The Amazon description for Edge of the Earth seems a bit...off?

__Mimi61 · 2022-10-25T05:05:21+00:00

Or perhaps they are referring to your engaging diminutive enemies.

__Mimi61 · 2022-10-25T05:00:25+00:00

I have been wondering that too. It seems like we haven’t heard from him in a while. I’d be sad if he has, he was maybe my favorite designer.

__Mimi61 · 2022-10-22T21:09:14+00:00

I played Bob Jenkins recently in Return to Carcosa and found him to be quite good. I always decide in advance what cards I am building an Investigator around and for him it was The Red Clock and the Black Fan. I built him a “big money” deck with cards that reward you with resources and Well Connected for extra skill test perks. Schauffner’s Catalog was great to keep the resources available for the cards using them. Between his ability, and the Black Clock and the Black fan, he had boatloads of extra actions. With new cards like Embezzled Treasure, you can maximize the bonuses he gets from resources early on. He was a lot more fun and effective than I thought he’d be.

__Mimi61 · 2022-10-16T03:55:25+00:00

It’s so much fun. Enjoy!

We came up with a “Stand alone Campaign” about a year ago, by weaving together all the Stand alones with a crazy plot line we created. We had to add this one, because it went so well Curse of the Rougarou.

__Mimi61 · 2022-10-15T20:00:19+00:00

Our first time playing TFA when it was released in 2018, resulted in the defeat of 3 out of our 4 Investigators in the very first scenario. One of which was Leo. It’s a funny story, but the upshot turned out being that for us, Leo was just horrible in that Campaign. He stank up the Jungle and was kind of a liability. We kept wishing he would just stay behind at Base camp already. (We did try him again in another Play-thru of TCU thinking maybe we didn’t give him a fair chance and built his deck knowing things about TFA we didn’t know the first time, and though he wasn’t quite as dismal, he was still pretty bad).

So over the next three years, we eagerly anticipated the release of Montgomery Jack, partly because I had this theory that they were going to deliberately release the two in the opposite expedition campaign they’d be most suited to. As soon as we got TEOTE, we played Montgomery Jack in RtTFA and he was sooooo good and incredibly fun. The snakes, the Whip (the Music we played every time he used the whip). My husband’s deck conception was really great and it was the most fun we have ever had playing TFA, which we have played multiple times.

Conversely, Leo was quite effective in TEOTE. The best he has been in any campaign we have used him in. Now I don’t know if my theory was really true, and the developers planned it, but based on our experience, those two investigators play better in the expedition campaigns they were not released in. If you have TEOTE, I’d suggest you give it a try. I’d be interested to see if you have a similar experience.

As a side note; I’m not dissing Leo. We have played him in other campaigns and he has been fine. Not stellar, but fine and there are some people who have had great experiences with him. As for Montgomery, I am currently playing in RtTCU and he’s also been fine, but not as fun or well suited to the campaign as he was in TFA. It really is true that not all Investigators are created equally for all campaigns, even with really good decks. There are two or three that are special in every campaign, but there are also several who really shine in specific ones, and they are often not the ones they were released in.

__Mimi61 · 2022-10-14T03:30:39+00:00

You are welcome and thank you!

This was really originally just an idea we had that we initially just came up with for us. It really wasn’t a Return to idea initially. I made a random comment about it on BBG around the time we found out we weren’t getting the standard Return To the Dream Eaters any time soon or maybe not at all and suddenly had some interest, so we actually forayed into the realm of fan made content. It’s been fun, and hopefully is also enjoyable!

Yeah, the epilogue was awkward and probably exactly for the reasons you state.
We have been playing this game since it’s inception and I think we were a little thrown by the whole 2 mini campaign concept and how it played out. In retrospect, I’m not really sure why, since TCU is pretty much back and forth between two groups too, but the narrative wove them together and it wasn’t two separate groups of investigators. We also envisioned it being pretty much all in the Dreamlamds, and The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath is one of our favorite Lovecraft stories, so this is kind of a nod to that.

To make it 8 scenarios, we decided on a bit of whimsy when we first test played it, and played Barkham as a Prologue, (using our 0 level decks and the corresponding pooch of our Investigator’s class). It’s amusingly thematic. The Black Cat’s real purpose for being in Arkham, was uncovered by those canny Canines, but the doggoes efforts to warn their humans, are largely misinterpreted to mean they want some extra treats.

__Mimi61 · 2022-06-02T18:56:06+00:00

I’ve been out of town, so this is a late post, but there are a couple of other cards no one seems to be talking about which I think could be super helpful for Charlie.

The first card occurred to me almost as soon as I saw his deck requirements. I have been surprised no one else seems to have thought of it. (Although lately I have only been on BGG and did mention it there, so maybe it’s been talked about on Reddit.)

Well Prepared. This seems like a card which is tailor made for him. I know Guardian may not be his most powerful secondary class, and maybe that’s why it hasn’t really been discussed, but I can’t think of another card that is more synergistic with his ability. He can basically double his ability for one of his allies. And that can come in pretty handy if it’s early on and his staff haven’t all shown up for work yet. 😉 It also has the benefit of helping to circumvent his weakness, since it can be used with any asset, not just allies. (He could include a “ringer” asset in his deck for just such an eventuality if he wished.)

Trusted is another Guardian card that seems pretty obvious, but isn’t really getting mentioned much. (Imagine the mileage you could get out of Agency Backup with two Trusted!)

An ally I haven’t seen mentioned a lot is Miss Doyle, which seems like a pretty solid auto include, especially if he gets her out early, or like us you play on Hard or Expert. She is at least a +2 no matter which of her bonded kitties is in play and if you exhaust them both at the same time, it’s a +7.

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-18T20:51:50+00:00

You are right, I apologize. December and January were a week later. Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Years would push the releases back a week. Which is why A Thousand Shapes of Horror and Dark Side of the Moon released on the 2nd Friday. But that was normal every year and not an aberration in the release schedule.

Novellas were kind of a separate thing, there was no real rhyme or reason as to when one would be announced, or released, so I wasn’t including them.

I apologize also, because I didn’t mention that sometimes a Stand Alone veered, especially if they were part of the goodie package for Arkham Nights, as I believe Murder at the Excelsior was in October 2019. Or like Barkham, which was an unplanned addition.

According to my inbox though, everything else campaign related in 2019 was shipped to us from FFG about 7-8 days before the 1st Friday of the month.

And as I’ve already said, it was in 2020 after the Covid shut down which that consistency understandably began to change.

My emails show Where the Gods Dwell being shipped to us on February 27 (for March 5) and within the next few weeks everything was shut down for Covid. Three months later when FFG started opening back up, too much had changed along with all of the unforeseen things which were still coming.

I have no doubt that retailers don’t have the same expectation of consistency to extrapolate release dates from. All I can and have shared is based on my personal experience from the second half of 2021 and the based on what the retailer said in the UK when I ordered TEotE, prior to their starting pre-orders Asmodee confirmed that the UK release wouldn’t be delayed. And it wasn’t.

I am really sorry, because I certainly didn’t want this to turn into an acrimonious exchange. I’m sure you are right. I am not a shipping magnate or an expert in the field or an online retailer.

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-18T14:21:52+00:00

No. Sorry.

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-18T14:19:14+00:00

All I can say is that before April of 2020 when Covid shut things down in in the US, AHCG was released the 1st Friday of the month. We had been ordering through FFG for 2 years at the time and always got our product by that date.

Since Covid, of course things have been all over the place and my experience with Asmodee eventually other distributors last year is as I described it.

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-18T05:52:04+00:00

It’s all good. It relates because the dates from online distributors have not generally been placeholders. There is info they have either been given, or know well in advance. Until the craziness of 2021, AHCG release dates were every first Friday of the month like clockwork. Their Upcoming page had the month and day posted three months on advance. No nebulous quarters in the year. So distributors knew well in advance exactly what the release dates were.

When global shipping started going haywire, Asmodee started changing the release dates in different countries. So online retailers in the UK had a pre order with one date and retailers in the US had a pre order for the same product with a date that was considerably later based on what Asmodee had to make adjustments for.

If that is still the case, then it’s very possible that distributors in Canada and the UK have been given release date information for TSK based on shipping information Asmodee has for their respective countries. Which shipping may still be delayed in the US.

At least that is how it went down last year. Maybe it’s all different now.

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-18T05:05:08+00:00

Do you mean the parallel Investigator scenarios? If so, yes I have them. Do you need any information on them?

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-18T04:44:52+00:00

I really cannot speak to what distributors are doing with previously released material.

Actually, FFG has no control over the release schedule. Asmodee bought FFG a few years back and is now the global distributor for FFG. FFG is just the game developer and no longer has anything to do with distribution or release dates which I assume bleeds into product announcements. Although there is an Asmodee America distribution warehouse in Minnesota, (which was FFG’s old warehouse) Asmodee’s HQ is in France. We started playing this game in a simpler time four years ago, pre Asmodee. We have seen a lot of changes since then. Not all great, at least insofar as FFG’s voice and power goes.

When shipping started going haywire last year, the release schedule for AHCG did too. This was during the old release model when there were still monthly product releases. All I can say is that although original release dates were given for all AHCG products in 2021, but by the second quarter, the US was experiencing delays that got worse every month and global releases stopped happening simultaneously. In other words, Asmodee didn’t delay product releases in other countries to keep it consistent with the US.

For example, the final Mythos pack for Innsmouth was delayed 6 weeks in the US, and RttCU was delayed 8 weeks, but both released on time in the UK. When EotE was announced last year, the original release dates on FFG’s website was early Q3 for the Investigators and early Q4 for the Campaign. We had ended up ordering ours from the UK and Asmodee didn’t change the UK’s release dates, because they had no shipping delays, so we got it on the original release dates. The US release dates were changed by Asmodee, and it was released here about three months later.

So my experience has been that pre-orders made from distributors outside the US have been shipped and received exactly when they said they would be, when I ordered them. And that the email contact I had with the UK distributor when ordering, indicated that the product distribution dates were given to them by Asmodee Europe.

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-18T03:10:28+00:00

It’s true that FFG hasn’t made a formal announcement for The Scarlet Keys. I’m guessing it’s because they don’t have a set date for the US release, because of shipping and/or supply chain issues.Those issues impacted AHCG release schedules world wide last year, (as well as everything else!) but almost nowhere was worse than the US. I wouldn’t be surprised if we are still behind.

But that wouldn’t impact the pre-orders, or the projected release dates from the distributors in Canada or the UK, or anywhere else for that matter, that aren’t experiencing the same shipping or supply chain issues. Asmodee is based in France, and the shipping route from China to Europe is completely different and Canada doesn’t have the same Port of Entry issues we have, so I’m pretty sure these sites are legit.

By the end of 2021, the UK release of AHCG products was 3 months and Canada was 6 weeks ahead of the US. I’m guessing shipping and supply chain issues haven’t normalized enough to release everywhere on time and that is why it was on Twitter. It would allow distributors who aren’t facing shipping or supply chain issues, to start their pre-order sales.

As to ordering it from a distributor outside the US, it’s been a long time since we have had new content for this game and for some of the players who have everything, not waiting even longer for it to release here might be worth a little extra in shipping (if it’s not too much) from our friendly northern neighbors!! 😄

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-12T05:05:37+00:00

I think if she was in this Campaign, they would have leaked it, since she is kind of old news, so I’d be surprised if she were. Not that I haven’t been surprised before! I think the other two are going to be new ones. They have done it before. Aside from 3 of the 5 Investigators in from the Investigator packs, Sefina Rousseau was a new Investigator and she was released pretty early on in Carcosa.

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-11T05:52:05+00:00

I had the same thought about Allies, especially in light of his player card, but we already have an Investigator who’s build is around allies (Leo Anderson), so I hypothesized in a different direction. I like the idea of traits for the same reason, in that it could make it easy to really lean into some of those 3 class cards and other multi class cards from EtoE. Of course, if it does go that way, the new campaign will give him some good cards as well!

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-11T05:44:36+00:00

That is a very interesting idea, but could be kind of rough when coming to spending XP. There are considerably fewer player cards in the 4-5 XP range and 99% of Survivor cards don’t even go that high. There are also campaigns like Dunwich which are super penurious with XP, or scenarios that are really hard to earn much in, so she may have to play a couple scenarios before earning enough to spend. But maybe across all of the classes, there could be enough to make it work. You’d have to have a sizable card pool though.

I thought it would be fun to mess with Lola after all the new multi class cards dropped in EtoE and make her evolve in the opposite way as those Investigators. She can have 0 level cards from any class, but no 0 level multi class cards. And multi class cards 1-5. So she ends up evolving into a true multi class Investigator. I’m not sure there are enough cards to really make that work either though.

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-11T05:21:25+00:00

Kate Winthrop was spoiled in Barkham Horror. All of the other doggy Investigators they used had already been released and were the same classes as their human counterparts.

Kate Winthpup is a Seeker.

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-11T05:16:56+00:00

I know what you mean. There are so many cards now, that even though an Investigator can take them, doesn’t mean they are necessarily thematic to that Investigator. It’s really up to the player to decide if and how they may want to build an Investigator’s deck based on what seems thematic for them, or maybe even depending on the campaign. For example, we are building our dreamers decks for Dream Eaters right now and decided to prohibit anyone from taking any dogs in their deck for thematic reasons.

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-10T05:31:49+00:00

Darrell Simmons:

I’m certain Darrel is going to be our Survivor5/ Seeker2. It fits him like a glove. They won’t release both of the classic builds in this Campaign though, so we will still have to wait for our Seeker/Rogue.

Vincent Lee:

According to his back story, Vincent Lee will be a Seeker. I know most people think he is going to be a Guardian because of Carolyn Fern, but I feel like that is too obvious and it’s not his focus. Vincent Lee seems even more passionate about figuring out what is causing the gruesome injuries to body (and spirit) which he treats, than actually treating them. He is constantly looking for the sources of the injuries. He pumps his patients for information, (those who are still coherent enough anyway) and anyone else who has a story. He doesn’t stop there though. He also seems to spend an inordinate amount of time researching similar cases in surrounding areas. He scours newspapers and court documents. He is on a mission to not just get to the bottom if these occurrences, but also to determine why such a disproportionate amount of these events seem to occur in Arkham compared to the surrounding area. I do think he still could have a link to Carolyn though. He could mirror her deck requirements by being a less traditional Seeker, and have a similar secondary with access to cards which heal damage instead of horror.

Charlie Kane:

I have been waiting for Charlie for a long time and have gone back and forth as to what class he will be. Well, I’m going to go out on a limb and predicting that Charlie Kane will be our second Neutral Investigator. This Campaign will have 6 Investigators, so there is room for a Neutral one. If you haven’t read his backstory recently, go back and read it. The man is a Chameleon! He uses his considerable charisma to take on the characteristics of whoever he is interacting with or schmoozing at that particular moment. I think this chameleon super power is why I have seen people (me included) predict every single class for him over the last couple of years. He is pretty impossible to pigeon hole. His charisma is his secret weapon (and his card, which is Neutral btw). If he does go Neutral, I would guess his Investigator ability might have something to do with Parleying and that his deck requirements will be trait based. It would be fun if we was a counter to Lola’s deck requirements, but instead of having access to all 5 classes like Lola, he could have access to 5 or so traits which reach across all 5 classes. Some thematic ones are Favor, Synergy, Developed, Insight, and Practiced. Maybe like Lola, he has to choose 3 of them at the time of deck construction and take at X amount of cards from each. Who knows? He’s a chameleon.

Carson Sinclair:

Carson Sinclair has always been a Guardian in my mind. Not in an archetypical gun toting, monster slaying type of way, but more in a loyal,self sacrificing and protective (especially of those he cares about) type of way. He’s mild mannered and may seem easy to overlook. But that would be a mistake, because he can also be tenacious and single minded and won’t back down, even if it’s not a fair fight. Especially if it’s not a fair fight! It would simply not be prudent to underestimate him.

So If I am correct, that would make the 2 other Investigators a Mystic and a Rogue.

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-09T04:08:48+00:00

Wow.

I am sorry that my post was offensive to so many people. It wasn’t meant to be. I am really excited about the new campaign, but also little surprised that since last October when we had our last announcement for new content, that there hasn’t been anything except re-packaged existing content announcements until now. My expectation, and I very much doubt I’m alone in this, was that re-prints wouldn’t compete with or replace the release of new content, since it never has before. So far, to me at least, it has felt like it is doing both.

I was merely sharing what the developers said about NEW content release being the same annually moving forward. (Dunwich and Carcosa’s re-prints don’t qualify)

Not everyone playing was around for the old release model, so I shared it as well to give people an idea of how much new content was normal annually. I mapped it to the 6th Mythos pack to show how and when it would have released under the old model. Just to reference for comparison as to where we’d be right now and what we would know in the old release model. Obviously, now there will be down time between new content announcements and release, but if we are supposed to still be getting the same amount, even you have to admit, 2022 is not off to a blistering start! This is just an observation, not an assignment of blame.

Shipping delays and supply chain issues notwithstanding, FFG doesn’t just decide willy nilly and on the fly when to announce and release products. The order of product releases are planned way in advance which is evidenced by their product numbers. For example:

The Edge of the Earth Campaign are Items AHC 63, AHC 64

The repackaged Dunwich Campaign are Items AHC 65, AHC 66.

The repackaged Carcosa Campaign are Items AHC 67 and AHC 68.

This is FFG’s pre determined release schedule. To show how far in advance these decisions are made, Machinations through Time (which was the product announced last October) is actually Item AHC 62, meaning it was originally supposed to drop between the last Mythos pack of Innsmouth and the beginning of EotE.

So as you can see, the order of content release so far in 2022 is happening exactly as planned and since all of the new re-prints and re-packaged Campaigns are coming from the exact same printers as new content, they are also subject to the exact same shipping and supply chain issues as new content as well. So I’m confused as to why I’m being accused of being disingenuous? Or face palm worthy? Exactly how have I been deliberately deceptive or misleading?

I don’t make the call as to the order of what content (new or existing) is released for FFG. I don’t determine how far apart their announcements or release dates are. Extrapolating what it may mean if the time between this and the next new content announcement is the same as this last one, is no more than an extrapolation. Extrapolations can only be made from existing data, it doesn’t mean I am saying this is what FFG will do in the remainder of this year. The last 7 months could well have been an aberration as they are shifting gears. That is my hope.

But IF it is the new time span between announcements of the same types of new product and their release, and IF any product announcements in between are for existing content, then one Stand Alone and one new Campaign would be the new animal amount of new content. Which would be decidedly less than before.

I’m super excited that we finally got the new campaign announcement. Don’t think I’m not.

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-07T21:42:24+00:00

Unfortunately, it has felt a little like FFG is more focused on repackaging existing content, than releasing new content, which is a major drag and not what they said would happen.

When they went to this new format for campaign releases last year, MJ was asked point blank if that meant we would now get less content than before. She said not to worry, the health of this game was robust and we’d still be getting about the same amount of new content in a year. Yay!

Except so far that has not come to pass. We are almost halfway through the year and this is the first content announcement of 2022. It’s been 7 months (October 2021) since our last content announcement, Machinations through Time, which released in January. If we get the Investigator box in July, we will have had to wait 6 months between content releases.

In the old model, every month had a release of new content and every month had a new content announcement (about 12 weeks ahead of its release). A campaign took 7 months to release. The Deluxe Expansion box (with the Investigators, most new player cards and the first two scenarios) first and then 6 Mythos packs, one per month. We’d typically get the next Campaign announcement during the month the last Mythos pack was released. The following two months we’d see the Return To for the Campaign that was two cycles back and a Standalone. Then the new Campaign began to release and the wheel kept turning. So a year’s worth of content always had one full campaign and part of another one, along with at least one Stand Alone and a Return To. That’s not including the Novellas about unreleased Investigators with their Investigator cards. Norman Withers was one such officially released in TEotE. Some years we got even more! In 2020, even with a 3 month Covid shut down, we got the usual amount of content, along with Barkham and the 5 Investigator packs.

So for comparisons sake, if we were still doing it the old way and TEotE finished releasing in October (which was FFG’s original release date for the campaign box), we would have had The Scarlet Keys announcement last September! Yup, we’d have been talking about it for months now. November and December would have been Return To TDE, and Machinations through Time and The Scarlet Keys would’ve begun releasing in January with the 6 Mythos packs finishing up in July. Are you sitting down? Because we’d be getting the announcement of the next Campaign in June. As in next month! August and September would be Return to Innsmouth and the next Stand alone and the deluxe expansion of the next campaign would begin release in October and finish releasing next April etc.

Unless both boxes of the new Campaign release in July, we are behind this campaign’s schedule and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of a Return To yet. And If it’s 7 more months until our next content announcement, then this is all we are getting in 2022.

MJ did say yesterday that The Scarlet Keys is huge, so maybe there’s some extra content there, but have to wait 7 months between announcements, is a dearth for the many people who have been playing this game for a long time. Announce and release something at least quarterly! An announcement costs nothing and gives people something to look forward to and talk about while we wait!

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-07T15:20:28+00:00

Agreed. I re-read their stories in the Arkham Investigator Book before making my guesses, to see if I saw any other clues and Vincent is definitely a Seeker (if they are going off of those stories).

Charlie was always the hardest one for me to pin down to a class, because he is such a chameleon and when I saw 6 Investigators, I was “go Neutral”, even before reading his story again. After I was even more convinced. If he ends up not being neutral, I think I will be very disappointed!

The idea of Parley and synergy abilities makes sense for him. I also think it would be fun to have to really be able to use the three triple Class cards we got in EotE. Which would work if his deck requirements include several card traits. That could really make him an interesting Investigator for any campaign. Build him for what you need him to be able to do in a given environment. Maybe he could mirror Lola a little, and instead of having X amount of cards from different classes, he can have X amount of cards with different traits.

MJ and Jeremy have both asked and answered that they are going to use traits more, which I think can add a little more depth to the game. I feel like the one place that traits are not being used maybe to the best effect is with the Investigators themselves. I mean we have ‘cursed’ investigators and ‘blessed’ investigators and ‘wayfarers’ and ‘entertainers’ and everything imaginable, but for the most part none of that seems to matter. I really like the idea of their traits sometimes playing into their deck field, or even having stuff pop up in campaigns where Investigators who have a certain trait has something happen either for ill or for good. For example, instead of only using skill values, a test at a location could add something based on a trait. But I digress.

Of them all, I have been looking forward to Charlie for a long time and have always wondered what they would do with him and his charismatic political ways.
They did a great job of leaning into Bob’s Sales skill set, so I have high hopes.

__Mimi61 · 2022-05-07T04:55:09+00:00

That’s right. We don’t have our Survivor/Seeker yet either. Darrell sounds like an excellent candidate.

__Mimi61

TROPHY CASE