78% success chance, fail 8 times out of 9. Classic FL right there.
How are you even supposed to scrape 5 preparations together without running out of time before you finish the actual poisoning?
I have mixed feelings about this experience.
God knows. RNG seems to decide whether you even pull the prep cards you need, and the Queen of Loins (har-har) is the only deck-clearer, while all her other choices are just a bit useless later on in the match if you don’t have the monstrously high Toxicology to tank through. I will say, I love the premise. And it isn’t a complete action sink with the rewards.
BUT I’ll have to be spending my weekend’s actions scrounging some extra shadowy together for another 2 or 5% on Spines so I don’t ACTUALLY murder someone over my luck.
SeVenTy-eIghT PerCent! SevEntTy-eiGht pErcenT!
I’ve played this game for long enough. I should know better by now.
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So far I’ve had success with a few different strategies. I have +9 KT so my first run was KT-focused since those came up - I had, I think Roots, Talons and Loins. My strategy was to get Preparations 6 times to get up to 3 one CP at a time, then use the roots/talons cards to cash out. Before the rebalance, these KT checks were at 70% for me; I barely scrounged out a few wins and had a loss, but could have easily had all losses if 1-2 more of those 70% checks or card draws had gone against me each time. After the rebalance they were at 90% for me and I finished up the run with a win.
My second approach was to focus on Shadowy and big preparations. I had Livers, Spines and teeth. My strategy was to use one action for single-CP prep, then use Livers’ 2-prep card as often as possible to get my Prep up to 4 (allowing one more one-CP prep action). Once I was at 2 prep I would play the cash-out options that required 2 prep over the ones that gave one CP of prep; if I had good draws, I would draw Livers a few times early and then win big with Spines; mediocre draws would have me getting up to 3 prep and then playing Six of Spines; bad draws would leave me stuck at 2 prep, but even those I would squeak out by playing Nine of Livers and ten of teeth. For these runs I had 90% success with shadowy checks and 82% with dangerous checks.
Now I’m trying a “no skills and no prep” run and, so far, it seems to be working. I picked up Loins, Roots, and Teeth; my strategy is not to do ANY prep, and always pick the options that give the most progress, right off the bat. It seems to be playable - I got two wins with it so far. My strategy is that early on, I pick the options that give progress but do not give Elusiveness. Then, once all actions give elusiveness, go to the ones that are slightly better but always give elusiveness. Finally, finish with the Roots cards that give progress regardless of Elusiveness. I think I can do the whole thing with no stat checks. I’ve played two run with this setup and won them, so I think this game IS winnable with no stats with the right cards. This strategy, I think, very much relies on getting ahead early and fast, and then has to limp over the finish line with Roots cards. Loins can help cycle the deck though.
Will report back if I successfully get to 7/10 wins with that strategy.
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That’s why I think the King of Tallow is a trap. You think its going to get you a ton of progress, but all that prep needed pretty much requires you to have the Knight of Livers for his advanced action that gives 2 CP instead of everyone else’s actions that just gives 1. Even with Livers, I don’t think you’d be able to catch up to all the elusiveness gained while wasting actions on prep unless you got lucky.
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The only thing I’ve concluded with any definiteness so far is that the actions that check KT give MUCH more progress if you manage to succeed with them.
Not doing too well-- a change in accomplices has meant mostly losing by one or two CP than the 9 or 10 I was before-- but I’ve managed to win a few rounds by now.
I did manage, in the last run, to get both Progress and Elusiveness to hit 8 at the same time-- at least for me, and presumably (hopefully) everyone else, Progress took precedence and it gave me the win.
Anyone with “King” in their title is a trap, based on my experimentation. My first winning team is Queen of Loins/Page of Roofs/some other bugger I don’t remember.
It’s certainly challenging, but I’ve come away with a couple of precepts: Any progress is better than none, cards that need few preps are always better than cards that need many preps, however it’s a good idea to build preps in the first 2-3 cards so that when Elusiveness starts hampering quickfire characters you can use the prep options to keep you ahead of the competition.
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Tallow really does seem like a “trap” (alternative framing: poorly designed), but I’m having fairly solid success so far with a combo of spines, livers and roots. Early into the run still, but 2-0 so far even when I forgot to equip my intended outfit.
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Agreed. I butchered my first run specifically because I didn’t notice the outfit locking, but with everything put into Kataleptic Toxicology I’m clearing checks pretty well, and the alarming speed of Evasiveness becomes less of a hopeless scramble and more of a pleasant gamble. As it stands though, the main problem is if you let your opponent get ahead of you enough to up their Elusiveness that much the risk of being overtaken far outweighs the reward of a sudden turnaround. Especially since you’re always at the mercy of the deck’s RNG.
Yeah, playing with Tallow it always felt like the challenge was less in clearing the KT checks and more in unlocking them in the first place at a rate that doesn’t put you hopelessly too far behind before you even start dealing damage.
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Okay I won a run, and got a trophy.
I was actually surprised that I won 7 rounds in a row, with no losses at all.
I picked the King of Spines, Knight of Livers, and Page of Roots. And had a Shadowy success rate of 96%. Given I have a Shadow of 230 + 92 (without mood).
The strategy I used was to pick first get Preparation up 3 (or 4 if I got a lot of the Livers card that gave 2 preparations). And being careful not to play any of the Root cards before reaching the point were Elusiveness is guaranteed to rise.
And then after that only using the non-KT Roots options and the expensive Spine options. Which has so far always been enough outpace or overtake the Elusiveness and win.
The trophy doesn’t do anything so far. It’s just a Curiosity item, and a quality called “Heart’s Game Trophies this Season”.
But it says that you’d get “something” at the end of the season, probably depending on how many trophies you have managed to gather this season.
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That is the exact strategy I ended up using, tried a few KT-based runs but had to give it up out of pure frustration since I had trouble drawing the exact accomplices I needed and even with 16 KT some of the checks were failing far too often. Why can’t we just spend actions on going back to the cottage and enter again allowing us to draw a new hand of accomplices instead of having to pick three, begin a round and then cancel it?
Had a few nerve wracking moments when the RNG again decided I should fail 93% Shadowy challenges but as long as you have a small head start in Progress, Page of Roots really helps keeping in one ahead or at least keeping up with Elusiveness. Straight seven in a row win, trophy gained, now to not touch this again in a good while.
Yep, that’s the exact same thing I’ve been doing too after I gave up on tallow. Seems to work pretty well, accommodating some error even.
Who do you think our targets are?
Bets on introduction of Fate accomplice?
Anyone else keeping an eye on the hidden tracker that shows how many trophies have been claimed in total? I got #188 Friday evening, and this morning we’re only at 550! So it’s still a slightly prestigious accomplishment, although I wonder how high that’ll get before the end of the season.
I think the odds are slim, because the idea of a Fate accomplice just not showing up in the draft through random luck sounds too frustrating; and the alternative, where the Fate accomplice is guaranteed to show up in the draft sounds too broken.
I’ve just managed to hit a 7 streak with “no skills no prep”. My Honest Butcher’s Tool is grateful.
Here’s hoping that Trophies don’t add up to another unique item… I just barely tied twice. Heart’s game isn’t good for my heart.
BTW, finished up my “no skills no prep” run with Loins Roots and Teeth, 7 wins out of 7 tries, rarely even came close. The strategy is that early on you play the options that say “this is affected more than usual by elusiveness” (since they’re very effective at 0 elusiveness) and then as soon as you get any elusiveness at all, switch to Roots cards. Use Loins to discard your hand when you don’t have the appropriate ones.
Here’s what I did. I chose my Shadowy outfit, modified to max out my KT (at 16, which gave me a 90% chance at success). Then I chose only Poisoner’s Preparations until I got at least 2, and after that stuck to selecting options with only KT checks to make Progress (sometimes I picked Preparations to get a chance at stronger KT cards). I was surprised that that sometimes brought me from behind the opponent’s Elusiveness for the win. Like akernis, I chose King of Spines, Knight of Livers, and Page of Roots as my companions.
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That is an interesting approach, amalgamate. I was avoiding cards of the type you describe because I didn’t’ want to give the opponent a lead on building up Elusiveness, but if the cards are as effective as you say I should give them a try. Thanks!
Livers and Spines does sound like a good combo as Spines can work with 3 or 4 prep and they both have Shadowy challenges. I’d give it a try just to see, but my Shadowy gear doesn’t help me as much as my KT gear.
My vote for MVP accomplice this season is definitely Roots. Not too much prep needed so you can get him going quick and after that, elusiveness is meaningless. Only issue is that high KT gear is hard to find unless you’re willing to pay fate.