Arkham Incidents: Mysterious Benefits: Review and Rewards

This is a personal, largely spoiler free (or spoiler-vague) review of the fan-made scenario Mysterious Benefits, part of the Arkham Incidents collection by The Beard for Arkham Horror the Card Game.

The Arkham Incidents are a collection of scenarios set around Arkham, each involving an iconic ally of a difference class in their story. Mysterious Benefits revolves around the survivor ally Madame Labracne, and a pact her late husband made that's now filling her attic full of treasure. It's a fun scenario that cares about your cards in hand and your resources, leading to unique play patterns.

Mysterious Benefits is an engaging scenario that immediately lets you know what it's about from the very first locations you reveal. It's cleverly designed, with everything working in harmony - the locations, the enemies, and the treacheries are all working along the same axis, and everything flows nicely with little in the way of hang-ups. There's even a minor amount of location randomization - while not a huge deal, it does add to some replayability.

The main mechanics to the scenario are all based around things everyone has control over - drawing and using cards and gaining and spending resources. While survivors are more likely to be able to take advantage of some of these mechanics, it's still things everyone is gaurenteed to be able to play around with. Figuring out how to draw or discard cards, or gain or spend resources quickly for benefit leads to a fun little mini-game, with the enemies properly calibrated to encouraging the shifting of locations and plans. Setting yourself up with these helps with clue gathering, even for characters who aren't normally able to get clues at all - with the second half of the scenario allowing certain requirements to stand in for clues.

There are two minor negatives to the scenario - the first being that partway through, a random location is revealed that modifies a small subset of enemies based on their trait, no matter what location they're at. This ends up being a bit annoying to track - especially as it's not immediately obvious what enemies it will apply to, and it can be easy to forget. The second is that there are two ways to resolve the scenario - fighting or clues - and the clues do feel much easier unless you have real combat beasts of characters. Still, even if you're going the clue route, there are things the fighter can do to contribute, so it's not all bad.

With a 19 XP party, I found Mysterious Benefits a good difficulty level. The enemies that were meant to be annoying options to kill were just annoying enough that it felt like I could choose either path, and the location mechanics felt well balanced between being tempting to engage with or just barrel through.

Mysterious Benefits is a well designed side scenario, and a great example of how a gimmick can enhance yet not overpower a design.

Rewards

Scenario Cost: 2 XP, but an investigator with Madame Labranche in their deck pays 1 fewer XP.

Potential XP Gain: 4 (locations) + 1 (Daemonic Benefactor) = 5 XP or 3 XP (4 if your deck has Madame Labranche) after cost

In addition, if you complete the scenario by defeating the Daemonic Benefactor, one investigator may add Labranche Lamen to their deck. If you instead complete the scenario by spending clues to parley, one investigator may add the Invocation of Providence to their deck.