mageith
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Posts posted by mageith
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avec said:
Those of you who play with only one or two expansions at a time, which cards do you take out? From reading the forums, it sounds like injury/madness cards and epic battle cards are almost always used. What about items and encounter cards? Or blights?
If you play without Dunwich, does that mean that you just remove the board and the mythos cards that have Dunwich locations? Or do you remove other cards too?
If you play without King in Yellow, I'm guessing that you probably take out the Next Act Begins cards. What about mythos cards that contribute to the theme, but not the mechanics, like Intermission and Off Broadway? If you leave in the encounter cards, do you ignore encounters if they involve King in Yellow actors?
Sorry to be pesky, I'm just curious.
I leave almost all items and encounters in. I have thinned the spell deck a bit. Basically I divide the number of spell cards by half and round up. So if there are three spells of particular type, I use only 2, for example. But this has more to do with the size of the spell deck.
Epic Battle cards. I use them if I think the investigators have a good chance of beating the AO. Call me sadistic.
Blights are a herald. I actually made monsters out of the heralds as well as all the allies and added a few that should have been there like Carl Sanford and Bill Washington. However not everyone is up to having extra irritating backsliding insane citizens back-stabbing them. My favorite is the Sheriff who've I've made into a stalking monster with a -3 Horror check that if you fail you are arrested. He's also physcially resistant (shoots back) and has 3 toughness. I think he has a -3 awareness. Mosts of the other insane citizens are elusive however--usually +0 or -1.
Generally however I use neither blights nor insane citizens.
Dunwich. I leave everything in but the Mythos cards and the board. I do not remove the other cards.
King in Yellow: All King in Yellow mythos are not used. The KiY encounter cards have not been a problem and we use them.
Curse of the Dark Pharaoh. Same as Kiy. Sometimes this results in an Exhibit items. I hate to redraw cards so we play encounter cards as is.
Kingsport. There is one encounter card at the Train station that sends you to Kingsport. If that one comes up we do ignore it. Otherwise I haven't seen any problems with encounter cards.
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I don't think I've lost a game in which I've used Patrice. I may have lost if others used Patrice. I play a sort of campaign with my characters. When the character is devoured for any reason s/he's put away until all the other investigators have been devoured or the Ancient One defeated. Toward the end of the campaign the final AO's were fought with parties using Mandy, Wendy and (watered down) Daisy and eventually (watered down) Patrice because they are not merely survivors but winners. Their abilities shine above all others. In this, my fourth campaign (fifth run through with the investigators) Wendy and Daisy had already been devoured but still Mandy and Patrice survived to save the day and the world (repeatedly).
I guess it feels a bit like cheating that I know this and still use them.
I really feel sorry for the Ancients Ones.
After all they've faced all sorts of overwhelming cosmic trials for a thousand million years and now, so easily always taken down by 3 young women and a girl-child. Daisy and Patrice still do it with one hand tied behind their backs. At least Daisy has some weak krypontite in her personal story. Patrice's just makes her better. ("What do you mean I somehow have to get 2 incredibly power magical alien unique items and I get 5 clues besides! This is a problem how?")
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I've been keeping track of my turns for quite a while now. Usually I play 4 player games, but some are larger. Rarely does the game go to 20 turns. If I play a 14 turn game or less it was usually a pretty easy one and includes some Elder Signs. I'd use 14-16 turns as an average game that we win. I usually use only 1 or 2 expansions at a time however, though recently I've started using 3.
Let's say the average AO has a doom track of 12. So, 11 or less you are OK.
Let's say you have about 1-4 monster surges.
Let's say you have about 1-3 gate bumps or bounces.
So that's 14 to 18 to win or 19 to lose by doom tokens.
Of course there is other ways to lose (summon the Old One) such as the Deep One Rising Track and too many gates out.
And there's other ways to get doom tokens which shorten the game: rifts, Dunwich Horror, double doomer cards, many of the heralds.
And there's a few cards that don't automatically add doomers such as strange sitings, Act cards, and double terror. And there's the beloved Elder Sign which actually reduces the number of doom tokens and many of the personal stories and abilities remove doom tokens.
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Scaresoul said:
Ok, I love this game, I love that it's difficult because when you win you really feel that victory. I personally don't mind the challenge and yes I do play with all boards and all card expansions except curse of the dark pharaoh because I don't own it yet.Firstly my impressions of the expansions are pretty good. Dunwich doesn't really make the game any harder or easier, it adds an element that the base game lacked. Innsmouth makes the game significantly harder in my opinion because when that deep track lights up it REALLY lights up, but the challenge isn't overly difficult. Kingsport...frankly bores me. We usually send the least equipped and frankly least valuable investigator to kinsport and that poor player is typically bored out of his mind. I tend to be a completionist, if I own it I want to use it..but I'm seriously considering taking out Kinsport encounters / mythos / and board. The only thing Kingsport board has that I even remotely like is the two other worlds but frankly I can do without.
OK that aside, right now I typically play with 3 - 4 guy usually we only play one investigator each but occasionally if there's just 3 of us we play 2 each. We've probably played about 20 games total and of that have had four victories. A seal victory against Tsathogua and Yig and battle "victories" against Hastur and Nyarlathotep.
We have a few house rules, we don't use Heralds unless we've already defeated that particular GOO with a seal victory, and we don't use epic battles unless we have already beaten the GOO in a normal battle in another game. We also only play with guardians if the first player at the start of the game rolls a 5 or a 6 on a die. He gets to roll an additional die if there's a herald and an additional if there's potential for an epic battle, so a total of three possible dice rolled to determin guardians.
We do play with personal stories (When we remember to get them out)
Here's my problem; the people I'm playing with are starting to get disheartened by the fact that the game wins 4 out of 5 times. I understand a lot of peeps on this forums have a MUCH higher victory rate but what can I say we're just not that good yet. I'm afraid we'll never get that good because people are starting to not want to play based on the fact they predict loss before we even start and want to move onto something else. All of us are long time, hardcore gamers so it's not like we're totally inept or anything...the game just rolls us quite consistantly.
What I'm looking for is some suggestions or insights or even a new perspective so that I don't end up with a great game that never gets played. Thanks in advance.
Dunwich makes the game much harder for me. I'll probably win 80+% of base games (I won 6 out of 6 on vacation when I bought a new base game because we didn't take our game.) but only about 60% of Dunwich games. And about 55% of Innsmouth games. Like you I don't play Kingsport very much. But you're only winning 20% of games? A seal victory against Yig is impressive, but not against Azathoth?
Your house rules sound very reasonable and logical. However, you might want to step back despite your completionist views. Play the base game through a few times until you are winning over 2/3rds of the time (It really shouldn't take very long with just the base game) and then add, probably Dunwich or one or more of the small box expansions. The only real secret, IMO, is gates don't all appear at the same rates. If you want more detail on that, just ask.
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Dam said:
You had 6 gates open in non-arkham locations (3 in IH), how much more do you need before DOR is a threat? Devil's Reef + 2 surges there?Actually had that last week-almost. First gate was Devil Reef, then a Strange Sightings surge where everything moved into the vortices. The DOR was at 4 at the end of the 2nd turn. (Could have been 8*). But 3 of us ran up there and laid the law down. After than Innsmouth pretty much quieted down for the rest of the game.
The Deep Ones Rise for me only when I play Innsmouth and the Basic game only and using Innsmouth and the base game monsters only. And it does almost all have to do with Devil Reef and more so with the rare opening of Y'ha-nthlei. As you have pointed out in the past, the tracks in Innsmouth don't direct the monsters to the vortices very well. Another factor: The percentage of non vortex monsters is higher when only using Innsmouth monsters (I think) than when the whole mix of monsters is involved.
Also in the first games I thought flying monsters went into the vortex from Devil Reef, so the DOR was a bit hotter than it should have been.
*I know 6 is the maximum.
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I played a couple of interesting games yestereday. I generally keep my Mythos cards separate and only play 1 expansion's Mythos cards at time and using a herald (mostly of my own devising). I roll a die during mythos. On a 1-4, from the basic set. On a 5-6 from the expansion set.
Yesterday I used 3 expansions: Dunwich (1-2), Innsmouth (3-4) and King in Yellow (5-6). No mythos would come from the base set.
The first game was cakewalk against Nyogtha (the last Ancient to fall in my campaign) against 4 survivers*: Leo, Dexter, Sister and Mandy. No gates appeared in Arkham until the 7th gate was called. Three gates appeared in each the villages before that. The DOR track never threatened and only 1 Dunwich token was added. This confirmed by theories/prejudices that the more expansions you use the easier it gets. We did have 3 elder signs, but only used 2. Still there were only 7 doom tokens on Nyogotha at the end, so the elder signs weren't really necessary. We drew 14 Mythos cards.
However the second game against Nyarlathotep and the Black Man (herald where the Black Man was the only mask but was either on the board or waiting to come on the board with the next gate) was a different story. Pretty much the same thing happened as to the gates. No gates in Arkham until the middle of the game.
The party again was made up a my last few survivors: Dr Vincent, Harvey, Diana and Patrice (watered down so that she did not get clue tokens each turn and could only help investiagators in the same town.)
This game was tough from the very beginning. Why? because of way more monster surges than I expected (though they saved us in the end), putting more monsters into Dunwich and Innsmouth. At one point there were 18 monsters on the three boards. I was playing with Bill (Diana and Harvey) who wanted to kill monsters but I (Dr Vincent and Patrice) suggested that we get to the gates and pull the monsters up with gate closings. We did both. Until the end Patrice never had any Clue tokens and when she did lend them they were spent without result. It wasn't her fault, but she just wasn't much help.
At Doom track 8 (of 11), we only had 3 seals and there were still plenty of monsters, though they had been thinned out a bit by Bill's kids and the few gate closings we had. We soldiered on without much hope. Patrice had failed her story and so was paying from her Sanity/Stamina for each Clue token she shared (which weren't many). Then a gate burst took us back down to 2 sealed gates. Harvey went into a gate and we were soon back up to 3 sealed gates (with Patrice's help) and at the expense of the DOR track which reached 4. The terror track was creeping up and eventually reached 6.
Patrice obtained the healing stone and doom 9 occured-5 clue tokens for Patrice. Still, all looked lost. Everyone headed for gate. Diana made it. Vincent was devoured with 4 clue tokens. Bill moaned. I drew Gloria as Vincent's replacement.
The 10th doom hit. The next mythos could bring the Old One. (I know. I know. It's only Nyarlothotep but we would be using Epic battles and I've lost to Nyarly before with EB. Besides we never really want to fight the AO.) Harvey and Gloria made it to a gate. Patrice went to the Asylum and used her healing stone.
The next Mythos was a bump and the DOR reached 5. Diana was ready to come home. The next turn could defeat us in two ways: DOR or Doom tokens. Surge! Diana sealed (with Patrice's help). Gloria sailed into her second side of Another Dimension. Harvey lost all his clue tokens and crawled into his second area of the Abyss.
The next Mythos could bring the end either by opening the DOR or dropping a gate at the Woods or Unvisited Isle which had never opened. The three sealed gates were all in Innsmouth. Surge! It looked good! Gloria and Harvey returned, closed and sealed (both with Patrice's help using all her clue tokens and bringing her down to 1 Sanity and 1 Stamina.)
We could not have won without the healing stone. Harvey had 3 seals for first citizen. (The doddering Harvey survived two stints in the Innsmouth Jail.) But we both agreed that without (the failed) Patrice (even watered down) we could not have won. She helped in sealing at least 4 gates. (I'll probably have to water her down even more.) There were also a lot more bumps and surges than I expected (with 3 bumps and 5 surges) with all the gates available. The game went 19 Mythos phases. Neither game had a rumor (in 33 total Mythos phases) which also helped a lot.
*Survivors are those investigators who have not been devoured in prior games. Some survive because they are so helpfull (Patrice, Leo, Mandy). Some survive because they are never picked (Sister, Dexter) or rarely picked (Diana, Dr Vincent, Gloria).
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Justin Alexander said:
GrooveChamp said:
The extra hexagon monsters alone would make him plenty difficult, but oh my lord a doom token for monster surges? Basically he means that a doom token will be added every turn except for seals which would statistically delay the ancient one from waking for an extra turn or two if you no longer have monster surges to buy you time.This paragraph seems to suggest that you're misreading the rules. The term "monster surge" does NOT refer to a monster being generated when a gate opens. A monster surge ONLY happens when a gate would appear on a location where a gate already exists.
A doom token IS added nearly every turn, either by a gate opening or a monster surge occuring for BGotW. The main exceptions would be sealed gates (as pointed out) and the occasional special card that brings 2 doom tokens (yikes), an Act card, a gate burst, etc.
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Criswell said:
Came up with a small yet dastardly new rule last game to a) increase the incidence of being arrested (which happens maybe once every 100th game in my experience) and b) make a few of those bothersome 1-toughness monster draws like cultists and maniacs a little more interesting...
Whenever an investigator kills a human(oid) monster* in combat, s/he must then pass an Evade check against said monster's awareness modifier or be Arrested. The rationale being that even if the miscreant you just killed was a bloodthirsty acolyte of a gibbering transcosmic abomination, the law would still likely want a word with you after your having blown him a third corn-chute with your unlicensed 12 gauge.
* Monsters potentially affected: Cultist, Maniac, Tcho-Tcho & Tcho-Tcho Priest, Deep One Hybrid, Warlock, Witch, Werewolf (reverts to human form upon death?), Barnabas Marsh, Dark Druid, High Priest, Priest of Dagon, Wizard Whateley.
I like your rule. Played some similar to that some months ago. I was a bit tougher. When a human was killed, the investigator took the Wanted and a barred card. If another player already had the Wanted card, he replaced it with the Harried card (even if another player already had it). If he already had the Wanted card, he took a temporary Madness card. (He could get rid of this madness card by rolling a 1 during upkeep). You could also get rid of one of those cards for each human turned in a the Police station (and having an encounter there).
Nobody much liked it though. My group is really quite blood thirsty and wasn't interested in restraints to their blood lust.
Humans included Goat Spawn for me. Look closely, she's defintely mostly human. I didn't include the Werewolf, but I would now based on your description.
If I played it again, I'd probably give handcuffs a pass on taking the cards (since they are only captured). Which you may be doing based on your wording. Another rule I'd probably add is that if a human is defeated without using a weapon or spell, he's only captured not killed.
BTW, I don't think the "killed" is ever used in our game. It's (almost) always "defeated". So defeating a humanoid is not necessarily killing them, though using a shotgun makes it sound suspiciously like that.
Joining a cult is not a capital offense. Until it is, humans should be protected by the laws!
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i523.photobucket.com/albums/w359/mageith/vincentps.png
I've made several, but this is the only one I'm currently using.
Vincent receives 2 extra movement points each turn.
Also, he may use his Physician ability on any investigator in
his current town. -
Pure randomness is a house ruling anyway: Two alternatives are given. In between these two are many other possibilities (all of which would be a house rule apparently).
Here's the rule from page 5.
4. DETERMINE INVESTIGATORS
The first player shuffles the 16 investigator sheets. Then,
without looking, he randomly deals out one investigator
sheet in front of each player, including himself.Alternately, the players may agree to choose their investigators,
starting with the first player and continuing
clockwise until every player has selected an investigator.If you can't beat the Old One with randomness, choose Patrice. She'll give you a really good chance.
Same is true for the Old One:
5. REVEAL ANCIENT ONE
The first player shuffles the eight Ancient One sheets.
Then, without looking, he selects one at random and
places it face up near the board. This is the Ancient One
that is threatening Arkham for this game. If the Ancient
One’s ability lists any actions that take place at the start
of the game, such as Nyarlathotep’s “Thousand Masks”
ability, they are resolved now.Alternatively, the players may choose which Ancient
One they face. This is often helpful if there are time
constraints or other considerations involved. (Yig makes
for a shorter game, for instance, while Cthulhu makes
for a particularly challenging game.)I've only played against Atlach Nacha once in a group game. He's just completely boring. In solo games (with 4 investigators, I've won more than I've lost) I've played him several times. He's not much more fun that way, but I'd least his boringness isn't imposed on unwilling victims.
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Magic Pink said:
mageith said:
I don't think the game was intended to be played with all the expansion boards at once. .
That's ridiculous, of course it is.
Then how come many important things don't work so well when all played together?
Acts from King in Yellow are hardly noticeable.
Dunwich is usually out of the picture if played with any other expansions.
Deep One rising track is usually out of the picture if played with any other expansions.
If FFG had actually playtested the boards together, then they'd work better together.
Several investigators are immune from ancient ones in other sets.
About the only consideration they made to all the expansions was to count the game as one less investigator for additional boards played.
The game has great components and you can pick and choose from the different expansions to create the kind of game you want. I have all the expansions but never, never play them all together.
The easiest version of Arkham horror is the base game.
The second easiest version of Arkham horror is all the expansions together. It's just a mish mash. The designers were very good a developing a theme in each expansions but for the most part those themes disappear when the expansions are thrown together.
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Stenun said:
For those trying to make Personal Stories matter more, there are loads of options you can take.
The first option is so obvious that I'm surprised it isn't part of the actual game rules. Namely, Personal Stories count towards your Score at the end of the game. You could have Passed Stories are worth +1 and Failed Stories are worth -1. Or even Passed Stories are worth +2, Failed Stories are worth -3 and incomplete stories (those neither passed nor failed) are worth -1.
Or, how about Investigators who have not passed their Personal Story may not spend clue tokens during the final fight?
Or Investigators who have not passed their Personal Story may not leave Arkham for one of the other towns (I don't recommend playing with just the Innsmouth expansion if this is the option you go for)?
Or Investigators who have not passed their Personal Story may not use the game text of any location other than the Asylum or Hospital?
I think there are plenty of options available without a house rule that severly nerfs the Investigators flamethrower49 mentioned.
I think FFG doesn't care much about scoring. One obvious chance they had to change scoring was with heralds and guardians. I still keep score but we don't really pay much attention to it and it doesn't really affect our game play.
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put them on the "deck of cards"
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jgt7771 said:
Sorry, Mageith, didn't mean to call you out or put words in your mouth. It's just when I think "customization"...currently, I think Tibs and you. (I know I read that House Rule around here somewhere...)
Hey thanks.
You can drag me into anything you want. I'm just not sure I should take credit for inventing the equipment redraw. But anything to make the game more interesting.
In fact I've attempted to take out the extra flamethrower and Tommy gun. One of them in a small town is probably more than is to be expected. It seems strange to me to see them just lying around.
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"I am a Lovecraft and board game fan, first off.
However, I originally liked Arkham and had a great time the first time I played, however I no longer enjoy it after 4-5 plays and find it a waste of time, BUT I want to understand why I should enjoy it. I'll post the reasons I don't like it so that those who regularly play it can address my concerns (if you would be so kind). I really would like to learn to enjoy this game, but I'm having an awfully hard time of it. I've even considered altering the rules to address some of my concerns, but am not quite sure how I would go about it yet.
1) My biggest concern is that there does not appear to be much strategy to the game (lack of gameplay depth?). Other than crossing my fingers and *trying* to seal gates, there appears to be no real strategy to beating the scenarios. Each location the players go to often has something bad happen, but it's necessary to go to the locations in order to get clue tokens or elder signs. Yes, I understand the game is "difficult". I like difficult games, but games with only pure chance as to whether I beat the game? I might as well sit at home flipping a coin, right? "
It's not pure chance. Each location has a different percentage of good and bad. It's not like flipping a coin, but more like rolling a die with different numbers causing good things to happen. My worst location is Brook's Bridge but others have a good time there.
P.S. This sentiment seems echoed by a couple of posts I've seen talking about game sessions. Victory or defeat appear to mainly be blind luck. Why spend 3-4 hours for that? Also, I've played with some of the expansions and those made the game almost no fun and in fact turned off 3 people who had never played it before.
Blind luck is way too strong. But on the other hand no strategy guarantees agreement. I wouldn't want it any other way.
2) The setup is complicated (small complaint), and combined with the long play time (3-4 hours) the almost-certainty of getting pummeled doesn't make me want to spend the time on the game. I don't have a huge amount of time to play games, why should I waste it getting reamed by Lovecraftian horrors esp. if I have no control over the outcome?
So far almost all your complaints really come down to "I have no control." What expansions are you playing? The base game offers lots of control is usually won by veteran players. I'd say well over 90% of the time. My group was forced to play six games of basic Arkham a few weeks ago and we won them all.
I played the game a number of times, and the more I played it the less I liked it. I really love how much depth there is to the characters and the story and the art, but the depth of actual gameplay (the reason I would buy it) does not seem to be there. Has anyone addressed this with house rules?
Unclear by what you mean by depth? There are things in this game that have never happened and I have played over 300 games.
The whole game just seemed like an exercise in futility. Has anyone come up with house rules that adds more to the game allowing the players to have slightly more control over what happens?
We mulligan skills! One of the things that fooled me for a while is that I assumed all gates appear equally. They do not. Once you know where the hot gates are, control over the outcome shoots up dramatically.
So what's the hitch? Why do people like playing this game? Is it just the ambience it provides? I've run into a number of other people now who simply won't play the game for the same reasons I've given, but I'd *really* like to learn to love this game. Any suggestions? Please no flames, I'm really trying to have a constructive discussion here, and really enjoy the fact that Fantasy Flight has done so much to revive the board game genre.
I am a serial gamer. I play one game for months, sometimes years until I've figured out every nuance of the game or a better one comes along. Along the way I add and subtract things to increase enjoyment for me. I am lucky enough to have enough friends who are willing to go along with this. My games require some complication and lots of parts. (My previous game was Warhammer. I owned 10 armies.)
Arkham Horror is nearly a niche game, a game unique to the boardgaming world (though common in the computer gaming world). It's fully cooperative. Other similar games require a gamemaster or a single player against the rest.
I see loads of strategy in the game. For me, it's a puzzle: You take your group of investigators, see how they (their rules) interact with the Ancient One and with the expansion I'm using. Then, if you're lucky, add in actual human personalities. Then save the world. What's not to love?
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jgt7771 said:
Oh, don't you drag me into this.
I've always maintained that Arkham Horror is a "party game", despite the "horror" theme. Nowadays, more than half my games are with buddies, and take upwards of 5-6 hours, what with all the socializing. As such, I despise the Black Goat for being unnecessarily ACCELERATED. I'll play it when I'm alone, but with others, I would rather we not bottom out before the pizza shows up.And since the Herald is the only way one is going to get ANY use out of the rest of the Black Goat set, I've "hacked it up" and adopted its cards into my Innsmouth box: Common/Unique/Spell cards (minus the silly "wake up the AO" ones), any Encounters dealing with Corruptions, Cult Deck/Memberships, and the Mythos Gate Bursts. I use the box to hold all the cards I don't use, and ALL the Epic Battle cards. Fits very nicely.
As for "starting equipment redraws"...first of all, I didn't come up with that one. (It was someone around here...was it Mageith?) And I'm not doing it to make my games "easier". If one of your Investigators draws two Tasks and a Mission...you still have three other Investigators to play with. If one of mine does...I have a VERY BORED PLAYER. And being very bored is NOT a good "hook" for Arkham Horror. (This is pretty much the same argument I use for Patrice: making a person into a "Clue warehouse" for other people equals a lousy time for that player. Not the same as when Patrice is just another sheet on the table.)
Bottom Line: I'm all about the lolly-gagging! And Arkham has spaces and spaces full of ways to avoid the nitty-gritty.
Oh, don't drag me into this.
OK.The only redraw santioned by mageith is a mulligan on one skill (or what Emily can do when I'm not watching closely). Well, I do have about 20 "opportunities" strewn throughout my Common card deck that folks can redraw. Opportunities give a little incentive to do such things as Captain the white ship or take the bouncer job at Velma's or take a scientific voyage to the Mountains of Madness or get an experimental cure.
Almost all my games (80+%) are played with people and few are solo. I don't play Black Goat herald any more because its too fast and corruption cards confuse some of the gathered. In addition, no one can give a good explanation for joining the cult. However I have made up several heralds/scenarios that use corruption cards. And I have made up my own cards for cult encounters, some of which can lead to an alternate victory. No one has achieved this but two have died trying.
I suppose a redraw will usually make the game easier, but usually its reserved for not having to take the Master Occultist.
On the other hand, I've toned down both Patrice and Daisy because they are or can make the game too easy. And I play LESS expansions at a time in order to reduce dilution and make a harder game of it. At least I'm convinced its a harder game.
Many of the concessions I use, such as allowing players to choose their characters before knowing the GOO (though this is not really a concession since it is in the rules) is because I do play with groups of people and I want them to keep playing. You soloists can move along with bad characters as long as there are several other interesting ones, but I'd lose playmates if I forced that. Most of the gang has now played over 10 different investigators and seen the rest and have opinions on them.
Arkham Horror IS a party game! The threat of being eaten alive is not ordinarily an effective enticement.
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Actually you are quite lucky. I don't think the game was intended to be played with all the expansion boards at once. Will your table fit one expansion board? That's all you really need.
As an alternative sell your least favorite expansions and buy a 8'x4' piece of plywood at the hardward store and carefully place it over you current table. That's should be almost enough room to set everything out. (You'll probably need to not lean on it though.)
If you live near San Francisco, I'll even give you one, painted green, also suitable for Warhammer.
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The Blessing and Curse card are the same card. One side is a Blessing and one side is a curse.
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jgt7771 said:
It's probably time to start blocking Investigator Upkeep Abilities completely. Or maybe you can use them ONCE in the "upkeep" before the Final Battle Begins, and then any ability dependent on it being an Upkeep Phase are negated. Any "upkeep phase" after the first one is for Refreshing, Casting Spells, and moving sliders. Any Investigator with a passive ability (Joe, Daisy, Harvey, etc.), or ones that work with sliders (Trish, Lily, Wilson), operate as normal. Thematically, there's just no TIME to do some of those Upkeep Abilities anyway.
I know where you're going with this but there probably isn't even enough time to reload the flamethrower or even the shotgun (let alone wonder where the endless shotgun shells come from). And how many times can one really swing the Sword of Glory hacking at the foot of a cyclopean alien? I only go through the final battle if I'm playing with others. If I can't seal or close IT off, I and all my friends are just goners.
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dj2.0 said:
No more locations left in Lovecraft Country? I think not!
Think of it...HPL as an ally or Guardian...along with some of the circle of writers...his old house as a location...would (if not kookily done) add a touch of authenticity to the tales of the mythos...and could be sold as a finale to the line (and then collected into a complete AH boxed set
) I think it would actually be really cool.And if FFG want to use my idea, Ill accept a credit in the rulesbook
Finale to the line? Bite your tongue.
I can see many more expansions using many of the components of Arkham horror without having to take a train, bus, horse or sailing ship to those other locations.
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Dam said:
mageith said:Play it as intended with only the base game and the expansion and I think you'll have more respect for the Black Goat.
Does Tibs only play base + BGotW? I doubt it, yet he has always been one of the most vocal opponents of BGotW Herald.
Only a fool would play base game plus BGotW.
That was kind of my point.But Tibs does play with Kingsport Horror which means he'll have about 15% more matching gates (27/180 mythos cards) since nearly all of Kingsport mythos cards are arkham gates. Matching gates translate into monster surges, gate bursts or gate bumps. In an average 18 mythos card game that's 2.7 more surges, bursts or bumps. That's a lot! (In fact it's more than I imagined. Maybe my math's off?) At any rate there's obviously a bigger chance of a matching Arkham gate.
You and Tibs are really playing different games when it comes to Black Goat (in fact any game where gate bumps, bursts and bumps make a difference). In addition, Kingsport has the strongest mix of monsters which also means that Black Goat, which delivers an extra monster per gate is significantly tougher when Kingsport monsters are in the mix.
You really need to borrow Kingsport so you can find out why many of the rest of us are gunshy.
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Dilution (again). Adding Dunwich and Innsmouth to the mix increases the number of gates and decreases the number of monster surges. Black Goat was tested with only the base game, so there would have been more surges in the play testing. Play it as intended with only the base game and the expansion and I think you'll have more respect for the Black Goat.
Also NOT using Kingsport in an "all-in" game also decreases the number of surges because it decreases the number of gates appearing in Arkham proper.
Ghroth on the other hand always adds two doom tokens and might add another one (or more). So he doesn't suffer from dilution.
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johnwatersfan said:
I'd like to point out the fact that even though everyone seems to agree that Daisy is broken, she doesn't seem to help win games, as she's closer to the bottom of the list. Patrice on the other hand, the other character everyone seems to agree is broken, really does help in winning the game.
Daisy either isn't as broken as people say, or people don't know how to use her.
She's broken in the hands of a veteran. If you don't already know your spells, picking out one is daunting. Plus many players don't like spells. I've put her back into the mix just to see what folks will do with her. I refuse to give advice about her, however. On the other hand, Patrice's charms are clear and abundant. If the Patrice player doesn't offer her clues to them, other players will certainly remind her of their need for them. Even Wendy's advantages aren't perfectly clear to the novice, though once they're ascertained, players adapt rather quickly, though many players want to kill even if they are a little girl.
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Siromist said:
mageith
when I say stealing the game I mean for example when at the begining of the upkeep players make strategy of what to do(cause it is a team game) and say the 1st player decides to go to a location to pick up 3 clue tokens that are there. the 2nd player who is close to the same location decides to do something else. If the phases are being played in a row and the 1st playes fails to pick up the clue tokes due to an encounter, well the 2nd player can now change his mind and go pick the clue tokens himself which is not quite fair because he decidesd to do something else at the beggining.
I agree its a team game but decisions are made all through the game. Instead of making a strategy at the beginning of the turn that is locked in stone, we are allowed to react to situations. I'd maintain its not much different that a normal game. Joe agrees to take out the monsters in Jenny's way. Bad dice. McGlen may then decide to try that too, even though he'd planned to get his fifth clue at the science building. Or Jenny then must decide to do something different than she planned because the monsters are still in her way. This can happen in either the normal game or my variant.
I just don't think my variant makes a big difference in the game or the team play of it but it does make a big difference in our player satisfaction in that the game either goes faster or feels like it goes faster. Our games still take an average of about 3 hours for 4 players. When we changed we saw an immediate decline in the length of the games from about 4 hours to 3. Apparently we moved from slow to about average with this change. I'm still amazed with folks to claim to average closer to 2 hours with group play.
If I really wanted to save time, I'd eliminate my group and play by myself.
Interesting games
in Arkham Horror Second Edition
Posted
avec said: