Flight over Fight Part Two: Agility and Avoiding the Problem in Solo

Spoiler warning: In this three part article (Part One, Interlude, and Part Two), I raise a number of cards from the Dunwich Legacy and Path to Carcosa encounter sets, discuss all unique enemies up to Pallid Mask (scenario 6 of Path to Carcosa), and discuss the Night of the Zealot in detail. 

Introduction

This is Part Two of my look at the power of agility/evasion in solo. Part One examined some of the faults of combat in solo, that is, its over reliance on player cards and the resulting tempo loss as, without said player cards, it is action and resource intensive. The Interlude looked at some of the ways Night of the Zealot may cast an unfavourable light on agility/evasion, and how The Dunwich Legacy and Path to Carcosa have differed. If you made it this far you’re either curious to know more or sharpening your Internet pitchforks, so let’s finally talk agility. As a reminder, I am considering the investigators who are most able to go an agility route, that is Wendy, Skids, Sefina, Jenny, and “Aschan” Pete.

1. Agility as a Solution to Enemies

Where combat requires multiple actions or action compression from player cards to deal with enemies, agility is always a one (successful) action solution. Once an enemy is evaded, it is rendered harmless until the next round after it readies during the Upkeep Phase; if you can move to a different location before that point, then the enemy is dealt with. Sounds great, but in multiplayer this often isn’t practical. If the team splits up, agility merely creates “no man zones” that impede movement. Worse still, this may not even be possible; due to the increased clue count, players are often required to camp at particular locations for extended lengths of time. Add on top a doubled, tripled, or quadrupled number of encounter cards drawn every turn, there will be so many enemies popping off the deck that evasion quickly becomes a temporary solution at best.

Get ready to see a lot of these…

All of the above is rendered moot in solo. The norm, particularly since Dunwich and continued in Carcosa, is large sprawling maps of 1 clue locations; very often a players 3 action turn will look like [something else]+[move]+[investigate]. Furthermore, because there is only one player, the player can often play a long game of snake (or Fury of Dracula) and avoid backtracking or revisiting locations. When the solo investigator does encounter an enemy, that [something else] action can very easily be an Evade. Even better, if you’re packing Cat Burglar then you can try to end your turn on a clueless location and, in the event you draw an enemy, you can simply Cat Burglar away.

Speaking of the Cat Burglar, he is an incredible ally for solo. Why is he better than playing a Machete? Simple: he facilitates something we have to do (move) by avoiding something we do not need to do (fight/evade). He also helps other cards like Lockpicks(1), Backstab, any agility treacheries, and of course acts as a helpful damage/horror soak (as most allies do). So take that Beat Cop(2), because this is one Cat Burglar that you’re not going to catch. Small maps of course hurt him (and evasion in general), but these are becoming increasingly less common.

Drawing an enemy? Like that will ever happen…

That brings me to the odds of drawing an enemy in solo: they aren’t very high, relatively speaking. The below chart displays the odds of drawing one or more enemies by X round in several scenarios (I chose ones I believed are enemy heavy), as well as demarcating hunter enemies. These numbers do not include enemies a scenario spawns through its own effects, or Surge effects.

Scenario	Type	Round
		2	3	4	5	6
The Gathering	Enemies	34.62%	58.15%	73.85%	84.08%	90.59%
	Hunters	11.54%	22.15%	31.88%	40.77%	48.85%
Extracurricular Activities	Enemies	28.13%	48.99%	64.29%	75.38%	83.29%
	Hunters	12.50%	23.79%	33.95%	43.06%	51.20%
Where Doom Awaits	Enemies	25.00%	44.19%	58.80%	69.86%	78.15%
	Hunters	9.09%	17.55%	25.40%	32.68%	39.41%
Curtain Call	Enemies	28.13%	48.99%	64.29%	75.38%	83.29%
	Hunters	12.50%	23.79%	33.95%	43.06%	51.20%
Phantom of Truth	Enemies	–	–	–	–	–
	Hunters	17.14%	31.76%	44.17%	54.64%	63.42%
Pallid Mask	Enemies	33.33%	56.32%	71.92%	82.32%	89.12%
	Hunters	6.67%	13.10%	19.31%	25.29%	31.03%

Play your cards right, and these guys & gals will whiff every time

The odds may look a little high at first but you have to take into account a few things. First, a scenario often resets the encounter deck (ie “shuffle the encounter discard pile into the encounter deck”) thereby returning our odds to “Round 2”.  More importantly, the “evade and move on” strategy ensures that enemy will never be drawn again. If an enemy is defeated, it goes to the discard pile where it may eventually be shuffled back into the encounter deck and drawn again; suddenly, combat itself starts looking like a temporary solution. Evasion, meanwhile, can essentially remove the encounter card from the game. That is an extraordinarily powerful effect, and for enemy wary characters it has the additional benefit of reducing the ratio of enemies in the encounter deck.

Second, the odds are for drawing at least 1 enemy by X round, not drawing an enemy on X round; chances are you will realistically see 1-2 enemies over the course of a scenario. Third, enemies frequently have Spawn instructions where they can be put out of harms way. The Thrall’s for example spawn at the location with the most clues; if we can ensure no locations have clues then we can plop it down in a harmless, out of the way location. How do we do that? By ensuring to the best of our abilities we always end our turn at a clueless location. We should be doing that anyway to avoid other encounter cards like Obscuring Fog and Locked Door. Powerful tools like Lockpicks(1) can go a long way to virtually guarantee 1 clue per round.

Third and finally, in The Gathering and Curtain Call, most/all of the Hunters are Swarm of Rats (ha!); even if you’re Wendy, pack a Gravedigger’s Shovel for Scenario 1 and swap it out afterwards.

Enemies On the Hunt

Then, there are Hunter enemies. Hunter enemies are pests and may seem daunting at first but a few factors mitigate their threat. First, if we evade them, we have one partial turn to get a head start to leave them in our dust. Second, as long as we can stay one clue location ahead of them, they will never take a swipe at us. Third, even if they do, we have to ask ourselves: are we spending more actions and resources evading the Hunter than we would fighting them? If the answer is no, then evasion is at least net neutral tempo-wise. Fourth, this is why you pack some combat tricks. In solo Wendy, for example, I rely on Backstab (3 health Hunters) and add Lantern (4 health Hunters). In any event, with the possible exception of Phantom of Truth (in which case you are spending more time running away anyway), the odds of drawing a string of Hunters are slim.

For what it’s worth, my experience is: it depends; sometimes I draw a Hunter enemy and I can safely ignore it (even if I drew it early), other times I wish I had  a Lightning Gun(5) to zap the critter.

Doom, Doom, Doom

Enter a caption

Another perceived foible to evasion is doom enemies, most commonly from the Dark Cult encounter set. After making a big splash in Night of the Zealot they have been seen all but three times since: Essex County Express, Echoes of the Past, and Black Star Rises; that’s far from a regular occurrence, and while they may not be the only offenders the others are far less pervasive. Even within the encounter deck, if you recall the above odds on drawing enemies they are an infrequent encounter at best.

As for the effect itself, while losing rounds is unfortunate, dealing with them necessarily invokes a tempo hit. If they are placed somewhere we don’t need to go, killing them will at minimum take 3 actions (i.e. lose 1 round, sound familiar?), otherwise minimum 1 action. In solo, the net return on our tempo isn’t great and may involve some risk (failure, revealing bad stuff tokens, etc) or expending resources. Even in the unfortunate event that we draw a nasty enemy like Wizard of the Order we can hopefully blitz our way to the end (or Resign). If not, that’s why we pack a few combat tricks. Again, however, the odds of drawing them are quite low, and even Wizard of the Order is a 1 of in a 30+ card deck whose power declines the later he is drawn; in solo, drawing him early is a corner case problem, and those aren’t the problems that should define our deck building strategy.

2. Starting Off on the Right Foot

An enemy will spawn eventually, but we can reduce the number of chances the encounter deck gets to spawn an enemy by progressing through the scenario as quickly as possible. In Part One I discussed how combat will in some way invoke a tempo hit. Agility is the exact opposite. Where combat usually necessitates proactive measures (finding and playing cards), agility focused characters enter play with (almost) everything they need: their raw stat. If the investigator needs further support, that support can be found in either (a) a permanent, a card that starts (and cannot leave) play, and (b) skill icons from player cards, something that won’t be hard to find in their hand. For Rogues, Streetwise is particularly powerful given that it boosts both intellect (to gobble clues) and agility (to deal with enemies); it is arguably the most powerful solo permanent in the game.
 In short, agility investigators start with everything they need. Consequently, when we are considering what to mulligan for or what cards to play in round 1, we can turn to our immediate needs. Wendy in the Last King, for example, can be content with finding just her Fine Clothes whereas Roland needs to find a Machete in case a Lunatic (or Cockroach) shows up.

When an enemy does show up, Roland may have to take 2+ attempts to defeat it. Wendy, meanwhile, will always only need to take 1+ attempts; only one success is required to move on. For players tackling Hard/Expert this is particularly important; you want to minimize the number of tests you have to take to avoid revealing an additional [bad stuff] token.

3. Killing In The Name

Obviously, an enemy is bound to show up at some point; while it is entirely probable that you can sneak through the entire scenario without even drawing an enemy, you will more realistically draw 1-2 on top of scenario enemies. With some very narrow exceptions, killing is never necessary but it can sometimes nevertheless be preferable: Hunters, quasi-boss enemies, and XP enemies. I covered hunter enemies earlier, and I covered the gauntlet of quasi-bosses during the interlude… so that leaves us with XP enemies.

Experience Required?

Remember that XP aren’t the norm. Yes, they exist, but beyond enemies who you know will emerge, the odds of drawing an XP enemy are very small. In Extracurricular Activities, for example, a scenario that features a whopping three XP enemies, they only makes up 9.38% of the encounter deck. More likely than not, those XP enemies are going to be somewhere in the 4/5 of the encounter deck you never see. That’s not the kind of odds you should be relying upon when deciding how you will fundamentally deal with a core element of the game.

For when something just must die…

With that in mind, I am not arguing that there will not be times where it is preferable to kill an enemy. What I am positing, rather, is that the times that call for monster murder in solo are infrequent at best. For those rare times combat is preferential, our one shot cards are more than sufficient. This does require you to manage these “resources”; you should be saving your Backstab for the Ghoul Priest and not blowing it on a Ravenous Ghoul, for example. For someone like Skids or Jenny who are more natural combatants a Switchblade(2) likewise can still be put to great use, but you also go in knowing you’re not depending on it.

To illustrate, recently I have been taking Wendy through Path to Carcosa on Hard (to the conclusion of Black Star Rises). Thus far she has killed a whopping two enemies: a Stealthy Byakhee during Phantom of Truth (killed by Backstab), and a Swarm of Rats, felled by my Gravedigger’s Shovel during Curtain Call. With the exception of Curtain Call when I equipped a Gravedigger’s Shovel to (a) kill Rats, and (b) grab a clue, my only offence has been Backstab. The rest? Evaded, left in my dust. My experience taking Skids through Path to Carcosa was similar, though he is obviously more able to take on combat when the time comes.

But what about when things go wrong?

What about when a scenario doesn’t have a normal pace? What happens when the encounter deck wills you to lose and spawns 3 enemies on top of you? What you going to do now, agility man? Well, not a lot. I can’t argue that if you get swarmed by enemies there is a very real chance you’re going to die; very few things will get you out of that hole, and those are the times that you wish you were chopping away with a Machete. This is particularly the case where you have to be at that key location to advance (or conclude) the scenario and you can’t just sneak away. However, I think the odds of that not happening are in your favour. Certainly, with cards like Cat Burglar, Elusive, and Survival Instinct, evasion heavy characters have a better chance of escaping than, oh, say, a Mystic heavy Agnes Baker.

Conclusion

And so we reach the end. What I’ve tried to argue in this two part article is that despite its reputation, agility/evasion is an extremely powerful stat in solo play and is at least on par with combat as a solution to enemies. This is not to say combat is awful, but it does have some failings and it’s not the only tool in our arsenal; as an aside, for those few investigators who can leverage combat by turning into something else (i.e. Roland Banks and Zoey Samaras), combat has some significant upsides. The benefits otherwise, however, are often mediocre and when those benefits require a not insignificant investment (i.e. playing Weapons/Spells in advance, additional actions spent, etc), you run the risk of being at a net tempo loss. Evasion allows us to bypass that investment entirely and focus on what often matters: getting clues and advancing the Act deck.