Beschrijving
Arkham Horror LCG: The Midwinter Gala
It’s the dead of winter, and Arkham’s social elite have arrived in mist-shrouded Kingsport for an exquisite gala hosted by the enigmatic Lantern Club. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long before nightmarish creatures crash the festivities, and it falls to you to uncover the Club’s dark schemes before Arkham’s most powerful leaders all meet a terrible fate!
Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce The Midwinter Gala, a brand-new scenario pack for Arkham Horror: The Card Game!
In this thrilling scenario pack, 1 to 4 investigators must ally with one of five factions and work together to claim a powerful relic at the center of the Lantern Club’s nefarious plot. Like with previous scenario packs, The Midwinter Gala can be played standalone or inserted into a campaign as a side-story. The scenario can even be played semi-competitively between different groups of investigators as you see who can net the highest score at the end!
Meet and Greet
On a frigid winter’s night, the mysterious Lantern Club has invited you, your fellow investigators, and several social elites to an exquisite party at their lavish Kingsport manor. The main attraction of this party is a renowned relic known as the Jewel of Sarnath, said to turn dreams into reality (and bring nightmares to life). You are tasked by a client to acquire this powerful artifact and thwart the Lantern Club’s treacherous scheme. As for who that client is, well…that’s where things get interesting.
At the very beginning of the scenario, you will align with one of five factions of your choice: The Foundation (The Midwinter Gala, 15a), Miskatonic University (The Midwinter Gala, 21a). The Syndicate (The Midwinter Gala, 27a), the Silver Twilight Lodge (The Midwinter Gala, 33a), or the Locals of Kingsport (The Midwinter Gala, 39a). This decision greatly shapes how the rest of the scenario will look for you, determining not only your objective but also which Guest allies you’ll have access to during the events of the gala. For example, if you ally with Miskatonic University, you could recruit the medical examiner Dr. Mya Badry (The Midwinter Gala, 23) or the faculty curator Lucas Tetlow (The Midwinter Gala, 24) to aid you during the scenario. Likewise, if you chose the Silver Twilight Lodge, then you could gain the assistance of Lodge members like Prudence Douglas (The Midwinter Gala, 35) or Sarah Van Shaw (The Midwinter Gala, 36). If you’re playing The Midwinter Gala as a side-story in a larger campaign, then you may even get to add one of these allies to your deck for the rest of the campaign—assuming you survive the night.
Not everyone you encounter during this party is friendly, though. After you choose which of the five factions is your “allied” faction, one of the remaining factions then becomes your “rival.” Each faction has a Leader character that can provide lots of assistance when they’re your ally, but they can also seriously hinder you as your rival. For example, the infamous Carl Sanford (The Midwinter Gala, 34a) can boost your willpower and grant you an additional arcane slot when you ally with the Silver Twilight Lodge; however, if the Lodge is your rival faction, then Sanford (The Midwinter Gala, 34b) can actually lower your willpower while being completely immune to damage. Naturally, the Guest allies associated with your rival faction are off-limits, and to top it all off, each faction has its own signature Rival encounter card to hinder your efforts further.
Since your rivals aren’t really your enemies (not in the traditional sense, at least), you’ll need to find a way to deal with them so you can focus on completing your objectives. For example, if the Locals of Kingsport (The Midwinter Gala, 39b) are your rivals, then you’ll need to parley with their leader, William Bain (The Midwinter Gala, 40b) and convince him that you aren’t affiliated with the Lantern Club. Do so, and he’ll back off, taking the Unlucky (The Midwinter Gala, 44) treachery with him; which, considering how rough that treachery can be, is well worth the effort!
Naturally, the people at the gala aren’t the only beings you’ll encounter. This wouldn’t be an Arkham Horror scenario without some monsters, and The Midwinter Gala’s baddest beast comes in the form of The Bloodless Man (The Midwinter Gala, 45a). This masked lurker creeps his way around the gala with an eerie Pale Lantern (The Midwinter Gala, 46a) in hand, slowly horrifying you and causing your Guest allies to become “spellbound.” When this happens, the spellbound card is flipped facedown, becoming isolated from nearly all game effects and no longer providing you with any assistance. You can restore spellbound allies by taking hold of the Lantern (The Midwinter Gala, 46b) yourself, but you’ll have to wrest it from the Bloodless Man’s grasp. Just be careful not to anger him too much…
Best Guests
We mentioned earlier that this scenario can be played “semi-competitively,” and that is thanks to the optional “Best Guests” variant rules! For a more challenging and thematic experience, this variant allows up to five groups of players to play the scenario simultaneously in Standalone Mode and compete against each other for the highest score. Each group allies with a different faction, and their rival faction is always one of the other groups’ allied factions. For example, if there are three groups and Group A is allied with the Foundation, Group B with the Syndicate, and Group C with the Silver Twilight Lodge, then Group A’s rival could be the Syndicate, Group B’s could be the Lodge, and Group C’s could be the Foundation.
During the game, the players of your rival group can fiddle with your encounter deck each time the agenda advances, potentially stacking it with their faction-specific encounter cards to hinder your efforts. Aside from that, the main source of competition comes in the form of end-of-game scoring. During the scenario, there are all sorts of various tasks your group can try to complete for points. These range from collecting clues to recruiting Guest allies to defeating the Bloodless Man, and they’re worth pursuing even if you aren’t playing the Best Guests variant. The amount of experience you earn for completing the scenario scales to the number of points you earned while playing it, so make sure to be on your best behavior while attending this esteemed event!
