I certainly hope it will be! I assume I'm not alone?

Um. Good guess. The rules are now up:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=571

Most pleasing! This rulebook reveals quite a bit.

First, while I was disappointed to see that there were only two Masks instead of the three I'd hoped for, it was a nice surprise that the Beings of Ib aren't the only Spawn monsters in Innsmouth. Tendril of Nyoghta, huh?

So you do actually get to go to Y'ha-Nthlei, city of the Deep Ones! At least assuming you have the money to rent a boat at Falcon's Point. Of course, I imagine the encounter cards at Y'ha-Nthlei should be the most purely lethal ones of any location on all four boards. And while Innsmouth has only four unstable locations compared to Dunwich's five, having vortices ONE MOVE away from two of them?!? Not to mention, I'm sure that the City of the Deep Ones will open with a Wizard's Hill frequency.

How close Quachil-Uttaus is to catching and destroying his prey?

So that tree of gray flesh is Zhar and not Zoth-Omog! And his token is only used during the FInal Battle? I'm curious to see exactly how that works.

Now that special, exra increase in the number of gates which can be open if you're using Innsmouth and Dunwich is going to be a big help.

Sawbone Alley! Jail break!

Which you're going to need to do once martial law comes into effect. How cruelly ironic-you can move freely about Innsmouth early in the game, when you probably won't need to, but late in the game when it becomes vital to call in the Feds, they're going to be on full alert . . .

Kevin clued us in to weapon immunity already, but it still makes me wince.

The little hints about the new Ancient Ones are very worrying. For now I'll just confine myself to writing, "-8?!?!? Are you kidding me?!?!?"

The Stars Are Right

I posted this in the comments section:

The section regarding the reduction of the number of players based on total expansion boards still does not mention that it does not affect Final Combat. However, it is interesting to note that the investigators get an additional +1 to the gate limit when using Dunwich and Innsmouth together.

The clause about being arrested in Innsmouth mentions that characters immune to delay are still affected; I assume that means characters who are immune to being arrested are still affected too.

The section about Martial Law says the character has to pass an Evade check, but the example says the investigator has to pass a Sneak check. Which is it?

Also, the ruling regarding encounters that move investigators again claims the investigator should evade all monsters at the new location.

---

Some additional thoughts:

Curiously, unless I missed it, I didn't see any mention of the white monster type (beings of Ib) and how their dimensionsal symbols are relevant. But that's probably covered on Bokrug's sheet.

The FAQ section was thoroughly disappointing. It didn't even touch upon the Nightgaunt/Find Gate issue, or the infamous Charlie Kane Query. But I trust that the work Roxas started is going to be reserved for some sort of living, on-line FAQ that patches up all the inter-expansion intricacies. So no worries there.

It's cool that the gate limit is increased if you're using Dunwich too; but that's yet another reason why you should be using my anti-dilution variant

I think it did mention the beings of ib. It said they are never placed on the board, and only go away when pacified with monster or gate trophies. Sounds funky, but cool thematically.

Yeah, -8, and that hunter guy scare the pants off of me.

NEAT.

Dig the new board! I like how the town monsters all move toward the depot to depart: "Which bus goes to the vortex?" A watery blue, a goldfish yellow, and an algae green...more appropriate than any other board colors. LOVE the independent Police Force that doesn't give a crap who Mark is. And, at long last, the Esoteric Order of Dagon.

Show of hands: who will use the Zhar token as your First Player token?

Martial Law!!! And suddenly Sneak is not just for Elusive Monsters anymore. I wonder if Pete will get a popularity boost out of this.

2 more Masks, for a grand total of 10. (Why were we hoping for 3?) Can't wait to find out who they are.

Chaugnar Faugn!!! I don't know what he does, but he threatens to be worse than I thought.

I don't even know what to think about Quachil Uttaus. "Run. RUN! RUN NOW!!!" "I don't wanna be First Player!!!"

Innsmouth seems specifically designed to declaw every Investigator advantage. Mark arrested, Wendy targeted, Kate a threat....anyone with a high Speed who wants to use it...low Sneak BAD...I wonder how the new 16 are gonna get beaned.

>sigh< This FAQ looks awfully familiar...

Tibs said:

Is this an actual flip-flop or just laziness via copy&paste remains to be seen. Certainly the Gate Burst section still uses the "monster surge" reference, so not much editing being done.

Are there, by chance, any reasonably high-resolution pictures of the board on the Intertubes? I want to check out those location special abilities, and it's been proving rather difficult. For that matter, I just want to know what the names of all the locations are!

jgt7771 said:

Of all the AOs mentioned in the rules, this was the only guy I mentioned to my Arkham friends out of sheer horror.

I think I'm going to print a new First Player that depicts a bullseye.