by Pete_R
[microbadge=54574]Hi Jason!In addition to the excellent explanations of [user=Pashootan]I will hereby suggest that it makes a big difference which Investigators you pick to include for your entire team.
One of them should definitely have the combo Arcane Mastery+Marksman in order to do an amazing job of eliminating the enemies from a distance, as well as having better luck looting the dead cultists with the Arcane Mastery skill all by itself. Another useful combo is Stealth+Swiftness to sneak past enemies and/or rearrange their locations. A third highly recognized champion combo is Brawling+Toughness. With just your wife and yourself learning how to play, I would suggest that for the first few games you each pick an Investigator with one of those specific 3 combos, but different from your spouse's choice, and then deploy an Investigator with the third remaining combo which you run mutually as an NPC. [Microbadge=53254]
After you get more comfortable with the game flow and the rules, you might consider each deploying a pair of investigators, so that you have one confirmed good combo Investigator and with your other Investigator you can explore one the other 12 skill combos, in the hopes that you might find combos that uniquely apply to the situations of some of the other episodes!
I particularly enjoy the fun of playing Season 1 Episode 2 - Tomes of Madness against Yog Sothoth! I figure it makes sense that among the tomes are presumably copies of Wilbur Whateley's diary.
And do remember, the number one rule in gaming is "If you are having fun, you are doing it right!"
Best Regards, and I hope you had a fun gaming spree during 2023! And here's wishes for more in 2024! And then keeping gaming quite alive in 2025!
Pete Roullard
PS Condolences over the fire situation! [microbadge=43479] That happens to be the main reason I have not yet attempted Season 1 Episode 1. There is a fan-made Investigator placard for Willy Wonka which addresses the issue, BTW