Played with IH quite a bit now, a mix of using it with heralds and no heralds, different AOs, etc.

Haven't seen much of a discussion of the DOR track, at least, not directly. So let's discuss. Here's my thoughts:

Where to start. Maybe by saying that I hate "The Streets Are Flooded!" Card, which opens a gate at Devil's Reef and moves all monsters at the same time. So, unless you're lucky to draw the non-vortex type of monsters, virtually some garunteed DOR tokens right there depending on how many players or if it's, Bast forbid, a monster surge (even worse with Hydra). Gates on Devil's Reef and Yha'Netheli really must be closed or sealed as quickly as possible. Being 'one move' away from a vortex is very harsh indeed.

By contrast, gates at the Esoteric Order of Dagon and at Marsh's Refinery seem to have little effect on the DOR track. I've had monsters parade back and forth from Factory District to Church Green streets for several turns. Eventually of course, someone needs to go up and deal with them, but Esoteric Order of Dagon is 3 'move' (along the quickest path) away from a vortex, and Marsh's Refinery is 4! Naturally the real bugger here is when the Innsmouth Cops are out to get you, but if you use the right Investigator for the job, things aren't so bad. Items that bump up move or sneak are very helpful in Innsmouth for monster assasinations, other items do the trick nicely as well, Mists of R'lyeh, for one!

The other typical source of DOR tokens then, is gate blocks. Maybe I've just been (un)lucky, but I have only had one or two blocked gates per game for my last several games.

It's strange, when I first got Innsmouth, I had the DOR track filling up over and over (look at my first couple reports with IH, How does the AO awaken? DOR track, DOR track, DOR track, DOR track!), but recently I have been able to win fast enough so that it's not much of a problem.

Which brings me to the main point of this post which is: So... Is it worth it to put clue tokens on the Feds track? I haven't decided, probably the answer is "sometimes". While it takes time and (obviously) precious clues, preventing the AO from waking up is always a good thing. Still, sometimes I find myself looking over at the Federals track and thinking "If only I still had those clues!".

Herald-wise, Dagon and Hydra affect the DOR track in the same way, although Dagon is in general, a far meaner herald IMO. Used them both at once in just one game so far, but that was a game when the track just wasn't active thanks to agressive monster killing and a bit of (un)luck with the mythos, and I think the game ended with just the 2 DOR tokens on it.

But enough about me, I wanna hear your experiences with the DOR track! Is it effective? Not so? Is it fun? Do you bother putting clues up there? Which investigators seem the best suited to being Innsmouth patrolers?

What expansions are you using? And how many investigators? I use 4 and I am just using Innsmouth and the Track fills up once nearly every game--at least enough to know I needed to fill up the Fed track. Innsmouth DOR suffers f rom dilution. If there are few island gates in Innsmouth, then the DOR is easily closed and there probably won't be six gate bounces to bring up the Deep Ones. If you just use Innsmouth, then about 1/3rd of the gates are in Innsmouth. That should keep you reasonably busy.

But I think we should all realize by now that there really aren't enough monsters in a 4+ player game to be really threatening. 4 Investigators should be able handle them--even in Innsmouth. The first gates on the island have unstoppable monsters unless they're green or yellow but that's only 1/3rd of the time.

I think the DOR track is a good mechanism but not if you are playing all expansions or even more than one expansion without some houserules for dilution.

It certainly adds an additional wrinkle sometimes. Of the five IH games we've played, we've had one uprising, and we just finished a game where the DOR track was a big part of it.

At one point there were three tokens on the DOR track -- and two monsters and a gate on Devil Reef, a moon and a plus ... so if a monster surge or blocked gate came down with the moon/plus combo, it'd be all over with us. Jenny was about to come back from another world to Devil Reef, at which point she'd be able to kill at least one of the monsters; she had one clue ... we had sent Hank up to get to Falcon Point to get her out, and he had three clues. Patrice had four clues, so we had to choose between sealing the gate and calling in the Feds. What to do? We were in pretty good shape in general so we decided not to take any chances and called in the Feds -- so Jenny closed, but couldn't seal. Hank got her out to Falcon Point and she decamped back to Arkham just as martial law set in and he headed off to close the gate that had come down on the Esoteric Order of Dagon. We eventually wound up sealing six and winning.

Then again in a couple of the other games we won quickly enough that the DOR wasn't a factor at all. On the whole though I kind of like it -- it's a factor that becomes increasingly important as the game goes on. Plus it's very Lovecraftian that even when you get lucky and a gate's blocked by an elder sign, it still works out badly for you. "When you lose, you lose. And when you win ... you lose."

jon

mageith said:

Actually, for some reason, IH gates + Green/Yellow/Blue has been more of a majority than minority in my case (whether placement due to gate opening or surge). Don't know why, it'll probably pan out more evenly as time goes by. I've had several monsters just bouncing back and forth between the streets, the arrows being "perfect" for just that sort of movement. As the Orks say, "red wunz go fasta" those are usually needed to break the back-and-forthness, once a monster hits Joe Sargeant's then "It's On!". Even playing with all-in, I've still gotten 2 6-seals wins and one game that went to final combat where I had 5-seals down. As usual, I shut down the hot spots if possible, so I think they should be bouncing and adding DOR tokens quite a bit. Yesterday, EOoD got sealed early on and bounced once, but none of the big 4 in Arkham did.

You'd think I'd have learned not to taunt the Mythos . "Plans in Motion" Rumor hit today, along with 2 Red monsters in IH. Nyogtha woke from the DOR track filling (though he was 11 of 12 on doomers as well). Kate Winthrop bounced 1 gate, seal another.

@mageith: I use only IH and AH for the mythos deck, and run 4 investigator teams as well. I went ahead and mixed in the DH investigators and investigator cards though. In any case, dillution shouldn't be a problem, and Innsmouth itself sees more than plenty of it's share of gates.

And yes, the worst games as far as the DOR track is concerned seem to be with Dagon where the first gate is at Devil's reef, which I've had happen several times.

Sigh, as a side point, the one thing that makes me cry myself to sleep about IH is Kate Winthrop, who used to be one of my favorite investigators (just liked her). Her ability rarely came into play, but when it did it was awesome, and she could go get those clues on the Witch House and other highly unstable locations with relatively little worry. When using IH, Kate just isn't very good at all. In many cases it's almost preferable to allow the gate to open than to add a token to the DOR track. I just think that Kate's ability was something that was amazing, but might only happen once a game if you're lucky.... but now, it still might only happen once per game, and it's not so amazing. To me, this drops Kate down to the bottom of the list as far as investigator abilities are concerned. Her personal story doesn't help much either, two gate trophies before the doom hits 6? are you mad? A sad, sad, sad day for Kate Winthrop.

awp832 said:

My friend has pretty much the same initial view upon getting Kate and reading her PS. Ironically, he could've completed it if Kate hadn't been LiTaS'd. Doom got stuck on 4 or 5 for a few turns, due to surges and bounces. If you're looking to just close + close, definately doable, if someone has an Elder Sign (or Patrice in the game), seal + close should be doable (need a bit of luck sure).

Unfortunatley, if all you do is close+close at the very beginning of the game, those gates (depending on where they are of course) might open again. Given that the common gates are the most likely to be drawn at the beginning of the game (duh, I know, but it made the sentence make more sense), probably you're weighing the consequences of +1 gate to awaken the ancient one vs +2 doom. I'm not even sure if that's a mission that should be attempted. Certainly not against the 'fast' AOs, maybe not even against the others. If an Elder sign were involved or like a KiY or some other way for kate to easily aquire sealing ability, it might be tempting. Otherwise...

Edit: Ironically, Kate attempting her mission makes it more likely for the doom track to rise *faster* and make her fail. (if the first gate she closes opens while she has not yet completed her mission, and otherwise would have been a monster surge).

awp832 said:

Unless she closes, Mythos bounces (DOR) . Kate and Wilson are currently two I probably don't care to Pass (haven't seen them all).

awp832 said:

Yes. I find it's more effective than either of the other two boards. Innsmouth matches Dunwich in Vortex sacrifices, and adds a bit more threat if the sunken sites are active (which, in my experience, is almost every game), but unlike Dunwich, Innsmouth has that elder sign "punishment" that hangs threat over the very thing the Investigators are trying to accomplish. That always seems to be just as active as Kingsport's monster-movement Rift mechanic, and Innsmouth is rarely "sleepy" like Kingsport.

But I've found the big thing is the overall "threat of consequence". I've heard many talk about "letting" the other towns "go". Rifts? Bah, let 'em happen. Dunwich Horror? Bah, I've got weapons/Flute/whatever. Deep Ones Rising? Bah...oh wait, that's the GAME. Even if the Ancient One is beaten, for many of us, that's just a draw. So I try to "bother" putting Clues up when I can, and frankly, since for some reason a lot of people seem to be racking up Clue Tokens like loose change all of a sudden, I rather enjoy having another mechanic threatening to eat up our Clues.

For the most part, I play AH/IH games. I don't know yet if that makes the difference, but Innsmouth always presents that kind of threat when I don't throw too many other cards in its way. Even when I did, Innsmouth was more "active" than either of the other towns, on the Streets and on the Track.

For anyone who isn't fond of Gate Bursts, Innsmouth is the answer. I like to toss in the BG Gate Bursts sometimes, but that only raises the threat to Arkham; it doesn't slow Innsmouth down at all.

Innsmouth doesn't have "patrollers": it has "lurkers". Investigators with high Sneaks with decent Speeds at the same time work great, especially if they have a couple other stats or abilities that work: Pete, Rita, Darrell, Joe, Finn, Rex (Clues!), Wendy, Minh, Hank, and Mandy. (Silas is always fun in a pinch, but talk about a Sword of Damocles.)

Is it fun? Hell yes it's fun! My Arkham games have been overcharged with that sinking feeling of hopelessness that I really didn't think was missing since Dunwich added it to the base game in the first place (before it was diluted away again). I thought the Rifts made Kingsport an effective board, but I will admit that's only because my cult likes Location Encounters. Innsmouth not only brought back an excitement of "terror", but it brought it back in such a way that has enhanced the teamwork aspects of the game. No one wants to go to Innsmouth alone if they can help it, and when they can't...I love Upkeep phases that start with, "Someone has to get up here and rescue me!!!"

After my experience today, I have to say I will always take the time to put some clues on the Feds track.

Background: great start of game, with both the Witch House and the Woods sealed by the end of the fifth turn. Not too much going on in Innsmouth, so I continued to focus on Personal Stories (had Akachi and Ursula with their good payouts) and pretty much left Innsmouth alone. DOR starts to go up so I decide to dispatch some people to handle things and then, wham, in two turns three more tokens get placed. Clues are in short supply, and turns out doesn't matter as a Star Spawn decides to move for the vortex before my people are even in place. End result: final battle with Nyogtha, came close to winning (Skids was useful here!), but in the end we ended up as a snake. Sad thing is, just a few more turns and we'd likely have gotten seals #5 and #6 placed (doom was only 6 when Nyogtha was awoken).

So, my lesson learned: pre seed the Fed Track so that it needs only one more clue, even if nothing is happening on DOR. Sure, five clues spent but then there are two for picking up in Innsmouth, but the whole point is that when things get bad in Innsmouth, you only need to send one person over to plant one more clue and wham, DOR is back under control.

I have to send in the feds at least once every game, or I'm burst...

Except last night when I pre-emptied this by placing 5 clues on the DOR early on in anticipation of the raopid surge that always happens... only for it to end up with 1 bleedin DOR token all game. Grrrrrr. Still sealed Nyogtha though, with obe DT to spare, and only because the final gate did in fact add the DOR token. Oh the irony, I'll be Nyogtha saw the funny side :-)

Finn having both Call friend and MiGo Brain Case saw him running everything, particularly int he last frantic turns. He used his last sanity in Leng#2 to cast call frined to bring a 5-clue partner up for the sealing :-)

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

Our game tonight featured the feds raiding Innsmouth twice and the end of the game being delayed by a gate burst at Devil Reef. We did in eventually by clasing all the gates and having an excess of gate trophies. As I recall we had 10 trophies among the 8 investigators. We also had four investigators end up devoured, including one player that had their investigator devoured twice. It ended up being a pretty enjoyable game running about 3.5 hours with 8 players plus JeruselemJones reading the Mythos and encounter cards.

Since we lost our first game of Innsmouth by the end of turn 2* we are kinda paranoid with regards to the DoR track. It can get out of hand extremely fast.

* 5 player game. First gate opened at devils reef. 2nd mythos card opened one at the second sea location right below and moved some of the critters into the vortices, raising the rack to 2 or 3 IIRC (using the Dagon herald). 3rd mythos card caused a monster surge with about half of their movement symbols matching the movement pattern. Bam! Say hello to Cthulhu!

kilrah said:

Kingdom for Milk of Shub-Niggurath ?

Dam said:

I seem to be waiting to long to call in the feds. I've had the AO awaken due to DOR in the past three games. Every time I figure I'll call the feds when the DOR reaches 4, then can't seem to get anyone in place to make it happen.

In the current game, I've got 5 clues on the feds track, 5 DOR toekns, and Silas in Innsmouth. He is all ready to complete his personal story, right after he calls in the feds. When I quit last night, he had been blocked by monster pop ups (dues to mythos once and movement the previous turns) for two turns and just can't seem to get to the blue spaces to call the feds and sacrifice himself.

The other three investigators are all busy in Arkham keeping monsters in check, spending time in the asylum, and trying to get some gates sealed.

We'll see what happens tonight!

Oh, reagrding personal stories, I completely ignore the ones that give you money if you pass. I just don't spend much time shopping and can go a game without spending money on anything except encounters and train/boat fare. Add Tony to my list of folks whose PS I intentionally fail. Spoiler:

If he passes he has to discard 5 monster trophies and gets money. If he FAILS by getting to 5 clue tokens, he discards his monster trophies and then gets a clue every time he kills a monster. I haven't had any trouble just snatching up 5 clues vbefore he kills anything, then raking in the clues once he weapons up and goes on a killing spree!