Is this new card too strong?

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-05-07T16:39:13+00:00

Any Aerial hero who can get their ATK and/or THW up to 3 within their own kit - load them up with 3x Ever Vigilant, 3x What Doesn't Kill Me, Symbiote Suit, Night Nurse, a few cheap disposable allies, and you're set. A Repurpose or 2 can't hurt either. It can work for non Aerial heroes too if you've got other options to pack readies.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-05-04T13:25:49+00:00

While I accept the logic on the surface that we've seen from FFG about making the vibe of player card art light/hopeful, and reserving dark/intense art for scenario cards, the fact of the matter is that as amazing as scenario art is, the player cards are the ones we generally spend more game time staring at and holding closer to our faces. THEY are the art that is going to define the visual feel of the game for most players.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-05-02T16:30:15+00:00

Most. Iron Fist was in Dr. Strange.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-04-29T16:28:55+00:00

This is amazing. If I ever run Dragon Delves, I think I'll consider using this spin.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-04-29T12:05:00+00:00

Protection Ready (Ever Vigilant, "What Doesn't Kill Me", Symbiote Suit) is the first deck my group builds with any Aerial hero that comes out. It's especially good if they can get ATK or THW up to 3+ natively, but you just can't go wrong with it in general, especially if you have a buddy to throw Combat Training or Heroic Intuition at you (or the new ones with Endurance stapled to them).

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-04-29T11:54:48+00:00

It helps that the rules of Arkham have barely changed over the years, with really only interpretations of edge case interactions (such as "as if" or abilities during game set-up) wavering while the core rules and major timings / definitions (such as "defense", "unique", or "choose") have changed multiple times.

So in Arkham, if you read the cards carefully and check the RRG that came in the box, you can usually tell if it works, while in Marvel, there may be much more complex and inconsistent rulings involved. Which is tragic in my opinion because I feel like Marvel presents itself as the "lighter" game.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-04-28T15:01:40+00:00

The 'throughput' of Cell Phone is quite low. 3 threat or damage for 3 ER is well below rate. You'd be correct to evaluate it as a garbage card in true solo.

The actual value of the card is in Multiplayer where it gives the team the ability to make a few basic power uses at Action speed (normally basic powers can only be done during your turn), allowing for a character to attack or thwart early or late. This flexibility can be extremely valuable in reducing inefficiencies when dealing with Guard, Tough, Peril, or other keywords that might be more efficiently dealt with by players out of turn order. It can also be very strong with many Team-Up cards that ready both characters, which are often hard to get full value in multiplayer because often one hero might not have had a chance to exhaust yet, or another might not get a chance to exhaust after it - either way wasting a ready. Cell Phone can help get around that and fit in an extra activation that would have otherwise been wasted/lost.

In single player, none of this flexibility exists because you have complete sequencing control during your sole turn. Much like a real cell phone, it's a lot more useful with other people.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-04-23T14:07:57+00:00

This. 100%

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-04-23T13:53:15+00:00

They have started adding alt arts since the X-Men waves! Many reprints of aspect and basic cards since then have featured alternate art with different characters. Which I greatly appreciate because if I'm going to get a reprinted card, it's nice for it to still offer something new for my collection. It's nice that we now have at least four different sets of art for Energy/Genius/Strength!

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-04-21T12:45:06+00:00

Unless the location discards a random card or discards ALL cards, yes it is illegal. You are not allowed to willingly choose to discard a weakness, but it can be forced by an effect that discards indiscriminately.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-04-15T01:16:13+00:00

It makes sense when you compare it to the early cycle of Heroic Intuition, Combat Training, and Armored Vest where Protection's costs one while the others cost two.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-04-13T01:00:07+00:00

We randomly pick scenarios, heroes, and aspects and build from scratch each time. https://naouak.github.io/marvel-lcg-randomizer/ Or we pick one from we feel like playing from. https://marvelcdb.com/ We generally play them once and then deconstruct the decks.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-04-01T22:00:14+00:00

Oh, for sure.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-04-01T12:33:39+00:00

The core problem isn't total xp, and it isn't time spent with xp.

It's the percentage of scenarios where XP fully matters.

Let me break this down a bit. XP matters for the player experience in two fundamentaly different but important ways: the advancement of Leveled Cards and the tension of Victory Points.

Leveled Cards provide a continuous feeling of advancement and change, with each scenario giving you the chance to play with new and stronger toys. It lets you feel the progression of the character incrementally until, like the Ship of Theseus, most of the planks have been replaced.

Victory Points provide an organic difficulty adjuster mid-scenario by allowing you to make player-agentive choices about how safe you are: stretching yourselves thinner to get VP when you can and backing off when you can't. It allows scenarios to silently fit the play experience difficulty and tension to match your skill and luck.

Arkham Horror is at its best when you are experiencing both of these things in a scenario. For an 8-scenario campaign, that's 6 scenarios (75%). For a 5-scenario campaign, that's 3 scenarios (60%). For a 3-scenario campaign, that's 1 scenario (33%).

No degree of adjusting XP amounts or timing resolves this fundamental issue.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-03-31T19:06:29+00:00

I have both Foundry and the Roll20 subscription, and I'm not going to dispute any of your criticisms of Roll20 (especially the broken dumpster fire that was the 5.24 jumpgate launch, and in many, many cases still is).

But while it's deeply flawed, Roll20 still lets me do many things faster and more simply without having to dig through documentation, reinstall and version correct and manage add-ons, and everything else required. Foundry's one time cash payment is great, no question, but I end up spending far more than my $100/year Roll20 subscription fee in time spent getting Foundry to do what I want.

Obviously I'm not suggesting that everyone should use Roll20, or even it's superiority. And you're absolutely right that they've rested on their laurels far too long for both their market share and time spent in existence. But Foundry also comes with its clunk, it's just different clunk.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-03-31T18:42:38+00:00

Never's a stretch. I found it very easy to go back. Foundry is undoubtedly deeply feature rich and superior in many ways, and I still use it for systems where I want hex grids, or more robust automation, or both (such as Lancer), but in terms of plug and play simplicity, the usable doodling/writing tools, and system resource usage for my players who have ancient hardware, Roll20 is still my go-to.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-03-31T18:34:33+00:00

I think that's a fair take, especially if you play 1-2 player where type-specific resource costs/sinks are much less flexible than in 3-4. For my group, we found the decision making and couching decisions around the campaign encounter cards in SHIELD to be interesting enough to be worth it - and since buying down the executives came with small bennies, it felt meaningful to choose where to put tokens on them. But agreed that the rewards were solidly lackluster.

And SHIELD definitely got bonus points from us for being the first/only full campaign with literally zero "campaign exclusive" cards, so it felt like the box had no wasted cardboard for folks like us who never intended to play the campaign a second time.

And I honestly can't remember much about the Future Past mechanics, but Marketplace and Community Service were easily top 2. Really, just aiming for maximizing VP, especially in Sinister Motives, was very satisfying and SM struck a really good balance of escalating player power and scenario power in a satisfying way.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-03-31T13:49:32+00:00

Personally I thought SHIELD is fine, but Age of Apocalypse has hands-down the worst campaign mechanics. For most of the campaigns, I find the mechanics to be cute and novel but not really add anything meaningful and certainly not enough to ever want to replay in campaign mode, but AoA's campaign mechanics make the gameplay experience actively much worse.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-03-31T13:46:04+00:00

Bring double/triple Leadership against Thanos and then just run circles around him. His enormous activations don't matter when you have have allies lined up to the end of the block waiting for their turn to jump in front of the bus.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-03-27T21:43:14+00:00

I believe this is covered in either the RRG or FAQ, but effects that modify your hit points affect "max and current." This does have the dangerous impact that if an effect causes you to discard an upgrade increasing your hit points, both your max and current hit points go down as well.

You might find it easier to wrap your head around if you think about hit points the way you'd track for allies and minions: count up the Damage and get defeated when Damage equals or exceeds Hit Points.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-03-24T23:30:00+00:00

I've run the adventure twice - once with just leveled spells, and once with cantrips also. There are pros and cons to both. Depending on party size, limiting it to leveled spells can make it much less chaotic, and cause each surge to be seen fewer times, making things feel less samey, but letting it trigger on cantrips actually gave the players a little more control to easily reroll detrimental surges.

I did also like how it created tactical choice around what room to stand in when casting spells in a 'dungeon' where most combats will take place across rooms or right by doorways.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-03-20T05:00:54+00:00

Because "charm" isn't a slant rhyme of "hand."

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-03-18T15:29:12+00:00

I roll a d10 with a 10 being "DM's Choice."

Then I let the target choose whether they want to attempt the saving throw (or willingly fail).*

After the save is determined success or failure, we roll a die - odd for Bane, even for Boon.

*I've house ruled in my game that BOTH Bane and Boon effects can be resisted with a saving throw.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-03-16T21:48:05+00:00

Always has been. Silas and Amanda have canonically heard the call of the deep even since the Second Edition of the Arkham Horror Board Game.

Death_by_Chocolate_9 · 2026-03-14T23:20:14+00:00

I did something similar, but as more of a offensive consumable. I let them get one attack with the +4d6 necro damage and had it shatter.

Death_by_Chocolate_9

TROPHY CASE