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In Strange Remnants, you and your fellow investigators travel to the haunted ruins of massive stone monuments across the world. You must learn the secrets of these ruins and perform the requisite rituals before the cosmos aligns against you, an evil portal opens in the center of the universe, and the entire Earth is devoured.
CaiusDrewart
A very fine expansion. I would get Forsaken Lore first, mostly because it adds additional mysteries and research encounters for the original four Ancient Ones. But I would get this one next. The new Ancient One, Syzygy, is nicely different from the others. Thematically, it represents an alignment of the cosmos rather than a physical monster; in terms of gameplay, Syzygy will always enter the world after the second mystery has been solved. At that point, you have to do some very difficult "Sealing the Portal" encounters in order to win the game. There's a nice sense of escalating difficulty with this Ancient One which doesn't really exist with the others. His overall difficulty is only average, though. The game introduces three new mechanics, all of which tend make the game much easier. The first is the Focus token mechanic (also present in Mountains of Madness), which allows investigators to spend one action to claim a Focus token, which they can then spend to reroll a die during a test. This is a really useful ability that makes it far easier for investigators to prepare for and pass important tests. The second addition is the Unique Asset deck (also originally in Mountains of Madness)--two-sided Assets you get from encounters rather than buy from the reserve. The most interesting are Tasks, which encourage your character to do specific things (like cast and discard spells) and then flip the card for an unpredictable reward. They're a fun addition, I think. The other mechanic is the "Advance the Active Mystery," which will occasionally allow players to solve the Mystery indirectly. This is obviously quite powerful, but it won't happen very often. Personally, I find this mechanic distastefully swingy. But its presence does make Tasks more worthwhile and exciting. The new investigators are the best part of the expansion. While poor Tony is a bit underpowered, the other three investigators (Zoey, Marie, and Skids) are just right; strong and interesting but not cheesy. Zoey in particular is quite fun to play with her focus on Tasks (but it's nice to get additional expansions so she'll have a decent variety of Tasks to do), and Marie's unique ability to repeat actions opens up lots of tactical possibilities. Skids is more of a simple brawler, but he's got a fun starting weapon and just enough versatility to take on some other roles effectively.
amiller01
Not saying I bought it on sale entirely for the focus tokens, but not not saying it either... I have yet to use the other unique additions from this expansion.
Adam_Zulus
Good add-on. Unfortunately does little in solving the problem of too few cards in the base game. Luckily reprint of Forbidden Knowledge is finally coming!