Agnes Baker (w Roland): Core Hard playthrough --- Beat Umord

This deck should be played with Roland. It relies on his first aid rather than using Fearless and it only has one "Look what I found!" and no #perception on the assumption that Roland will be picking up several clues himself.

Most important thing to try to draw is Arcane Initiate, also like to get one of the supply-providing cards.

First Scenario: got quick "Look what I found!" but then spent several turns in act 2, eventually got Drawn to the Flame to combine with several clues from Roland.

Then, right before advancing to act 3, Roland got stupid Cover Up, argh!!

Final battle with Ghoul Priest---killed in one turn: I use Shrivelling twice plus 1 point of damage from special ability.

Roland pulls the ghoul into the cellar where an Icy Ghoul is sitting. Guard dog takes 1 damage, so assigns one to priest, casts dynamite, two attacks of opportunity, dog does one damage to each and takes one of the horrors. Dynamite finishes both off, letting Roland nab his final clue to remove Cover Up

For second scenario I decide I need more clue gathering, so I switch out one Leather Coat for another "Look what I found!". I also pick up a Grotesque Statue, switching out a Scavenging. We do the masks, and things go okay for a bit. We grabbed the guy who spawns in the graveyard plus the masked guy who jumps out after act 1. We also pulled wolfman. I use scrying and know Dark Memory is coming up, and I cannot afford to play her because we are pushing right up against the ceiling of the doom counter for act 2. (I don't know what happens at midnight, but figure it is really bad.)

I happen to be at miskatonic so I opt to take a turn to look at the top 6 of my cards hoping that one of them is a spell other than Dark Memory, which would let me shuffle the weakness back into my deck. No such luck, so instead I have to draw it. Cannot afford to play it, so I'm just going to have to eat 2 horror a round. Roland kills an acolyte, removing one doom and giving us one more round, meaning we will have 2 rounds as long as I keep Dark Memory in my hand. From Miskatonic I take two moves to get to downtown where the wolfman appears, I use my grotestque statue to hit him with shriveling... and amazingly get the one draw that fails: Cthulu (instant fail) and the green hoodie, which I cannot accept because then the doom advances on the next round and I have no turn to survive, so instead I opt for autofail Cthulu, take the damage from wolfman.

Last turn, I do two Shrivelling to kill wolfman and Resign. Roland Resigns. Final score is 4 victory points, 3 cultists.

Final scenario: I use my remaining xp to upgrade my two Blinding Light and pull in Aquinnah. Afterward I decided this was poor choice. Better to have gotten a second Grotesque Statue.

Note: we horrifically failed the 3rd scenario the first time when I advanced the act deck when Roland was vulnerable in the main path, and all 3 cultists jumped him. Nearly had to sleep in the car that night :).

We replayed the next night:

Got really crappy forest layout: With Quiet Glade and Cursed Ground (or whatever it is called), it became quite difficult to find clues. Then Roland got hit with Amnesia (as the additional madness at the end of Agenda 2) right when he had a full hand, including Lita Chantler and Extra Ammunition... his gun had just ran out of ammo and he was about to face one of the 4/4 creatures. I swoop in to engage the creature to give him a breather between my special ability and the beat cop we manage to kill him plus another 4/4 that swooped in immediately after him.

So... we never got the clues before Umordhoth appeared. We were in the quiet glade and decided to adopt a strategy of taking turns being engaged with Umordhoth so he would not attack both of us at once. Unfortunately, I did not have my grotesque statues, but I did have a hand full of cards, 12 resources, and Blinding Light in my had and Shrivelling on the ground.

I use one move to go to the main path. Use Shrivelling twice, have to use Lucky! on the first one because I got the broken tablet icon. Umordhoth's turn, hits me for 3, I let Leather Coat and Arcane Initiate soak up all but one horror, which I take myself, and do one more damage to Umordhoth by virtue of my special ability. [5 total at this point]. Then Roland comes in on the next turn and hits Umordhoth twice for 2 points a pop. [9 total at this point]. On my turn I Shrivelling once and then use my upgraded Blinding Light for 2 more [13 total]. I realize at this piont that I could have just drawn a card, taken an attack of opportunity in order to take horror and do the final necessary damage... but I didn't think of that until after using my final turn to run back to the glade.

Next turn Roland finishes Umordhoth off.