The feast of Hemlock Vale review

[@Sorrynametaken]

Overall, I like the scenarios(the mine one is fiddly, though). However, the finale just seems like it was only designed with having 4 investigators in mind and definitely not the 2 I was playing. The "action tax" of the initial 4 locations scales horribly with lower player counts. All of the final acts scale from really poorly to extremely poorly. It also asks you to warp your whole deck for the campaign just to have a chance at that scenario, even if that deck would have functioned well for the rest of the scenarios. "MAKE NUMBER BIG" is a really boring and tedious requirement for the major part of that scenario.

[@TheRancord]

I liked the campaign a lot. I do not have a real problem with the preludes. We play as 3 players and its just 3 players. I dont read the flavor then but only for the storyline we will go through. We did first playthrough with Darrel/Lily and Tony. (House/Forest/Swamp/Farm/Mine) Longest night we just barely survived and it was awesome. Second playthrough we did Hank/Bob and Daisy (yeah bob is broken beyond belief in this campaign) and we went (Crab/Forest/House/Farm/Pearlridge) and we burned the whole house and farm, well we had bob. Bob and Hank both with double pelt, so we went for max xp. Also Hank had traps devil and the weapons he can use. I love this campaign, especially because the end of Eote and most of TSK, especially the end. I Agree Silent heath is a bit boring from investigator side, but the insects are a cool design.

[@MrIshiki]

SPOILERS BELOW Just finished my first try of the last scenario (I went insane; I like to try till I win). My biggest gripe was that it was a bit of crap shoot. One key piece of my deck got stuck in the Abyss so part of what my deck wanted to do was just gone. Turns out that wouldn't have mattered as much because my second gripe was that Theo (which I did have on my side btw because he's a good boy) is almost essential. I toughed it out manually to get the locations needed but he trivializes the challenge of the second act which i found out way too late. That kind of reliance on a particular NPC makes this campaign a little bit one sided in my opinion. Every play through I will always befriend him because he's just too clutch and honestly even in a multi-investigator run (I mainly go true solo), there's no reason to not befriend him simply because the second act is so dumb. This campaign loses a lot of replay-ability for that last reason. The preludes I thought were kind of fun. I found it easier and less cumbersome to walk through a map and play a low risk scenario to flesh out the story than flip through the book a bunch (like SK). But EVERY TIME I will always use my turns to find Theo and make him my buddy which makes it boring and somewhat predictable. Overall great ride (longest night was actually really fun and a power word Luke was quite comfortable managing the enemies) but the dismount was just a mess. I do wish they did it in two scenarios as well. Great review and I always love hearing your thoughts on the campaigns.

[@MrIshiki]

Update: After 3 more tries, I gave up. This last scenario truly is too difficult for a true solo investigator I think. But further, I feel like this wanted you to lean heavily into Bless simply based on how the bag is built and modified during the campaign. And since the final scenario likes having you succeed a lot, it probably works better when you have a lot of +1s in the bag. I may try it with Father Mateo some other time but this last scenario left such a bad taste in my mouth that it soured my whole experience on the whole.

[@3MBG]

I couldnt do it with 2, i finally got it with 3

[@MrIshiki]

@@3MBG I can see that. I think the action economy of just getting more tests for every doom (round) makes it a pure shotgun method which again just makes it so swingy anyways. All 9 (or 12 if all three get a mythos card test) tests could yield nothing because you fail a lot. The fact that the abyss doesn't scale with player count is where this falls flat I think. I wonder if there are any house rules that can scale the abyss down to make it more manageable for less players. I think the best I did (out of a 30 card abyss) was 10 but that was after like 6 rounds which is not a great ratio. I also feel like getting to the final act should have rewarded you with getting your cards back from the abyss. I think in general anything that takes away from my deck or character (looking at you city of archives) just irks me and I feel like it's not in the spirit of the game. Yes it might be thematic but I play AH because of the deck building and deck progression. When I run into a scenario that suddenly tells me "no, everything you worked for is now basically taken away", I just hate it. Albeit this wasn't as bad as the aforementioned FA scenario, but I still wasn't a fan of it.

[@charlesgillingham61]

This series is so great. Thanks! But now I'm upset my collection is in storage 500 miles away.

[@3MBG]

Boo, that sucks

[@3MBG]

So, hemlock Vale was a real mixed bag for me. The overall scenario structure was fine, while the individual scenarios themselves were all pretty damned good. Codex was a neat mechanic, preludes stink and i hope never to see them again. Will be curious to see how i feel about this one in a year or so because right now, it's nowhere near my fav campaign.

[@andrethannhauser6302]

I really liked the "prelude" in Circle Undone, so I will see if I also like them in Hemlock.

[@MattCrawley_Music]

@@andrethannhauser6302 they are very different. The prelude in TCU is an actual scenario with things happening. The preludes in FHV are just lots of reading.

[@brdanner]

Generally agree with your review, the highlights being solid individual scenarios and an intriguing codex mechanic with lots of further potential. The preludes obviously need more work if they’re going to fit positively into more campaigns. I like the idea of choosing from among a variety of NPC’s and recruiting them and developing story beats or relationships. I always enjoy an NPC in my play area, who helps me win, and who I have to protect, assist, manage. Maybe the preludes can be whittled down to character recruitment, which would then always be important to play through, but not necessarily a gimme. Perhaps they get harder to recruit each game, and you have incentive to talk/play with others. In the end, there were too many characters to care about, and I would have liked one storyline with my preferred NPC, and choosing another for a 2nd run through. On the plus side, the character dialogs were better written this time than with SK or EoTE. There was time to draw out a motive/conflict for each individual, and to care about them a little. It would have been very cool to have your NPC turn on you if you failed to protect them and they went full Hemlock, which kind of happened here, using relationship status. There was a real effort to make the NPCs distinct and valuable to interact with. We actually took 3 game sessions to get the finale done. One time, we just couldn’t time the character cards to come into our hands, and just kept whiffing… Exhausting… but it did keep us coming back to figure it out. Very cool to add Night and Day options to the enemies, which made game mechanics very simple, with nice theming. All in all, a return to form for the franchise after disappointing outings in the last two campaigns. No one will be bored replaying it, and there will probably already is a setup workaround to skip the preludes.

[@mike_howes]

Great video. Some thoughts: Preludes are awful. They are a fancy mulligan. But to do that mulligan I have to play this game without a treachery deck. No enemy threat. No real objectives. It's like here's a watered down version of the game you love. Not a fan at all. Also I think it's really bad that there isn't a skip option. Would be more palatable if I could opt out and randomise some interactions with people and just play with a normal mulligan. Codex was solid. Simple way to reuse story cards. Scenarios are good and are above average as a whole imo. Hated the finale. Losing investigator cards and cards from deck with treachery that often forced discard. Meant combos didn't work and I didn't get to play with a lot of my deck. Arkham is at its worst when it takes away player agency in this way. The big test result to search for cards really affects some characters especially failure tech. Hate when the game just needs you to test 6+ up. Disappointed as a whole. Nice scenarios but preludes make me not want to play this campaign and the finale fell flat.

[@andrethannhauser6302]

From now on, I want to add one of the scenario packs to every campaign I play. I'm wondering if the Blob wouldnt fit perfectly and if so then where to add it.

[@3MBG]

That could be fun

[@andrethannhauser6302]

​@@3MBG Have you already played the Blob and if so whats the difficulty level. I mean the Blob would be a perfect intro scenario to the Hemlock campaign (after the Blob the investigators travel to the Island where similar things might have happened)...BUT maybe it's to hard to play with 0XP characters. So as option 2 better add it in the middle of the campaign....where it should fit logically considering you have half day half night scenarios.

[@3MBG]

I've done very few of the side scenarios to be honest, just Carnivale and the monte carlo one. Have not played blob at all yet

[@Brynney]

Good stuff there. Gotta agree that some of the setup/play time can be a hassle but there's a lot of good ideas still. How would you rank the campaigns so far and why is Carcosa the best one?

[@3MBG]

I'm not sure about final ranking at the moment, but its towards the bottom. I think Carcosa benefits from having great scenarios, a neat theme, and a lot of meta stuff in the campaign that has you 2nd guessing about whats actually happening. It can be quite unnerving in places.

[@peterholliday1545]

Great review. I have been looking at buying an Arkham Horror, The Card Game for a while now. It sounds like this scenario is too tricky for a beginner. What would you say is the best scenario to start with? I have always loved anything to do with Innsmouth.

[@Brainstrain]

27:01

[@3MBG]

Yeah, as mentioned i think innsmouth, dunwich or Carcosa are far better start points than hemlock vale

[@andrethannhauser6302]

​@@3MBG The only thing that makes Innsmouth more tricky than Dunwich and Carcosa is the fact that the scenarios arent played in chronological order. There are flashback scenarios etc. that can be confusing. So next time (2nd time) I play Innsmouth, I will have a sheet with the timeline. Else, the campaign is quite straight forward.

[@peterholliday1545]

@@3MBG Thanks. I just realised that I will need to buy the core game first!

[@dinahfromkabalor]

Even though I’m not playing the game, I find these fascinating to watch. I was particularly intrigued this time by your comment about how playing in person is a completely different thing. Is it just that you aren’t synchronizing play as tightly because there are multiple players?

[@kevinfitzgerald9319]

Through the final scenario I think Hemlock Vale was my favorite campaign. I liked the Preludes, loved the semi-open nature of choosing your own scenarios and how each scenario can play differently depending on when you play it. The finale was too long and too complex. I didn’t even finish it, just lost interest and called it a loss

[@3MBG]

The finale was almost 3 scenarios strapped together.

[@kevinfitzgerald9319]

@@3MBG Yeah, the prelude part was too easy and quick, and the second part was a huge jump in complexity that felt disconnected from the entire rest of the campaign. I never even played the 3rd part

[@thewilltheway]

No outro with a song from “Shoggoth on the Roof”? 😢

[@3MBG]

No appropriate song really, lol

[@ioannispaxinos5171]

But the preludes aren't just flavor. They include meaningful decisions, specifically which residents you want to focus on. Yes, they can get a bit tedious but if you focus on using them to make friends with different people in every playthrough, they'll offer more variety. I'd like to try being convinced by Mother Racher for example. Just curious to see what happens if you believe her and do what she wants. Does the world end? Does the professor wake you up? I also don't think all that whining about "too much reading" in scarlet keys really affected their design decisions. It was more of an internet being louder than reality thing. The campaign was hugely successful. Most people play arkham for the theme and love to be immersed.

[@3MBG]

You played it through more than twice? Because by my 4th go through, all the novelty of the preludes was completely gone and they were absolute busy work. Once you have gone through 4 times let me know if you still think the preludes are worth the effort.

[@ioannispaxinos5171]

@@3MBG Well... no. We actually won the campaign the first time. I was just speculating because I was curious to see what would happen with different choices. I suppose playing any campaign four times in a row can be a bit tedious. I usually play them twice before putting them on rotation so by the time they come up again the novelty is refreshed. At least for my group because we all have terrible memories and play dozens of boardgames.

[@3MBG]

Playing the games were fine though, in fact the scenarios themselves are very good at replay-ability. The only issue i had with replay was the preludes. And yeah, we're a little different, in order to review the campaigns i need to do more than just go through them once. Every campaign i've reviewed to date ive done at least 3 times, 1 in person and twice afterwards with a follow up team on tabletop simulator. And look, everyones experience is different, but to me those preludes were the fly in the ointment of an otherwise very solid campaign.

[@ioannispaxinos5171]

@@3MBG I can imagine so. Well, the good thing is that they're essentially just the start of the day scenario. The night preludes where much shorter if memory serves. And I believe you said you played all 3 characters yourself at one point, to which I say "Cudos sir". I would never have the energy for that. Perhaps live play with others would make them easier to get through. I believe, for the average players, they won't be as much of a problem. Then again I thoroughly enjoyed Scarlet Keys, which many people found exhausting. Although, like I said before, I don't think that internet hysteria and reality necessarily correspond.

[@3MBG]

I legit like scarlet keys, lol

[@MattCrawley_Music]

You think this is hard, you should play The Forgotten Age.

[@3MBG]

There's a reason we are leaving that one for last. Its funny though, people also said Circle undone and Scarlet keys were hard and we utterly smashed those. Wages of sin and Shades of suffering were barely road bumps. Yet we had a helluva time with the Longest Night and Finale in Hemlock vale.