What's happenin? I'm relatively new to the game, having bought it in March and just picked up Dunwich Horror last week. Love it, love the theme, love the cooperative element, love the "storylines" that arise in the game. Friends are generally up for having a bash due to the cooperative element so I've played with a couple of different sets of folk and a coupla solo games... Played about 8 games altogether generally with 3-4 investigators

Win record is 1 by gate closure, 1 by final battle (by the skin of our teeth against the Big Papa Cthulhu)

Now lookin through the net, loadsa folks find the game quite easy to beat.... What?!

My main problem is that getting and holding onto 5 clues long enough to seal a gate before the Old One wakes up is so **** hard, even if you got 3 other cats trying to do the same. There just don't seem to be enough to go round for the win, which requires the investment of a grand total of 30 clue tokens.

How far from impossible is it to win by 6 sealed gates?

(Ok, so you probably have this question asked here about three times a week, so a kindly reprimand along with a good link would be a welcome PM if this be the case)

Holla...

Well, one good strategy is to not just collect clues willy-nilly. Have certain investigators pick up the clues in order to seal gates while other investigators are busy shopping/killing monsters. Trading equipment toward the beginning of the game is essential. Think of the long term goals and what is good for the group, even if it means a fairly boring game for your investigator.

I think many of us have been supporting characters many times, doing menial tasks such as shopping and being equpiment runners. If you're having problems, try a few games with just the base set again until you have a better understanding of things. Dunwich Horror adds new locations for gates to open and really ramps up the difficulty because of that.

The nice thing about seals is that in theory (there are a few cards which make this more difficult), when you seal a location a gate won't be opening there, and if you seal gates at high frequence locations it basically gives you a free turn to go around and collect more stuff to help you win. The first few seals are the essential ones. Also, if you seal some high frequency locations, it makes a closing victory a bit easier.

Shopping in the curiousity shop for unique items can be helpful in order to gain an elder sign. If you get at least one elder sign, it helps because it not only seals a location (without having to make a roll or spend clues), but it removes the doom token, giving you an extra turn.

johnwatersfan said:

All excellent advice. I just want to emphasize the importance of early sealing of some of the major gates. Sometimes this backfires if you are using gate bursts. But two gate bounces can often make the difference between victory and defeat.

I always advise careful thought before "wasting" clues to save your investigator's measly life. The higher goal is to save humankind.

I usually send in an investigator into a gate as soon as he has five clues. Usually it works. Not always. But using an additional turn to collect another clue backfires more often than not for me. Each investigator only has about 16-18 turns in a game.

Usually clues are at a premium. We almost always end up trading trophies at the science building for clues.

It's usually very easy to win sealing gates against most Ancient ones. I usually send someone to shop for elder signs and one to collect clues for sealing. Everybody else murders monsters or gets money to get more elder signs (or in Dunwich waste time doing missions/tasks).

Wins about 60 percent of the time and most of those are seal victories. Don't waste those clues if you don't have an elder sign and that makes it easier. Injury and Madness help from losing clues too.

I like to spend all my clues killing a cultist or passing a encounter that gives me $1. I don't really like Elder Signs because they give -1 score.

Yeah you are as good at wasting clues as I am retiring people/shopping. We are setting a bad example for the newbies. A new player would probably not be concerned about the score as someone playing 100 games.

I still want to win regardless. Score = meh.

I play with score, but don't go overboard...I mean sure...I can hold up from not winning just so I can farm a few more monsters, and just close some random gates...but it will just prolongue the game and make it not fun. I try to get a good score, so it will be at least in the 20+ range...I can call that a good game ...even with less points it was probably a thrilling game.

Though I probably wouldn't have put it as *so* as Magelith did, he is right about the clue thing. Every now and then someone will spend 5+ clues in order to not die. Sometimes it works, sometimes they die anyway. In either case I silently groan miserably. Especially if you are playing with the Injury/Madness cards, dying is not a big deal. Its often worth it to die and take an injury/madness in order to hold on to clues necessary to seal gates.

Elder Signs can help a lot, but in their absence, a lot of the clue-giving items can be of help too. King in Yellow, Old Journal, heck, even a set of Research Materials will do the trick. Also, don't underestimate the importance of the Science Building when going for a seal victory. Once the clues on the board have disappeared or been picked up, a couple turns at the Science Building spending Gates/Monsters for clues can be the speediest way to seal those final few gates.

Agreed. It's never worth staying conscious or sane if it costs clue tokens you need to seal a gate with.

A 6-seal win is hard, but by all means not impossible. In our games we normally let a certain few people get the essential clue token amount to seal a gate (usually we stock up on 6-7 just in case something bad happens in the Other Worlds) and the others, as what was previously mentioned, perform the other tasks of shopping for goods (the Dilettante for one LOL), kill monsters roaming around the board, among others.

The books that yield clue tokens are a big help as well, as with the Alien Statue and the Ancient Tablet. Any item that can spare us extra clue tokens to seal gates are always worth keeping even if the Sanity losses are there.

While we normally don't play for scores unless it's the league, Elder Signs are always good items to have in regular games. Thematically speaking, they ARE good tools to seal off the Ancient Ones so it must not be discouraged for the first-timers to have an Elder Sign or two used every game, especially in a game where the core game is the only one being used (more chances of getting those 4 Elder Signs!). However, league-goers or the advanced players can go for more challenging win criteria by closing off all the gates or winning in the final battle.

terranova18 said:

Us All-Inners (well, can only really speak for myself) count ourselves lucky if we see 1 Elder Sign in a game. Dilution of the Unique Item deck promotes going to unstable locations for clues, possibly with negative results, as opposed to rushing through the small base game UI deck for 4 Elder Signs. Barring good luck with Elder Signs, with multiple expansions, you're looking at minimum of 25-30 Clues for a seal win (in non-Hastur games), probably more, with gate bursts as a threat.

On a side note, winning in final battle isn't really more challenging than close/seal win. Granted, EBs change that (probably), but if you go for final battle from the get-go, merely preparing for it, ignoring gates, etc. merely looking for equipment to use in final combat, it probably doesn't matter whether you use EBs or not. Kevin W's new proposal would make a difference in this as well.

IMO the order of difficulty goes: combat, seal, close (with close being the most difficult). GOO dependant naturally.

Hi Mylo. If you're relatively new to the game, there are one or two things which I'm gonna assume you may not have picked up on yet (because I didn't realize them until I'd already played quite a few games):

Gates at the Woods, the Witch House, the Unvisited Isle and Independence Square (one at each point of the compass, or near enough) are much more common than gates anywhere else. If you seal some or all of these locations first, you will buy yourself a disproportionate amount of time because lots of Mythos cards will no longer be adding Doom tokens.

Gates at the Graveyard, the Black Cave and the Unnameable are 'medium-frequency' - well worth sealing but don't make it a priority.

Gates the Historial Society, the Science Building, the Silver Twilight Lodge and Hibb's Roadhouse are rare - in fact so rare that there are only a couple of cards of each. (As a side note, if you're using Kingsport Horror Mythos cards, you should seal these locations first because gate bursts are much less likely; in fact, I'm not even sure there are any gate bursts at these locations).

Once you know all this, it's possible to use the available clue tokens strategically. But you have to start trying to do it on turn one, in my experience, and even then, most attempts at sealing end up turning into 'closing' victories in the end. It's even possible to beat Hastur or Yog-Sothoth using seals, but in the former case, at least, it's probably much more difficult than just fighting him.

Johnwatersfan says not to collect clues willy-nilly. This is good advice in a way, but in my opinion if you're going for a sealing victory you need to grab every clue token you can get as soon as possible. Knowledge of gate frequences helps here too; in the first few turns, all investigators should run around the high- and medium-freq gate locations and grab the clue tokens there, because otherwise gates will open and remove those clues. Obviously if any one investigator has an excess of clue tokens it's not that useful, but it's preferable to those clue token being lost.

(As for when to spend clue tokens: although it might seem counter-intuitive, investigators' sanity and stamina are not very valuable resources in the scheme of things. It's always much, much easier to replace lost san/stam than it is to replace lost Clues. So, for example, a 'rule of thumb' my group uses is: never voluntarily get into combat with a monster unless you can take the sanity loss. And never waste clue tokens trying to pass a Horror check if you can just take the sanity hit instead.)

I am probably guilty of spending clue tokens on useless crap, but if you're running only the base game and don't have the option to use madness / injury cards isnt spending clue tokens in your best interest anyway? You're going to lose half if you go below zero stam / sanity? Might as well spend some and pass the check unless you have a large number of clue tokens?

That depends; if you have an even amount of clues, you might as well spend one clue if it helps.

If you have an odd number of clues or spend more than one and still fail the roll, you'll end up with less clues than you'd have had if you hadn't spent the clue(s). So in these cases, just go insane / unconscious because you'll have to pick up less clues to go back to 5.

Example 1:

If you have 4 clues and go insane, you'll lose 2 clues, bringing you to 2. If you spend one clue and still fail, you'll lose only 1 clue and will end up at 2 again. If you spend one clue and succeed, you'll be at 3. In that case, spending the clue doesn't cost you anything but might safe you one clue.

Example 2:

If you have 5 clues and go insane, you'll lose 2 clues, bringing you to 3. If you spend one clue and still fail, you'll lose 2 again and end up at 3. If you spend one clue and succeed, you'll remain at 4. Since the probability for a success is lower than for a failure, I wouldn't risk the clue. However, if you risk it and fail, you might as well spend another clue then as per example 1.

Can't really add much more than what has already been said really. The various clue-on-a-stick items can be useful if an Investigator explored a Gate and is a few clues short of sealing. Sealing the big four helps a lot and five extra clues in Dunwich helps a lot if you play all in. I'd only seal Wizards Hill up there. Investigators with close to five clues should grab up to five and then gate-jump. Grab clues from high-frequency sites first as Gates will kill em all. Those with less clues should go shopping then concentrate on keeping the streets clear.

Rarely do I use clues for dice, unless in a desperate situation or probability for success is good (multiple dice, blessed). Or if I have too many, I may use a few. Rolling one die at a time typically does not work for me. I'm also way more gung ho about my character's health than the rest of my play-group. I've pinned sealing hopes on a one-sanity, one-stamina guy in Yuggoth - against Yog-Sothoth. It worked that time, but sometimes it doesn't. It's usually easier to spend the turn lost in time and space with a madness than it is to get to the asylum and give them money. Without I/M, though, the situation may change.

Most of the games we win are by the 6-sealed condition. But we almost always play an 8 investigator team. This means we can't ave more than 4 open gates of the Ancient One wakes up, so we have to be sending people through gates pretty much every turn. So we hope to get an Elder Sign on setup, or just not worry about sealing the first gate or two.

There are plenty of places to get clues, and we try to have the folks who start with the most clues pick up a few as the game begins. Joe Diamond, for example, starts with 3 clues, and if he picks up the clues at the first location they appear on the mythos card he immediately has 5 clues, enough to seal a gate. He has decent enough stats that if he gets a Magical Weapon from somebody he can make it through most gates and seal a gate when he comes out turn 4. There are a few other characters that can also do this same strategy, or a variation on it.

Our group is not against players using clues to pass skill checks. We play down the meta-game, as we find we enjoy the game less when we decide we have to do certain things in order to win. But we will meta certain times when they are our best options. For us, we like the excitement of the game, and often even when we specifically meta something, the game still finds a way to screw us.

The more you play the game, the more you will find strategies to improve your game, and this actually increases your options. When we first started playing we often ignored the South Church, thinking the only good encounter there was the free blessing. Now, the Church gets visited alot more often as we hope for removing Doom tokens or recovering sanity. Stranglely, it seems whenever a female investigator goes to the church, Father Michael attacks them with his cross. And one game Michael McGlen kept getting the Holy Water encounter.

Dam said:

Combat difficulty depends on the Ancient One. Some are pushovers and some are a major pain in the ass that if you let wake up almost always kill you. Especially with Epic Battle (which still doesn't fix guys like Yig and Nyarlethotep and in my opinion, still wouldn't even with Kevin's house rule).

The fun thing is: we've always wondered if it's possible to win by closing all the games and if anyone plays the game like that. We've always won by sealing and rarely by a final fight. I think the first time we really set out to win by closing instead and actually managed it (barely) was after maybe 100-150 games.

I have, I think, umm, 4 closing wins in my 72 games. First one I don't recall much of, but certainly didn't plan on it (vs Cthulhu). I recall one of those 4 came due to lucky mythos distribution, opening a total of 4 gates, with surges in between (Shudde M'ell + BGotW Herald). Another game I saw an opportunity for it, drawing De Vermiis Mysteriis and using that to close that last gate (seem to recall that game came down to that final mythos card, if a new gate opened, I'd most likely not succeed; vs Hastur). My 4th closing win was purely planned after the initial set-up. Random everything saw Cthulhu as GOO, Kate Winthrop + Arcane Insight among the 4 investigators. Despite 1-2 double-doomers, Cthulhu didn't stand a chance. In hindsight, it was the most boring game of AH I've ever played .

I do recall at least one game where I've had 5 seals down, with 1 open gate, but just as I would return to Arkham next turn, a new gate opens, I return to Arkham and slap down my 6th seal. Incidentally, 99% sure that happened in another Cthulhu game.

I've worked on a final battle variant that combines my Epic Battle variant and Kevin's:

• Remove The End of Everything from the Red deck and the Sinister Plot card from the Green deck.
• Shuffle the remaining cards into the two decks. Put X green cards on top of the red deck. X is equal to the number of elder sign tokens on the board when the AO awoke. Remove the other green cards.
• Place The End of Everything on the bottom of the stack and the green Sinister Plot on the top.
• Instead of drawing the top card on the deck, roll a die. Take that card off the deck (1 is 1st card, 4 is 4th card, etc). So as the battle goes on, you have an increasing chance of drawing red cards, but you can alternate between red and green. Also, gearing up for battle may not be the best option, as each seal buys you a little time.
• If the roll is equal to or higher than the cards remaining in the deck, you've drawn The End of Everything and lost.

I played a couple final battles yesterday that were AWESOME when using this variant. We came close with Nyarlathotep but ultimately submit to End of Everything (we would have lost our last clues next attack anyway). We really didn't stand a chance against Abhoth but it was fun watching the battle unfold anyway.

Tibs said:

Uh... That's a hell of alot more brutal than Kevin's variant I think ;'D my hands are trained to roll sixes.

Avi_dreader said:

Sure, it's all about the wrist-action !