The Ladies Of Arkham Take On The Carnevale

This week, Daisy Walker, Zoey Samaras, and Trish Scarborough took on the Carnevale of Horrors scenario in the Arkham Horror LCG. I’ve written about this game a fair amount, but a few of us took on this scenario and I have some thoughts to share on the matter.

The Summary

Originally, it was just going to be Zoey, running a Blessed archetype deck, and Daisy doing a typical Daisy-book deck taking on this standalone scenario. However, a last-minute team-up and an extra deck had us adding Trish to the scenario. Trish was running as many “get clues from other locations” cards as she could, and she ended up being a very solid choice.

We did not have the Rialto Bridge in our scenario, and Daisy got very lucky to pull the Prophesiae Profana on her first turn and could play it the next round. Having the San Marco Basilica as the locus was fantastic, and meant Daisy could take the book tests to Parley the Revelers and escort them back to the Abbess quite efficiently. This left Zoey and Trish to deal with the enemies and gather clues to find the Innocents, and once Zoey had some Blessed tokens, she was doing very well.

However, she did get some heavy hits early on, and Daisy did end up killing her the turn everyone else got on the Gondola with a poorly used Medical Text. While unfortunate, between a nice Encyclopedia and Trish’s boosted foot-stat, as well as the quite lucky fact that nearly all of the enemies had been removed from the game when it was revealed, Trish and Daisy managed to get Resolution 1 by rowing super fast.

The Scenario

I don’t find Carnevale of Horrors overly difficult, at least not compared to some of the other standalone and campaign scenarios. Once you know some of the tricks, it’s easier to get going and manage the board state. Some of the treacheries are less fun, but the worst one, and the one to cancel if you can, is the Mass Hysteria. Everything else can be managed if you have some extra help moving.

Daisy’s use of the Prophesiae Profana was a big move here, because the Revelers were in a lot less danger once she got to them, but there were still some challenges along the way. Namely, Zoey taking about 12 damage before Cnidathqua even showed up. However, I like the scenario a lot. It’s different because it’s not in Arkham, and the circular movement is fun even if you aren’t Daisy. I’ve played this scenario with two different groups now, and it feels good to play.

I can definitely see a group getting overwhelmed and overrun fairly quickly, but that is just how Arkham works sometimes.

The Investigators & Their Decks

Because this was a standalone scenario, all Investigators had around 29 experience and 3 Basic Weaknesses.

Starting with Zoey, I did like the deck I built for her. She could handle enemies fairly easily. Zoey just didn’t get her Holy Spear, and there were a lot less Blessed Tokens in the bag when she needed them most early on. I don’t have the newer cards from Feast of Hemlock Vale just yet, so she was primarily using the Innsmouth cards. It felt fine, but Zoey never drew the Willpower Treachery tests to trigger the Holy Rosary (Level 2), and she got saddled with a lot of enemies before she had a weapon to deal with them.

Trish, however, was a powerhouse in this scenario. She had Pathfinder rocking and rolling, and being able to exhaust enemies at other locations that she couldn’t just move to was a big move in this scenario. She had Dirty Fighting and Damning Testimony out for most of the game, which allowed her to manage just fine. She never got some of her good stat boost cards out, which was unfortunate, but the deck seemed to work just fine in this scenario without them. The Blessed tokens from Zoey were helpful.

Daisy was the true MVP. I was playing with newer players, so we didn’t use the Taboo list, but there was only one turn where I believe the taboo would have mattered. She still exhausted and left the enemy behind without ignoring the attack of opportunity, and she went back to the locus and had a fine time. This is while having the Necronomicon out for the vast majority of the game and never finding her Tote Bag.

I don’t think anyone will find the results particularly surprising. Daisy and Trish remain in many people’s S and A-tiers for Investigators, and having some of the big items out early really helped them along. Zoey got unlucky, but even so she managed to hold her own for quite a while, and it was Daisy as opposed to the scenario that killed her.

Overall, I thought the game went really well, and it was the first time this group had won a scenario on the first attempt, so I consider that a win!

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Next week, I will be doing reviews of Black Panther: Shuri and Silk: Cindy Moon from Marvel Champions. They were just released today in my corner of the world, and I will be posting reviews of them next week. If you want to keep up with updates for this website and for my other projects, check out the Substack link to get a weekly newsletter!