doom of Eztli I have to constantly remind myself that they are fun, mechanically distinct scenarios; the reason why I have to remind myself is because Heart of the Elders A&B. While The Boundary Beyond may attract the loudest criticisms, I really think it’s Heart of the Elders that threatens to throw the campaign off its rails, and it does so for two reasons. First, it is mechanically bland; beyond merely being a re-tread of the first two scenarios, it threatens to distill the Explore mechanic down to its purest form: Explore locations to advance the Act deck to shuffle new locations into the Explore deck.” There just isn’t anything interesting going on, and that experience can taint the rest of the campaign. The second issue Part A and the consequences of The Boundary Beyond. The idea of repeating a scenario is an interesting concept but I think the execution is a miss. For one, while grinds can be fun, there needs to be a reward or element of progression which Part A sorely lacks; it is merely a grind for the sake of grinding; there is no interesting loot, no interesting variance, nothing. Worse, grinding is mandatory and the amount of grind required is determined by your progress in The Boundary Beyond, a scenario with its own notorious reputation. On The Boundary Beyond, while I can understand the designers rightfully opt on the side of being overly difficult (especially in a non-linear objective scenario), it was perhaps not the wisest move to connect your progress (or lack thereof) in the ball bustingly tough scenario to the amount of progress you need in the subsequent grinding scenario. It just feels like a slap in the face after you got kicked in the genitals.

1.4. For what it’s worth, I do think The Boundary Beyond has a really fun concept. An ever shifting map where the investigator is phasing through different time periods is a really interesting design space that this game hasn’t done before. Our experience may be dragged down by the scenarios other features (yes, Explore is extremely punishing here), but I do hope the designers revisit this kind of map concept again. It certainly stands out as being the games most unique implementation of Explore to date, a mechanic which, as aforementioned, too often trends towards “Explore locations to advance the Act deck to shuffle new locations into the Explore deck.” Indeed; that description could describe 4 of 9 scenarios (exempting the secret scenario, Turn Back Time). If Explore is something that we will see again, I hope that we see it used more creatively as was the case in The Boundary Beyond.



1.5. Personally, I wasn’t a fan of the recurring enemy, the Harbinger of Valusia. While I enjoy the narrative and mechanical potential of recurring enemies this one fell flat for me. This isn’t the first time Matt Newman has experimented with recurring enemies, as co-developer of Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, antagonists like Thaurdir in Angmar Awakened and Captain Sahir in The Dreamchaser were recurring enemies used to great effect. The difference is that those enemies functioned differently in each appearance in a way that blended with the mechanics of the scenario. The Harbinger, meanwhile, shows no evolution nor pushes the scenarios narrative or mechanics in any meaningful way, rather she simply presents the same threat she always does. In a campaign replete with repeated encounter sets, seeing the same enemy over and over again contributes to any feeling of “same-ness” in a campaign we already have too much of (*glares at Heart of the Elders*). Compared to the re-use of the monstrous transformation party guests in The Path to Carcosa, the Harbinger unfortunately feels like a tacked on enemy to artificially increase the difficulty; I very much doubt that was the designers intention, but it is how I feel about the result.

1.6. One other thing about the Harbinger: holy hell is the rule operation on his textbox draconian. If you haven’t realized already, look at the textbox again. By the operation of the rules, if you successfully attack the Harbinger and that attack places the sufficient number of resources on her, then she disappears before the damage is applied. In other words, you have 1 less opportunity to attack her per appearance. The effect? She is dang hard to kill, perhaps even impossibly so for solo and two player groups. Again, I’m sure this wasn’t the intention, but it is another source of scaling problems in this campaign (more on that shortly).

1.7. While The Forgotten Age can be frustrating I do think the campaign will age better with time. Certainly it is a campaign that demands that the players command an intricate knowledge of how the cycle and its unforgiving scenarios unfold. At the same time, part of what makes the cycle so difficult is that it is also unpredictable; much like the jungle itself, The Forgotten Age is a force of nature that is untamable, unpredictable, and will always present a serious danger. We can try to map out our solutions, but the reality is we are always one step away from a Boa Constrictor or a sudden Pitfall. To that end I do not think this is a campaign for those who want to master a challenge, rather it is a campaign for those who want to always feel like danger is just around the corner. While some have compared the cycle to Dark Souls I can’t agree, because unlike Dark Souls The Forgotten Age feels like something that can never truly be mastered; instead it is more like a rogue-like ala Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon, FTL: Faster than Light, or any other game in a genre that has exploded in popularity. Danger is always around the corner, and you are only one step away from mortal danger; while you can try to plan and learn to respond to that danger, rarely can you master it. That fact may exactly be why The Forgotten Age can have an enduring appeal. I think once we have some time to lick our wounds and recuperate from our expeditions we will eventually come back to The Forgotten Age as Arkham at its most visceral. In many of my recent binges of the campaign, I can even say I’ve had fun playing The Boundary Beyond (okay, I’ve had fun playing it once).



2. An Adventure to Admire

2.1. If there is one area where I think The Forgotten Age really hits it home its the narrative. Just look back at what we had in Night of the Zealot or The Dunwich Legacy and its easy to see how the quality of writing and narrative has improved by leaps and bounds. In particular, Matt Newman has been increasingly ambitious with each cycles narrative, upping the scale of each campaigns “universe” with every cycle. For the first time, despite playing the campaign over two dozen times I still can’t say I’ve seen everything this cycle has to offer. The thing is, I want to see what it has to offer because the narrative and lore woven into this cycle is some of the best we’ve seen so far.

2.2. The Forgotten Age isn’t necessarily what I wanted from a jungle adventure (there wasn’t nearly enough jumping out of planes), but it was what I wanted from an Arkham Files story. Lovecraftian horror and Arkham is more than a set of investigators chasing after Cthulu or Shub-Niggurath or Gozer, in fact most of its stories are more personal, more down to earth; often times Lovecraftian horror can be “normal” person who meets a strange person who has already encountered the Mythos, and that’s it; the Mythos serves as a backdrop to our world, rarely does it go to the forefront. The Forgotten Age doesn’t completely go down that route, indeed I doubt we will ever see a cycle that abstains from the mythos’ monsters, but it certainly doesn’t go down the well traveled path of stopping a Great Old One. Instead, we find ourselves in the middle of (or dupes to) two rival ancient civilizations each with their own agenda. Of course the real problem is ourselves and our willingness to grab a fancy stone because… well I’m not sure why, looks shiny I guess? McGuffin power?

2.3. Another success of The Forgotten Age is that it has characters. Previous campaigns have of course flirted with the idea of incorporating side characters into the story, but rarely have they felt meaningful or even interesting; it’s not like people were rushing off to the secret chamber in Blood on the Alter to save Earl Sawyer because he mattered to us, rather his saving was incidental to our goal of “winning” the game. The Forgotten Age changes that. Both Alejandro and Icthaca carry an element of weight and presence within the story such that it invokes a reaction, one that continues to be invoked throughout the cycle as we want to learn more about them… that is, at least, until one turned into a wear-snake and the other revealed himself as a yithian.



3.More Reflections on Explore

3.1. While I have warmed up to The Forgotten Age, I am not sure if I will ever warm up to the Explore mechanic (or, at least how it’s been used this cycle). Explore has been a contentious issue discussed at length in nearly every facet of the community, and consequently I don’t want to waste much time here throwing salt on more wounds (I think a side-discussion during this Mythosbusters episode summarizes most of my thoughts fairly well). I do, however, want to discuss one aspect of Explore, because I think it is, respectfully, a significant design flaw for which I hope isn’t repeated. That flaw is player scaling.

Scale problems (and no, not the snake kind)

3.2. In many ways, Arkham Horror: The Card Game shows significant growth in design from its predecessor, Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, and its scaling across players is no exception. The game is not without its faults and growing pains (as seen in The Dunwich Legacy cycle), however I think overall the designers generally do a reasonably good job at trying to balance the game across the different player counts where possible. That growth can especially be seen in “true solo”, that is, where a player only controls one investigator. The Path to Carcosa was a significant step forward for solo players, and it gave me hope that the game would continue in that fashion. Explore and The Forgotten Age proved to be a significant step back, and imposes an unnecessary burden on a true solo experience in a way that can feel neither balanced nor fun.

3.3. No matter the player count, whether you are a single investigator or a team of four, the investigator(s) must deal with the same number of treachery cards in the Exploration Deck. This means that the solo player alone must endure:

The tempo loss from several unsuccessful Explore attempts; The burden of passing any skill tests resulting from a treacheries Revolution effect; and The consequences of the Revolution effect and the board state disruptions that follow.

3.4. As an additional kick in the teeth, the cycles Explore mitigation tools (Map, Torches, etc) require the Investigator to be at the starting location… which means these tools are less practical in lower player counts.

3.5. I have to ask why; why is that disproportionate burden placed on the solo investigator? Unless the designers felt solo players had it too easy and weren’t drawing enough treachery cards, I can’t see how this is anything but an oversight by the designers and playtesters. It’s not just that it’s a balance issue, but it’s an issue that really detracts from the overall experience. Chances are a solo player will draw most or all of the treacheries by the time the scenario ends, and too often the solo investigator’s initial progress is stymied by several unsuccessful attempts which can be utterly demoralizing. That itself is part of the problem; players are simultaneously progress through the scenario while building up their board state, but this is frustrated by gating progress behind Explore.

3.6. Players are always at risk of being tripped by an unsuccessful explore, particularly nasty treacheries like Overgrowth and Entombed, which leaves them vulnerable to the Encounter Deck as a one-two punch; nothing is less fun then attempting to make progress only for the Explore Deck to destabilize your board state… and then get slammed by the Encounter Deck during the next Mythos Phase. Even less forgiveable is the fact that Explore is used extensively throughout the cycle; it would be one thing if the odd scenario scaled poorly, but there is something wrong when the campaigns marque mechanic risks making 5/9 scenarios (6/10 if you count Turn Back Time) an unenjoyable experience. Only Depths of Yoth escapes this problem.

3.7. Clearly the takeaway is that The Forgotten Age is not a solo campaign, but I can’t accept that as a response. While not everything scales perfectly across all player counts, the game usually at least tries to do so where reasonably possible… and there is no reason why Explore cannot be scaled; indeed, there are several reasonable solutions, the one I advocate for being described below. The status quo feels unnecessarily cruel for solo players, especially given that they are often already at a tempo disadvantage. For a game usually tries to balance across player counts, I can’t help but think that this is an enormous oversight. Sorry designers and playtesters.

Suggested Change

While there are plenty of changes we could make to Explore, I think at minimum the number of treacheries in the Exploration Deck should have scaled to the number of players. Consider the following examples that could have been added to the scenario setup text under “Build the Exploration Deck”. While these may not allow for perfect scaling, they would be an enormous improvement over what we have. It would also add an element of unpredictability and mystery to the Exploration Deck (a thing it strangely lacks, we should expect a booby trap!) Example 1. “Set aside [treachery 1, 2, 3] and [treachery 4] treacheries and shuffle them together. Without looking at them, draw X number of cards from the set aside treacheries, where X is the number of players. Shuffle the drawn treacheries into the Exploration Deck. Shuffle any remaining cards into the Encounter Deck.” Example 2. “Set aside [treachery 1, 2, 3, 4] and [treachery 5] treacheries and shuffle them together. Without looking at them, draw X+1 number of cards from the set aside treacheries, where X is the number of players. Shuffle the drawn treacheries into the Exploration Deck. Shuffle any remaining cards into the Encounter Deck.“

4. Supplies (aka Be Careful What You Wish For)

4.1. Ever since The Dunwich Legacy, some have criticized how a campaign regularly ramps up the difficulty by foisting random basic weaknesses upon the player and adding chaos tokens to the bag; there is no agency, no narrative explanation, you just take it. I’ve always chalked it up to the investigators growing weariness from their horrific adventure, but I can understand why people were frustrated with it. It seems that those people got what they wished for: Supplies.

4.2. In hind sight, Supplies are a “pick your poison” mechanic. “Don’t like trauma? Fine, take a Blanket but don’t complain when you don’t have a Map!” Supplies allow you to plot, prioritize, and optimize your Supplies to overcome whatever particular ailments you believe hurt you the most. Better yet, in some cases you can build your deck to eliminate the need for specific supplies; for example, I recently ran a Minh Thi Phan deck which featured a cost curve of 2 or less which, with the inclusion of Madame Labranche, eliminates the need for Provisions. On the whole, I think this is an improvement for the games design (more player agency is usually an improvement) but it is not without some pit falls along the way.

4.3. To much frustration, I think the Supplies didn’t do enough to telegraph what they actually do. While flavourful and cryptic, descriptions like “For warmth at night” (Blanket) does not really impress on players the actual consequence for failing to take a Blanket, and there are no shortage of player experiences recounting how they felt arbitrarily punished for failing to take X. I can appreciate that this design is lifted from “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, but respectfully the CYOA experience is very different from Arkham. In a CYOA book, the players enjoyment derives exclusively from the narrative, whereas in Arkham a greater amount of player agency and strategy means that player enjoyment is derived at least in part from the outcome; arbitrary punishment, that is negative consequences wherein the player lacks agency, can feel terrible. In a way, this feels even worse that the automatic ramping in The Dunwich Legacy and The Path to Carcosa specifically because you did have a choice but failed to choose correctly (next time pick the dusty carpenter cup).

4.4. In short, I feel most Supplies could still benefit from more detailed descriptions. This is particularly helpful for players whom may only ever play a campaign once; however, even for those of us who will play a campaign dozens of times, hind sight should not be a so beneficial. I’ve provided some examples below (added portion is underlined) which I think would have gone a long way to mitigate any frustrations.

Blanket “For warmth at night to stave off physical and mental wear between adventures. “

“ Canteen: “Can be refilled at streams and rivers to heal physical wounds during your expedition. “

“ Gas: “Enough for a long journey by car to give you more time to think over your starting equipment. “

“ Map: “Unmarked for now, but with time, you may be able to map out your surroundings to help you explore .”

.” Pickaxe: “For more easily breaking apart rocky surfaces and obstacles. What will you use otherwise, your hands ?”

5. Bait and Switch

5.1. One last general reflection on the campaign. Many speculated that The Forgotten Age would be the “Agility cycle”, that is, the one that finally brings it to the forefront of relevance. Matt Newman even said during one of the Path to Carcosa exit interviews (either with Drawn to the Flame or Mythosbusters, I sadly can’t remember) that Agility would be something that was more emphasized. If giving us an “Agility cycle” was indeed a goal, then the final product fell well below that mark. Indeed I couldn’t imagine a more punishing cycle for Evasion than this one; between its cramped Explore centric-maps spotted with frequent Hunters, Evasion alone is seldom an ideal strategy, even in solo. Nor did I find the Vengeance mechanic to overly incentivize Evasion; Vengeance enemies are largely confined to the snakes of The Untamed Wilds and Heart of the Elders Part A, the balance being strewn about locations that astute investigators can avoid. Vengeance on the Harbinger of Valusia in particular feels irrelevant given how hard it is to kill the thing. This isn’t so much a criticism as just a random observation; for now, Path to Carcosa is the real Agility cycle, that is, a cycle that mostly features stretched out, linear maps.