If you have everything, go with Chaugnar Faughn. It's tough. Not game breaking, but it could be a pain under certain circumstances. It's not luck-based (Y'golonac, Rhan and similar have a certain luck influence on the final outcome), it's not extremely difficult to play against, but the longer the game, the harder it gets

(or gimme some indicators on what you're searching for. Faster games? Hyper-challenging? Or?)

If you have everything, go with Chaugnar Faughn. It's tough. Not game breaking, but it could be a pain under certain circumstances. It's not luck-based (Y'golonac, Rhan and similar have a certain luck influence on the final outcome), it's not extremely difficult to play against, but the longer the game, the harder it gets

(or gimme some indicators on what you're searching for. Faster games? Hyper-challenging? Or?)

I have Innsmouth, Kingsport, and Dunwich, but no small expansions. I've played a few games with one expansion board + base game Ancient One. What expansion Ancient Ones would be a moderate step up in difficulty from that?

Also, I don't often have a lot of time to play, but I'd like to do something other than just the base game. Any suggestions for that?

Ok, better now First of all, the boards: go with Dunwich & Kingsport (I'd have said "go with Dunwich", but since you have experience of one extra board, go with the second one). Don't be fooled around by Kingsport: you don't need to have an investigator there the whole game. But it's an important addition since:

a) it gives you a factor reduction of 1 on the number of investigators. Hence, you can play 5 as if they were 4, which is a big plus, timewise

b) Kingsport mythos are nasty and fun, so it should grant your some headaches on the core board with gate bursts and so on

Then, the AO: I'd say play Eihort (with the houserule you're not allowed to retire investigators, otherwise it's broken), or play Bokrug (which is no easy AO, but it's still doable)

Ok, better now First of all, the boards: go with Dunwich & Kingsport (I'd have said "go with Dunwich", but since you have experience of one extra board, go with the second one). Don't be fooled around by Kingsport: you don't need to have an investigator there the whole game. But it's an important addition since:

a) it gives you a factor reduction of 1 on the number of investigators. Hence, you can play 5 as if they were 4, which is a big plus, timewise

b) Kingsport mythos are nasty and fun, so it should grant your some headaches on the core board with gate bursts and so on

Then, the AO: I'd say play Eihort (with the houserule you're not allowed to retire investigators, otherwise it's broken), or play Bokrug (which is no easy AO, but it's still doable)

Thanks for the suggestions, appreciate it.

"Nasty and fun" mythos effects, huh? I guess that being an Arkham enthusiast involves some degree of masochism and I should just embrace that. I'm surprised you didn't just tell me to bust out all the boards and play with Quachil Uttaus or Atlach-Nacha...

Thanks for the suggestions, appreciate it.

"Nasty and fun" mythos effects, huh? I guess that being an Arkham enthusiast involves some degree of masochism and I should just embrace that. I'm surprised you didn't just tell me to bust out all the boards and play with Quachil Uttaus or Atlach-Nacha...

LOL. That's not what you asked for, right? It'd be a pity to give a different answer only because I like harder games. It could result in the other person being discouraged and eventually turned off by the game. And I never want this to happen, the community must be growing and people happy about the game As for my personal taste, I'd never pick Quachil or Atlach either, but possibly something else. Glaaki with an old Herald I designed. Or anything with Avi's Thing in the Rift. But that's another story (and a different question)

LOL. That's not what you asked for, right? It'd be a pity to give a different answer only because I like harder games. It could result in the other person being discouraged and eventually turned off by the game. And I never want this to happen, the community must be growing and people happy about the game As for my personal taste, I'd never pick Quachil or Atlach either, but possibly something else. Glaaki with an old Herald I designed. Or anything with Avi's Thing in the Rift. But that's another story (and a different question)

Totally understand.

I don't mind the difficulty either, though some people I play with would get discouraged. I just prefer to gradually work up to feeding the shapeless mouths, random instant devourings, and adding 6 doom tokens in a single turn... Sadly, I don't get to play as often as I'd like.

I have to admit though, kicking Quachil Uttaus's shrivelled ass would be immensely gratifiying.

Yup. Quachil is very elegant in design, but not that scary: once you figure out the average number of rounds you have between two devourings, you have plenty of time to designate the gate sealers, and it's done. I personally find Zhar to be much more terrifying than Quachil (not saying Quachil is *easy*, uh?)

Lemme know how it goes with your next plays

I just have a thing for Quachil, One of my all time favorites, he is predictable, but you are almost certain of a devouring and I love a good devouring.

If you like Quachil, you could enjoy adding one of my latest Heralds:

that... that make me happy inside. thanks julia!

LOL, thanks Actually, it's not impossible: it simply forces players to think about coordinating the last seals to avoid drawing from the higher number decks for several Mythos. It's a sort of Atlach-strategy, without bursts but with devourings. Also, terror could become instantly a problem Lemme know if you try it

Okay.

Session Report:

Base + Kingsport

Ancient One: Quachil Uttaus (yes, Julia, I know... but no Time Parasites this time)

Joe, Lily, Mandy, Skids

Mandy gets a YIthian Rifle off the bat, Joe gets an Elephant Gun and Skids lands a Brazier of Souls. Everyone dashes off to snag clues. Mandy gets blessed early by an encounter and managed to keep it the entire game. Mandy and Lily (thanks to a lucky encounter) get their clues and quickly head to gates at the Witch House and Independence Square. Quachil rolls over in his slumber and drains a sanity from Joe, but then temporarily loses him. As the ladies plow through the otherworlds, Skids and Joe gather clues, getting their needed 5. ****. The Southside Stangler shows up. Skids just got his fifth clue, and heads to Southside, sacrifices his clues to solve the rumor. Joe goes insane after bumping into a monster. After getting out, he has to head to Kingsport to deal with the rifts which are starting to get out of control. The ladies seal as Skids grabs some clues. Joe spends a couple of turns in Kingsport, cleaning up the rifts and netting some more clues from an encounter, then he heads back. Skids has been collecting clues, and gets a lucky encounter that lets him fill up to 5. He heads for a gate at the Black Cave. A scary Gate Burst Mythos card comes up,but fortunately no gate is open at the Woods. Joe starts heading back to Arkham to try to seal a gate with his clues before Quachil hunts him down. Fortunately for him, QU must have gotten bad directions, as Joe evades him several times reshuffling Dust deck 2 twice, though he does take another Sanity damage. He goes insane after bumping into a monster, but gets a Madness and keeps his clues. The Doors of Sleep mythos comes up, and even though Mandy has a couple of clues, she dashes off to Harborside to farm some clues. Lily tries to clear the streets but some bad rolls send her to the asylum. Skids passes an otherworld encounter that lets him prevent 3 damage to an investigator. He pops out of the gate and seals as Lily is leaving the asylum. Skids seals the Black Dave as Joe jumps in a gate at the Graveyard. Joe narrowly avoids disaster in the Otherworld, taking damage in one encounter, and having to roll dice equal to his Sanity and lose one Sanity for each failure. He barely passes and returns to Arkham. Before Joe can seal, Quachil hits him for another sanity and Joe starts to go insane. In danger being sent to the asylum and losing his explored token, Skids saves him just in time with the card he got, preventing the damage! The Mistrust Rumor pops up, and Quachil adds two doom, bringing him up to 9. Lily decides to meet up with Skids and try to clear out some monsters near him. She heads to him and beats up a Mi-go, getting an Elder Sign! She dashes off toward a gate that opens at the Woods while Mandy works her way over to the Science Building and hops in the gate there. The gents just try to keep the streets clean and suck up clues while waiting for the girls. Joe drops some items off to appease the rumor for a bit to buy time for Lily and Mandy. Just trying to dodge a gate burst here. Quachil finally catches up to Joe and Dust Deck 2 is discarded. Uh oh. Fortunately, it doesn't matter as Lily and Mandy return to Arkham and seal the final two gates for a six seal victory. Quachil Uttaus is defeated!

Nice job Just an observation on the first Rumor: why passing it? Especially in the earlier stages of the game. If you let that Rumor go (Frozen OST as background music), you have a shield againt nastier rumors (what if Mistrust arrived earlier?), you keep the clues and you suffer simply for a +1 Terror (and eventually max reduced by one, no biggie at all in the last turns of the game) / round. Considering Quachil has no special powers triggered by terror, the only relevant effect would be the Old Curiosity Shoppe closing in a few turns, but at least you have quite some more turn to respite and work on the victory.

I'm sure you are expecting a wonderfully elaborate explanation here, and while I'm sure I could fabricate one to save face, the truth is:

1) I'm an idiot

2) It was very late at night

3) I must have been going insane myself (did you happen to notice who I decided to pick a fight with for my first non-base ancient one?)

4) With several hundred less plays than you (at least) I certainly lack the depth of strategy you possess.

5) Did I mention that I'm an idiot?

Hey, you're certainly not an idiot, you sealed away Quachil playing only 4 characters! It's a good result I just like commenting on games, sharing ideas and so on, hope you don't mind! You see, many play AH in an RPG-friendly way, so that actually passing a Rumor immediately when it pops up is the optimal choice ("there's a Strangler killing poor citizens in Arkham" / RPG approach "oh, my goodness, we need to stop him! Now! Darn, it's so difficult to keep the AO at bay and save these poor lives, but we can do it!" / strategic approach: "ok, we have some elderly people dying a little sooner of what expected. You care? I don't. Please, now, pass me that trophy..."). All options are equally good, depends on what you expect from the gameplay

Hey, you're certainly not an idiot, you sealed away Quachil playing only 4 characters! It's a good result I just like commenting on games, sharing ideas and so on, hope you don't mind! You see, many play AH in an RPG-friendly way, so that actually passing a Rumor immediately when it pops up is the optimal choice ("there's a Strangler killing poor citizens in Arkham" / RPG approach "oh, my goodness, we need to stop him! Now! Darn, it's so difficult to keep the AO at bay and save these poor lives, but we can do it!" / strategic approach: "ok, we have some elderly people dying a little sooner of what expected. You care? I don't. Please, now, pass me that trophy..."). All options are equally good, depends on what you expect from the gameplay

Sometimes I can be a bit hard on myself. I don't mind your comments at all -- I wouldn't have posted them if I didn't want anyone to respond. I gladly welcome your comments and your insight, because I know the level of expertise you have with the game. I can't help but think I got pretty lucky, especially with getting clues.

For some reason I got into my head that I needed to solve the rumor, but looking back, I can't imagine why. As it turned out, I could have made it through the entire game without the rumor blowing up (though, it was close). As you rightly pointed out, the investment in time and clues probably did not justify the result I got, and leaving it sit around would have protected me for Mistrust, which was a much bigger problem. I usually weigh the severity of the rumors to decide how to handle them, but I totally did not do that last night. It was definitely a different experience, knowing that you can be devoured nearly any time and without much warning.

I used to roleplay a lot and all of my characters were Lawful Good, because I'm Lawful Good in real life (something my friends tease me mercilessly about). But I know that Arkham Horror is an evil game, and I would not have any qualms about letting the Southside strangler go about his business at hand and let all the allies die. (Ok, maybe just a few qualms...) With Arkham Horror, the gloves are off.

It was the first time I ever used Skids. I like him.

Doom was at 10 when I won. I peeked at the next dust card (first one to be drawn from pile 3). It would have gotten Joe devoured. If a gate had opened... well, it wouldn't have ended well.

I'm not complaining about the result... it was quite satisfying to make Quachil Uttaus bite the dust. *ba dum ksssh*

For me and my group, we are really bad at calculating the benefits of leaving or completing a rumour. Quite often we look at the reward for it and all go "ooh, shiny!". Usually, we only get a single rumour in a game though. A few times we've had more and every time we have considered ourselves unfortunate. But then we are the Crybaby Investigators (soon to be on tour).

For me and my group, we are really bad at calculating the benefits of leaving or completing a rumour. Quite often we look at the reward for it and all go "ooh, shiny!". Usually, we only get a single rumour in a game though. A few times we've had more and every time we have considered ourselves unfortunate. But then we are the Crybaby Investigators (soon to be on tour).

I think I'm getting confused by Eldritch Horror, where virtually all of the Rumors are so bad that you have to drop everything you are doing to solve them right away, or you're toast. I mean, I know the penalty for failing the rumor has to have teeth, or everybody will just ignore them. But spawning EVERY gate in the stack if you fail? What the frack??

LOL, yeah, Eldritch rumors are a little more aggressive...

Ugh. Rumors.... T.T

Your heart stops a little every time they're drawn :I

"There's a strangler in Arkham? I must immediately have all of the Investigators help the city stop this evil menace."

Julia,

Guilty, as charged...but, you already knew that.

Cheers,

Joe

"There's a strangler in Arkham? I must immediately have all of the Investigators help the city stop this evil menace."

Julia,

Guilty, as charged...but, you already knew that.

Cheers,

Joe

Yes, its not like we have gates to seal or Azathoth to stop from eating the entire world. Lets become 1920s CSI.

Enhance! Enhance! Enhance! Sharpen!

Yup. Them's be strangled.

"There's a strangler in Arkham? I must immediately have all of the Investigators help the city stop this evil menace."

Julia,

Guilty, as charged...but, you already knew that.

Cheers,

Joe

That's when you stare at the cops incredulously and look around at the gates littered around town that are spewing out unspeakable monsters with more eyes and tentacles than aquarium full of octopuses that are trying to bring out the end of the world, people turning into fish creatures that are trying to bring about the end of the world, performers putting on the play to honor the King in Yellow, that's trying to bring about the end the world, crazed cultists performing rituals to summon their merciless gods who are trying to bring about the end of the world...

You look at them with a blank expressionless look that silently decries what big idiots they are and say, "Strangler, huh?"

Hello again everyone!

Been a busy couple of weeks, and haven't been able to play again until yesterday. Thank you all for all the responses!

Well then, let's take a look at what happened yesterday. We're still trying to increase the difficulty, and after having defeated the Black Goat of the Woods herald twice, we decided to bring back the Lurker for our game yesterday and we drew Shub-Niggurath as our Ancient One. In addition, we used the old version of the Curse of the Dark Pharao which we had laying around.

So, for our characters we drew Amanda Sharpe, Mandy Thompson and Monterey Jack. I started out with Jack, and got lucky on the cards as I began the game with an Elder Sign Unique item.

The game was pretty straight forward, my sis and her boyfriend had full control all game by getting powerful spells (like shriveling and wither) early. My sis started out with an Enchanted Blade as well. I, as Jack, on the other hand managed to get two gates opened on me in turn, then I went around to get lost in time and space twice in a row, and driven insane two more times. In the end, Jack was devoured and I got Gloria Goldberg as his replacement.

From there on out we had no trouble closing gates and pilfering around for equipment. The last 6-7 rounds we didn't draw any new gates or gatebursts, which bought us a lot of time to stock up on items for the final boss. The terror level never passed 5 and there where hardly any monsters on the table. In addition we managed to seal 5 gates before Shub-Niggurath awoke.

The final battle was a simple one, and we spent few turns to defeat the monster. I spent some clue tokens on my Enchanted Shotgun, while the others blasted the monstrosity with spells.

We did decide that now is the time to start listening to Julia, as we feel like mid-game and onwards is a breeze. We're going to have to get an expansion, some new Investigators and a new board.

So, we've decided we should either get Innsmouth (as it's a pretty big expansion) or Dunwich, as I think you suggested Julia?

Any feedback or questions would be greatly appreciated, as always.

First of all, nice to see you returning to this board happy for the game and the successes obtained Indeed, it's time to step up the diffculty.

My suggestion is Dunwich: the board is not as difficult as Innsmouth's, you need Injuries and Madnesses to keep the game fun, and Dunwich gives you plenty of investigator cards where Innsmouth gives you only Personal Stories. Which are great, but you need more what comes with Dunwich to enrich gameplay!