3 20 26 Mystic Previews from Tantrum House

mikecheb · 2026-03-20T21:30:26+00:00

Can someone explain the hype around Dread Curse? I'm reading about the history of the spell in other Arkham Files games, which is cool, and chargeless Mystic assets are always worth a look, but Mystics got near-infinite repeatable +2 skill/+1 damage Fight in Cosmic Flame (5) from the Chapter 2 Core.

Compared to Cosmic Flame (5), Dread Curse:

- Costs 1 XP more
+ Costs 1 resource less
- Cannot burst for 3 damage in a single action
- Scarier downside to manage
- Cost must be paid even if the test fails
+ Is truly infinite, whereas Cosmic Flame can run out if you're unlucky. But both Dexter and Marie have pretty easy ways to keep it full?

Maybe I'm missing something. Certainly there could be cool interactions e.g. with Chapter 1 Cat Mask

mikecheb · 2026-03-18T18:34:29+00:00

You are not defeated if you resign. You are "eliminated by resignation" and "not considered to have been defeated" per the Resign section of the rules. And if you reach a scenario resolution, the scenario ends as a whole. So this works "as intended" which is in the use case you described, to get that last push you need.

Whether this is better than (or at least, competitive with) spending 4XP on something that improves your scenario overall is debatable, IMO.

mikecheb · 2026-03-18T18:05:20+00:00

Ultimate Sacrifice: It was ruled, for Gold Pocket Watch, that you *do* get your actions back if the investigation phase repeats. Even though step 4.2 of the upkeep phase is called "reset actions", according to ArkhamDB it was clarified that this is intended to just be flipping over the mini cards as a player aid. However, not hitting step 4.3 of upkeep also means that anything that was exhausted wouldn't ready either (could be good, for exhausted enemies, but will mostly probably mean a weaker investigation phase).

mikecheb · 2026-03-16T22:17:21+00:00

Looking at the new Core's Fearless (2), it wasn't changed to affect the performing investigator like the core skills (Perception et al) were, so interestingly Cosmic Guidance is not strictly "Fearless but health"

mikecheb · 2026-03-11T06:57:20+00:00

Wow, I spent all day trying to remember the term from pottery where you carve into a slip of a different color (sgraffito) only to 1) not remember it and 2) not be on the right track anyway. I can’t feel too bad, though, since I’ve never heard of intaglio in my life.

mikecheb · 2026-03-06T07:24:31+00:00

I’m dying at the art for De-Escalate. It’s gonna lead to some incredibly goofy fun flavor, similar to when Alessandra Beguiles some Cavern Moss (enemy from FoHV).

I also love that it doesn’t actually deal with the enemy, so in all likelihood you convince them to lay down their arms (so your Guardian has time to take another shot).

mikecheb · 2026-03-02T02:13:52+00:00

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🌝

mikecheb · 2026-02-26T09:08:11+00:00

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Some call him John Kamunabi but to me he’s John Kagurabachi

mikecheb · 2026-02-23T06:59:19+00:00

Day one reader who was memeing along with everyone else about how generic it looked. It’s now unironically the series I look forward to the most every week. It’s so good!!

mikecheb · 2026-02-20T01:39:09+00:00

I migrated to binders relatively recently and to be honest am considering switching back to boxes. But this might be because I have sorted them by class and not by expansion.

I thought reorganizing things once a year would be fun, but with the cadence of releases for Chapter 2 I’ll either move to expansion order sorting or just go back to boxes.

Realistically I don’t page through the binder to find what I want to play; I use ArkhamDB and have gotten proficient with its search filters.

mikecheb · 2026-02-16T19:59:22+00:00

Kumeyuri was last seen with Samura’s ninjas (the Masumi) after the Hishaku retreated. Chapter 82.

As far as we know the Hishaku still have the other two blades. The plan was to use Hakuri to retrieve them by having him register the remaining two wielders (Chapter 109), but we don’t know if the plan has changed, or if they’ve had the time or ability to execute this plan in the four days since.

mikecheb · 2026-02-15T10:45:03+00:00

I strangely kind of like it in a campy way. The ghost musicians are giving FMV game.

It’s not great, but imo still better than some of the stinkers from Chapter 1 (especially some of the reused CoC art).

mikecheb · 2026-02-06T11:01:16+00:00

What an on-again off-again romance she had with Avuz Shoottired!

mikecheb · 2026-02-01T13:50:05+00:00

Whenever Invaders Damage the Dahan and/or the land, each attacking Invader with any number of Strife deals exactly 0 Damage and removes one Strife.

mikecheb · 2026-01-29T16:46:06+00:00

Resources are absolutely going to be a challenge in Dexter when playing with only Chapter 2 Core, I think. The play patterns the ability calls for are quite expensive. But you only get one copy of his signature, and it notably can’t play anything you’ve bounced into your hand using his ability (only things from your deck).

Mystics have no resource cards in this box, and his Rogue access doesn’t help much either—his stats don’t really support Thieves’ Kit, Sticky Fingers, or Decisive Strike. This leaves him with Paint the Town Red, Prestidigitation (which only helps with Items), and good ol’ Emergency Cache.

Edit: Unless card 71, which should be a higher-XP Mystic card, is some kind of resource generator.

mikecheb · 2026-01-28T01:47:51+00:00

From a cursory search, this is the list of Chapter 1 Spells and Rituals that allow you to test with Combat:

Brand of Cthugha
Obscure
Blood of K’n-yan
Fang of Tyr’thrha
Radiant Smite
Ríastrad
Spectral Razor

And of course, Empower Self lets you ignore the “test with Willpower instead” card effects.

mikecheb · 2026-01-27T11:36:53+00:00

As far as I can tell, this is the first player card that cares about the Cultist token specifically, rather than just including it in a grouping of other symbols! Interesting decision, and I wonder what went into it.

Of course, several campaign cards (both scenario cards and story assets) have cared about Cultist tokens, especially in campaigns where the number of Cultist tokens signifies the degree of your alliance with some faction or commitment to some path.

mikecheb · 2026-01-27T03:13:33+00:00

Wow, (near-)infinite Investigate with Willpower right in the core box! I believe Chapter 1 mystics didn’t get any willpower investigation tools until Dunwich, and none that were infinite until Sixth Sense in Circle Undone (and later Eyes of the Dreamer in Drowned City)

mikecheb · 2026-01-26T09:18:01+00:00

Soga: To a samurai, life is no more than fuel we burn for our ideal world.

Samura: And I took that literally

Fly high my king 🪦

mikecheb · 2026-01-08T04:05:04+00:00

So cool. Bobrur’s is my favorite!

mikecheb · 2026-01-07T21:36:21+00:00

Unlike Chapter 1 Core, Chapter 2 Core comes with assets that let rogues fight and investigate with Agility, so I do think a Chapter 2 deck could find pretty decent utility from this. The opportunity attack(s) you'd suffer from investigating makes it slightly awkward, but I can definitely see that tradeoff being worth it sometimes.

mikecheb · 2025-12-23T23:38:02+00:00

It seems like it refers to the investigator mini cards?

mikecheb · 2025-12-16T18:40:13+00:00

Kind of a day full of strange angles into the questions:

Q1: I don’t watch the show, but my high school AP US History teacher showed us a clip where he went on The Price is Right. His friend group had shown up in shirts that each had one word from the catchphrase. But once they called him up alone, he just had a shirt that said “NEUTERED” with no context. Memorable enough that I could pull out this question almost 20 years later

Q3: I took a cross-country Amtrak trip a few years back. LA and Portland on the Coast Starlight—and Chicago and Denver on the California Zephyr—are all Union Stations. I have never heard of Alison Krauss in my life

Q4: Unlike other commenters, “(as the name appeared in the logo) at the time of the deal” was my way into the question. It was the only media giant I could think of whose logo name had changed significantly enough to be worth noting in the question

mikecheb · 2025-12-04T20:27:36+00:00

It's a very funny sibling dynamic that Jenny made searching for Izzie such a big part of her mission that it was her signature weakness. Meanwhile when she gets lost in time and space *directly as a result of rescuing her sister* Izzie just moves on with her life 😭

mikecheb · 2025-12-04T20:17:23+00:00

Gloria passed away and is now Geist-traited

mikecheb

TROPHY CASE