The Forgotten Age Review
The sun sinks below the trees, but the noise of the jungle only grows louder. You’re not new to this. You’ve seen things others wouldn’t believe. But that doesn’t mean you’re ready.
The Forgotten Age is… not the latest cycle of the Arkham Horror Card Game. It appears I’ve been lost in the jungle a bit too long on this one! But please, allow me to relay my findings.
The Forgotten Age presents a research expedition into the unexplored western jungles of Mexico. Word is, an ancient civilisation made its home there. You may not be expecting, however, just how old that means… although this is Arkham Horror so you probably do.
Both scenarios in this set make heavy use of the new Exploration mechanic. First searching the jungle for the ruins of these Eztli people, and then exploring the ruins themselves. This sees most of the scenario’s location cards being mixed with a few encounter cards to form a new Exploration deck. A new action allows you to draw a card from this, potentially putting new locations in play, or forcing you to deal with even more encounter cards in a turn. The level is therefore slowly revealed as you play, feeling even more like a journey into the unknown.
Better yet, revealing a location causes you to move to it immediately, but the normal location movement rules apply, potentially seeing you unable to go back. This may sound bizarre but it perfectly captures the feeling of being lost and disorientated, thrown off course by flights from foes, or lost in the twisting maze of an ancient temple. Without a doubt, this set leans heavily into the Indiana Jones end of the pulp genre, albeit with a healthy dose of monsters.
Other new tweaks to the game include Supplies which are simple system to make you feel like an idiot. At the start of the campaign you’ll get to grab a certain set of special supplies to take with you into the jungle. A few home comforts like FOOD and Medicine, perhaps something useful like a rope or a map. Or maybe some… chalk? Or a Pendant the game literally tells you is pointless. This weighty decision ultimately proves to be (spoilers) a random way of doling out bonuses or punishments in the upcoming scenarios. Not the most exciting addition to the game.
Alert enemies now prowl the halls. Yes, that’s right, those other monsters were incompetent by the standards of these beasties. Such creatures smack you in the face if you fail an evade check, making this campaign a potentially brutal affair. You may also have new Seal abilities. Oh and Vengeance! Don’t, don’t worry about vengeance I’m sure it’ll all be just fine!
So far The Forgotten Age has a couple of weak points and isn’t as immediately astonishing as The Path to Carcosa, but that’s a little like being not-the-best Beethoven symphony. That Exploration deck works wonders and there are some excellent moments in this set. Expect a brutal journey. But one that has started strong.
Rating: Unforgettable
Investigators
The Forgotten Age adds some very jungle-exploration appropriate heroes, and also Father Mateo and Calvin Wright. Leo, as expedition leader is a man obsessed with friends and, with a face like that, who can blame him. But only non-specific, easily sacrificed friends. He’s a character that resolutely benefits from added Charisma to build up his expedition, and any resource gathering cards you can find to fit in those damn expensive allies. Of note, he has a hilariously low agility stat (he’s getting too old for this sh*t) so expect to stubbornly pound on enemies until they are dealt with (or someone helps!)
Ursula Downs is Leo’s diametric opposite, a fast footed, zilch combat, clue-hoarder, as befits her seeker type. Getting bonus investigate actions as she moves is fantastic, as is any extra-action type ability! Much like Finn Edwards, who gets a free evade each turn. In fact, Finn and Ursula both sit comfortable in the clue gathering roles, even if Finn doesn’t seem to be the most mentally resilient of fellows. I doubt you’d take both of these characters together. With Finn, you’re certainly going to need some carefully selected damage mitigation cards!
Then we come to the good Father. Mateo is a bit of a weak Mystic, missing the heads 5 of other mystics and with a cripplingly brutal weakness. His personal card seals away the elder sign which, gives him an option to release it when he needs it most but… what about everyone else? Interestingly, he receives 5 XP at the start of the campaign, which is a pretty neat boost to his starting set up but, does that make up for the bad points? I’m not sure it does.
Now, I complained about missing one point of heads so, Calvin, what have you got to say for yourself? Zero stats is… interesting! Needless to say he is going to be horrendously hopeless at the start of the campaign, but what an opportunity for character growth! For each trauma he takes, the related stats (physical/mental) go up by one. And this is a campaign that leads heavily into dealing out trauma, so maybe this could work? Well, perhaps if his health were higher! But it’ll take so long to reach a point at which he’ll be passable that it seems a fairly terrible pick. Unless you’re finding Arkham too easy or something.
Weaknesses
The weaknesses in this set deserve a section of their own! Ho, boy, what an interesting twist. It adds a set of 5 cards, but these exist in conjunction with one another, in two ‘weakness chains’ as it were. Dark Pact demands you harm another player. Nasty! But failing to perform that betrayal is even worse! You replace it in your deck with The Price of Failure, doing a brutal piece of damage to yourself and, if drawn at the wrong time, a massively negative effect on the scenario too. What a choice it forces you into.
Doomed is even worse. There’s no choice to make. It’s inevitable. And it is terrifying! A magnificent piece of thematic design. Revealing Doomed just does a tiny bit of horror damage, and forces you to make a note. The second time, it gets swapped out for Accursed Fate. This works in the same way, with more damage! But when that gets swapped out, The Bell Tolls comes in. And then you are truly facing the end. If drawn, your investigator is immediately killed! WUUUT! Good luck friends.
Player Cards
Guardian
The Guardian’s are packing a solid, albeit not wildly amazing, set of cards. Two are upgrades, attaching to other assets to make them better. Reliable makes an Item just better, for a mere 1 resource too. That’s a nice reward and sure to go down nicely on your weapon of choice. Trusted improves one of your allies, which is how I think trust works in real life too. However, trust is apparently not that good unless you’re running an ally heavy deck (like, say, with Leo?) and I’m not sure that’s a message I like 🙁 Venturer is great (though not really someone you need to trust) as they’ll keep your super tooled up weapons stocked with ammo! Why am I singing the phrase ‘Lightning Gun’ over and over in my head? Finally, the Survival Knife is the innocuous surprise, which is also what the attacking monster will think!
Seeker
Apparently the entire Seeker collection this pack is focussed on Dr. Elli Horowitz, so I’ll start with her shall I? She is a Relic carrier. It seems a little disappointing to treat an experienced museum curator as a glorified pack horse, but hey ho. She’ll also dig that relic out of your collection and bring it into play so I’m not going to complain too much. Why not use her to bring in the new Tooth of Eztli? Because it only works on skill test Treachery cards and you just don’t draw that many? Hmmm. Maybe, you grab Ancient Stone instead? This follows the traditional Seeker model of the “research to upgrade” card, so I have no doubt there will be more interesting Ancient Stones in future Forgotten Age decks. This one is quite a bit easier to resolve than the Strange Solution or Archaic Glyphs of previous sets, but costs an experience to get. Finally, we can casually Unearth the Ancients, bringing in a lovely expensive card using your Seeker’s finest skill! Or, perhaps even more excitingly, comboing it with all those cards that trigger off successful activations.
Rogue
The Forgotten Age offers you the Treasure Hunter, a spectacularly terrible ally whose only possible purpose is to absorb a particularly brutal attack of opportunity when you have a really important investigate to make. Oh God I just noticed he requires a bleeding experience too! Apparently the theme of this set’s Rogue cards is trolling your own team. “You handle this one!” you say as you pass one of your friend’s your encounter card for the round. Though potentially handy for those explore actions. Decorated Skull lets you enjoy the sweet phrase, “Sorry you died, but, at least I get a card and a resource!” This is a neat card, especially in high player count games. Finally, you can Eavesdrop, listening in to an enemy’s conversation to discover clues which, I’m not going to lie, is probably going to seem a little weird given some of the enemies in this game!
Mystics
The Mystics get a whole new mechanic to play with this campaign: Seal. The Chthonian Stone and Protective Incantation allow players to lock certain chaos tokens to these cards, taking them out of the game until those cards are lost. Needless to say, these are pretty awesome for the group! The Chthonian Stone in particular is almost essential, but the cost and arcane slot of Protective Incantation is a bit steep. Unless you’re Daisy Walker that is. Mists of R’lyeh is a nice way to get around those troublesome monsters. Finally, Dark Prophecy is… weird. Could be nice early in the game if those special tokens are at 0 or a low negative, perhaps you’re comboing the chaos token off another card. All are options, none are guarantees.
Survivor
Apparently, the art direction decided tentacles is the way to go! Both Last Chance and Dumb Luck are nice, thematic cards. Last Chance gets super good if it’s the last card in your hand when played, Dumb Luck lets you escape a monster, putting it back on top of the encounter deck, and potentially letting someone more capable of dealing with it draw it next turn! Improvised Weapon sits uncomfortably in a desperate backup slot but when short of a single combat wound, and its flexibility in your discard pile, it could be interesting. Yaotl is a fascinating fellow! Offering you skill tokens from already discarded cards is nice! And you can discard cards off the top of your deck which, if coupled with something to let you see what’s coming, could be a spectacular way of dodging weaknesses. Which in this cycle could be very useful! Sadly, as an ally, he has some stiff competition for spaces.
Oh! And before I forget. The humble backpack, neatly extending your hand for items or supplies and cycling your deck a touch faster. Not bad at all for two resources. You wouldn’t want to head into the jungle without a backpack after all.
Spoilers
Wild Thing
The Untamed Wilds sees you striking out into the jungle to search for the lost ruins of Estli, sure to be full of ancient arts and crafts projects at reasonable prices. Yes, that was an Etsy joke. This case mostly serves as a showcase for this cycle’s exploration mechanic which, as I’ve said before, does an excellent job and feels very different to what has come previously.
We also meet two important characters. Alejandro Vela who set this whole expedition in motion and the strangely knowledgeable Aztec warrior Ichtaca. More importantly, it is the relationship between the two that is interesting: Act 2 forces you to make a choice between Alejandro’s distrust of Ichtaca and a more peaceful conciliatory path, that ultimately turns him against you.
Perhaps Alejandro’s actions are just natural reactions from a man highly invested in the outcome of this expedition? After all, he’ll join you as an ally if you support him. Might there be something more to it though? Given what is found when you finally reach Eztli, it is far from unlikely he knew more than he was letting on… or perhaps too many games of Arkham Horror have made me paranoid. I’ll have to wait and see down the line…
Adding to your paranoia will be the vengeance mechanic, a new number to track that are collected much like victory points. Certain defeated enemies and cleared locations will be added to the vengeance like! This, as you might guess, is NOT GOOD. But just how not good will remain a mystery for now. The important thing is that each is converted into a tally in the uncomfortably named Yig’s Fury box. Yeah… that’s definitely not going to be a problem.
Snake people. Why did it have to be snake people?
Oh no wait, you can lose the campaign on scenario two! That’s an unexpected twist. You’ll have the degree of fury from ol’ Yig to thank for that! Clearly this set is pushing the difficulty up a notch. Just the idea of trying to keep certain enemies alive is enough to make me feel uncomfortable and just wait till they combine Vengeance with Alert or Hunter. No, that would be cruel, they wouldn’t do something like that wou-
Oh boy. If there’s one card that I’m guessing sums up The Forgotten Age cycle, it’s that. The one bit of good news is you can make it run away, the bad news is it will be back again in future scenarios…
The Doom of Eztli
Turns out, old snake boi up there is the least of your problems! Despite the agendas having a surprisingly generous (and player dependent) threshold, the ‘doom’ of Eztli is quite literal. Many of the locations in this temple have side-effects resulting in more and more doom being added to the location. This combos lovingly with the scenario’s chaos tokens. But by and large these doom tokens can be worked around with clever play and a little good fortune. Which makes it a fair if potentially swing scenario.
Your goal is to reach the Chamber of Time at the centre of the temple and retrieve an object of unimaginable value. Once again we have an exploration deck and, again, it is a nice thematic touch. But reaching the centre reveals a truly spectacular twist: the pyramid rearranges itself into the longest possible path to the exit, will you have time to escape?
Clearly this temple was not simply built by the Aztecs. But should you fail you’ll be presented with a truly interesting choice: destroy the temple, or reset the scenario and try again, as though trapped in some groundhog day like time loop. The influence of the device in the Chamber of Time is certainly not one that can be ignored. Of course, you’ll only make it that far if you haven’t angered Yig too greatly. Otherwise all defeated investigators are killed outright.
One way or another, that object is ending up in Alejandro’s hands and the expedition will return to Arkham. Unsurprisingly this is not the end of your adventure. A knock on the door heralds an unexpected guest and a warning. We must undo what has been done, or everything, reality itself, will unravel.
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