Challenges


When a game begins, Challenge cards are randomly added to your deck. You will draw these cards and purchase them like other Opportunities.

If you purchase a Challenge Card, it does not go into your hand. Instead, you have to pick an available Challenge Slot and deploy it there. If no Challenge Slot is available, then you cannot purchase this card.

Three slots are available to you.

  • Team Challenge Slot: challenges put into this slot can be seen and defeated by you and any player in your team.
  • Internal Challenge Slot: challenges put into this slot can only be seen and defeated by you.
  • Exposed Challenge Slot: challenges put into this slot can be seen and defeated by you and any player in the enemy team. This means enemies can score victory points if they defeat it before you.


How to Defeat a Challenge


To defeat a Challenge you must usually deplete its Toughness points.

A Challenge has Toughness points just like any other card, with a notable exception: a Challenge often has several Toughness values, with a different Toughness for each symbol (for instance it may have 4 Investigation Toughness and 2 Tactical Toughness). This is easy to see thanks to Toughness colors displayed on the Challenge card.

Mystery Challenges can only lose Toughness by using Investigation, Tactical and Research resources to solve them. These resources must be taken from your Operation Pool, which is the resource pool generated by your active Agents (and not your Director). Hint Cards can also be used to solve Mysteries.

Combat Challenges can lose Toughness only by damage or spending the Combat resource; they cannot be targeted by Hint Cards. Every turn during the Closure Phase, Combat Challenges may also perform an aggressive action.

Battleground Challenges are very rare and specific.


Challenge Gains Strength


Once deployed, a Mystery Challenge will increase the Toughness related to its color base by 1 during the Closure phase. For instance, a Challenge of the Investigation expertise will increase its Investigation Toughness by 1 every turn.

All Combat Challenges are of Combat expertise, so they increase their Combat Toughness instead.


Should you purchase a Challenge?


You are not forced to purchase a Challenge from your Opportunities.

You may also have all your Challenge slots filled, which will prevent you from purchasing it.

However if a Challenge ends up not purchased and has to drop out as a dropped opportunity, your team will lose 1 Victory point, and the enemy team will score 1 Victory point.