Hi everyone,

Really enjoying this game so far and will be purchasing all the expansions on Friday

So I have a few questions. Please be as specific as you can. Thank you very much in advance for taking the time to answer.

1) I've seen a lot of diagrams about cross-compatibility, and yet others that say its fine if you're using everything.

- Dunwhich Horror
- Innsmouth Horror
- Kingsport Horror
- Black Goat
- Dark Pharaoh (get revised)
- The lurker at the threshold
- Miskatonic

This is the intended order/list I'll be getting on Friday, is there anything missing?

2) I enjoy long games and I was wondering what this means for the expansion. I mean technically if you have an ancient one with 13 HP and let's pretend that every mythos is a gate card so let's say 15-16 rounds. That's not really enough to fully experience the whole expanded board is it? (If the expansions extend the game I'll be very happy )

3) The Terrible Experiment. Seen so many topics on this yet none of them answer my question. Let's pretend there are 3 creatures on the card, you wait until your encounter phase and decide to face them, what happens in the following scenarios:

- You engage the creature but fail a combat check. Do you need to evade or can you just end combat when you please?

- Can you fight 1 by 1 as you see fit? Or do you need to pre-select how many you will be facing?

- Monster tells you to return it to the cup and collect an item instead. (Therefore you do not collect this as a trophy and it overrides the card?)

4) Equipment trading. So technically you can trade equipment so long as it is after the movement phase and you still occupy the same space? (ie Investigator uses a magical weapon, after the encounter decides to trade it to another investigator occcupying the same space?)

5) What is the prioritization of targets? ie Let's pretend in the same space there is a monster and a clue? I guess you engage the monster first since combat takes place in the movement phase and then so long as you are still conscious/sane you collect the clue if you still occupy the same space?

6) Bank loans. So technically I can take a 10$ loan, trade the money and items to someone, then simply wait for the fail and lose nothing ?

7) Combat check sequences. Do you have to commit your intended bonuses BEFORE the fight or can you do it 'on the fly'. ie I commit 1 hand to a weapon and fail the check, then I decide to commit my 2nd hand to a weapon and then I attempt the check or must I say I'm committing both hands and attempting the check in 1 shot.

8) After combat is initiated, does it loop? ie I begin combat, pass the horror check and fail combat and take the damage. Can I stop combat or must I begin a new round until either the monster or investigator are defeated?

9) Discard piles. So there are no discard piles everything unless removed from play goes under its respective deck?

10) Reshuffling. I always reshuffle the location decks, but items/mythos/other world encounters I do not (unless specified or something causes me to look through them). This seem plausible?

Thanks again

First of all, hi and welcome to the Carnival There'll be always someone watching over your games and queries, so don't worry, once you enter the Asylum, you'll never be alone anymore

As for your questions:

a) It seems like there's no King in Yellow on your list.

b) Games tend on average to last more or less the same number of turns. 10 to 12 in my experience. Some other players tend to play for some mor time (cap: 16-17 turns). Point is that the longer you play, the easier is that the game kicks your butt. So, push and win is good Anyhoo, important point: expansions do not add playing time (actually, the more in play, the faster the game can be), they do add complexity to the game (more things to consider, a wider map to cover, and so on). I suggest you to try each and every expansion on its own, to taste the flavour, have the experience last longer and find out the balance of exp perfect for your games

c1) combat is over when a) you are driven insane due to the initial terror check being failed or b) you are knocked unconscious or c) you kill the monster or d) you evade the monster. You cannot start a combat, take damage and say "ok, enough". If you want to leave, good, but you have to pass that evade check (as per any normal combat encounter; if this is not clear, ask, I'll go in deeper detail)

c2) you cherry pick the first one. After you're done with the first one, you pick the second or you call it quit and stop facing monsters. Your choice.

c3) Mi-gos and Tcho-tchos are returned to the box, not to the cup. Ineed, you get the item and not the trophy. The only way to get the trophies of these monsters is when you resolve encounters instructing you to "draw a random monster trophy from the cup". In this case, you have the trophy, but not the extra reward.

d) you can trade anytime during your movement phase

e) Monsters first, then clues (FAQ, pag 4 if you need reference)

f) Yep. It's called "Bank Loans laundry" and players tend to see it as a loophole in the rules they prefer not to exploit. But technically it's a legal move

g) you declare what are you using for the combat check and resolve the combat check. Period. The only way to add dice after rolling is by spending clues

h) you take the damage and then the combat loops: no second horror check, but you need to decide whether to flee or go on with combat. You could look at combat in details in the core rules, pag 15. The section you're interested in is the third paragraph, Monster damage.

i) technically, yes. We find this so terrible that we use discard piles for all the items (this changed when we started using the Item Tray designed by The Professor)

j) indeed, its's plausible. And honestly, we never reshuffle the location decks too: we want variety in the games, not risking to draw on and on the same card

Hope this helps!

JULIA

This is very good thanks it answers my questions.

As for the whole expansion affair, what I am basically asking is, assuming you have all the expansions integrated, do you still have ample time to move around the board and do stuff or does everything suddenly become time limited and cramped.

Point is that, with all exp in, you have 19 unstable locations on the board (against the 11 you have playing only with the core set): this means that it could happen that every round a new gate opens. It's called "speed Arkham": some like it, some don't. Many believe the best solution for Arkham is playing with one big box exp and one small exp in: you have more challenge, you don't dilute the theme, you don't speed up the game too much. I personally prefer two board expansions, one of them being always Kingsport: it helps a lot in keeping the game interesting, the rift mechanics is interesting and never dilutes, the difficulty is high, you have more unstable location to avoid the boredom from core set (some games simply got stuck at a certain point) without having to rush.

Actually, I strongly believe that "speed Arkham" is easier than other combos: once you're good at gaining clues / organizing the party, you have several option to close the game without being worried too much of that particularly nasty monster guarding that gate, since you're given so many options.

j) indeed, its's plausible. And honestly, we never reshuffle the location decks too: we want variety in the games, not risking to draw on and on the same card

There is nothing more annoying than people being in the same neighborhood for a few turns and keep getting "A monster appears!" because you've been shuffling the location deck. A truly awful way to experience as much as you can during the course of the game.

Julia,

Thanks for the kind words

Ciao,

Joe (the Professor)