While most of my articles are geared towards introducing new players to Exode, this one is intended for experienced players. In it I will deep dive into the Bosnarrene challenge which was recently released to help test challenge mode.

Challenge mode is intended to give players collections value by allowing them to send cards on missions without proceeding through a full evac. In my opinion it's a good placeholder while we eagerly wait for colonization mode to be ready.

That being said, on the off chance you stumbled across this article without already being familiar with Exode, I recommend reading my “How to Exode” articles first. You can find a full list of my articles here
Note: Even though that's a Buy Me A Coffee link, its completely free.

You can also find my referral link there, which would give us both account bound packs if you buy a starter.

But back to Theorycrafting!

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As I already mentioned, challenge mode is intended to allow players to put their collections to use (and yes, to encourage people to buy cards). In it you are given a mission which must be attempted with a deck of 8 cards. These cards are divided into two teams of 4 each, a colony team and an away team. Each team must have at least two characters. The other two slots can be items/gear/whatever.

Each mission is made up of a Mystery (optional to solve), an Ambition (way to get bonus points), Requirements (mandatory or you auto-lose), Advantages (bonuses to encourage you to use different cards), and three Risks (which will kill you and cause you to lose the challenge).

Below you can learn more about the Bosnarrene challenge and see my recommendations.

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Mystery

The ultimate goal in a challenge is to solve the Mystery. The traits required for this are randomly generated and won’t necessarily make sense. That being said, in general they should be accomplishable. Though not explained in the UI, the Mystery is handled similarly to the risks. Each card contributes its QL towards one of the Mystery skills. The total QL in that skill is then divided by 3, and that determines your dice pool.
Note: This explanation was given in discord and subject to change.

For Bosnarrene, the mystery is:

There are a lot of cards to help with this, and you certainly should bookmark the Deck Expert Tool.

There are a lot of choices for Station Expertise, which is why you really want to choose cards which help with other tests.

Strictly from a Mystery perspective, your top choices are:

• Alanna Vos (QL10 towards Station and Risks)
• Stug (QL8 towards Station, Intimidation, and Risks
• Nash (QL7 towards Station and Risks)
• Space Federal Marshal (QL6 towards Station and Risks)
• Syndicate Geisha (QL6 towards Intimidation, QL12 towards Risks)

Since Intimidation is less common than Station Expertise, that is a higher priority choice. Your best choices are Stug and Syndicate Geisha.

For Drachian you will probably want to take a Drachian Trooper or Suit, unless you have one of the 12 Drachian Colonels.

Requirements

Looking at the challenge requirements will help you narrow down your choices. Realistically speaking, you really ought to focus on the requirements first since you cannot even attempt the mission if you don’t meet them. This particular mission’s requirements were initially impossible. There weren’t enough different Nomad and Suntek cards to meet it and you can’t use the same card multiple times.

Fortunately the Nomad requirement was removed, and Suntek was reduced to one.

Having at most 4 Military cards is not a hard choice for this particular mission. Suntek is the main sticking point, there are only four different Suntek cards, two of which are extremely rare (3 copies of each in existence). The other two are both spaceships. You are only allowed one spaceship, and it must be in colony slot four.

The ships you can choose from are The Columbus and the Akhen Cannon. As they don’t help with any objectives, there is no reason to choose one over the other. If there were, then the Akhen Cannon would be superior with its QL7 compared to the Columbus and its QL5.

Advantages

The current design calls for having a leaderboard and the highest scoring players earning rewards. This is not implemented yet, but what is included are certain advantages which can give you bonus points.

The first bonus is pointless, there is no reason to include Space Tractor as it doesn’t help with any of your other goals.

Characters having Popularity and Toughness are rare, I believe there is only one useful for this challenge - Special Infiltration Agent. While she will help with some risks later on, ultimately there are better choices for your limited slots.

Lastly, while I’m not entirely sure, I don’t believe there are any cards with Empathy, Warfare and Station Expertise.

Ambition

This is actually listed second in the challenge description, but it had such little impact on my decision that I forgot to mention it earlier. Rather than rework this whole article, I'm just putting it here as it's nature is very similar to Advantages. The difference between Ambition and Advantages is that rather than increasing QL and helping complete objectives, Ambition is strictly a point bonus.

Cards with both Station Expertise in the Military faction are a fairly accessible. Of those already mentioned, Alanna Vos and Space Federal Marshal both quality for this bonus.

Risks

Risks are the second most important aspect of the challenge. Risks can kill your cards (for the challenge, not permanently). Failing some risks can outright cause you to lose the challenge. The only thing more important than Risks are the requirements, as you can’t even play without meeting the requirements.

Currently challenges each have three risks, an environment risk, a social (colony) risk, and a survival (away team) risk.

Environmental Risk

The planet challenges I have seen so far all had the same environmental risk. This will not always be the case, but I would not be surprised if it was fairly common. Even if the risk wasn’t identical, it would likely require the same solution as Atmospheric Shielding is usually the answer.

This is the easiest risk to address, but it requires two card slots to ensure you pass. In general you want to equip the armor of your choice to get a +1 bonus for the team’s rolls. This makes it impossible to roll less than 2. If the target was higher, you would want to consider the QL of the cards, but as it isn’t you just want to pick the armor which helps the most with your other risks.

Some armor of note for this challenge:

• Racer Mech-Suit (Atmospheric Shielding 4 gives +1, QL7 towards Risks)
• Drachian Suit (Atmospheric Shield 3 gives +1, Drachian Keyword)

Social Risk

Social risk is resisted by your colony team. This is a single do or die roll, if you fail you lose the challenge. Your dice pool is determined by the total QL of the required skills divided by three. It is possible for a single card to count multiple times.

For this particular challenge it is a fairly easy roll. The character choice is also a no brainer, at least if you are looking for the highest power.

• Galvin: This limited release card contributes QL18 towards the challenge due to having both skills. That’s 6 dice from a single card!
• Syndicate Geisha: As mentioned earlier, this is one of the best Intimidation cards to use. Depending on your needs she can contribute QL12 (4 dice!) towards social risk or QL6 towards survival risk.

There are a handful of other quality options if you are tight on characters because of participating in multiple missions

• The Communications Officer provides QL8 towards this risk. That is almost 3 dice.
• Eliza and Norah both provide QL7
• Welfare Specialist provides QL6 due to having both skills, making a QL3 card surprisingly useful.

Survival Risk

The survival risk is handled by your away team and typically involves gathering, exploring, or foraging. Again, this is do or die, and in this challenge, it's significantly harder than the social risk.

Since you will most likely be using armor to keep your team from freezing, this means you have three cards to somehow get a 6+ on your roll. On top of being complicated, Dexterity is something that you currently can’t properly search for in the deck expert. You need to search for “Manual” instead.

Fortunately for us, most of the characters who help with the mystery are qualified gatherers. In order of power you want:

• Stug: QL8, but contributes to Station and Intimidation as well.
• Alanna Vos: A QL10 powerhouse with Ambition bonus.
• Space Federal Marshal: Only QL6, but likely a better choice than Nash due to the Ambition bonus.
• Nash, The Expert: QL7

There are other choices as well though, such as The Kumicho (QL10), Rebel General (QL9), and Oksana or Ayumi (both QL7).

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Recommended Solution

While I can’t say with certainty that this is the optimal solution, as there are other variables which come into play that I didn’t discuss (such as how many copies you have of a card, whether it's “activated” or not, whether you need it for a different challenge, etc), based on raw stats this should be a good solution.

Colony Team

1. Syndicate Geisha: Intimidation QL6, Social Risk QL12
2. Galvin: Social Risk QL18
3. Drachian Scarab Armor: Drachian QL3, Freezing +1
4. Akhen Cannon: Suntek Requirement

Away Team

1. Stug: Station QL8, Intimidation QL8, Survival QL8
2. Alanna Vos: Station QL10, Survival QL10
3. Racer Mech-Suit: Freezing +1, Survival QL7
4. Drachian Assault Trooper: Drachian QL4, Station QL4

This gives you the following pools for each test:

• Mystery - Station Expertise: QL22 / 7 dice
• Mystery - Intimidation: QL14 / 4 dice
• Mystery - Drachian: QL7 / 2 dice
• Risk - Colony Freezing: +1 to all rolls
• Risk - Away Team Freezing: +1 to all rolls
• Risk - Social: QL30 / 10 dice
• Risk - Survival: QL25 / 8 dice

My Submission

Now that you’ve seen the best choices, its time to share my actual teams. I initially submitted with the understanding it was an impossible mission, and I didn’t update it afterwards. So for me, this is a bit of a throwaway entry.

Colony Team

1. Galvin: QL18 Social Risk
2. Communications officer: QL8 Social Risk
3. Universal Fixer Suit: +1 to freezing roll for the team.
4. The Columbus: Suntek Requirement

Away Team

1. Nash, The Expert: QL7 Station, QL7 Survival
2. Stug: QL8 Station, QL8 Intimidation, QL8 Survival
3. Racer Mech-Suit: +1 to freezing roll for the team, QL7 Survival
4. Drachian Trooper: QL4 Station, QL4 Drachian

This gives me the following pools for each test:

• Mystery - Station Expertise: QL19 / 6 dice
• Mystery - Intimidation: QL8 / 2 dice
• Mystery - Drachian: QL4 / 1 die
• Risk - Colony Freezing: +1 to all rolls
• Risk - Away Team Freezing: +1 to all rolls
• Risk - Social: QL26 / 8 dice
• Risk - Survival: QL22 / 7 dice

I’m well aware this is not an optimal team. It has a chance at success, but not an overly strong one. What do you think? Will we survive and solve the mystery? Or will we starve?
What team will you do?

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Thanks for taking the time to read this.
The next challenge focused articles I right will be better presented.
Until then, best of luck surviving the world of Exode!