Hello again everyone.

So me, my sister and her boyfriend recently started playing Arkham Horror together and we're having a blast.

So far we've drawn (randomly) two Ancient Ones: Yig for our first game and Cthulhu for our second game last night on new year's eve.

For our first game, I played Joe Diamond the Privat Eye, my sister played Kate Winthrop the Scientist and her boyfriend played Gloria Goldberg the Author and we faced off against Yig. Now, this game was quite chaotic with monster surges galore and we ended up with a terror level of about 5 I think. We managed to seal some gates for good, and my character managed to face off Ithaqua during a Other World encounter, which he actually won! Unfortunately, Joe Diamond faced off against Shub-Niggurath in the next gate he entered and was killed. We then won against Yig with everyone but my character new character, Bob the Salesman, being devoured.

Yesterday's game, we drew Cthulhu as the ancient one. I drew Michael McGlen the Gangster, my sister drew Joe Diamond and her boyfriend drew Sister Mary the Nun. This game turned out the be a lot easier than the last game, as we defeated Cthulhu without anyone going insane or being knocked unconscious. Michael McGlen was a beast in the final combat, carrying his +6 Tommy Gun, David Packard as his ally (+2 Combat) and having 6 in fight for the final battle. Michael was also blessed for the encounter, and I could not stop rolling 4's or higher. For this round, we only sealed two gates and closed a lot of them normally. We where quite lucky, I think, as we drew a lot of gates at locations that either already had a gate or the location was sealed.

Now, I assumed Cthulhu would destroy us and that our game would be a lot harder than what it was. As thus, I was wondering if anyone could give us some tips in how to make the game more difficult, while still having the benefit of actually getting a lot of rounds done before the final fight.

Thank you in advance.

Howdy!

Nice that you're enjoying the game First point about making the game more difficult: apply the clue-per-seal rule in Final Battle. This is a houserule suggested by Kevin Wilson (the creator of FFG edition of the game), which basically says that during a combat check in final battle you can spend only N clues, where N = the number of Elder Signs on the board. This basically enhances the need to seal the locations in stead of gathering clues and swarming on the AO as soon as it awakes.

Also, I'd suggest you, before pushing up the difficulty level of the game, to:

a) start winning the game by sealing gates and not by final battle (it's vital, since most of the AOs coming in the various expansions are an extreme challenge in Final Battle, like you lose 97% of the times or so) and

b) try to understand how the frequency of gates varies according to the different unstable locations on the main board (this is vital too since once you understand how the Mythos deck works, you can also understand how to control the game)

Thank you for the reply, Julia!

Ah yes, I had some item or skill that allowed me to spend 1 extra dice for each clue token I spent in combat, giving me 16 (-6) dice each round against Cthulhu, and while being blessed and having some insane dice-rounds, it didn't take too long before he fell to our gunfire. If we followed that rule instead, I would only have had two rounds of clue tokens to use and I guess the fight would have been different then.

Our tactic was a bit different this time around, as our Nun drew the spell that allows her to return from the Other World immediately and then closing them, and we drew the Southside Strangler event which me and the Privat Eye spent a lot of time trying to lock down. We where quite unlucky with the Clue Tokens, as they seemed to only spawn on locations with portals open.

I guess we should get our hands on an expansion or two, which would you suggest we pick up?

If you start off by playing Azathoth, you can really practice those clue/gate sealing skills and you won't have to worry about beating a monster, because if you lose then everyone dies for all eternity and Azathoth don't care.

We where quite unlucky with the Clue Tokens, as they seemed to only spawn on locations with portals open.

That's why I suggested to spend some time studying the Mythos deck. There's a precise correspondance between locations where gates appear and locations were clues are spawn. When you know this, you know where to hit first

I guess we should get our hands on an expansion or two, which would you suggest we pick up?

Well, it's really a *long* question. If you have some time to browse old threads, you'll find this question was asked hundred times; not a problem if it's asked one more, clearly, but if you look at past threads you'll find really exhaustive explanations on pro and contra of each and every expansions, which are certainly more interesting and detailed than anything I could write here. hence, I'll keep the answer short:

- if you have some financial availability, get Dunwich. More board, more challenge, more of everything + Injuries and Madnesses that are fundamental to Arkham

- if you want something cheaper, go with the King in Yellow (thematically, the best small box expansion ever)

Generally speaking, if you decide to get the expansions in release order, you can't go wrong

If you start off by playing Azathoth, you can really practice those clue/gate sealing skills and you won't have to worry about beating a monster, because if you lose then everyone dies for all eternity and Azathoth don't care.

That's a good advice

Hello again!

I'm sorry to reawaken a thread, but I thought I would share our last game with you all and perhaps ask for some tips and pointers.

Last friday, the three of us (my sister, her boyfriend and I) played another game of Arkham Horror. This has become a somewhat weekly event for us now, and we're all looking forward to playing again after we finish a game.

We have had a few hickups (last game we forgot to place the Clue Tokens at the start of the game, resulting in only 1 Clue Token on the board after the first round.. Whoops!) We also had the Ancient One awaken after about 4-5 hours play, because we believed that once the Terror Track was at 10, he would awake. My bad, that one. We also thought that when using Clue Tokens to seal Gates, we could remove one of the Doom Tokens from the Ancient One - turns out this is only when we use the Elder Sign item. We might have faced the Ancient One earlier had we known that.

Anywho, as far as I remember we played the basic game with the new expansion I just bought, The Lurker at the Threshold. My sister played 'Ashcan' Pete, her boyfriend Carolyn Fern and myself heralded the great Gloria Goldberg. In my opinion, we where lucky in drawing our random Investigators, as they all proved very useful throughout the game and not one of us got devoured or killed during the game. The Herald was of course The Lurker and we faced off against Hastur. Now, this game went fairly well for us. We had good control on the gates (Gloria proved to be magnificent with her ability, always allowing me to pick a rather beneficiary card when I was out and about), monsters where being taken care of and in the end we managed to put down Hastur without too much hastle. We had stocked up on magical items and spells to defeat him, plus our relationship cards and skills proved too much for the poor Ancient One to handle. We defeated him and gave each other high fives as a reward.

Now, to spice things up a bit - we're thinking of going with the Black Goat of the Woods next game, and perhaps even use one of the difficulty cards to see if we can't get a real challenge going. We all pretty much agree that the game should end with a final battle, even though we worked hard to try and close enough gates for him to disappear last time. As such, I doubt we'll be going up against Azathoth as our nemesis.

Anywho, any comments or tips to what you think we should do to spice things up or what not?

My thanks in advance,

Hunk

If you want to try a final battle, the easiest way is probably to choose Yig as your Ancient One. With a short doom track and his ability to add doom tokens when a Cultist is defeated or an investigator is Lost in Time and Space will accelerate the process. In fact some people play games against Yig never bothering to try to close gates and just beef up for the arrival of Yig (getting blessed just before the final battle). Many others will try for a gate seal win, but will abandon that strategy if things make a serious turn for the worse. Yig is not particularly tough in the final battle, if you have decent weapons.

Ithaqua, Nyarlathotep, and Yog-Sothoth are beatable in the final battle also.

For a challenge, Cthulhu is tougher, as the maximum Sanity and Stamina of all investigators is reduced by 1 each.

Shub-Niggurath increases the toughness of all monsters by 1 will definitely ramp up the difficulty, as monsters will get much tougher to kill.

Nyarlathotep will add the mask monsters to the cup which range from tough to downright nasty.

It sounds though like you are getting ready for a big box expansion and all the chaos it brings. As others have said, Dunwich is probably the best, and I like Innsmouth too. Kingsport is my least favorite of the three. You will be a lot busier playing with an expansion, as they introduce new rules and new mechanisms ramping up the difficulty by adding more doom tokens and adding gate bursts, as well as vortices and rifts. The new Ancient Ones that come with the expansions range from difficult to downright unfair.

Don't go with the difficulty cards to change the difficulty of the game. They are, honestly, rubbish. If you want to spice things up, and you don't mind using some custom components, try using the following two:

a) Avi's revised Black Goat of the Woods Herald (much more elegant and effective than the one originally published):

b) My Cult of the Thousand institution

I can promise you a very thematic and very, very, very difficult game

...and when Julia uses the word "very" three times, she means it!

LOL. He's still playing with the core board, so that he should be able to crush the game.

Anyhoo, just noticed: if you play with both, do not resolve Avi's special rules on the left of his Herald, since they contradict the rules for my Institution. Sorry that I didn't catch on the first passage

please tell me how you defeated hastur with the terror level at 10. that sounds **** near impossible to me.

Hi all, thank you so much for the responses!

Wow, all right, I don't think we should attempt against that Black Goat just yet - maybe after the game today!

But thank you for that suggestion Julia, I'll be sure to show my fellow investigators the cards and suggest that we attempt that combination in one of our next games.

So far, the three of us have defeated Yig, Hastur, Chtulhu and Ithaqua. In my opinion, the easiest one we faced was Chtulhu which felt very anti-climatic.

Shub-Niggurath could be a cool encounter for today, alongside the Black Goat - I'll keep you guys posted on what happens tonight!

@MadFuhrer

Well, Hastur is pretty tough with his -10 to Combat Checks for the last phase, but seeing as we had stocked up on a lot of Magical Weapons, high Fight skills (boosted by the Relationship +fight card and the +fight skill card), it really wasn't too much of a hassle. We all countered his attack with high luck checks, and our Carolyn Fern player healed those who didn't make the check. We had some good rolls, for sure, we where all blessed and we had all stocked up on quite a few clue tokens for the final battle. It really wasn't that difficult for three players. Against Chtulhu I was the last one standing when he died, this time we all survived.

Like I stated previously, we didn't know that we couldn't remove Elder Sign Tokens from the Doom Track when we closed gates with Clue Tokens, thus the game lasted longer than it should have (probably), resulting in us having stocked up on strong allies (I had the +2 luck ally) and powerful equipment / spells (Wither + Shriveling combination for +9).

Unbelievable. Do you guys and gals stay up at night, cackling demonically, as you invent ways to make the game even harder? It's like you are *trying* to reduce the win rate of Arkham to that of the lottery!

I feel like a sissy. I'm still unsure about battling most of the expansion Ancient Ones...

Yes, they are crazy. Sometimes I like to join in and say "we." I love Julia's Cult of a Thousand Institution. Makes BGotW a much better purchase imo.

Jhorner,

there are many darker and more terrifying creatures just around the corner. Come with me, it's a nice place to stay... we can meet some new friends... or feed their shapeless mouths...

(that's the worst so far, created together by me and Avi. And yes, I was able to beat this dude here twice, but only when pre-selecting characters. Anyone wants to try?)

Excuse me for asking this, but you do understand that you need the # of successes=to the # of Investigators to remove a Doom token from an AO during the final battle, right? So with Hastur you would have needed a total of 39 successes to defeat him.

Yeah, I did the math too, with a -10 combat rating, even if you have all the Investigators blessed, you need to roll on average 12 dice / attack to score 1 success, which is quite a lot. Still, not impossible if he was loaded with clues and did not apply Kevin's clue-per-seal suggested houserule for FB

@Solan

Yes, we are aware. And as Julia stated, we do not play with the houserule mentioned. I do have to mention though, that I have been rolling very well the last couple of games. All thanks to Lady Luck, I would say!

So we're most definitely going to go with some of the changes you mentioned for our next game, Julia. Last night we faced off against Chtulhu again, with the Black Goat of the Woods as the herald. I was perhaps mistakenly suspecting the Black Goat to be more difficult than the Lurker at the Threshold, because this game was a breeze.

We started off with Harvey, McGlen and Carolyn Fern for this round and eventually won the game by closing gates. At one point I had 17 monster trophies and 2 Gate Tokens to spend, which was pretty ridiculous. Sure, I had about 6 Corruptions as well, but they where mostly benign to be honest.

We spent about 4-5 hours, but the last hour or so felt like we where just 'cleaning up'. 12 Doom Tokens where on the track and we had the Terror Level at 8 I believe.

I must say that I do believe the reason we won without too much trouble this time, was due to the Mythos Cards. We where very lucky, having Noden's Blessing (3 clue tokens to seal gates) for several rounds (I think about 5 or 6!), as well as drawing several 'remove all monsters from this and that street back to the monster cup'.

Having defeated Chtulhu twice now, we're urging for a proper challenge, so I'll look through what you suggested (the new bosses and scenarios) and try to figure out a real challenge for us. I can see what you mean now, that once you learn the basics the regular game board isn't that difficult, Julia.

Yeah, that's the point: the core board has 11 unstable locations, and apart from Nyarly and Yig, all AOs have at least 12 doomers. So, unless you have a doom track accelerator (like the doom-on-surge of the Black Goat Herald), or lose Good Work Undone or you simply close gates on high-freq locations without sealing them, you cannot lose.

Additionally, once you figure out the timing of some stuff, like "when you have to close but don't have seals go on low freq locations, when you have the clues go on high-freq locations", the game poorly dies, and new challenges are required.

Out of curiosity: have you figured out the meaning of the color patterns in the OWs?

Also, Avi designed this variant to boost core game AOs:

______________________________________________________

Enhancing the Base Game AOs

For playing the Base Game only and for enhancing the difficulty of the Base Game Ancient Ones:

I wouldn't play with the modified Doom Tracks if you have other board expansions (particularly Dunwich and Innsmouth), or use the following Elder Sign/Encounter rule:

Doom tokens can not be removed from the doom track by any means prior to final combat (that means no South Church exploit, and no Elder Sign hunting). This makes it so you can't just play out the clock for a guaranteed win. Elder Signs are used as normal, but they don't reduce the doom track.
Optional: ban the use of clues with the fight skill and/or the shotgun during final combat.

Starting Doom Tokens for base game Ancient Ones [with the base board only]:

Yig: 0
Ithaqua: 2
Azathoth: 5 [if you are not just playing the base game, 3]
Cthulhu: 3
Nyarlathotep: 2
Hastur: 3
Yog Sothoth: 2
Shub Niggurath: 3

Yig: Investigators can not be blessed during games against him (Sister Mary is an exception to this rule). Twice as many successes as normal are required to remove a doom token from his doom track.

Cultists are fast.

Ithaqua: gains physical and magical resistance.

Each round of combat with a cultist, roll a die for each weapon or spell you are using, on a failure, it is lost.

Azathoth: Start him with 5 or 3 doom tokens.

Cultists and Maniacs deal four damage to an investigator who defeats them and are stalkers.

Cthulhu: when he reaches 7 doom tokens, his ability reduces all investigators maximum stamina and sanity by 2 instead.

Star Spawn have their toughness increased by two. If they are adjacent to an Elder Sign, they will move onto it if their movement is shown during the mythos phase, ignoring investigators and arrows. If they are still on the Elder Sign during the next mythos phase, remove it from the board. If they defeat an investigator in combat and are permanently on the board, they immediately move one space closer to the nearest Elder Sign (player's choice if there is a tie), following an arrow, or directly (if they are directly adjacent). They can not be taken as monster trophies. If they are defeated, return them to the cup. If they are placed in the outskirts, substitute them with any non-Star Spawn monster on the board that is not in the Sky— if there is a Cultist on the board, a Cultist must be chosen.

Nyarlathotep: is magically and physically immune and requires twice as many successes as normal to remove doom tokens from his doom track.

If you defeat a Cultist, immediately search the monster cup for a random Mask, and fight or evade it as well. If the Cultist was on the board, the Mask remains on the board if undefeated, if not, return it to the cup.

Hastur: raise the terror track to four at the start of the game.

If a Cultist is in the sky, moves, and is unable to leave the sky (due to lack of investigators in the street), raise the terror level by one. When a Cultist is defeated, all investigators lose one clue.

Yog Sothoth: gains physical resistance. Flip all gates against him upside down until investigators enter them, increase their modifiers by -1.

Before investigators in an Other World draw their first encounter they must fight or evade a random monster from the monster cup. If this causes them to be devoured, add a doom token to the doom track.

Shub Niggurath: gains magical resistance. His final combat attack require investigators to lose 3 monster trophies.

Dark Young have their toughness increased an additional one, are Endless, and are not counted against the monster limit. Dhole moves like a Hound of Tindalos, is not counted against the monster limit, and is Endless. Every time a Cultist is defeated, roll a die, on a 1-3 search the cup and place the Dhole on the open gate with the least number of monsters on it (players choice if a tie). The Dhole and Dark Youngs can not be taken as trophies.

Also, Avi designed this variant to boost core game AOs:

______________________________________________________

Enhancing the Base Game AOs

For playing the Base Game only and for enhancing the difficulty of the Base Game Ancient Ones:

I wouldn't play with the modified Doom Tracks if you have other board expansions (particularly Dunwich and Innsmouth), or use the following Elder Sign/Encounter rule:

Doom tokens can not be removed from the doom track by any means prior to final combat (that means no South Church exploit, and no Elder Sign hunting). This makes it so you can't just play out the clock for a guaranteed win. Elder Signs are used as normal, but they don't reduce the doom track.

Optional: ban the use of clues with the fight skill and/or the shotgun during final combat.

Starting Doom Tokens for base game Ancient Ones [with the base board only]:

Yig: 0

Ithaqua: 2

Azathoth: 5 [if you are not just playing the base game, 3]

Cthulhu: 3

Nyarlathotep: 2

Hastur: 3

Yog Sothoth: 2

Shub Niggurath: 3

Yig: Investigators can not be blessed during games against him (Sister Mary is an exception to this rule). Twice as many successes as normal are required to remove a doom token from his doom track.

Cultists are fast.

Ithaqua: gains physical and magical resistance.

Each round of combat with a cultist, roll a die for each weapon or spell you are using, on a failure, it is lost.

Azathoth: Start him with 5 or 3 doom tokens.

Cultists and Maniacs deal four damage to an investigator who defeats them and are stalkers.

Cthulhu: when he reaches 7 doom tokens, his ability reduces all investigators maximum stamina and sanity by 2 instead.

Star Spawn have their toughness increased by two. If they are adjacent to an Elder Sign, they will move onto it if their movement is shown during the mythos phase, ignoring investigators and arrows. If they are still on the Elder Sign during the next mythos phase, remove it from the board. If they defeat an investigator in combat and are permanently on the board, they immediately move one space closer to the nearest Elder Sign (player's choice if there is a tie), following an arrow, or directly (if they are directly adjacent). They can not be taken as monster trophies. If they are defeated, return them to the cup. If they are placed in the outskirts, substitute them with any non-Star Spawn monster on the board that is not in the Sky— if there is a Cultist on the board, a Cultist must be chosen.

Nyarlathotep: is magically and physically immune and requires twice as many successes as normal to remove doom tokens from his doom track.

If you defeat a Cultist, immediately search the monster cup for a random Mask, and fight or evade it as well. If the Cultist was on the board, the Mask remains on the board if undefeated, if not, return it to the cup.

Hastur: raise the terror track to four at the start of the game.

If a Cultist is in the sky, moves, and is unable to leave the sky (due to lack of investigators in the street), raise the terror level by one. When a Cultist is defeated, all investigators lose one clue.

Yog Sothoth: gains physical resistance. Flip all gates against him upside down until investigators enter them, increase their modifiers by -1.

Before investigators in an Other World draw their first encounter they must fight or evade a random monster from the monster cup. If this causes them to be devoured, add a doom token to the doom track.

Shub Niggurath: gains magical resistance. His final combat attack require investigators to lose 3 monster trophies.

Dark Young have their toughness increased an additional one, are Endless, and are not counted against the monster limit. Dhole moves like a Hound of Tindalos, is not counted against the monster limit, and is Endless. Every time a Cultist is defeated, roll a die, on a 1-3 search the cup and place the Dhole on the open gate with the least number of monsters on it (players choice if a tie). The Dhole and Dark Youngs can not be taken as trophies.

I just realized part of that text was badly written:

"I wouldn't play with the modified Doom Tracks if you have other board expansions (particularly Dunwich and Innsmouth), or use the following Elder Sign/Encounter rule:

Doom tokens can not be removed from the doom track by any means prior to final combat (that means no South Church exploit, and no Elder Sign hunting). This makes it so you can't just play out the clock for a guaranteed win. Elder Signs are used as normal, but they don't reduce the doom track."

I think what I had in mind when I wrote that was that you could decide whether or not you wanted to do the Elder Sign/South church ban *and* the cut doom token tracks or just one. Just one can be enough to alleviate boredom and amp up tension when an advanced player is playing with new players and not telling them anything about game structure. But if you have a group with even moderate skill level at this game, you need to play both rules or else you can still basically wait out the clock on 12-13 doom token ancient ones (it's also very easy to almost wait out the clock on 11 doom token ancient ones if you have any idea how the game structure works, in my opinion). Just thought I'd pop by for a minute ;') thanks for the heads up Julia. Hi! Bye! Sorry I can't figure out how to fix the color formatting. I hope no one's eyes explode!

Just copy and paste the text in a normal text editor, then re-select the text and post in on a thread. Black on white is no biggie, tho, it'd have been much worse written in blood on Cthulhu's green....

Jhorner,

there are many darker and more terrifying creatures just around the corner. Come with me, it's a nice place to stay... we can meet some new friends... or feed their shapeless mouths...

(that's the worst so far, created together by me and Avi. And yes, I was able to beat this dude here twice, but only when pre-selecting characters. Anyone wants to try?)

Uhhhhhhhh. My mind is still trying to comprehend how nasty this is. I bow to the master.

Come with you to meet some new friends? Sure. Feed their shapeless mouths? No.

So, Julia, if I were to come over to the dark side, what are some good expansion Ancient Ones to start with? I've played base AOs with expansion boards, but not an expansion AO with expansion boards.