This is a personal, largely spoiler free (or spoiler-vague) review of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow custom scenario by The Beard for Arkham Horror the Card Game.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a quick, stand-alone side scenario based on the Washington Irving story of the same name. Investigators have to uncover the origins of the headless horseman, and put its spirit to rest. This is a solid scenario that has one of my favorite mechanics - a bunch of spread out objectives with different requirements where you choose which you do - and excellent spooky atmosphere.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a short, to-the-point scenario that doesn't get bogged down with complicated mechanics. It's a simple scenario with only 6 locations and no major tricks, but it doesn't need them to pull off the spooky vibes. The scenario starts with a simple clue-getting exercise, and then gives you a wide variety of tasks to fulfill to advance, all asking for different things to help make them easier. It's a fun little exercise, figuring out which ones you'll most be able to accomplish, and who will be best at what. Rather than up the difficulty of them based on player count, the more players you have in the game, the more you'll need to fulfill - a far better way of doing things.
Designed for a Halloween scenario, Sleepy Hollow fits that perfectly - there's all the flavor things you'd expect, like ghosts and Haunted locations, but the mechanics also help back it up. The scenario has a slow ramp up - it's full of encounter cards that you could likely just ignore, if you don't mind suffering all sorts of penalties when they do trigger, potentially disastrously so. And while the horseman is scarce at first, each of his appearances becomes quicker and quicker, with him being a constant lurking presence.
With a 19 XP party, I found The Legend of Sleepy Hollow on the easy side - although the standalone chaos bag makes it much harder as a standalone instead of a side scenario, including two -4s, a -5, and a -6! Groups that have a wide variety of stats and strengths will do the best here, as well any investigators that can push a skill test extremely high. Due to its use of the Haunted mechanic, investigators that rely on "fail-forward" investigating might struggle, as might any groups that don't have at least one investigator with decent willpower.
The scenario is straightforward and to the point, with little in the way of mechanical complications or the ability to overwhelm you. It's possible for there to be a lot of encounter cards in play at once - but that's also due to player choice at refusing to remove cards and wanting to suffer through their penalties instead, and likely not a very good choice.
If you're looking for a quick, spooky scenario to insert early on in a campaign, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a great choice - it fits especially thematically into The Circle Undone.
Rewards
Scenario Cost: 2 XP
Potential XP Gain: 2 (locations) +2 (The Headless Horseman) = 4 XP, or 2 XP after its cost
On a success, all players get the following:
Van Brunt's Reward: A permanent asset that can be exhausted whenever you play a card of cost 4 or more to reduce the cost of that card by 1.
In addition, one player can gain:
Ichabod Crane: A 4 cost ally with no health and 2 sanity. He gives you +1 Intellect, and can exhaust whenever doom is placed on a card on your location to either draw a card or add a charge to an asset you control.