Arkham Horror:TCG – ‘Point of No Return’ Previews
Arkham Horror: The Card Game’s fourth pack in the Dream-Eaters Cycle has been announced. We’re crossing the “Point of No Return” preview!
The Dream-Eaters Cycle has taken players from the streets of Arkham to the dark side of the moon. Today, we’re getting a taste of the Dreamlands yet again with a look at some of the new cards coming in the latest expansion pack announcement: Point of No Return.
Following the events of A Thousand Shapes of Horror, you have finally reached the Dreamlands, but it is not as you expected. No wondrous lands or fabulous cities greet you; merely the dark, barren realm of the Underworld. Perhaps those who brought stories of the Dreamlands to Arkham had never ventured this far underground, or perhaps this place can only be found by those who force their way in. Either way, you are now hopelessly alone in a realm you have never heard of, and the only way out is through.
Welcome to the dark Underworld of the Dreamlands. This cavernous realm is both somber and imposing. A grey light with no source fills the twisting catacombs you find yourself in and pressing forward is your only option now. Mechanically speaking, this realm has some new tricks up it’s sleeves. For starters, all the locations don’t have an unrevealed side – all of them are placed revealed side up. You flip them over when you’ve cleared the clues off of them:
What’s more, these locations have story cards on their reverse sides. Whenever a location in this scenario enters play, your investigators place clues on that location equal to its clue value, as you would normally do upon entering a location.
If you wish to advance the Act Deck (and thus complete the scenario) then you’ll need to explore this dreary landscape. It won’t be easy, but what other choices do you have? These locations also the Veiled keyword.
Veiled locations contain unknown lore or assistance that must be sought out by your investigators before it can be of use to you. As a fast action, an investigator at a veiled location with no clues on it may flip it over, resolving the text on its other side. Once a location has been flipped over and its story text has been read, it cannot be flipped over again for the remainder of the game unless otherwise noted.
Personally, I’m very curious to see how that pans out for the investigators. Once flipped, are these locations now cut-off? Can players still move through them? What does the story text say and how does it impact the investigation?! The only way to find out will be to play this new scenario – and I’m perfectly okay with that.
New Investigator Cards
As with all of the Mythos Pack Expansions, there will be new investigator cards that you’ll be able to add to your decks as well. Today, we’re getting a look at two cards – one for Rogues and one for Survivors.
A Glimmer of Hope is a new Survivor card that is a 1 cost event. It comes with 1 “?” icon on it. While that might not sound like much, this card does a couple of neat things. For starters, it has Myriad, which means you can include 3 copies of this card in your deck by paying the XP cost only once. In this case, it’s zero. Reguardless, Myraid cards come in sets of 3 as opposed to the regular pairs of 2.
Furthermore, this card has the text that it can be played from the discard pile and when you “play” it from your discard, you can add all copies of this card back to your hand. What does that mean? Once you find A Glimmer of Hope, you can pay 1 resource to always have it with you! That wild “?” Icon can be used over and over in skill checks. There are few decks out there who couldn’t use a trio of “?” icons in their decks and few other Investigators out there who would put those extra icons (and access to them) to really good use. Mihn Thi Phan comes to mind…
The Rogue card we are getting a preview of is Daredevil. This card also come with the an “?” icon on it. More importantly, when you commit this card to a check, you can then dig through your deck to try and find another Rogue card that you can commit to the skill check. This should help you find another icon or two for whatever test you’re taking – provided you included those in your deck to being with. Note that it does specifically call out Rogue Cards so no Unexpected Courage unfortunately.
There are some really great Rogue Cards that you could toss in when this flips. Double or Nothing, Opportunist, and Quick Thinking all spring to mind. It would be a pretty slick move to drop a Daredevil into a check and drop a Quick Thinking to help you pass by 2+ and then get another action on top of that. That said, I’d still be a little worried that this card might end up biting me in the butt by forcing me to use a card I might not want to chuck to a check. But hey, part of the charm of playing a Rogue is their risky nature.
Point of No Return $14.95
Descend into the dreaded Underworld of the Dreamlands in Point of No Return, the fourth Mythos Pack in The Dream-Eaters cycle for Arkham Horror: The Card Game! After forcing your way through the veil that divides the world of the waking from that of sleep, you must navigate the cavernous Underworld, encountering ghouls and gugs, in the hopes of finding your way to the world above and reuniting with the rest of your team.
Point of No Return is currently available for pre-order!
