Introduction and Themes
This guide is a largely spoiler-free guide that talks about the general mechanics of the Matter of Britain custom campaign made by Frying Tonight. If you're interested in learning what the campaign's unique mechanics are, and hearing suggestions for investigators and cards that are particularly well suited to the campaign, read on!
In The Matter of Britain, investigators are sent by Miskatonic University to find a missing archaeology professor in Britain, only to find themselves retracing the path of the legendary King Arthur, finding mystical foes and allies of the myths come alive. And a lot of knights to fight. So many knights.
General Mechanics
Aloof Enemies
This campaign has a lot of aloof enemies - and the majority of them have 2 health. This makes Beat Cop and Guard Dog (2) trickier to use on them, and instead makes effects that ignore aloof or give extra actions for dealing with aloof enemies worthwhile. In addition, cards that care about having enemies around that aren't eating you are great - be they things like Power Word, Scene of the Crime, or Grift. A lot of these enemies also aren't ones you particularly need to fight - enemies who put more Haunted effects on the board, for example, don't really matter if you just don't fail investigation tests.
Damage and Horror Sources
Damaging encounter cards are pretty rare in this campaign, or at least, cards that deal you all their damage at once. The "1 damage/horror for each point you fail by" is basically non-existent, and damage is much more likely to come 1 or 2 at a time, or from repeated effects. Sometimes the campaign will also just throw you so many enemies at once you can't kill them all, but overall, damage and horror tends to be light, and more of a threat if you let it stack up over all.
Dodging the Cops
Three of the scenarios feature police officers, who you suffer a penalty for defeating. However, you can discard them by evading them by 2 or more - and they only have 2 evade to start with. It's not a big ask, but there's not a lot of other places evade is great in the game. Having investigators who can use a manual dexterity or other skill card to suddenly spike an evade test to deal with a pesky cop might save you a lot of problems.
Failing Forward
The Matter of Britain lets you fail forward pretty softly - sometimes giving bonus experience or unique story paths for failing in particular ways, and never really punishing you harshly for failure right up until the very end. As such, players don't have to be particularly focused on trying super hard to avoid a cascading failure or death spiral - and you might even find something cool on the occasional "less than ideal" resolution!
Groups of Enemies
While one of the rarer mechanics, there's still several scenarios that tend to have enemies group up - due aloof enemies, enemies all spawning on the same location, or the like. The more players you have, the more you should consider cards like Dynamite Blast and Storm of Spirits.
Haunted
This campaign has Haunted, punishing you for failing investigate tests. It's everywhere. This makes fail-forward survivors tricky, and likely a bad choice for this campaign. If you're going to investigate, make sure you're doing so at a high bonus.
Melee Weapons
While it's not every scenario, there's quite a few times you'll just have to fight a LOT of enemies. Like, a lot of them. Having your gun run out of ammo would be terrible here, and you absolutely won't have enough bullets. Bring a melee weapon, even if you're switching to it at the end of the scenario. Likewise, mystics are going to have problems in terms of durability if they want to be the primary fighter. Many scenarios also change at the end, asking for a lot of combat - and while there's usually something for clue focused characters to do, they'll be better off if they can save some big attacks.
Movement
Both burst and constant movement are needed at different points. Nearly every scenario has the persistent threat of the Black Knight - who dogs you constantly, can't be defeated, and will punish you for not moving at least once every round . In a few scenarios, you sometimes need to move somewhere very, very quickly, often to places you've already been. If there are movement options available to you, consider them, as you're rarely be allowed a turn to just rest.
Tablet Tokens
Tablet tokens represent the strength of the arthurian myths - and there's several assets and scenarios that interact with them. If you have a way of token fixing, there's potentially a lot of pay-off.
Deckbuilding Advice
The suggestions below aren't by any means required, or even characters I've necessarily played the campaign through. Rather, these are just observations of characters who might be particularly well suited to the campaign, including things that might not be top tier, but have a very strong synergy with the campaign mechanics.
Suggested Investigators
Roland Banks: Lots of aloof enemies that you can choose to pick spawn spots for, or who automatically spawn on clues? Those are perfect triggers for Roland. On top of that, Pathfinder and Shortcut can do a lot of work this campaign. His weakness might be a problem in a couple of the scenarios that switch away from clue-gathering, but the campaign is horror light enough he can just bring more soak to compensate.
Zoey Samaras: While truly any other guardian could be here, Zoey was chosen as a great user of Down the Rabbit Hole for combining with Runic Axe (which has the movement tech, aloof-engaging, and endurance you need) and Hunter's Armor (which can proc draw off of constant, small pings).
Daisy Walker: With her high book stat, seeker movement tech, and the ability to take a lot of interesting tech from mystic, Daisy is always good. There's plenty of reason to go for her here, though, especially if you want to play around with Open Gate.
Ursula Downs: When you're being forced to move every turn, why not profit off of it? In addition, Ursula's good agility stat lets her be the go-to to dealing with the police enemies who need to be evaded.
Monterey Jack: Monterey has a lot of things going for him here, in a campaign that seems almost perfectly suited to him - he can bring pathfinder and shortcut(1), he's expected to constantly move to trigger his ability, he has a good melee weapon in his kit he can use in a pinch, and there's no damn frozen in fear for him to worry about. There's even the Grift + Nimble combo, which is great on all the aloof enemies! If you go the parallel route, there's also relic story assets he can enjoy.
Alessandra Zorzi or Trish Scarborough: Both these two get lumped together for the same reason - they like having enemies around. There will often be enemies around. Both care for different ways - Trish is going to get extra clues off of enemies and leave them behind, and Alessandra will be Beguiling aloof enemies into doing her bidding and using Fine Clothes to avoid haunted effects, but the result is largely similar.
Kohaku Narukami: Early on, you have access to a story asset ally that can count drawn tablet tokens as bless or curse tokens, which Kohaku wants to build around anyway. For Kohaku, that's amazing. He's also able to take Blessed Blade (4) and put that 3 combat to work near the end of scenarios, and use his ability to gain extra actions in some very tight spaces.
Lily Chen: If you're going to do a campaign that is best with melee weapons, why not bring the investigator who can only bring melee weapons?
Darrell Simmons: There's a lot of scenario cards that stick around - between aloof enemies and cards that hang out near the agenda deck - giving Darrell plenty of chances to build up evidence. His 5 intelligence also helps avoid haunted.
William Yorick: Yoricks sees a 2-fight, 2-health aloof enemy and thinks "Free recursion". He's one of the few characters who can run limited use weapon assets and never have to worry about going dry, and can bring the guardian tech that helps with engaging enemies.
Notable Player Cards
Scene of the Crime: The number of aloof enemies and hunter enemies who punish you only if you end your turn on them means Scene of the Crime can actually be controlled extremely well, guaranteeing clues when and where you want them.
Riot Whistle: There's a lot of aloof enemies, so if there was a campaign for it, this is it.
Forbidden Tome: It's always an awkward card, but this campaign both has aloof enemies you'll want to kill eventually, and a constant need for movement - if there was ever a place for both forbidden tomes, this is it.
Pathfinder: I don't know how many times I can say it. You're going to have to move a lot.
Grift / Nimble: These two go together. There's enough enemies who stick around that you can always profit off of grift, and Nimble is a great thing to combo with it, allowing you a burst of cash and to teleport across the map.
Damning Testimony: Getting investigate bonuses for enemies hanging around, and getting rid of them when needed? That's perfect for what this campaign asks for you. And it even has an option that lets you avoid Haunted!
Olive McBride: If you want to take advantage of the many positive tablet effects in the campaign, Olive is the best way to do so. Just be prepared to take Charisma with her, as the story allies play into the tablet effects.
Storm of Spirits: Attack events are awkward here, but when the clue focused characters need to pitch in, that's often because there's lots of enemies at once. Nothing solves that quite as well as Storm of Spirits.
Eucatastrophe: There's a few places in the campaign where things are extremely tight action wise, and the auto-fail can absolutely ruin your day.
Hunter's Jacket: Damage and horror can very much be "on demand", between enemies you can choose to engage when necessary, or even effects you can just choose to not get rid of. When you want to cash out on your jacket (and maybe recur it with scavenging), you can just do so.
More on Matter of Britain:
The Matter of Britain: Spoiler-Light Review