Introduction and Spoiler Warning
This is a full, in depth-guide to Ages Unwound, a custom Arkham Horror Card Game campaign by Olivia Juliet. This article discusses potential XP, story paths, secrets, and FULL SPOILERS, so be warned!
Experience
Available XP per scenario/interlude:
Scenario 1: Night of Fire: 1 (locations) + 1 (irregulars in the encounter deck) +1 (myriad assassin in the encounter deck) +1 (chronophage in the encounter deck) +2 (scenario resolution) = 6 XP
Scenario 2: The Myriad Gentleman: 5 (locations) +2 (yithian observers in the encounter deck) + 1 (master of the house) = 8 XP
Scenario 3: A World Torn Down: 4 (locations) + 1 (chronophage in the encounter deck) + 1 (irregulars in the encounter deck) +1 (myriad assassin in the encounter deck) + 2 (hound of unmaking) OR +1 (the myriad gentleman high priest) = 8 or 9 XP
Scenario 4: Unstuck: 7 (locations) + 1 (elite enemy in the encounter deck) +1 (elite enemy spawning with the final location) +1 (additional elite enemy spawning with the final location at 3 or 4 players) = 9 or 10 XP
Scenario 5: A Year To Plan: 7 (locations) +1 (ancient sphinx) +1 (brainwashed expedition) +1 (displaced legion in the encounter deck) = 10 XP
Scenario 6: A World Torn Down, Again: 5 (locations) +1 (chronophage in the encounter deck) +1 (irregulars in the encounter deck) +1 (myriad assassin in the encounter deck) +2 (hound of unmaking if not defeated in scenario 3) +1 (the myriad gentleman high priest if not defeated yet) = 9-11 XP
Scenario 7: Time Runs Out: 3 (enemies on the back of locations) = 3 XP
There's a possibility of 52 XP (53 in 3-4 player) going into Time Runs Out. It's worth noting that 12 of those XP can be found in the encounter deck - close to a quarter of your XP requires you drawing into them.
The rest of the location XP luckily is fairly easy to grab - usually it just requires you to get one or two extra locations to get all of them, but often you're clearing most of the maps for clues. Overall, you can still plan for XP in the low 40s by the end of the campaign.
Campaign Breakdown
Strange Assistance
In the first 3 scenarios, players will sometimes make use of "Strange Assistance", which will end up needing to be paid off in scenario 5.The cost to paying them off - as well as the penalty if you don't - are quite harsh, so need to be considered carefully.
- One Strange Assistance at the start of the campaign
- One Strange Assistance if you accept the help in Interlude 1, leaving the bag with 2x cultist and 0x tablet (instead of the opposite) for scenarios 2 and 3 and prevent the addition of 1 doom on the next scenario)
- Up to three Strange Assistance from "Aid From Afar" in scenario 3, granting a 9 card deck search + draw for each investigator, 1i clues from your location, or auto-defeating a non-elite enemy / dealing 1i damage and exhausting an elite enemy
Accepting the help in the interlude is something new players will likely lean towards, but might not make the most sense. 1 doom in scenario 2 isn't too big of a deal.
For scenario 2, the cultist tokens are -1 and let you deal damage to a Myriad enemy at your location if you pass, and the tablets are -2 and if you fail, spawn a copy of the Myaid Gentlemen. On Hard/Expert, both of those increase to -3.
For scenario 3, the cultist and tablet are both -3 on standard and -5 on hard. The cultist gives you +1 skill value for the rest of the round if you succeed, and the tablet gives you -1 skill value for the rest of the round if you fail.
Depending on how well you're doing, and how good your decks are at low XP, you might just choose to take the tablets and continue on. It's a bit of a risk, but does save you some headache later.
For scenario 3, the "Aid From Afar" should really only be used in emergencies - again, the cost of it is pretty heavy. I'd only reach for it if it seems like it might be a defeat otherwise.
A World Torn Down: Front or Back Entrance
During Scenario 3: A World Torn down, players are given a choice to go through the front or rear entrance of the school. Each has different challenges - and whichever one they don't choose, they'll have to pick when they revisit in Scenario 6.
Going through the front entrance, investigators will have to deal with the Hound of Unmaking - a 4/6i/4 massive enemy with retaliate that hits for 1/2 , causes you to discard assets when hit, and even heals at the end of every round! The good news is the hound can't attack when undamaged, and you can just get clues to get around it. The bad news is that if you DO just get around it, the hound will show up in scenario 6 - and you'll lose out on 2 XP. The Ritual Circle you have to deal with afterwards has a haunted effect that sends you all the way back to the beginning (3 locations away!) and reverses a lot of good player cards in exchange for healing you. If you're coming here, you're best off beating the hound - if you can.
Going through the rear entrance, you'll have to deal with Unstable Warding - which requires you to gather and spend clues to make a Willpower or Combat (1i, but increasing to just 4 if done in scenario 6) test to break through the barrier. 4 successes has you pass, while 2 failures "unleash chaos" - putting extra clues on the next location (based on how many resources you didn't put on the warding) and shuffling in some nasty encounter cards into both this scenario and the last scenario. After all that, you then have to deal with the Myriad Gentleman, a 4/4i/3 enemy with retaliate and alert, and a location that has a nasty haunted effect!
Neither of these paths is particularly appealing. If you have good combat and think you can take down the hound, the front path is likely your best bet, especially at high player counts - it even nets an extra XP overall. If you choose the front path first and chase off the hound, however, you put a lot of pressure on yourself when you return in scenario 6 with another elite enemy to deal with on top of everything else - so killing it really should be a priority, especially as it's the last big enemy of the scenario. If you go the backdoor path first instead, it has a test that's notably easier at lower player counts - but then puts a lot more pressure on your clue gathering, including with locations that are rougher to investigate.
A Year To Plan Tasks - Player Initiated
Scenario 5: A Year To Plan lets players spend clues to flip over tasks, all of which give a mission, and a powerful reward for completing them.
- Enemy of My Enemy involves fighting a 3/6/3 yeti (that grows to 5/6/5 when hurt! in the Himalayas). Completing it gives you Monastic Training, a ??? skill that you can retrieve from your discard by swapping it with another card whenever you reveal a skull during a skill test.
- A Treasure Unearthed puts the British Library in play connecting to London. Getting clues and passing an agility test there will give you the Chronal Atlas, a hand slot tome that gives +1 intellect, and allows you to reveal multiple chaos tokens and seal the ones you don't use up to 3 times.
- The Devil You Know requires an agility test at Arkham to win over the Silver Twilight Lodge. Passing it gives you the Ionian Pendant, an accessory that lets you use combat instead of another skill for any revelation. It also adds 3 copies of "Assistance from the Lodge" into the next scenario, a surging encounter card that deals you a horror but lets you deal 2 damage to an enemy, discover a clue, or heal 2 damage.
- Higher Powers requires you to pass an investigate on Mexico City, Istanbul, and Shanghai, and then return to San Francisco. Doing so gives you Agency Strike Team - an event that deals 3 damage to each enemy or discovers 3 clues at your location or a connecting location.
- Entreating the Gods requires you to spend a lot of actions and make willpower tests at Sidney. Doing so gives you Wings of Damakairon, a spell that equips to your body slot, that's fast, gives +1 agility, and lets you exhaust it to give -2 shroud to a during a skill test… but only when it's not your turn.
- Up To Something requires you to defeat two Myriad Gentlemen in Rome. Completing it gives Forestall Fate, a spell that takes up an arcane slot, is fast to play, and lets you make a willpower test to gain an extra action up to 4 times.
Once you flip one of these tasks over, the only one that has a clue cost is A Treasure Unearthed, but it also comes with a bunch of clues. However, if you don't have an investigator that can make use of one of these cards, it might not be worth going too far out of your way for them. Most of them however are extremely powerful for anyone who can make use of them.
Some of the more picky ones are the Forestall Fate (which requires high willpower) and the Ionian Pendant (which requires high combat), although the Silver Twilight Lodge's help is pretty good without it. The Wings of Damakairon are surprisingly good even for low agility investigators - giving an ally -2 to a shroud once per turn still makes sure not as much needs to be committed to waste a deduction, pilfer, or the like. Overall, getting these tends to be less important than stopping the penalties.
A Year To Plan Tasks - Automatic Ones
In A Year to Plan, in addition to the optional tasks that you need to spend clues to spawn, there's a number of tasks that spawn automatically. Unlike the previous tasks, these all require spending clues to complete, and rather than giving good extra cards for completing them, they give nasty penalties if you don't.
- Helping Yourself starts with a number of resources on it equal to your Strange Assistance. It takes 2i clues and an action to remove each. Failing to remove them all, you suffer two horrendous effects. First, you add two elder thing tokens to the bag, which are -5s with bad effects for the next two scenarios. Second, you also add in the Paradox encounter set in the next scenario, which has some very nasty cards in it - particularly ones that can target every player at once!
- At the end of Agenda 1, Keeper of Knowledge spawns an Ancient Sphinx in Cairo. It's a 3/4i/5 enemy, but you can also parley with intelligence to put a clue onto it. Spending 1i clues solves its riddle - giving you a choice of immediate strong benefit, and 2 extra resources and 1 extra card at the start of next scenario. Failing this adds two tablet tokens to the chaos bag for the rest of the campaign - which have harsh penalties (-3 and -4) and nasty on-fail effects - and adds an additional doom to Scenario 6.
- At the end of Agenda 1, Strange Portal spawns the Another Realm location next to Paris. It's a simple 4 shroud location that needs to have all its clues removed - however, once you're there, you can't leave without clearing clues off of it. Luckily, enemies can't spawn there. Failing to complete this means the investigators have to clean an additional 3 shroud, 2i location in the next scenario.
- At the end of Agenda 2, The Tunguska Event spawns, requiring you to spend 2i clues in Tunguska. Completing that part then spawns a nasty massive enemy, that gains a swarm card every round there - and even when you defeat it, you need to pass a willpower test to keep it dead! Failing to complete this means The Colour's Spread is in play for the next scenario - making the Myriad Gentlemen's damage must be assignable to ally cards, and takes any ally cards defeated it as swarm cards.
- At the end of Agenda 3, Final Preparations spawns. This requires spending 2i clues up to 3 times. Each time you do so, you add a cultist token to the bag for the next two scenarios. The cultists are low penalty tokens that give a useful bonus (including giving an extra action on a success in the final scenario!) so are quite good.
These penalties are bad - really bad. The Helping Yourself penalty is massive, and absolutely cannot be ignored. Keeper of Knowledge, likewise, will just make your life harder. While the Strange Portal isn't that bad of a penalty, it's also one of the easier ones to complete - and just has you do something (getting clues) you'd do anyway, so there's little reason not to do it. The Tunguska Event is the hardest of these to complete, with a penalty that's tempting to suffer - as long as you just don't take damage, it won't hurt you! On the other hand, if you do take damage, it greatly increases the chance of a death spiral, forcing you to kill off your allies and spawning more enemies.
Last, Final Preparation, unlike the rest of these, is about getting a good thing instead of avoiding a bad thing. But the thing you're getting is very good - and especially in higher player counts, or if you've got any sort of token-searching effects, getting those cultist tokens in is likely way better than adding a card to one person's deck. In the lats scenario, those cultists are "-2, and if you succeed take another action" - letting lucky pulls let you draw into really big turns!
Completing all of the tasks and all of final preparations requires 15i clues +2i for each strange assistance. The scenario has 14i clues to start with, with 7 more from the British library (although the last ones are increasingly hard to get) and 4 for each trip to sydney. In higher player counts, multiple investigators will be required to go to Sydney to spawn more clues - or more likely, you'll just have to accept which tasks you don't want to do, and chances are, spawning tasks will be lower priority than the rest of it. There is a pull here though - the spawned tasks will be much easier to complete if you can spawn them in early. However, the most important tasks also want you to spend a large amount of clues on them too - there's a strong "push your luck" element, here.
A Multitude of Plots
In the scenario a Year to Plan, the "A Multitude of Plots" encounter card has 3 copies in the encounter deck. They're each Peril cards with a choice: the first is to be a surging ancient evil, or the second is to advance a plot of the Myriad. If you choose to advance their plots instead, you're given three choices:
- The Myriad raised a powerful warding: This adds Nexus of Aforgomon into play. This gives all Paradox treacheries +1 difficulty, and all ritual locations +2 shroud. As the two ritual locations you need to clear out are already 4 shroud, this can make them very difficult without the right set-up.
- The Myriad recruited a cruel sorcerer: This spawns a 4/4i/3 hunter that also gives investigators at its location -2 willpower, and spawns as soon as you reach an Interior location.
- The Myriad waved a dread curse: This adds the "Curse of Thousand Winters" to every investigator's deck, a nasty weakness. It's a willpower (4) test, that makes you lose one action for a number of turns for each point you fail by.
None of these are particularly good, but it's worth considering which you might be able to suffer through. The powerful warding can make your life hell unless you have very strong investigation power, or lots of ways to cheat clues - you'll have to get 3i clues from 6 shroud locations if it's in play. Certainly, a seeker or mystic who's absolutely focusing on their primary stat can do it, but characters with more "average" stats should skip this.
The cruel sorcerer isn't a terrible enemy to beat, but it spawns at a very inopportune time. If you've got characters who are beefy at combat, and have high damage weapons, you might just be able to roll it over. If you're relying on a mystic for combat, they become a much worse choice - likewise if you went through the rear entrance previously, as now, they'll spawn at the same time as the temporal hound. There's also a worry of just how much endurance your fighters can keep up with, but by now, they should have a ton of XP.
As weaknesses go, the dread curse is pretty bad - is avoiding 1 doom in scenario 5 worth risking everyone losing up to 4 actions each in the next two scenarios? Likely not, unless you've got characters with really strong willpower.
Given these, you should consider which of these you can suffer through - and just accept the doom if you can't. There's certainly worse things to happen than an ancient evils.
Of course, the best solution would just be to Ward of Protection the card away...
More on Ages Unwound:
Ages Unwound: Spoiler-Light Review