Hemlock Heads to Switzerland

The latest cycle for Arkham Horror is now out in the wild, so it is time to take a look at the Investigator cards from the full set. I'm going to be taking a look at the out-of-class cards that existing Investigators gained access to in the near future, but before then I thought it'd be worth taking a quick look at the new Neutral cards, as well as the four new Basic Weakness cards we now have access to.

Neutral cards sit in an interesting spot, given that every Investigator currently in print has Neutral 0-5 in their Deckbuilding Options, and I'm only aware of two Investigators where their Deckbuilding Restrictions prohibit some Neutral cards from being taken (Rex Murphy with Tempt Fate, and Carolyn Fern with Ornate Bow and Timeworn Brand). I know that Unexpected Courage is almost always one of the first cards I'll put in a deck, and - unfortunately - In the Thick of It seems to be sat in a similar spot for a lot of other people. The design team need to be careful with Neutral card designs to leave them as a valid option for a subset of Investigators, without hitting the point where they're nearly an auto-include.

Basic Weakness cards almost go the other way - unless you're using a house rule, you don't have a say in what your Random Basic Weakness ends up being, but they ideally want to have some impact on how you're going to play your deck. There are quite a few of these that I've seen described as a "double action soak", where the only concern is when you'll have two spare actions to get rid of them, but they're not doing much else. At the other extreme, you have something like the Doomed chain which can kill you outright - and surprisingly quickly, if you're unlucky with what you draw.

Anyway, let's see what new options have cropped up in Hemlock Vale.

Spawn of the Old Ones, Preying on Your Mind

If there's one area of Arkham Horror that I've seen questions about many a time over in r/arkhamhorrorlcg on reddit, it's the interactions between the Spawn and Prey mechanics when someone draws a card from the encounter deck.

Both of these keywords are explained in the rules reference document, but even when you sit down and read through the reference, it isn't clear on how an Acolyte behaves compared to Conspicuous Staff or to Beings of Ib.

What I've done below is generate a flowchart for players which takes into account Spawn, Prey and Aloof, and will help you determine just where that latest enemy should appear once your Seeker has drawn it...

Hemlock Vale Spoiler Season - Part 2

Spoiler season for Hemlock Vale has now come to an end, and we're now waiting for stores to confirm when they'll get their stock in of the new expansion. We've seen a whole host of new cards, including all five new Investigators, and I'm sure everyone out there has decks they're going to be looking to build and try out once the release has happened. There will, of course, still be surprises to come, as not every card has been spoiled before the set has arrived - which is a good thing, as who wants there to be nothing to look forward to when you buy the new box?

Before we look at the new cards, a couple of the questions I had regarding cards in part 1 have been resolved. While I haven't been provided with sources, it appears that Hand-Eye Coordination has been confirmed to only pay for a single action's cost if an ability - such as Sledgehammer - would use multiple actions to resolve something. That seems far more reasonable that making its major strike a completely free action. Also, adding Agility to Agility when using False Surrender on a Hatchet has been confirmed to work, which I'm sure is a relief for Rita.

I maintain that adding something to the FAQ to document these would be a good idea, but we'll see what does get covered in the next update.

Now we've gotten the admin out of the way, now to look at the remaining cards from Hemlock Vale's spoiler season and see what we think...

Hemlock Vale Spoiler Season - Part 1

We're halfway through that time of year again - it is the spoiler season for the upcoming Hemlock Vale Investigator Expansion. As we're about halfway through the announced spoilers for this expansion, I figured I'd take a look at what's been shown so far through channels outside of Fantasy Flight Games' own site, and offer some thoughts on what we know so far.

So, let's take a look at what's been shown, class by class, and see where it takes us...

A basic guide to urban basing

Chew stogie, fire boltgun...

Since Warhammer 40,000 8th edition was released in June 2017, I've been slowly working on redoing my Imperial army - as well as starting a Nurgle force and looking at an Eldar one. One element I have been doing to unite the forces is themed basing - in particular, going with a ruined urban base look.

The technique is one that I learned from a friend of mine back in my days as part of the Sheffield Irregulars - he was painting units up to sell on eBay, and all the units he did used this approach. One of the things we did at events was talk people through how to make these bases, which is also where I learned it.

The one downside with doing these bases is they do take a little time to make - and if you're doing an army like Imperial Guard, Tyranids or Orks it can be tricky to justify the effort across so many models. Part of the reason it has taken me over a year to paint up a 30-man unit of Conscripts was putting off doing the bases for the last ten.

Season Journey: The Second Crusade

Playing a class you're not familiar with is an interesting experience in Diablo III - new mechanics and strategies become available, new pitfalls and traps become apparent, and you get to try out pieces of gear that you would previously have salvaged for the crafting materials.

This has certainly been the case as I've moved through the second half of Act I with my Crusader, HenryJonesJr - if you're interested in my thoughts on the first stage of my journey, they're available here.

I'd just defeated the Skeleton King when I last posted, having hit level 22. Before I picked up with pushing forwards with the storyline, I ran through Old Tristram Road a few times to try out the new spear I'd picked up, the Pledge of Caldeum. I was doing substantially more DPS than I had been, but I realised after a couple of runs that I was probably better going spear and shield than just straight spear, though it meant tweaking my passive skills so I had access to the Heavenly Strength skill, which lets me used a two-handed weapon in one hand.

Having settled my gear - and found Warriv, so I could grab his journal from his corpse to move me a step closer to one of my achievements - I was ready to move back into the story.

Season Journey: The First Crusade

When I was at university, one thing I made sure I had time for was playing computer games. My genres at the time were real time strategy games and roleplaying games - as a general rule, you got a lot of play out of them, either due to skirmish modes or long storylines. As a result, I found myself playing and enjoying Diablo II quite a lot, tracking down runes and upgrading my gear, even if the story wasn't the strongest.

Fast forward to last year, and a friend of mine convinced me to pick up Diablo III during a sale. I'd resisted picking it up when it was first released, partly due to the "real money" auction house, and party because my PC at the time was not the most reliable. My current one, however, was able to run it without a problem, and we had a fun time over a number of evenings, playing through the game as a team.

Demon Hunter, looking badass

Around Easter, after taking a break for a while, I started a new Demon Hunter, and tried to complete the initial four tiers of my Season 13 journey. As it happened, this Season finished while I was at UK Games Expo, and I was one task away from getting my final bits of free gear - curse my lack of DPS!

June 15 marked the launch of Season 14, and I'm determined to do better this time. I'm going to be doing a series of semi-regular posts chronicling my progress. This time, I shall not be denied - and maybe we'll see what lies beyond tier 4 as well.