Arkham Horror LCG Session Report: At Death’s Doorstep (The Circle Undone Part 2)

By Chris Renshaw

Disclaimer: If you haven't heard about Arkham Horror: The Card Game, you might have trouble with this post. Also, potential spoilers ahead. 

Last Time...

Last time, we began the first “official” scenario of The Circle Undone. We ended up lost in a forest, chased by monsters. When we started to get our bearings, we found ourselves interrupting some witches casting a spell. There’s no possible way this could come back to bite us later in the campaign...

Just as a reminder of what investigators we are playing as again:

Myself: Calvin Baker
Cory: Rex Murphy
Jimmy: Mark Harrigan
Mike: Tony Morgan

Having gotten some XP on the last scenario, I was able to add in the card that I built this whole Calvin deck around: KITTIES!

When I got caught up on the Arkham Horror cards I didn’t have, I discovered this batch of furry friends and I knew I had to use them in a game. The reason I picked Calvin was because several people used Miss Doyle and her crew in various Calvin decks. I didn’t get to use her in this game, but I’m excited to try them out in future games.

Bring on the creepy text…

There we go. I think I’m starting to get used to the chill up my spine when I read these agenda cards. Yet, seeing that a type of enemy “cannot be damaged or defeated” is always a good sign right? In this scenario, we are once again at the Silver Twilight Lodge. We have read about the disappearances of the previous “investigators”, and since the leaders of the Lodge have decided to have another big gathering, we are using the opportunity to investigate.

The setup of this scenario actually depends on how much you got done on the prologue scenario. Looking at the act card, it seems to be a very standard first act for Arkham: go get as many clues as possible before the Agenda advances and things go cray cray. We tried to mitigate the doom advancing and work to get as many clues as possible. I believe we hit about 9-10 clues before the agenda advanced….

Oh for Pete’s Sake…

Seriously? We were about 3 clues short and we have to discard them all? Really made us wonder what the point in getting so many clues in the Prologue was after all. Looks like Josef Meiger is hitting the high road then. Once this campaign is over, I’ll have to make a note to go back and read the text that we never got to experience on the back of Josef Meiger’s card.

It is weird having to go read an interlude in the middle of a session. Reminds me of the Murder at the Excelsior Hotel standalone scenario that we played right before jumping into The Circle Undone. Anyways, our fate is sealed and we find ourselves once again whisked into a spectral version of the house, complete with our friend the Spectral Watcher. This time, he wasn’t as big of a deal thanks to the second agenda card:

You bet your ass we used those Silver Twilight enemies and positioned them in between us and the Spectral Watcher so that he went after those enemies instead of us. We were having enough trouble with all of our “favorite” cards that like to make an appearance. For instance, this scenario makes a big deal out of the encounter deck running out of cards. Well, a bunch of us were getting hit with the encounter cards that trigger when that deck ran out, like Evil Past. What was even worse than them triggering once was that some of us were failing the skill test to get rid of them, so they triggered *multiple* times.

What’s new is old again

Even though this was only the second/third scenario in the campaign, this scenario felt like a “Greatest Hits” of everything so far. Very similar situations as what happened in the Prologue, plus a return of the big terrifying baddie in the Prologue. Plus all the same horrible encounter cards that keep popping up in each new scenario. One of us almost died at the very end of the scenario thanks to “Realm of Torment” above. We had to do some maneuvering to get someone to them and heal them a bit so they wouldn’t die when all the haunted abilities triggered on their turn.

The text at the end of the session was actually super interesting to me, as I had just finished reading Wrath of N’Kai and the Silver Twilight Lodge was briefly talked about in that book. Just another reminder of how well FFG ties in the lore in its properties, and it's one of the reasons this game is one of my favorites!

What did you think of this Battle Report? What’s the *worst* encounter card in Arkham? Let me know in the comments, or you can hit me up on twitter or facebook. Also, did you know we have a Patreon? Go check it out if you want to join our slack community or get cool dice!