I had played this game once before but I was quite tired and my heart wasn't really in it. But I was excited to play again when I could give it my full attention. We drew Inspector Cooke, Anne Marie, Victor Danforth, and Karl and drew the vampire to play against.

The inspector's ability came in quite handy as he gained a great deal of investigation off the bat. He bought items for everyone in the group by the 8th round due to very succesful rolls. Victor got the tools of science, I was playing Anne Marie and got the book of town secrets, which is very useful for her, increasing cunning and combat while reducing cost of secrets. Victor collected investigation after unfortunate KO's in the early rounds seeking an item at the Abandoned Keep. Karl boosted his cunning at the magistrate's office.

The mystery cards were fairly uneventful, the vampire gained a wound and some bats popped up on the map. then the Succubusses... Succubi? ...came out of the woodwork. Karl finally became useful. as he had failed to collect investigation almost entirely. Karl began to take out the minions using a musket aquired from the keep while we saved up for lair cards, the shadow track had moved to 18 so they were still at 12 investigation.

In the meantime, I found all the secrets, 1 was evil, the vampire killed two, and turned one of the dead ones into a vampire elder. The vamp was up to +7 combat and 6 wounds. The elders provided some help, the lord had strength of spirit giving him +2 to combat in addition to the one provided as his ability. The judge pulled the cowardly secret card.

Karl had come up with 2 events allowing him to retrieve discarded items which came in handy since there were now 6 bats on the board taking my books away from me. The inspector came up with the lair card for the swamp which only costs 1 investigation but causes you to discard an item... "Hey Karl..." As the inspector approached the swamp, I drew a militia event and placed it on the swamp.

I thought that we would have our hands full going into the showdown. Especially after the judge immediately wet himself and took flight. But the vampire failed to hit the inspector who dealt 2 damage. Then Victor rolled 5 successes out of 5 dice that the villain did not evade and that was that.

Overall it was a fun session, but I can't help but feel the basic game is just too easy. So I look forward to playing the advanced version now that we are used to the gameplay and fully understand the rules. We did play one uneventful and entirely too easy game against the scarecrow, who we pummeled handily swiftly. So it didn't really warrant a review.

kevin