legrac · 115
This is the Mark Harrigan deck I ended up taking though the Ironman of Carcosa at Arkham Nights 2018. For those not in the know--Arkham Nights is the yearly weekend gathering in FFG's game center, and the 'Ironman' is an unofficial event organized by the Mythos Busters. The Ironman event is where we grind all the way through a campaign in a single sitting--or at least, as far as you can get before meeting your untimely demise.
I was teamed with Rex, Calvin, and Sefina. https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/7681/harrigan-the-doomed-man-of-iron-finishes-carcosa-1.0 is how it ended after Big H died.
I played Mark over Zoe or Leo because I like drawing cards and then...well...Doomed showed up. So I modified my gameplan a bit--I didn't draw at many opportunities from my ability, and I resigned from some of the scenarios a little earlier than I would have otherwise. It all paid off in the end though, as I lived to see Hastur get killed, although I'm sure Mark ended up in that graveyard soon after. Doomed definitely put the fear in me, but it made for a memorable experience.
I won't have an exact play-by-play of the game as memory isn't a perfect thing and I wasn't quite keeping notes, but I'll have some notable plays. Obviously spoilers ahead, you've been warned.
Curtain Call We start things off with a pretty early draw of Doomed--things are not looking great for our hero to see the end of things. Aside from that, I go on a hunt for the Agent of the King for some XP before the Royal Emissary shows up. We go ahead and push for all of the xp locations we find. RNG has us down one XP location, but Sefina delves to make up the difference. We end up with 8 XP, letting me buy Stick to the Plan, Marksmanship, and Ever Vigilant. I am taking Marksmanship primarily to help with Echoes, but it comes in handy at the end for me instead. We do not go to the police because Sefina robbed the box office, but that's almost the only doubt we get today. We also had the fire version of Act 2, so two Cultists in the bag.
The Last King Nothing too notable here--we end up interviewing everyone (which is a first for me). I do my job of keeping everyone else clear of enemies, keeping an eye on things from the courtyard while my allies do the hard work. I do talk 2 clues out of people, but thanks to some timely Wards from Sefina and Calvin, we get plenty of time to talk. I also use my Teamwork to throw my money at Sefina so she can get the attention of Jordan Perry. Calvin keeps Ishimaru busy with evades as I take an early exit to avoid my fate. Sefina Delves again as she is the final one out the door, giving us a spread of 2 people with 4 xp, and 2 with 5. We also burn down the house as we leave--as we didn't actually fight anyone while there. I volunteer to take 4, as I don't want us to invest in a character who might not make it. I get two upgraded Vicious Blows to improve my ability to take down big boys.
Echoes of the Past So as I mentioned, this scenario is the primary reason I took Marksmanship--the cultists can easily get out of hand if you can't keep them down, and the action economy gain from Marksmanship'ing a Seeker of Carcosa is pretty huge. Luckily Rex is doing Rex things--so we don't have to go for long. I end up drawing my tentacle on the big Marksmanship attack so I don't prevent the agenda advancing like I wanted to--but we end up only advancing the once this scenario. On the Hunt still proves it's worth, letting me draw Seekers of Carcosa engaged with me, saving a ton of actions.
I leave two turns after the Hidden Library opens up, and I see Doomed sitting on top of my deck at the end--so it was a sound decision. Between the clean Hidden Library, another killed Agent, and another Delve, we end up with another 4 xp, giving me two upgraded automatics. Also, I take the clasp--normally I wouldn't recommend giving this to your guardian, but I'm looking to have any number of cards in my deck that aren't doomed, and I have the potential to drop it with Ever Vigilant without too much of a tax.
The Unspeakable Oath Another Marksmanship played, another tentacle drawn. Rex lays some upgraded shortcuts down early, resulting in a turn where I gather up 4 cultists of various type and move to Sefina who blows them all away. Again--I end up taking a slightly early exit for doomed reasons. We end up clearing the 3 xp locations, we save Daniel for 2 more, Sefina plays her last two Delves of the day for 2 more, and we take an oath for 1 more. I hear Paris is full of monsters, time to get a M1918 BAR and some Custom Ammunition for it.
A Phantom of Truth Before heading to Paris, we have some really bad dreams--mental trauma for everyone. Calvin seems more excited about this than anyone else. We end up having a pretty easy time at this, helped out a lot by fact that a Silver Twilight Acolyte has been following Rex, and I let him beat some doom out of me.
Somewhat appropriately, this is where my fate starts catching up with me--I draw Doomed for the second time, and my Accursed Fate becomes clear. Luckily my Venturers end up keeping my magic Bar supplied and I kill a lot of Byakhees while Sefina evades the Organist, Rex absorbs clues, and Calvin uses On Your Own to play a lot of cheap Will to Survives. Starting with a horror begins to make me feel concerned, so I buy 2 copies of Brother Xavier and an "I've had worse…" to help my ability to deal with the horror that awaits me.
The Pallid Mask We end up making two paths that never quite meet. The path below ends up being a Candlelit Tunnels next to another one (where multiple Catacombs Docent like to live and turn into 3 or 4 Corpse Dwellers over the course of our time here. The path above ends up starting with a revealed Bone-Filled Caverns into a Narrow Shaft, then a Stone Archways, the Shivering Pools, turning down into the Tomb of Shadows. Rex blazed the above path with Calvin, while Sefina and I deal with the enemies we keep finding on the lower path. Just before the Specter of Death shows up, I end up learning that my hour is nigh. Rex jumps back to me, and plays two Logical Reasonings to get me back up to snuff, and between my magick'd up 45 and Rex's Ancient Stone, we make short work of him. Meanwhile Sefina and Calvin end up pulling the Man in the Pallid Mask off of the Tomb of Shadows so they can kill him easier.
We end up making an early exit without cleaning out the pools, due to my concern about what I not wanting to reshuffle my deck and have the chance of redrawing my fate, and Calvin's approximation of death. We get a total of 4 xp, and I go ahead and get a Charisma to let me finally have two allies out at once, and 1 xp left in the bank.
Black Stars Rise Alright, the penultimate scenario. If we dodge Accursed Fate one time here, we are mostly home free. We go against the common strategy of forcing one agenda, going split. This ends up resulting in us getting a couple more doubt, but we are still heavily convicted so no issues there.
We end up advancing the first A agenda, and nearly advancing the first C agenda when we open up the Abbey Tower and learn that is not where we want to be. So we let the A agenda tick over naturally, while the clue seekers among us invoke Hastur's name a few times to let them get the clues from the Chapel. By the time we leave for Carcosa, the C agenda never advances even once. We only earn 3 more xp, but that lets me replace my last colt with the second Bar. And we get out before the second Accursed Fate draw.
Dim Carcosa We made it boys. Started with Doomed, and made it to the end of things, and we don't even have The Bell Tolls sitting in our deck yet. Rex gets ahead, and then the rest of us get stuck with several Spawn of Hali and Screeching Byakhees. I burn through an entire Bar on these guys before I ever get the chance to put my magical bullets in it. Finally getting a breather, I look for another weapon. I choose the 45 over the second bar, thinking that even the one resource difference might be a big deal. Soon after, I draw Accursed Fate for the final time, so no more deck shuffles for me. We eventually knock off the Man for the last time before he reveals his true form.
Sefina goes on Evasion duty against an elder god while Rex and Calvin flip over some locations. Rex is busy trying to finish off the clues on the Palace with the rest of us fighting on the nearby location. Sefina and Calvin beat Big H down enough to force the flip to the last Agenda, exposing Rex to a bad situation. This leads to my most memorable play, slamming some blessed bullets into my .45 Automatic, taking aim from far away, and slamming two Vicious Blows to one shot him, and I finally don't pull an auto fail on a Marksmanship play. We end up stalling out one turn to let Rex get rid of all of his possessions, and we have a full victory.
The Ironman at Arkham Nights was a great time, and I'd recommend it to anyone!