We are playing with the 11 allies rule from Dunwich - and of course have some left over. Our house rule is that the 11 chosen are available for recruitment from Ma's etc, but that the rest are still available if called for by an encounter. We then return one 'in the game' ally to the box for each Terror Level increase and 2 of the 'not in the game but not yet in the box' ones.

Hope that makes sense - anyone else doing something similar?

Yeah, just use a multiple of 11 for Allies and discard accordingly (2 if you have 22, 3 if 33). Count as 1 for things like Glaaki, etc. I use the 11 at Ma's, 11 for random encounters (City deck) myself (no KH, so can't go to 33).

TonyACT said:

Yes, I do the exact same thing. Otherwise your chance of getting an ally in an encouter are practically nill.

I used a similar house rule, but then I found a better solution for me:

During setup, you can take a look at all available allies. I made a list where you can find each ally, and I place a token in each of those locations (usually I use brood tokens). When visiting unstable locations, I prefer those where I can find allies. If new information is available about current allies in the deck (taking an ally or searching the deck for an ally), I update the tokens.

TonyACT said:

Exactly that: an 11-card Ally Deck and a 23-card Citizen Deck. One extra subroutine: after an Encounter makes you gain a card from the Citizen Deck, you must take a card from the Ally Deck and place it in the Citizen Deck (so it "appears" as if you just got your card from the Ally Deck). That way the Ally Deck remains as balanced as it would be if there were only the "official" 11 Allies.

Does anybody play the ally deck as written? 11 in the game, the rest in the box? Maybe I'm too hard on my cultists?

mageith said:

Can't say it would make a huge difference in my games. With Arkham Encounter decks having 31 cards now (35 I think for people with KH as well), odds of getting one is quite rare. Only time we shop for Allies is for Stars Are Right (or something else that requires Ally-fodder), but that's the basic 11 card Ma's deck.

mageith said:

With just the Dunwich allies, yes. 11/16 available seems a nice number and gives some variety: can't always get Prof Rice, can't always get the ally who would be ideal for your character, but most ally-granting encounters will still do something.

We'd probably do the same with just the CotDP allies (11/18) but with both CotDP and Dunwich, 11/23 starts to look too sparse.

(With Kingsport as well, which we don't have, 22/34 is very close to the 11/16 of Dunwich, so that might work well)

mageith said:

Well, almost:

• When not playing with the Dark Pharaoh expansion, I randomly draw 11 allies from those who can be found on the board (base game allies + Young Zoog + allies from used boards).
• With the Dark Pharaoh expansion, I draw 11 allies as described above and add the Dark Pharaoh allies according to the Dark Pharaoh rules.

Otherwise I made no rule changes, I just use the tokens as a reminder where to find the available allies (see my last post).