The Conspiracy Continues…

Hey everybody,
It’s Tuesday, which means it’s game day here at spalanz.com, and today I am finally back with The Innsmouth Conspiracy for Arkham Horror LCG! I know, it’s been an age! Well, three months. But still! The last time I played this game was November, when I played the third scenario, but neglected to keep any photos of the game as it progressed. Even so, I think it’s time to see where I’m up to with the campaign!

3. In Too Deep
In Too Deep was released around the time this game took off – and when I say took off, I mean you couldn’t buy packs of it anywhere. In Too Deep was the first casualty, for me, and it took me months to get hold of it – I think it might actually have been the case that the rest of the campaign had been released by then, but anyway.

I really liked this scenario. We have the town of Innsmouth laid out before us once again, though the town has been invaded by “foul things from the depths of the sea”, and of course we need to get across town to hook up with Agent Dawson. The locals and these foul things have erected barriers in the streets though, impeding our progress, and so we need to wend our way through and remove these where we can.

For some reason, I don’t have any pictures of me playing through this one, which is quite sad really, as I seem to recall it was a good one! There is something of a timebound mechanic, as always, so while at first I had hoped to explore a bit of the town, as time goes on more enemies are shuffled into the deck, and the town comes more and more under control of these mutant hybrids.

Campaign Log
The only memories I recovered this time were a meeting with Joe Sergeant, and a jailbreak. I managed to earn a total of 5VP, but I can’t spend it yet. Interestingly, if you were defeated or made it through, the same resolution is applied at the end. I suppose it’s another of those fail forward situations, though, where we need to keep the story moving!

4. Devil Reef
At long last, I’m back in Innsmouth! It’s been a total of three months on hiatus, but here I am again, battling with the deep ones as I try to work out what’s going on. Devil Reef is another of these back-in-time moments, much like the second scenario (I wonder if they’re going to do this throughout, so each even-numbered scenario recalls more memories?) We’ve decided to go out to Devil Reef, and Agent Dawson is along for the ride this time.

This scenario is another of those build-the-map types where we start out with a few locations to travel to, but they build out from there. The objective is to find three keys, which are linked to three artifacts, which are to be discovered at three special locations, which spawn in turn from three of the five starting locations. So it’s very much a discovery type of adventure, and with there being two dead-ends, it does mean you either get lucky, or you waste your time. More excitingly, we’re on a boat asset card, which we use to travel around.

Campaign Log
I managed to discover the artifacts, though the Terror of Devil reef still lives. 3 more VPs are now mine, and I can spend them once more – again, there’s that sense of the game really staggering how we level up this time around. I like it! The subsequent Interlude, however, reinforces the idea that we’re only recovering memories, and each of the artifacts needs to be recovered properly, so it seems we’re next off to Falcon Point Lighthouse…

The storyline is definitely interesting, although part of me does feel a little bit like it is straining this time to provide a narrative around one of HP Lovecraft’s most famous stories. I am a big sucker for wanting to recreate the board game in card game form, and have delighted previously with things like the Dunwich Legacy, but here, things do seem to be a little bit forced. I think perhaps that’s down to the way it is presented though, as flashbacks come and we attempt to piece together what on earth is happening. Maybe when I’ve gone further in the campaign, I’ll change my mind? For now, though, I am delighted to have the blessed/cursed mechanic, I’m delighted that we’re in Innsmouth, but I’m just not a hundred percent made up on whether I really like this one…