Oh, by the Feline Entity, Deno started a new campaign just now. Another one? Already?

As mentioned in an edit last time, just after I published that post I got tracking info on my SoD2 and Fade – hurray!
I also got to play some ultra-short-notice Call of Cthulhu yesterday – so its been a good week.

That is all the stuff I have to off-track me for today, so lets just get to it. In retrospect, this was one of my favorite Lantern Years by far from a storytelling perspective.
For me it will be a memorable one!

Another Lantern Year, another scrap for our returning survivors.
After collecting our 8 endeavors we drew the required random settlement event. And it was another Stranger in the Dark.
Oh! OH!
This was incredible for us!
I spent a reroll to roll a 9, which would give us 1 person and a Founding Stone! The final puzzle piece I was missing! (Or so I thought.)

Ever since we were down to 1 Founding Stone in storage I have had a plan. The Hand at Lvl3 taps into a fraction of its true strength: it has not only 30TGH but also +6DMG you see, so fighting it straight up, even on full defense seemed like a losing battle to me. (Of course a full team of Warriors of the Sun with infinite dodges would do the trick)
But if we just hit him in the groin real hard with a Founding Stone, followed by another to whatever spot came up afterwards, we should be just dandy. Whilst this would likely kill a survivor on the flipside, we might just be able to end the fight in a single round if we were able to scout the Gilded Codpiece hit location.
At 17HL cards that seemed like decent odds to me, I’d say.
Up until the settlement event I was resolved to have Phoenicia shoot the Hand for the follow up wound, but getting another Founding stone like this was just grand! This was a most auspicious time, to be sure!

As usual, we took 1 Life String to the Sauna Shrine (rolled a 5) and 2 more were made into a fresh Monster Grease for Phoenicia to re-activate the Arc Bow.
There was still 1 Life String left, together with a few other resources we could potentially work with.

I had also made up my mind to send Muzashi to try and dance the Forbidden Dance (I). It took him another reroll (his daughter Himiko’s) but he got +1EVA (up to +4EVA) on his second attempt.
We still had 8 rerolls in the settlement thanks to all the children.

At this point I did just want to get to the fight, and not bog things down with more babies, so I spent the remaining endeavors on Drums (I) to spread insanity amongst the group, though mainly to Muzashi to keep the Phoenix set bonuses active for as long as possible.
We might just need it.

The Chosen Defenders – a veritable A-Team:
Helios – green (Leather Armor, Beacon Shield)
Muzashi – blue (Phoenix Armor, Lantern Sword)
Apollo – red (Screaming Armor, Sonic Tomahawk)
Phoenicia – yellow (rawhide/regal bits, Arc Bow)

As I set up my gear grids the Worm showed up again and a 6 was still just another Nightmare cuddle.
What a funky little creature.

Thanks to Agility Fighter (FA) both Helios and Muzashi had 6EVA going into this fight, and I’m sure they would need every little bit of it.
Whilst we had a clear strategy to win this fight, the monster might still be quicker at punching us apart.

For what it’s worth, my grand plan:
I wanted to scout with Apollo, via the Cat Eye Circlet to find the Gilded Codpiece and a second critable hit location for back-to-back Founding Stone throws. If we managed to set up such a situation, Muzashi and Helios had 1 Founding Stone each to trigger the crit. Should either die before they were able to throw their stone, we had Phoenicia as a back-up who should be able to wound semi-reliably with the sharp Arc Bow despite the Hand’s high TGH.

Going into this fight, Helios had a Green Aura, whilst Phoenicia was both green and red. Muzashi was white and Apollo should also be white as his affinities had all colors.

Wounding the monster will flip one of its 3 eyes open in accordance with the aura of the person wounding, these eyes will add effects to most attacks and hit locations.
The Hand also rarely moves normally, instead stepping off the world via Ghost Step appearing behind survivors. It has more or less been confirmed that it is moving through a different spatial dimension whilst doing this.

For Level 3 the Hand has an impressive 30TGH together with +3SPD and +6DMG!!!
It will typically attack 5 times, hitting for 11DMG each time its basic were to trigger. The actual attack cards won’t be any better, I’m sure.

For terrain we got a pile of Debris in addition to the usual monster set up.

With 12 (13 after adding Applause) cards in the monster deck, we pray to The Sun and the Feline Entity and start by using the Cat Eye Circlet.
And what we got to see was nothing short of hilarious: first card I flipped was the trap. The second one the Gilded Codpiece. Oh my Feline Entity. The third card that came up was a random other crit – the Exotic Bone Bracer.

I knew I had to do it!
We stacked the deck and Muzashi threw the first Founding Stone. The Hand hit the floor instantly, faking relentless fury.
Helios was ready and threw the second Founding Stone, and we flipped Impossible Eyes to Respect.

And then everything came to a screeching halt.
Having not flipped the card to Respect all that often, I did not take into account that we would have to deal 1 more wound still!!!
We will have to weather at least one attack.

12 cards in the deck. The Hand got back to its feet and with both the red and green lenses open I drew its first AI card.
King’s Palm – an advanced card.
The random survivor targeted would be Muzashi. Nobody was adjacent to him, so I dodged that part of the card at least.
At 4SPD, the attack would only hit him on 8+ but it dealt a staggering 16DMG(!) with each hit. Triple 4! The last remaining hit turned into Brain Damage due to the Phoenix Plackart.

Time to bury that trap! Cat Eye Circlet was used to dig into the deck. We put a critable red location on top and Phoenicia readied her bow. And it was at that point that I noticed another, much more severe problem. She would only hit the monster on Perfect Hits whilst the red lens remained open!!!
She missed her shot. All her STR amounting to nothing!
Muzashi stood his ground and he used Block. Whilst he could have attacked the monster he would have very likely triggered the trap with his 4SPD hitting on 2+. Unless.., he used his shield to strike. He would need to roll a 7+ to wound though, which seemed like it might still be worth it to me at the time.
Unga bunga protects!
Muzashi dashed away and into range to Charge back in. With an extra 7STR he hit the monster once with a 7 (on 3+) with the Beacon Shield. 9STR, 2 tokens, 5STR from the shield and 7STR from the Charge – 23 – he needed a 7+, and would crit on 9+!
The wound fizzled out with a 3. The Hand Ghost Step‘ed through him and he had to spend 3 more survival to not take 5DMG for his indiscretion.
And I didn’t even take any pictures of the round.

11 cards left before Applause triggered, Bullet Jabs. Target was the survivor with the most blue affinities. That should be.. oh, that should be Apollo.
Uh oh.
7SPD, hitting on 4+, 5 hits for 9DMG each that couldn’t be blocked or dodged. He looked pretty dead all of a sudden.
And, yes – he was super dead: 2 concussions (one was his lifetime reroll countering decapitation), an insta kill on his arms, 2 bleed from the waist and his leg came off as well, together with 2 after damage bleed, he almost died 3 times over from this single attack.

There was nothing we could do but shoot again with Phoenicia. She needed a perfect hit, aka a 9+. An 8. So close, yet so far. And she rerolled into a 5 with bow spec. I also got desperate and foolishly used her lifetime reroll at this point.
But it ended up being a 9!
She hit the monster!
9STR on her, 9 on the bow, +3 from other sources. She needed to roll 13 on her 2 dice with sharp. The expected value should be 11.. so.. we needed to roll just a little above average and she fumbled it hard: a 4 with both dice added together. This was bad. Especially as the Cat Eye Circlet had just died to a single AI card, we now needed to survive the trap before we could even try again.
Muzashi and Helios both used Block.

10 cards to Applause. Liver Blow. This attack targeted Helios. 7SPD hitting on 8+. He evaded it all!

We needed to get rid of the trap. so Helios started our turn by attempting to attack the Hand. 3SPD, 5+ he managed to get 1 hit and successfully drew the trap for us.
Both he and Phoenicia were able to spend 1 survival to gain +6EVA for the duration of this trap, so I was hoping they’d be fine overall.
Helios: only got hit on 10s, 0 hits.
Muzashi: 8+ to hit, 0 hits!
Phoenicia: 9+ to hit, 0 hits!

With the trap done, Phoenicia was free to shoot her bow freely again. She missed, but her reroll from bow spec turned it into a hit! But she failed the wound again!

Muzashi saw a chance to attack as well and Charged in. 5 hits and he hit the trap again already! Oh no!
Muzashi: 1 hit, turned to a brain damage
Helios: 1 hit, dodged
Phoenicia: 1 hit, dodged
The game seemed a little unsure whether this campaign was done or not.

9 cards until Applause. Line Up. This really felt like a do or die situation.

Phoenicia put her all into this next shot. She missed, but the reroll on bow spec turned the attempt into a 9 – a Perfect Hit due to Timeless Eye (FA)! The Exotic Fur Collar. This could be it! Only 26TGH to wound that spot! Phoenicia spent the survival necessary to go through with her attack.
That’s it!
That was enough!
Plus 10!
31 vs 26!
She did it! She wounded the Hand!

The Hand took the scratch to its neck and acknowledged Phoenicia for her persistence and was eager to show her his Respect!

And this was a colossal mistake on my part!

I should have dashed away first with Muzashi!

As the Hand drew its actual weapon with a speed that ignited the air around the blade, Muzashi was engulfed by the sudden blast of heat and fire. Whilst the damage he suffered was negligible.. the entire Phoenix Armor Set was incinerated as a blinding flash escaped the monster’s scabbard.
The Hand’s sword smoothly glided (glid?) between flesh and bone and Phoenicia was cleanly cut in two at -4 on a severe injury to the waist.

As the Hand prepared to leave us, the 2 remaining survivors gained 1 hunt xp each, but no proficiency as neither used their weapons of choice.

The Hand also kicked a Broken Lantern and from the 27 living survivors a random 1 had to take a severe head injury.
(At least, at the time I though it should be between literally everyone in the settlement. But the more time has passed since, the more I came to think that I’ve played this wrong.)
The poor soul to be hit got determined by a dice roll and it was Flare. A nobody if you will. And she died, her head exploding from the impact with a flying lantern hitting her out of the black sky above.

As the Hand still lingered for a moment, it attempted to teach the 2 remaining survivors as a reward for putting up a fight. But they were both too dense/exhausted/weary to pay any attention.
They both failed the 3+ roll.

What a line of events to close out this year.

But I guess we have officially made it to the finale after all.
It looked real dire back there. And that was supposedly the cheese-strategy.

But what can I say? I did not remember the extra wound you needed to deal on Respect. Of course if the trap hadn’t been there right on top, we could have tried a little more liberally to just attack the monster. Not to mention the flammable hate as well. That was a stupid mistake on my part, but that’s what I get for not fully reading the card!

Whilst it would be easy to retcon this under different circumstances, learning to live with your mistakes is equally as important!
At least we got to keep the 2 high EVA survivors.

Packing away the Hand’s cards I just saw that the trap was lurking within the next 3 cards again already.

Having thought about this encounter for a bit longer after the fight, this felt like the main place where you’d want a team of Warriors of the Sun – Reflection. Being able to dodge every possible hit paired with Helios-levels of EVA and I can imagine that you’d be in a decent position to make it to Applause by just standing in a corner for the most part.
Sharp on all attacks from the blind spot, in theory, also helps with the 30TGH.

As mentioned above – from a storytelling perspective this year was incredible. And I loved every bit about it. My overconfidence at the start, to the scramble in the fight when I realized that I wasn’t done at all. All the way up to that cinematic finish!
From a gameplay point of view I’d rather have kept my expensive armor set, but let’s be real, it would likely burn up against the Sunstalker anyhow.

Once more I will retire to waiting on my stuff – Witches, Wanderers, Fade and SoD2. But watching Deno start the next campaign will tide me over I think.
Have a good rest of your weekend – or a good start into the new week!
As always thank you very much for your time, and don’t burn those Phoenix feathers – they are indeed flammable.
Amathul