Daniel (@dungeondive) opens with rules corrections from designer Mauro Pon on BoardGameGeek — Control Evil is one attack not a full action, ranged enemies ambush at up to two tiles away in line of sight, and trophies for monsters killed by other monsters still go to whichever accursed orchestrated the kill — then resumes the Exorcist’s solo run mid-spike-trap.
The agility test passes. He searches a treasure chest and pulls Dragon Paws (medium armour, +2 evasion), then the darkness wheel rolls into combat: a trio of Hellraiser-coded deviants charge through a corridor while two ranged devourers spawn behind them and start lobbing Eye of Terror magic attacks against his sanity. He demonstrates the game’s bail-out tools: spending stamina to tumble diagonally out of multi-attack range, then burning faith on Control Evil twice to make a deviant beat its kin to death. A thrown oil flask wipes the devourers in one square-six-AoE detonation.
He also retroactively rolls an heirloom (forgotten at setup) — the Dried Black Rose, +3 permanent health — and rationalises it as recovered loot. New throwing daggers added to his ranged slot.
The Exorcist survives the first real combat largely by hoarding stamina and weaponising the enemies against themselves. Is Control Evil the kind of design touch that elevates a crawl, or does it lean too hard on a single trick?