Arkham Chronicles S1E3: Going off rails

As usual, your spoiler warning. There will be spoilers below.

For my third scenario, I chose Written in the Rock based on vague hints about something wrong in an old abandoned mine. This scenario is played in two parts. The first one has you go from light to right in a line of locations, gathering clues and scraps while moving fast. The scenario tells you the scraps will be useful in the second part and to hurry the hell up, it's quite straightforward.

The second part of the scenario is more interesting. The mine is collapsing, your team is now trying to escape on rails in an old mining cart. This means you can no longer move freely, you move with the card at the end of the enemy phase if you can. Each location has rail symbols on it, they can be on any side of the card. You need to align the rails to create your path to the exit, with the help of scenario actions.

Thematically, it's an interesting scenario. It's a different puzzle from the usual Arkham scenario. However, it's also the type of scenario where you can lose based on factors out of your controls. The location setup is random, there could no way to create an exit path. You could also run out of actions to fix all the incoming issues. In my situation, I revealed a location telling me to move again, which dropped me off the rails.

The good news is, this is not game over completely. You still manage to make it out of the mine, albeit with a new physical trauma. The scenario gave 5XP, Hank gathered 2 more XP by looking at the Act card in the morning prologue. Yes, quite literally, I flipped the Act card, and it gave me 2 XP.... plus the obligation to start the mine scenario with a Hemlock Curse in hand. Since Kate didn't already have a curse card, I chose not to do this with her character.

• Hank:
  • Making Preparation ▶️Will To Survive (3XP). This is an expansive card, but it could be a game changer in the right circumstances, and I feel like I have plenty of resources to pay for it. Making Prep hasn't been useful so far, making it a suitable candidate to be upgraded out.
  • Heavy Furs ▶️Katja Eastbank (2xP). Protective Gear has made the Furs redundant.
  • Baseball Bat ⏫ Baseball-2 (2XP). Maybe it's time to upgrade a few cards?
• Kate:
  • Working a Hunch ▶️Fine Tuning (1xP). Continuing this upgrade path.
  • Flashlight ⏫Flashlight-3 (3XP). I wasn't high on this upgrade until recently, when I realized this is now a reaction rather than an action!