I see that people are saying that they are winning 70%-100% of the time... which seems shocking because I bearly make it 50%. We often fail at the task, as the dice refuse to offer up the result we require.

Does anyone have any basic tips or tricks?

I'll let my contribution be tips on how to pick which Adventure to go for:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/14360240#14360240

However, I'm one of those people who have actually lost a game of ES, actually three losses, all in the base game, so not sure how helpful my tip is going to be. That being said, have also gone 22-0 since adding the expansion, current win streak is at 37 (43-3 record overall).

My two cents:

First of all, some investigators are flat out better than others. Michael McGlen or Harvey Walters are good against peril or lore heavy tasks, respectively. Kate Winthrop firstly negates monster "rewards" and is immune to terror effects. Those, which make you instantly lose the adventure or add doom tokens are especially nasty. Handpicked team may be therefore much better than a random one. Vincent Lee or Carolyn Fern are amongst my least used investigators.

Spells can make a difference. If you are about to finish an adventure, no matter if you lose or fail, it may be a good idea to lock some dice on spells, so that the other investigators have an easier time when attetmpting their adventures. Especially if there is an adventure that has a task consisting of 3 or 4 results, which may be hard to get. We Need To Find Help comes to mind, its only task consists from IIRC 2x peril, 1x lore and some number of investigations. Not to mention it locks a red die as well.

Of course, adventures with dice locks midnight effects are usually first to be completed, noone wants to gain extra doom or a monster every midnight. Not to mention it is harder with less dice.

Aye, be sure on where to focus: resolve first adventures locking dice, then those having nasty at midnight effects. Remember OWs have a lot more ES as rewards as the other adventures. And don't be afraid to use your items: spend them, get the dice, pass the adventure, get new stuff

Tel Prydain,

Just to echo what has been said thus far...focus on the Adventure cards which can realy hurt you. Also, as I had the privilege to play with Richard at the Arkham Nights event a few years ago, he said, "don't be shy...use all of your Items ...you'll get more!'

Cheers,

Joe

What Julia said about not being afraid to use items is important. So many items toss extra die into your pool that it's worth using them on peril/lore heavy adventures just to be safe. There's bound to be an adventure popping up that'll restock your items instead of having to spend trophies at the entrance.

Not to come off like a D-bag but is it possible you've misunderstood a rule or anything like that? Without knowing how a game goes it's hard to say what you may be doing wrong but I would double check all the rules and the FAQ just to make sure you haven't misunderstood something that may be making the game harder. This is a great game and I hate to see anyone have a bad time with it as that leads to never playing it again. We have about an 85 to 90 % win rate so there's got to be something going on causing you to lose 50/50. Come back with an update and I'll see if I can help out more

I haven't played much games, so maybe not the best advice, but here goes:

Don't be afraid to let your investigator die (unless he has good ability/cards) when you die you can get a new one, so take some risks, they might work in your favor. Save your points to buy extra elder signs. What julia said: other world cards are the ones to get, some even give you two signs.

remember that unless an adventure specifically states that you have to perform all tasks in certain order, you should just roll the dice and decide wich task you will put the dice on.

Monster tokens are worth points to. (like i said, more points saves up for elder signs) So if you have cards that let you get rid of monsters/ give you bonuses go there and take em out!

While on the subject of monster tokens: During one game, monster tokens kept popping up (normaly they go on an adventure that has empty slots for them, but once those are filled up you have to put them on an adventure of your choice) - so we ended up cramming all the monsters on the same rubbish adventure we weren't bothering to resolve anyway.

Monster tokens are worth points to. (like i said, more points saves up for elder signs) So if you have cards that let you get rid of monsters/ give you bonuses go there and take em out!

While on the subject of monster tokens: During one game, monster tokens kept popping up (normaly they go on an adventure that has empty slots for them, but once those are filled up you have to put them on an adventure of your choice) - so we ended up cramming all the monsters on the same rubbish adventure we weren't bothering to resolve anyway.

Buying Elder Signs is luckily removed in the expansion (and no-buying Signs a popular house rule for many before it), but the second doesn't work even in the base game. You have to spread the monsters as evenly as possible, no monster storage Adventure is possible:

"Placing Monsters

When placing a monster marker under the bottom task of

an Adventure card if there are no available monster tasks

in play, players must distribute monsters as evenly as

possible. That is, no Adventure card may have a second

monster placed below it until all Adventure cards have at

least one monster placed below them (and no Adventure

card can get a third monster until all cards have at least

two, etc.)." (FAQ, p. 2)

My bad!...Guess our group overlooked that.

I think one reason why people are having an easy time of winning the game is due to the rule of picking a new investigator once the previous one dies or goes mental. With my group, the game is over once one of the player's investigator is removed from play. This house rule made pushing your luck even more dangerous.

The other reason depends on the investigators that form the group. Some investigators lower the difficulty of the game. For example, there is a psychic that allows you to roll a red and yellow die whenever she is in the other world cards. That is a huge advantage!

Finally, the use of items, especially spell books which allow you to hold a die even if the roll was successful.

Just throwing this in. I'd be disappointed in any co-op game that I won more than 50% of the time. If you're winning 90% what's the point in playing?

But I was under the impression that dice only get saved on spells until you either complete or fail the adventure you cast the spell on. At least that's how it works in the Android app version Omens.

Omens work differently. While most of the game is the same, spells and terror effects (they can be prevented by locking with a spell) don't work the same way. And allies from The Dark Pharaoh campaign are totally different.

Double post.

I like to use Omens to gauge the order of events (I think it's totally reasonable to apply midnight effects before adding monsters from new mythos cards, for example, and Omens is clean and consistent in that regard), but there are definitely a few differences between how the two work. One of the other major differences is that Omens allows you to both focus and assist on the same turn, while the tabletop game specifically says this is not allowed.

Now that I've browsed the rules pdf I'd like to add my previous post as a possible house rule to increase the difficulty of the table top version...

Now that I've browsed the rules pdf I'd like to add my previous post as a possible house rule to increase the difficulty of the table top version...

Certainly do it if you like, but I would say that this decreases the already minimal level of actual co-op in the game- passing spells turn to turn is currently one of the only ways investigators can help each other out, besides assisting. Hopefully the new expansion will remedy this somewhat...

Certainly do it if you like, but I would say that this decreases the already minimal level of actual co-op in the game- passing spells turn to turn is currently one of the only ways investigators can help each other out, besides assisting. Hopefully the new expansion will remedy this somewhat...

The preview of the Skill card suggested wider possibilities of interaction between the players