Night of the Zealot (Part II: the Midnight Masks)

« Arkham Horror | « Part I: The Gathering | Part II: The Midnight Masks | » Part III: The Devourer Below

The last scenario went pretty well, though in hindsight it would have been better to have prevented Lita Chantler from burning my house down.

Taking one mental trauma means Roland loses 20% of his sanity at the start of every scenario, which is quite a big deal for him. This would be less of an issue for the other investigators, so it’s just bad luck for me1.

Also, now that I think about it, she didn’t even do anything to help me when the Ghoul Priest appeared. If it weren’t for me evading it and running into the parlor to parley with her, she would have just stood there watching me get torn to pieces.

Double-also, what was she even doing in my house? I bet she is the one who summoned the monsters in the first place.

Nevermind, the choice was made, I don’t suppose I would have wanted to stay in my house anyway considering it is mainly dirt floors, destroyed walls, and dead ghouls. Besides, that dynamite blast will have totally destroyed the hallway, so the entire place needs renovating anyway. Much easier to start again if the house accidentally wink wink burns down2.

So, anyway, let’s get on with Scenario Two of this campaign: The Midnight Masks.

My starting hand consisted of:

This time the scenario for easy mode looks like this:

The differences between the previous scenario and here are that Skull tokens means I use doom on cultists as the debuff, the Cultist tokens mean I add more doom to cultists in play, and the Tablet token results in even more of a skill debuff, -3 in this case, and I drop some clues5.

And here are the Act and Agenda cards:

This time there is only one Act card; I need to defeat as many cultists as possible before midnight6.

I start at Rivertown as my house is in flames. Seems like a nice place. Nicer than where I live, anywhere. The card text reads:

There is something unsettling about the water of the Miskatonic River tonight. It ripples and bubbles as though something is moving beneath the surface.

I can relate, though in my case it’s just the local water company pumping out thousands of tons of raw sewage. That’s the privatisation of essential services. Such a great idea. The private sector will save us from turds. Oh wait, no they are just siphoning billions into the accounts of their offshore shareholders. Alas.

ROUND ONE: 0/0 Clues | 0/6 Doom | 5 Resources | 0/9 Damage | 1/5 Horror

Mythos Phase

Skip.

Investigator Phase

I already start with one horror due to the last scenario forcing me to take one mental trauma for burning down my house, and as I need to rush about talking to cultists, I grab my knife and start investigating.

Enemy Phase

No enemies.

Upkeep Phase

ROUND TWO: 0 Clues | 0/6 Doom | 5 Resources | 0/9 Damage | 1/5 Horror

Mythos Phase

  • +1 Doom
  • Draw: Acolyte (+1 Doom)

    Spawns at Rivertown and engages with Roland

Investigator Phase

Enemy Phase

Nothing, as I stabbed that Acolyte to death 👍

Upkeep Phase

ROUND THREE: 1 Clues | 1/6 Doom | 4 Resources | 0/9 Damage | 1/5 Horror

Mythos Phase

Investigator Phase

Enemy Phase

Nothing.

Upkeep Phase

ROUND FOUR: 2 Clues | 2/6 Doom | 1 Resources | 0/9 Damage | 1/5 Horror

Mythos Phase

  • +1 Doom
  • Draw: Hunting Shadow
  • Revelation: Spend a clue or take two damage
    • I don’t want to lose my only clue so I decide to take the two damage.
    • +1 damage to Roland
    • +1 damage to Beat Cop

Investigator Phase

Enemy Phase

Nothing.

Upkeep Phase

ROUND FIVE: 0 Clues | 3/6 Doom | 5 Resources | 1/9 Damage | 1/5 Horror

Mythos Phase

Investigator Phase

Enemy Phase

Nothing.

Upkeep Phase

ROUND SIX: 0 Clues | 4/6 Doom | 5 Resources | 1/9 Damage | 1/5 Horror

Mythos Phase

New Agenda:

Investigator Phase

Enemy Phase

Nothing, just splatted The Masked Hunter like a pro-Arkham Horror player 😎

Upkeep Phase

ROUND SEVEN: 0 Clues | 0/8 Doom | 7 Resources | 1/9 Damage | 1/5 Horror

Mythos Phase

Investigator Phase

Enemy Phase

Nothing

Upkeep Phase

ROUND EIGHT: 0 Clues | 1/8 Doom | 4 Resources | 1/9 Damage | 1/5 Horror

Mythos Phase

Investigator Phase

Enemy Phase

Nothing

Upkeep Phase

ROUND NINE: 0 Clues | 2/8 Doom | 5 Resources | 1/9 Damage | 1/5 Horror

Mythos Phase

Investigator Phase

Enemy Phase

Nothing

Upkeep Phase

ROUND TEN: 1 Clues | 4/8 Doom | 6 Resources | 2/9 Damage | 2/5 Horror

Mythos Phase

Investigator Phase

Enemy Phase

Nothing

Upkeep Phase

ROUND ELEVEN: 0 Clues | 5/8 Doom | 7 Resources | 2/9 Damage | 2/5 Horror

Mythos Phase

  • +1 Doom
  • Draw: False Lead
  • Revelation: No clues so it gains surge. Discard.17
  • Draw: Mysterious Chanting
    • +1 Doom on nearest Cultist
    • +1 Doom on nearest Cultist (again)18
    • Advance the Agenda

Scenario finished - ran out of time.

Thoughts on The Night of the Zealot Part II: The Midnight Masks

I didn’t enjoy this scenario. I know it was a race against the clock to interrogate cultists, but I do not like those kinds of games, and it wasn’t fun. I only managed to get two19 out of a possible six cultists too, which was down to me underestimating the danger those Acolyte cards presented. I also didn’t realise it was possible to draw cards on the Mythos phase that would lead to a whopping three doom being added in one go. That’s nearly half of all doom required to end the scenario. You can see that is exactly what happened. I would have ran straight for the Acolyte with doom on it and killed it if I had knew of that potential threat.

I also feel that it is a real slog to have to keep on top of the Acolytes that appear and accumulate doom, especially as I am already schlepping across Arkham trying to get from the Graveyard to the Hospital, being grabbed by Nightgaunts and dropped back to the start. This scenario does not work well with the solo investigator.

Still, I did not die, and managed to interrogate 33% of the cultists, so we shall see if that makes things any easier in the next scenario.

« Arkham Horror | « Part I: The Gathering | Part II: The Midnight Masks | » Part III: The Devourer Below

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28th May 2024

  1. What a goddamn surprise ↩︎

  2. Totally not arson. Just standard weekend house fires. Good thing demolition vehicles were already standing-by to bulldoze the whole thing on Monday: https://tinyurl.com/standard-weekend-house-fires ↩︎

  3. Sooo, does Lita Chantler start as my ally this time? All that has happened is we’ve gone out onto the street. I am not sure, but I drew her as part of my hand for this playthrough, I will have to look up this situation. Update: I think she just stays in the deck due to me controlling her last time, so I was probably right this time round. That doesn’t usually happen ↩︎

  4. The card art looks more like the guy tested the blade on himself first ↩︎

  5. So all-round pretty bad, and makes for a more difficult scenario than previously ↩︎

  6. Urgh, I really don’t like games where I am rushed. I am already not enjoying this scenario ↩︎

  7. Darn tablet token gave me a -3. Off to a poor start ↩︎

  8. Well, it would have been if I had realised I was supposed to put the doom token on the Acolyte and not on the doom track. Oh well. I do realise this mistake later on and compensate for it, but not before it affects the game. I’ll just record it as though I did I correctly, in case anyone ever reads this and copies my mistake ↩︎

  9. If I did these actions the other way round I could have saved myself two resources due to the buff from Easttown  ↩︎

  10. Welp, not gaining any clues from Downtown now that its shroud value is 5 ↩︎

  11. Messed this bit up. Adding that extra doom to the track would really only have brought the total up to five, not six, due to my not reading the cards properly earlier in round two when I drew that Acolyte. So I’ve advanced the Agenda a round early. I do not think much would have changed even if I did get another round in before the agenda advanced ↩︎

  12. Not sure what else I could have done really, maybe I should have drawn a new card? ↩︎

  13. It was at this point that I actually read the card and realised I should be putting doom on the Acolytes. I decided not to bother with this one to compensate for not removing the doom initially in round two ↩︎

  14. I have no idea why I keep gaining resources, it must have made sense at the time. Maybe I wanted to activate Northside for the clues ↩︎

  15. Guess I didn’t feel like discarding the cards to automatically defeat him 🤷‍♂️ ↩︎ ↩︎

  16. This is not a problem as I only had one shot left anyway ↩︎

  17. Not sure what that was all about, guess it just surges to prevent you skipping any bad things by having no clues, so you still get to suffer 😊 ↩︎

  18. It was here when I suddenly realised that leaving Acolyte cards out on the board was a terrible idea. The Acolyte in Easttown now had three doom on it ↩︎

  19. The Masked Hunter counts as a cultist too ↩︎

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