With alternate Father Mateo you can basically auto success on any test that is only +2 higher than your relevant stat and just reseal the same bless token on yourself every turn. I run it with Ornate bow so i can just auto one shot most enemies. Also works well with skills that need you to succeed on a check to work.
An utterly brutal guy that will make the first 2 scenarios of TFA hell. The cowards out there would recommend not making them angry so these guys are safe to dispatch. Counterpoint; every snake you put in the victory display is one enemy permanently removed from the encounter deck and play areas; you want snakes in the vengeance display so your cluevers can do their job uninterrupted. Instead of making life more difficult for everyone else and forcing them to flee from critters in the jungle and making them heed silly ancient warnings just to make your job as guardian easier, instead bring a set of 2 Handcuffs and bury one deep or something.
These humans with a weird skin disease can hiss from their cuffs all they want about you trampling over their allegedly ancient and powerful culture. To take their warnings seriously is the height of paranoia and folly. If they're so powerful why can they be cuffed and taken to the station just as easily as every other raving lunatic stalking the streets of arkham? It's all hogwash, and surely nothing bad will ever happen to you if you simply ignore it.
Sadly, the problem with this card is that you can't pitch it for +1 on a skill test when you first start a campaign. So, if you draw it immediately after your mulligan it's not mega doo doo. Without that it's in a very awkward spot which will likely make this unplayable for vast majority of characters/campaigns (although there are some that you should really take it see SPOILERS below).
For example, if it had just a single wild icon it would become actually useable at lvl 0 as pitching it for a +1 skill test early on would have made it seen some play in some decks especially mill decks like Minh or Patrice both of which are action starved and like pitching wild icon cards. Then when the survivor gets some early exp they can do things like pitch it on the Hunting Jacket for a resource and save it for the final agenda.
SPOILERS YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
First column is scenario number, second is number of rounds you would have to wait if you drew it in your opening hand this counts all agendas before the "final" agenda, and third is the number of rounds you could play it before the game ends. Lower first number and higher second number = good scenario for End of the Road.
Some asterisks:
- There are some agendas that are "infinite" or dependent on what the investigators/act does in which case I use the base doom or make an estimate based on my experiences with the scenario.
- There is a question of what is a “final agenda” because it gets weird with things especially with recent campaigns like Edge of the Earth/Scarlet Keys/Hemlock with act/agendas that replace the agenda deck. Generally they don’t impact things too much on the overall assessment and you can argue at your table if you count it or not until an official ruling is added here. Honestly End of the Road needs as much help as it can get so for the below numbers I counted in favor of it being able to trigger since the current agenda is the “final” agenda in the agenda deck at the time of play.
The Gathering ( 1 / 5 )
Really only decent in Midnight Masks if you want to give it a newbie to have fun with.
Scenario | Rounds Unusable | Rounds Usable |
---|---|---|
1 | 10 | 10 |
2 | 6 | 8 |
3 | 9 | 5 |
The Dunwich Legacy ( 0 / 5 )
LOL
Scenario | Rounds Unusable | Rounds Usable |
---|---|---|
1a | 10 | 8 |
1b | 4 | 7 |
2 | 12 | 7 |
3 | 14 | 3 |
4 | 12 | 7 |
5 | 11 | 7 |
6 | 12 | 10 |
7 | 14 | 4 |
The Path to Carcosa ( 1 / 5 )
You got some hits like 2nd and 6th scenario, but a lot of doo doo in between.
Scenario | Rounds Unusable | Rounds Usable |
---|---|---|
1 | 9 | 11 |
2 | 3 | 18 |
3 | 8 | 3 |
4 | 9 | 8 |
5 | 11 | 5 |
6 | 6 | 12 |
7 | 22 | 8 |
8 | 14 | 9 |
The Forgotten Age ( 1 / 5 )
Only a 1 because its decent in the first 2 scenarios. But, it really fails to deliver after them so if you add it remember to remove it after the first 2 scenarios. However, the first 2 scenarios are very much get ahead stay ahead and potentially holding onto End of the Road for 6 rounds is a bit of a pain.
Scenario | Rounds Unusable | Rounds Usable |
---|---|---|
1 | 6 | 9 |
2 | 6 | 12 |
3 | 12 | 6 |
4 | 13 | 6 |
5a | 5 | 5 |
5b | 7 | 12 |
6 | 12 | 7 |
7 | 24 | 0 |
8 | 13 | 12 |
The Circle Undone ( 2 / 5 )
Really the only bummers are 3rd and final. First campaign with a 100% uptime scenario on the 7th scenario so if you have adaptable good to slot it in then.
Scenario | Rounds Unusable | Rounds Usable |
---|---|---|
1 | 8 | 12 |
2 | 8 | 11 |
3 | 18 | 8 |
4 | 8 | 7 |
5 | 8 | 10 |
6 | 8 | 10 |
7 | 0 | 7 |
8 | 10 | 8 |
The Dream-Eaters Part A ( 5 / 5 )
Its only a 5 because of the 1st scenario and accelerated exp, grab it for the first scenario then immediately dump it with your double digit exp.
Scenario | Rounds Unusable | Rounds Usable |
---|---|---|
1 | 0 | 19 |
2 | 7 | 9 |
3 | 10 | 6 |
4 | 12 | 5 |
The Dream-Eaters Part B ( 1 / 5 )
Its just not good enough in the early scenarios to get to the payoff in the third scenario.
Scenario | Rounds Unusable | Rounds Usable |
---|---|---|
1 | 8 | 8 |
2 | 11 | 7 |
3 | 5 | 20 |
4 | 16 | 11 |
The Innsmouth Conspiracy ( 0 / 5 )
Yeah... unless you're a masochist its terrible somehow worse on avg. here than Dunwich.
Scenario | Rounds Unusable | Rounds Usable |
---|---|---|
1 | 15 | 4 |
2 | 13 | 7 |
3 | 15 | 3 |
4 | 9 | 9 |
5 | 8 | 9 |
6 | 21 | 6 |
7 | 12 | 6 |
8 | 14 | 10 |
The Edge of the Earth ( 3 / 5 )
This is funny the worse you do in the opening scenario(s) the better End of the Road becomes. Since End of the Road will more often be a dead card in your hand in the opening scenario it itself helps contributes with getting a worser outcome for your group so it can shine further down. It's also good in the endgame if you count replacing agendas.
Scenario | Rounds Unusable | Rounds Usable |
---|---|---|
1a | 11 | 7 |
1b | 10 | 6 |
1c | 7 | 8 |
2a | 0 | 15 |
2b | 0 | 13 |
2c | 0 | 11 |
3 | 6 | 8 |
4 | 6 | 10 |
5a | 5 | 12 |
5b | 0 | 6 |
6 | 3 | 15 |
The Scarlet Keys ( 1 / 5 )
Release expansion and not a good showing the first scenario has a long time before the final agenda, and since some players will not hit the 100% scenarios based on where they go it can be a full campaign with End of the Road in the gutter.
Scenario | Rounds Unusable | Rounds Usable |
---|---|---|
1 | 15 | 7 |
2 | 8 | 7 |
3 | 0 | 7 |
4 | 8 | 6 |
5 | 12 | 5 |
6 | 13 | 5 |
7 | 0 | 12 |
8 | 6 | 5 |
9 | 13 | 7 |
The Feast of Hemlock Vale ( 4 / 5 )
Seems like End of the Road should have been released with Hemlock as Preludes really carry it. An additional action, card, and resource can be the difference on a succesful Resident objective and/or preparing for the day scenario. Most of the scenarios have low early doom agendas and high final agenda doom. Just make sure to ditch it before the final scenario otherwise you'll regret it.
Scenario | Rounds Unusable | Rounds Usable |
---|---|---|
1P | 0 | 6 |
2P | 0 | 6 |
3P | 0 | 6 |
1 | 5 | 14 |
2 | 7 | 8 |
3 | 8 | 7 |
4 | 4 | 12 |
5 | 3 | 10 |
6 | 3 | 18 |
7 | 0 | 10 |
8 | 11 | 4 |
TLDR: When is it good to include?
Base Deck:
- The Dream-Eaters Part A ditch it after the first scenario since you start with the final agenda.
- Feast of Hemlock Vale ditch it before the final scenario.
Adaptable:
- Circle Undone has the first 100% playability in the 7th scenario in which the scenario begins in the final agenda.
- Edge of the Earth has some 100% scenarios especially if you crash out in the opening scenario(s).
- Scarlet Keys has two 100% scenarios: Sanguine Shadows, Dogs of War.
I think this is the best card in the game.
Drawing 2 cards for 1 is insane (Pot of Greed, anyone?). It doesn't need to succeed the test unlike Overpower and friends. It doesn't have hoops to jump through unlike Take Heart as you will want to be succeeding skill tests basically every turn (but failing a skill test without wasting an action is much more situational).
But on top of that, it even boosts the skill test by . Many times in my campaigns I have committed my "dead cards" like the third gun in hand or second copy of an ally for 1 matching icon, and this card provides that value on top of its main mode of draw 2. And if you're worried that removing the 0's will make the test worse - don't. Most decent tests will be helped by the way more than hindered by removing the 3 good tokens. E.g. if you're testing at +4 against a bag of 16 tokens and failing on -5 and , that's a 12.5% chance of failure. If you add Unrelenting to pass the -5 token and remove 3 others, you're at a 7.7% chance (would be 6.2% if you didn't remove 3 tokens). With bigger bags and more tokens to beat it only gets better.
And lastly, there is the flexibility of the other modes. You can help an important test by removing some nasty that adds doom or just securing that late game test by removing the -8. Or you can throw in Unrelenting on a failed test just to draw 2 like you would Take Heart.
There are only two downsides I see with this card.
One, the deck archetype that likes cycling the deck a lot with cards like Unrelenting gets countered by certain basic weaknesses like Through the Gates, Amnesia or even Chronophobia. Some of these can be countered with Ikiaq, Deny Existence, Peter Sylvestre etc. if you have access to these cards.
And two, the expert difficulty usually only has 2 tokens that let you draw with Unrelenting. I've been testing the usage of Keep Faith to enable Unrelenting in this case, and I think it's still playable in this state although the nerf of needing to wait for your other combo piece is definitely noticeable.
Question:
Can we stack more than 2 offerings? Or are we limited to only 2?
I can't find anything about the word "replenish" in the rules, and of course I've got the same queston for all those cards with this world....
Thanks.