My First Thoughts About The HEMLOCK VALE CAMPAIGN!

I've played through the whole campaign! This video collects my overall thoughts of the experience, structure, and difficulty. There will be campaign structure spoilers and a peek at a few resident cards, but NO STORY or SCENARIO spoilers.
Ask me anything about the campaign below!

[@BlackStarsRiseGaming]

S tier video. Strongly recommend you build on this 20-minute-ish, minimal-spoiler review for other campaigns. You could also have full spoiler campaign reviews, say 30-40 minutes, as part of the same video for that campaign or as a separate video series. I think the community would be interested in more of these kinds of videos. Thanks!

[@Quick_Learner]

Definitely a great idea. I'll work on them.

[@WayOfHaQodesh]

Absolutely nailed it. Love the spoiler free review. Would love to see other campaign reviews too.

[@mereditha4363]

This is my 3rd campaign (played dunwich and carcosa) and I reeeeally feel that this is an EXPERIENCE. Like you said, thr NPCs go on without you and we simply play as their guest. I'm 2 scenarios in and freaking love it!

[@halforange1]

Wow, I was hoping for a video like this to come out this weekend. Thanks!

[@hyrulehop1237]

Another banger video. Yeah, my team likewise was unsuccessful in two of the six scenarios. I agree 💯 with your assessment of the difficulty level.

[@hyrulehop1237]

Also, yes, the preludes will be divisive. No doubt.

[@mrjediknight]

This was a great review. As a new player I'd love to hear your thoughts on the other campaigns. I only have Carcosa and I'm about to finish my first run through. I'll replay it a few times but I'm still undecided where my investigators will find themselves when I'm ready to try something new. I know other content creators have campaign ranking videos and reviews but I often find they are too long or too concise, this format was just right.

[@Quick_Learner]

I super appreciate this comment!!

[@thearkhamhorrors]

Very insightful! Thanks for putting this out!!

[@telmavpires]

Thanks for this video. It would be interesting to see a review/first thoughts with spoilers of the campaign as well!

[@chrisismymiddlename5922]

Thanks for the review, was having a good feeling about this new campaign, so I preordered. Glad your review strenghens my belief in my decision, can't wait to play :)

[@WayOfHaQodesh]

Thank you so much for this spoiler free review. Am very curious is you've done a similar review for the Scarlet Keys campaign? I'm wanting to maybe pick up a new campaign and still have only played the EotE my first campaign outside of core box, NotZ. Really looking for good solo /2 up campaign with decent replayability.

[@HermieMunster]

Sounds good thanks for the review. Be a while before I get around to playing still working through the others.

[@OutOfAmmoOutOfTime]

great video thank you! One question: how does this campaign, do you imagine, work for true solo? Some scenarios in other campaigns don’t scale well (I’m looking at you unspeakable oath!)……keen to hear your thoughts…..

[@jmboggie]

Yes 🙃 we all have a part to play in the feast of hemlock vale

[@davidko9289]

Thanks for the spoiler free impressions. I'm skeptical about the prelude (TCU flashbacks) but happy to hear about the more limited reading than the last few scenarios.

[@Quick_Learner]

Thankfully the preludes have nothing in common with the TCU prologue, even though they may not be fan favorites either.

[@davidko9289]

@@Quick_LearnerGood to know!

[@Noobwater]

nice dried flowers Lego set!

[@Quick_Learner]

felt thematically appropriate!

[@tylerkeating3784]

Thank you so much for the spoiler free review! I'm still really new to this game and was wondering: would this be a good first campaign to get as a first campaign after the core set? I know most people recommend dunwich or caracosa bc they have good players cards to add, would it be too hard to start hemlock with just the core set?

[@Quick_Learner]

I think it'd be really tough without another box of player cards, sadly. You could also do well with any of the investigator starter decks (Harvey, Winifred, etc.)

[@tylerkeating3784]

@@Quick_Learner thanks for the reply! I think I'll probably start with dunwich, I've heard it's still one of the best even if it doesn't do anything super crazy

[@rowenn1729]

​@@tylerkeating3784 try Dunwich or Carcosa as the first campagne

[@batmansmk]

For the setup part, is like closer to the Core (mix those 2 decks, one exception, that's it) campaign or like 1-2 pages of setup instructions like the other ones?

[@Quick_Learner]

More like 1 page of setup. A lot of the scenarios have an extra page of special rules for that specific scenario, as well.

[@chocobojam8776]

Hi. How would you rate the difficulty? Would you recommend this for true solo?

[@Quick_Learner]

I think the difficulty is about average. I can't rate it for true solo.

[@Tyranoxthejust]

I just hope there is a wicker man moment like everyone else.

[@Mattastrophic]

Re: 8:45 "their stories continue without you" - there are plusses and minuses to this approach. On the one hand, the NPCs had storylines. On the other, the players have zero agency over what happens, instead deferring to Dr. Mary Sue getting to do everything and us just following along.

[@SteveLEKORodrigue]

LEGO ads in disguise. 😁

[@amansparekh]

Did you prefer this or Edge of the Earth? I have everything up to Carcosa, and trying to decide which campaign I buy next.

[@Quick_Learner]

I like this better than EOTE, but some of that comes from the high of a new campaign. EOTE is still very good and new player friendly.

[@amansparekh]

@@Quick_Learner thanks. One more question: do you think the bless curse cards here are viable without the insmouth player cards?

[@Quick_Learner]

I'm not sure! Probably yes, but missing out on Favor of the Sun / Moon hurts.

[@viktorkm]

How long is the scenarios on average? And how long was a session on average, with inclouding story text to read before and after the specific scenario?

[@Quick_Learner]

No different than the standard campaign. We played through a scenario in about 2 hours or so. The preludes will take you about 20 minutes, plus some time to set them up and take them down. There is story text but nowhere near TSK, and it is much more interactive.

[@viktorkm]

Im not 100% sure I understood correctly, but do you first set up this ”hub” place and play with it, then depending on what you do there, its then that you actually set up the scenario you are going to play? Or did I missunderstand?

[@Quick_Learner]

That's basically it!

[@robertcarlyle4946]

that was fast !

[@zedapinga2796]

Finally!

[@Quick_Learner]

I did it as quickly as I could! :-D

[@MattCrawley_Music]

Nice lego

[@Quick_Learner]

I'm going to have to put another one out there next time!

[@jameskellam2980]

Does the rulebook come spiral bound?

[@Quick_Learner]

yes indeed!

[@Gigatoast]

Even buying the old campaigns in this new format have spiral bound books. I absolutely love it has I sold my old collection and started again with the rereleases of every single cycle.

[@jameskellam2980]

I was wondering cause I recently bought the core Rev ed. And it doesn't come with spiral bound books. I also have Dunwich Camp and Investigator ecpansions but havent opened them yet. Just played The Gathering yesterday, prolly gonna do that one a few times with different investigators befor I go on to the Miskontonic scenario. Thanks all.

[@Trizface]

@@Gigatoast They're cool but nothing beats the Arkham Cards App imo. Really speeds up the process and makes it impossible to accidentally read spoilers or do anything wrong

[@Trizface]

@@jameskellam2980 Yeah everything but the revised core has them. That said i'd recommend using the arkham cards app over even the spiral booklets.

[@DakonBlackblade2]

I think it’s a bit of a bummer that you don't play 8 scenarios on the campaign, I like the idea of making things open and more variable, but I don't like the idea of achieving that by making campaigns less than 8 scenarios.

[@Quick_Learner]

Yeah, I'm wondering if they couldn't come up with enough story to make it into 4 days. I do like 8 scenario campaigns, but I know some prefer a shorter one. I do like the "timer" here way better than TSK, which felt a bit artificial. Here I think missing out on a few scenarios fits into the story way, way better.

[@DakonBlackblade2]

@@Quick_Learner The thing is, with less than 8 you don't get to customize your deck as much (which I really like to do). Also, it feels a little bit like they are cheating, they go “look how much choice you have, you finished the campaign and didn’t even play these two scenarios, you can play again to experience them now” and you go “ye but that’s cause the campaign finished before I had the opportunity to play them, it’s still 8 scenarios in the box”. Maybe they could’ve included a mandatory initial scenario and a mandatory final one to complete 8, I dunno. Anyway, I'm sure I'm gonna enjoy this campaign but I'd prefer if the future ones can find a way to incorporate the openness and keep the 8 scenarios.

[@Quick_Learner]

I ended up with 41 xp on the first run (no xp boosters) and there are 6 times you can spend XP, if that helps.

[@DakonBlackblade2]

@@Quick_Learner 41 before the final scenario? That seems like a good amount, it's not too much like they did in some campaigns prior nor it is Dunwich levels of stingy.

[@Quick_Learner]

Yep, 41 going into the finale!

[@tcr7]

This has quickly become my least favorite campaign. I've not completed it yet, but what I've done so far has been... sub-par. Amazingly, it hasn't been the scenarios. Those have been fun. It's been everything else. The preludes are awful. Ugh. Those alone will make me not want to replay the campaign. This substantially lowers the replayability value, probably more than Dream-Eaters. (I really don't want to create two decks only to play them for 4 scenarios each.) The editing. The editing is so incredibly awful. They are breaking language rules and it just drives me batty. The writing. This is a double-whammy. Duke is a good writer, but this campaign was always going to be compared to MJ. It's not fair to Duke but MJ was a fantastic writer. Duke is good but MJ is excellent. She's just so evocative with her descriptions and Duke falls short. But, more importantly, Duke's writing breaks immersion. He throws in a *lot* of pop culture references that just immediately break my immersion when they appear. Do we really need to hear more Jaws quotes? Jaws?! Seriously?