Boa Constrictor

This is the worst enemy in the entire The Forgotten Age campaign by design and one of the worst designed enemies in the entire game, who's text could as well read: Revalation: Restart the campaign, if you draw him early on in the pl.arkhamdb.com scenario. And the best part is that his forced ability does not matter at all, but his stupid hunter effect and even more stupid Vengeance 2.

He is a massive disproportion in comparison to pl.arkhamdb.com and completly changes the playthrough of the rest of the scenario, and perhaps the campaign.

When you draw him, unless you do not have pl.arkhamdb.com as your teammate, you have two options.

OPTION ONE: Kill him.

This itself is not the end of the world, even though it can be hard with his 4 attack, but in most cases it just takes two actions from your fighter. The real problem is his venegance effects which are:

  1. The skull tokens now gain additional -2 which is quite a big deal, and if you also happen to kill a Pit Viper or two, then the effect is even worse. Lets also do not forget that there are not a lot of tokens in the chaos bag in the first scenario, so skull tokens are drawn often.

  2. The pl.arkhamdb.com now gains +2 attack, and there are 3 of them. Killing one enemy with 4 attack is not a big deal, but 4 enemies in total who potentially can have even more attack from the Pit Vipers now can become a huge problem.

  3. The pl.arkhamdb.com now gains his two shitty effects out of three, and if you so happen to gain another venegance point, he becomes almost unkillable and he also attacks for a LOT. Not only you will most likely not squeeze out one more Victory point, but this enemy can potentially ruin your playthrough, if you do not have an anwser for him.

  4. The pl.arkhamdb.com now gains +2 extra shroud which is definitely not nice, if you are holding your testless clue getters such as pl.arkhamdb.com or pl.arkhamdb.com on pl.arkhamdb.com and of course pl.arkhamdb.com to prevent drawing more encounter cards.

  5. 2 points of Yig fury from one enemy is a lot. Not only if you kill this guy and two Pit Vipers or explore with the pl.arkhamdb.com , if you are playing the return, in the first scenario, and then one of you does not make it out of the pl.arkhamdb.com alive, they die. Also it limits the numer of agendas in the pl.arkhamdb.com which can also be deadly.

OPTION TWO: Evade him or/and ignore him.

  1. He attacks for 1/1 which is not nice once it stacks up for a couple of times.

  2. If you want to evade him continuously for the rest of the game you will either take hits from him, or waste one action every turn on evasion, or potentially more if you fail. This becomes less of an issue if you have pl.arkhamdb.com but it only has 4 uses, and even with +2 evasion it is possible to fail, especially if you happen to be Poisoned, then you have two auto-fails in the chaos bag. In total for the rest of the game you are forced to waste 33% of your turn for him until the end, which often is a cause of fail or unsatisfactory XP gain from the scenario.

  3. Even if you have pl.arkhamdb.com you may fail the test, especially when you are Poisoned. And even if you succeed, there is no guarantee that he will not be shuffled on the top of the encounter deck to be drawn two phases later.

  4. Having one enemy forever on you is a dangerous game to play, especially when you draw another one, and you have no more actions to evade him forever.

Both of those options absolutely suck. And whenever I draw him my eagerness to play the game drops to zero. I played the Untamed Wilds a lot of times and i noticed massive difference in how successful i am when Boa gets drawn and when he does not. I would risk a thesis that your success in the scenario is completly dependant from when will you draw him and how many pl.arkhamdb.com will you draw during the scenario.

Overall, this is a awful card that completly kills the fun from playing The Untamed Wilds alongside the 3 Ancient Evils, and i wish it was replaced in the Return.

Jaguaq_ · 3
I am a person very biased about Forgotten Age, and I expressed before, in multiple occasions, my complete undying hatred for the campaign and all of its design choices, including the nature of Vengeance, so people should absolutely take my words with a grain of salt. Even so, I do mean it, from an objective design standpoint, making an enemy with Vengeance also an Hunter is a complete failure in campaign design, because it defeats the whole point of what Vengeance exist for (punishing fighting, rewarding evasion). Having an enemy that will keep getting in the way and drain your actions in a campaign about avoid confrontation is beyond moronic. — HeroesOfTomorrow · 102
*avoiding — HeroesOfTomorrow · 102
Existential Riddle, I guess? — AlderSign · 470
@AlderSign That is a solution and it is like one ItToI away, but unless you knew about this enemy ahead, there is no guranteed you would have bought that card or would be playing as someone with access to it. Another option is Fend Off. — HeroesOfTomorrow · 102
Mind blank or Kymani solves this guy. — MrGoldbee · 1572
Luger P08

Now that we've had plenty of time to digest, I can confirm that the Luger is one of my favorite weapons. Even if it doesn't have raw damage output, a fast Fight option is pretty amazing in allowing you to polish off a low health enemy or attack at unusual timing points. A Luger in one hand along with a 'primary' weapon in another means you can often hit a 3 HP enemy without needing to spend an extra action or waste an ammo on your primary weapon, and you can frequently handle a little more fighting through a Luger-Reload-Luger sequence if one of multiple enemies isn't engaged to you. It's very effective on lower difficulty enemies or low-health aloof enemies, and even if you only have a Luger, you always have the option of squeezing out a couple of damage using it and basic fight actions.

The fact that it's Illicit only helps when it comes to things like Underworld Market and Fence. It may not be as good at spiking damage as some of the other weapons around, but I find it's more than good enough to earn its hand slot on both primary fighters and flexes.

Ruduen · 1066
Also don't forget the hidden pocket, which also works fine with this illicit weapon — Tharzax · 2
Hand-Eye Coordination

TABOO-ONLY REVIEW

I love that, with the latest taboo, this cards gets you 1 clue or damage from Lantern/Gravedigger's Shovel, circumventing an otherwise very limiting cost.

Yes, the clue option is only 1 resource better than Working a Hunch, but the 1 experience that costs you is more than compensated for by the flexibility of Hand-Eye Coordination.

The damage option has a similar comparison with Quick Shot, although a bit more complex.


Bonus points if you use Hand-Eye Coordination on Anchor Chain, Hand Hook, or Nautical Charts while they are in your hand. (This would allow you to actually discard the card itself for the "if you succeed" clause.)


Something else I noticed: While you cannot ignore the costs for extra clues on Microscope you still save 2 actions and can benefit from the skill bonus if it is fully charged with evidence.

AlderSign · 470
Fedora

FFG's f**king with us by giving it Apparel and not Clothing, ensuring that you can't keep a gun in your hat with Hidden Pocket. I'd consider this a canon offense against Michael McGlen, who is exactly the kind of guy who'd have a gun hidden in his (visibly present!) fedora. Give me the Colt Hat Pocket, MJ. >:x

Especially since guns can be pulled from boots or even straitjackets. But the two cards are from different chapters, so I personally wouldn't start arguing there. — AlderSign · 470
Doomed

I feel like people criticize and complain about aspects of the "Doomed Chain" that are pretty tame. Yes you will have to start with another lvl 0 investigator mid-way through the campaign. Yes most of the time there isn't really anything you can do to deal with Doomed and Accursed Fate, as not drawing isn't a viable option, removing any agency from the player. But in exchange, you get a weakness that is never very dangerous or hard to deal with in gameplay.

The actual bad thing making this the worst basic weakness to me, is that when you draw The Bell Tolls, it means you don't get to play the game anymore. If you find yourself drawing it early in a scenario, you're left spending the next, depending on player count and which specific scenario, 2 to 6 hours not playing the game. That I assume you enjoy playing. Maybe some people will like that a weakness can hurt you in real life, but I feel like this is pushing it a little too far. It isn't much fun to simply not be allowed to play. It's actually even worse if you happened to get lucky and only get The Bell Tolls added for the last scenario. You're then robbed of the big final if you draw it early. Like if a coop video game decided in the last 5 hours to lock you out of playing, now you only get to watch your friends finish it.

To me the whole thing could be fixed if the effect of The Bell Tolls was something like "Revelation - The hour of your demise is arriving. In seven rounds or when this scenario ends, you are killed." Because the "Doomed Chain" can be pretty fun, at least before the very end. Being scared of finding your weakness because drawing it will have actual big repercussions, is a very different feel than playing with any other weakness. I just think the repercussions should stick to gameplay ones (killing your investigator), rather than the chance of making a specific session (or sessions, I only play in 4 players, and we usually take our time) of Arkham boring.

Pinktar · 45
Yet another reason why Doomed is the worst thing ever: literally does nothing until he kills you and your drive to play. Absolute abysmal garbage design. — HeroesOfTomorrow · 102