The game seems to pace itself in my games with the doom track and when it runs out

the big bad turns up and if we have a couple of flame throwers we toast him or he toasts us.

Is there a way to slow down the start of the game and increase the intensity at the end thus ending it in the normal time?

I'm not sure, as the pacing is pretty dependent on Ancient One and certain expansion, but also varies largely in itself.

How many investigators are you using? I'd recommend between 4 and 6. Fewer than three weighs the game toward winning by final combat and more weighs it towards winning by gates.

I solo with 4.

I have been playing with Yig and just beat him on last Saturday with a dual flame thrower finally.

I had given up and was going to sell it all but gave it a last chance and it rocked I had found it hard to stay mobile with frequent hardcore monsters stopping the chance of getting around and experiencing Arkham on their terms.

Do you play with the core game only? The core game is rather broken: once you learn the basics, it gets really easy

I have it all including several sets of those custom dice. (go big or go home).

I suppose I am after knowing which bits of which add on to add to give me that result?

I see the point. Using everything creates the so called "speed Arkham": you risk having one gate opening / turn and this could end very often in final battle unless you know perfectly the game. Some random suggestions:

- use only one exp board at a time; two if you want to play with Kingsport. In this way you should have some more monster surges and some less "continuous gates appearing"

- do not resolve the Mythos card during setup: you have in this way a "free turn" to gather some more good stuff

But anyway. Not going houserules, there are two things to consider: strategy and Mythos deck composition. The latter allows us to "choose" which game we want to play. We can work on that, but I need to learn a bit more of what you're expecting form the game. As for the former, allow me to ask you a very basic question: are you comfortable with the fact that gate openings in Arkham are skewed (i.e.: not all locations have the same likelihood of having a gate appearing)? And another very important question is the use of clue tokens, that should never be used for anything but sealing or rerolling life-saving checks. The distribution of clues is skewed as well: in the beginning you have plenty of those, but then they become rarer and sometimes players tend to spend them to gain items or allies that are cozy but not effective in winning strategies.

Sorry I didn't make that clear.

I have it all but I don't play it all so I have all the options is what I was saying.

I want to make it feel almost RPG at the start with lots of experiencing Arkham going to various places

Maybe I am playing the rules wrong, I am drawing a mythos card a turn which spawns a gate a turn no??

this put a clock on the game of around 1 turn for every spot on the doom track -1 due to original draw, am I right?

I don't want it easy but I just don't want to find it frustrating as I have in the past basically waiting for a randomly drawn big monster to block a street basically forcing me into staying in the same location.

I keep away from playing characters with only 3 sanity as no matter how tough they are if they fight a large monster they are useless as they will lose the sanity roll and end up saying hello to the leprechauns.

I want an intense ending and don't mind losing tbh but I have had a few games where turns 3-6 have been trapped in a location due to big nasties spawning and it just killed the fun.

this didn't happen in my last turn and that blew my mind. I keep away from wasting clues on anything but closing gates.

Timing: indeed, you resolve a Mythos card / turn. This doesn't necessarily implies that it's a +1 doom / turn, since you can have a lot of options: doom is added only when a new gate appears. If a gate opens on a gate, you have a monster surge, and no doom is added. If the location is sealed and the gate opening is no gate burst, then no gate opens and no doom is added; if the gate opening is a gate burst on a sealed location, you remove the seal but you don't add doom. And so on, there are many and different cards having different effect.

In my experience, a game with a doom track of 12 can last for something like 16-18 Mythos without too many problems. So, somehow less than 1 doom / turn.

I'm sorry that you had frustrating games. The first suggestion I can give you is: return to core Arkham. Monsters from core Arkham are easier than those coming in the expansions, and the Mythos deck is more gentle. This would give you quite some time to focus on team synergy and so on. Play some games with Azathoth, then move to Cthulhu (they have a very long doom track, so you have time to do everything). Remember the following strategical tips:

- there are 4 high freq locations in Arkham (places where gates are more likely to appear): Independence Square, Unvisited Isle, Witch House, Woods. And there are 4 low frequency locations: Science Building, Historical Society, Silver Twilight Lodge, Hibbs' Roadhouse. Always dive into a gate with clues enough for sealing, especially if you're going to seal a high freq gate

- remember Other Worlds are color coded: red OW encounters are more likely to damage your stamina, yellow to damage your sanity, blue to damage your possessions and finally green encounters tend to be somehow benefical. Hence: never send a 1 stamina investigator in a red OW. Another dimension has no specific entries (it's always filed under "Other"), so, it's more likely to encounter monsters there; the Dreamlands have specific encounters under all colours

- remember the gate is about gates and not monsters: monsters are removed from the board by means of gate closing, so that you don't need to fight them all; after setting up the game, look at the investigator who has the most clues and try to understand how to have him reachign 5 clues as soon as possible, possibly by the end of turn 1 or 2. He'll be your first sealer

- remember that some Skills are more useful than others: in the Other Worlds, Luck appears in many encounters more than Lore, but if you're in Arkham and you go to the Witch House, then Lore is something you'll need

- playing with the core set for a while should also give you some chances to explore more around: after you seal the high freq locations, you should have some time to respite

Arkham is a great game, but it can be overwhelming, and the best advice I can give you is to proceed slowly from the very beginning. This could mean a long ride, but it's a glorious ride, and learning step by step should grant you an extremely satisfactory gaming experience (and also a consistent winning rate, so, no more frustration).

If you have time and you're interested, you can read some of my sessions reports ( here some) just to check strategy and so on.

Finally, I helped Joe / The Professor to develop an alternate take for Arkham to emphasize the roleplaying aspect of the game; I don't have the rules anymore, but Joe certainly has them, so that, as soon as he's back from the Thanksgiving vacation, we can ask him to post those here.

Finally (again), if you want, you can setup a game and we can debate the different moves via forum (could be a nice read also for other players) and see if there's some rule that could have been oversighted or strategy slightly improved.

Lemme know

lilikin,

As per Julia's comments, I'm posting my 4-Investigator, all-in exams ion Variant:

For those of you who play "all-in" games (using every aspect of every expansion) with four Investigators, I offer you the folllowing variant. Of course, if you play with more or less than four Investigators, your mileage will definitely vary.

General Guidance

Mythos 0 - Turn 4: As you put into play the Mythos card, only place gates in Arkham. Ignore Double-Doom cards and Rumors. If you reveal an expansion board Gate location, resolve everything else...Monster Movement, Clue token, and Headline/Environment. Starting on Turn 5, play each Mythos card, as normal, revealing Gates anywhere on any board. Rationale: In this way, you should, based on the percentages for each Gate opening, have 2-3 Gates open in the first four Turns, instead of 4-5.

Rumors: Reduce the # of tokens, as if you were playing with two Investigators for Rumors such as Nightmare Pool, but for The Key and the Gate, consider 4 Investigators in play. Rationale: Rumors should be difficult to pass, but not impossible, given the great distances Investigators must travel when all boards are in play.

Maximum # of Gates: 10. Rationale: There are 20 Unstable Locations across the four boards. Ten open Gates represents 50% of all of the locations with the potential to spawn a Gate.

Maximum # of Monsters in Arkham and the Outskirts: 5. Rationale: As with Rumors, above, playing as if you had two Investigators would warrant a Maximum # of Monsters in Arkham at 2 + 3= 5 and for simplicity, I've used the same value for the Maximum # of Monsters in the Outskirts.

Expansion Changes

Curse of the Dark Pharaoh: No changes (I currently have incorporated both the original and the new version, so play includes both "Barred from Neighborhood" cards and Patrol Markers).

Dunwich Horror: No changes

The King in Yellow: No changes

Kingsport Horror: Apply a Rift Marker/Token to the Rift Track only when a new Gate opens on any board, including Gate Bursts. Optional: As the Rifts occur over the town of Kingsport, place the newly opened Rift at the location designated by the last placed Rift Marker/Token on the Rift Track instead of at the Gate location on the Mythos card. Rationale: Performing "Rift Duty" can prove boring for most Investigators. At least having a potential combat in Kingsport should make things interesting. Also, Rifts opening in Kingsport, is the very premise of the expansion...these tears in the fabric are happening over this coastal city.

Black Goat of the Woods: No changes

Innsmouth Horror: Place a Deep Ones Token on the Deep Ones Rising (DOR) Track only when a monster enters a vortex. Additionally, once the DOR Track is full, add a Doom Token to the Doom Track instead of automatically awakening the Great Old One. This happens during every Mythos Phase while the DOR Track remains filled. Rationale: Similar to the Rifts in Kingsport, the DOR Track should not be the focus of the Investigator's skills and abilities, but there are times when they may need to travel there and deal with the situation. The DOR Track should not serve as a 2nd Doom Track.

Lurker at the Threshold: You may not use the Power tokens as Clue tokens when the card is exhausted. Thus, if an Investigator takes a Blood Pact, exhausts the card and sacrifices 3 Stamina to receive the 3 Power tokens, place them on the exhausted Blood Pact card. During the next Turn's Upkeep Phase, refresh the Blood Pact card, allowing the Investigator to use the Power tokens. Rationale: Given the currently accepted rule, it's far too easy to exploit the Lurker.

Miskatonic Horror: No change

That's it ~ a few tweaks and I can tell you that it works very well. Again, Arkham Horror isn't about winning, it's a about the story, the theme. As I've said many times before, "it's about the journey, not the destination." If I can maintain a win rate consistent with the average based on 10,000 games on Tibs' spreadsheet, while enjoying the game that much more, great!

If you have any thoughts or comments, please let me know.

Cheers, Joe/the Professor

Give me a couple of days to read and absorb thank you

Or maybe it will absorb me but either way......

Or maybe it will absorb me but either way......

This would be very lovecraftian. Almost shoggothesque.

lilikin,

I look forward to the feedback...unless of course you're Devoured by your game, then...au revoir!

Cheers,

Joe

lilikin,

I look forward to the feedback...unless of course you're Devoured by your game, then...au revoir!

Cheers,

Joe

Realistically my next game will be Saturday I am looking forward to it and will follow up on this thread thank you again.

Is there a way to slow down the start of the game and increase the intensity at the end thus ending it in the normal time?

I've decided, over time, that I don't really get much out of the Final Battle in this game. Either we slaughter the AO or he slaughters us, depending on how well we twinked out our group before he woke up. Either way, it's just an extra "post-game" mini-game that doesn't really do much for me.

So, I've just stopped doing it. No matter who the AO is, if he wakes up, we all lose immediately. It has the effect of putting the focus back on the main game, which is the part I like. I suppose it doesn't really "slow down" anything, but it does shift focus. It also relieves us of the need to twink out our team "before the AO wakes up." We still need to deal with monsters, and of course Elder Signs remain a primary goal for acquisition, but it feels like there are more options now.

I'm not super-fond of missions personally, although using those would encourage people to go to various locations, thus increasing the "exploration" angle.

PS: We only play with 1 expansion board at a time (sometimes none.) Otherwise it would be crazy hard to avoid waking the AO!

Game was good full review to come

Great news

Lilikin,

Awesome! I look forward to hearing the full session report.

Cheers,

Joe

I have notes with some dramatization....... I wrote it as I played let me get it down and edit it out then I will get it on this post.

I didn't finish the game as I was looking up to many rules and was getting onto 4 hours but it was epic

The investigators are responding to an attempt by Nyarlathotep to break into our existence rumours abound of a dark man seen roaming the streets of Arkham known only as the Dark Pharaoh, he seems to play particular attention to the exhibition touring the streets of Arkham. There is also a new play in town called the "king in yellow"

Investigators are in order of first to last (I never go for 3 sanity investigators as I find them a little to fragile)

Darrel Simmons (Double card choice is invaluable)

Silas Marsh (I just like him)

Roland Banks (I like the clue generation means he will be my clue spender as required for incidentals as well as $'s)

Diana (Silver twilight is a nice touch, a generally good spell caster apart from the low sanity and the free clues etc are always nice as she gets better towards the end)

I decided to play Innsmouth board (my favourite HP Lovecraft story (particularly the bit in the hotel it's really tense)) as well as Dunwich board, the table I was using was a bit small for Kingsport.

My strategy is poor as I am frankly testing the play mode as set out by the professor and I generally took to many risks but I wanted to see what type of game the mode produced rather than to win. outside of these obvious mistakes please feel free to tell me how you would have done things differently.

Darrell Simmons heads over to Innsmouth because he had never been before and he manages to get into a meeting of the order of Dagon and is blessed after the priests look ever his innsmouth look TWICE!

Silas heads to the exhibit at Miskatonic University as he is about to enter a ghouls appears he manages to hold himself together and wastes the ghoul with his .38 revolver and the .45 automatic an old service friend of his had given him. He manages to get the mask of vice but starts to feel the curse of the mummy.

Roland Banks looking for clues at independence square and with the information his office game him he still has manages to find an ally in the hunt one Miss Anna Kaslow

Diana Stanley Silver twilight lodge watches as members complete a spell she has no interest in joining.

Darrell hears the sound of a Dark Young and formless coming from the sea into the innsmouth shore streets but no gate appears

Darrell gets a telegram from his editor telling him his retainer has been cancelled and he feels less lucky as he discovers he isn't so blessed after all.

Silus feels weaker as the curse of the mummy continues to rot him.

Silas heads to Mas boarding house as he had heard there was help to be had there looks at some paint on the wall pulls him into the Abyss. Thankfully Azathoth isn't awaking today. (GULP)

Roland overlooks the Scum in Hibbs roadhouse and imagines no one would notice them if they were swallowed up.

Diana in rivertown to see the exhibition sees a woman dousing an artefact in fire and isn't quick enough to stop her. And watches the mask of the three fates burn

Darrell lies in bed at a hotel in innsmouth dreaming of the waters of Innsmouth but thankfully isn't of that ilk.

A glow appears from the witches house and the investigators hear stories of beast stalking the night there there must be a fate opening

Roland Banks just misses the exhibit at Northside.

Diana Stanley heads back to the lodge to pay her dues for the month as she doesn't fancy getting cursed

Despite being far to quick to have been hit a bunch of boys smash into Darrel with their model T as Darrell enters Dunwich on the bridge after his nights rest in Innsmouth

Silas smashes a glass bottle in the magic shop he felt he would have caught if he hadn't been cursed and falls into a coughing fit making him feel very rough indeed.

Diana stays inside the lodge after a brother warns her of an ancient creature roaming the streets of French hill and decides to study under the tutalidge of Carl Sanford and with a help of some of her clues discovered the dread curse of Azathhoth.

Darrell touched an odd shaped skull up at gardeners place and starts to feel another being in his head as well as a stronger mental resolve.

Silas is perusing the goods at the ye olde magic shop and hears some juicy gossip over at miskatonic university

Roland finds a crate with two artefacts In and upon opening it discovers he has opened a gate and hears maniacal laugher in some ancient tongue he feels cursed as he is sucked though the newly opened gate.

Silas and Roland get weaker and the curse upon then remains too strong for them.

Diana walks out towards the giant red beast in the street with her Tommy gun strapped on her back and the words of the dread curse on her lips she just steels her mind trying to ignore the horror and unleashes the curse upon it.

Her sanity starts to slip away a little from the spell and she blasts the star vampire with it causing the beasts body to burn in the street.

Darrel is sweating it out in the devils hopyard following up on some clues.

Silas is admitted to hospital with an unknown infection, but that isn't uncommon for sailors, he talks in his sleep about a curse but the doctors think it's another case of the itches gone bad.

Roland walks Yugguth until the Shan that spewed from the gate followed him back through. The Shan charges him and Roland's mind can't handle what has happened he is never seen again.

sorry if it's a bit rough. It was a lot of fun but as you can see I didn't finish, I need to get my game organised as I spent about an hour before getting just setup and I spent a lot of time reading rules.

I felt generally I was pretty unlucky and only got trapped once but thankfully managed to gun my way out of their on a lucky sanity roll.

Thoughts?

I'll try to comment on that with some calm, tonight. By chance, do you have a list of the Mythos cards that appeared? It'd be easier for me to dig into some strategic advices

No I should have now you say it, I will in future

So, let's look at the starting resources:

- Darrell: 6 dollars + 1 clue

- Silas: 7 dollars + 2 clues

- Roland: 3 dollars + 2 clues

- Diana: 4 dollars + 2 clues

First observation: you're playing speed Arkham since you have both Innsmouth and Dunwich in play. This means you'll have higher chances to have several gate openings in a row, with very few moments to respite. Playing 4 investigators only can be challenging if you don't know exactly how to control the board: you need two investigators to seal two gates each, and the other two to seal one gate each to win the game. Playing 5 could be better. Or removing one expansion board.

Starting resources are not that good: 6 seals means 30 clues, and of these 30 clues you only have 7 already collected. The start up board grants you 20 more, which is not that bad, but some of these are difficult to obtain (Devil Reef and Y'han-something). Biggest problem of all, you don't have an "immediate" sealer: in the best case possible you need a minimum of two turns to have two investigators ready to seal. The game would probably last something like 12-16 Mythos, -1 since you resolve one during setup, -2 since you need to gain the clues for the first seals. Result: you have 9 to 13 turns to accomplish the task. Difficult (yet not impossible! Nothing in Arkham is impossible).

Priority tasks:

a) have Roland passing his PS. Once he manage to do that, he becomes unstoppale. Have him giving money away every time you can: money will be regenerated.

b) you have a load of money. 20 bucks is totally an enormous quantity of money. It could be worth spending a couple of rounds at the Curiosity Shoppe to gain that Elder Sign

c) Diana is a sort of blessing in such games: every time the terror rises, she'll gain one clue, so that you can actually have her diving into gates with 4 clues and risk, if you have some pesky monsters roaming Innsmouth

I'd have used Roland and Diana as first sealers. Darrell to get the Elder Sign. Silas as jolly because of his superior capacity movement and his awesome +2 at aquatic locations. Focusing mostly on small and lower freq locations, since Innsmouth with so few investigators in play can be a huge pain since bouncing gates will trigger the DOR, and you don't want to waste clues on that one.

Some comments on your game play:

- I'd have never sent Roland on turn 1 to Independence Square. It's a high freq location, and I don't want a gate to open behind him during the first Mythos Phase. Having him not passing his PS, and entering an OW without chances to seal, it's no good. First strategic tip : when you're given a chance to choose from where to pick up clues, look at the number of clues you already have. If you have to go to a high freq location, be sure that the number of clues you gain there is enough to reach the 5 required to seal. Otherwise go somewhere else (unless you're Kate, clearly). The game is about time management, hence focusing on how not losing time is a winning key

- Second strategic tip: never waste clue tokens on skill checks unless these skill checks are the difference between life and death (e.g: "pass a Luck +0 check or lose all of your clue tokens". If you fail, feel free to spend clues to add dice). So, Diana spending clues to gain the Dread Curse of Azathoth ain't a good Arkham strategy: in the beginning you have plenty of clues around, but the more the game progresses, the less likely is to have abundance of clues.

- Third strategic tip: decide some areas of influence, especially at the beginning of the game, and go for them. Darrell is chasing for clues in Innsmouth? Great (he's the right guy there). Then keep him there to gain clues. Also, spend his money to gain Research Materials and send him into a gate with 4 clues: in this way you can have him passing his PS AND sealing gates which is utterly awesome.

Wish I could give some more advices, but I'd need to now something more about gates and monsters swarming the board. Anyhoo, my original advice remains unchanged from some previous posts: I know that having the complete game is fantastic, but if you need to build a strategy, I'd suggest starting from the beginning. If you want some flavour in the game, and use some of the components coming from here and there, I suggest you playing through the 10 Scenarios designed by Tibs to introduce people to Arkham: in 10 games, you'll be able to see all the potentiality of the game. And being these scenarios a crescendo in difficulty, they should all be a pleasure to play

(Chris, if you're reading this, can you post the link to your Scenarios, in case?)

I didn't make it clear I was playing the Professor variant without Kingsport due to the table size (to slow down the game) issues. I had quite a few spawns in Innsmouth and Dunwich which means they didn't spawn due to how I think his variant goes.

It was a lot of fun

I would be interested in those 10 scenarios still thank you.

Wow, you covered a lot of ground...definitely check out Tibs' Scenarios and for a well-played game, Julia has some great tips as the Queen of Arkham.