Hey all!

A group of friends and I have started playing the Arkham Horror base game recently and feel like we may be playing incorrectly. We've played only a few games but it seems too easy, which makes us think we may be overlooking something. At first glance, the game seemed kinda hard, actually. And to be honest, our first two playthroughs were played SUPER wrong haha. We were drawing Mythos on every turn but only one player could play per turn. So in a game of 4, we had 4 gates down per rotation. Suffice to say, it was very difficult. So much of the game made no sense to us as to why it even existed with 4 gates per turn coming out. We would get to the boss stage pretty quickly, got close to beating him both times (1hp) but still questioned why it was so difficult.

Now, we've gone through the rules and looked up some clarifications and have found the game to be too easy. We never get to the boss stage. Accordingly, we think we are doing wrong. I'll preface by saying we aren't huge board gamers, only heavily getting into Catan and Carcassonne. But in terms of video games, we are "hardcore" gamers. Min-max, power game, etc. So that's the approach we take. We played a Cthulhu game tonight (random investigators) with 5 people and it ran about 3.5-4 hours. I'm not sure how long that should take. We feel it could be running long because we plan our whole turn in the upkeep just to remove misplays.

Anyways, here's how we play and some rules we feel we may have misunderstood that could be helping us make the game too easy.

Every turn the first player marker (I'll call player 1) is passed to the next person, clockwise.

Upkeep starts for everyone (upkeep text triggers and we set Focus, which we can only adjust by our total focus combined, not per stat).

Starting with Player 1, we make our moves. Speed determines how far you can get, one adjacent stop per point.

If you there is a monster in your way, combat starts.

COMBAT

Horror check is first. You need to pass a Will check before you sneak or fight. If you fail the Will check, you take your sanity damage and that's it. If you pass your sneak check, you can keep moving. If you don't, the monster hits you and then combat starts. You don't get to sneak again. Only fight.

Fight check. Only pass if you roll enough successes to match the toughness. Fail, you just take the damage and then it's the next persons turn.

ARKHAM ENCOUNTERS- when everyone has moved and combat has been completed, we move to this starting with Player 1.

If the player is in the outer world, he doesn't draw anything.

If the player is standing on a gate with no explored token, he gets pulled through (moved here this turn).

Each player draws an encounter for their spot in Arkham. If a monster is drawn on your encounter card, you have to fight it immediately. If a gate is drawn, you get sucked in and delayed.

OTHER WORLD ENCOUNTERS- if you travel here you end up getting 2 encounters per gate, unless delayed.

Same as Arkham, draws starting with Player 1. Monster spawns, you gotta fight it right away. If you don't kill it and just sneak it, it stays in the outer world.

When you get out, you don't have to fight the monster standing on the gate.

You can close the gate by passing a Lore or Fight check.

If you fail, you can try next turn.

If you succeed and dont have 5 clue tokens to seal, you can wait there until they either spawn on you order a card generates them for you, and then seal. If you leave, you lose your ability to seal.

Mythos card- First is gate spawn with monster on it, if there is a gate there you get monster surge instead of the gate and the monster.

Then clue drop.

Then text.

Then monster movement.

If a monster moves to you, you need to fight it immediately.

So the things we need confirmation on would be as follows:

Can you trade at ANY time other than mid combat? Like... mid movement. Right before horror checks, etc. We abuse this like crazy.

How does landing on a space with multiple monsters work? Do we horror check all of them before fight/sneak starts?

Is there a downside other than items/clue token loss when you go insane or go to the hospital? No delay or anything? Seems like a free teleport at times.

Do you not have to fight a monster occupying your same space unless you or it tries to move? And in that case, is your only options fight or sneak (since movement stops when combat starts)?

Spells are terrible, right? Except I guess the one that gets you out of outer world. If that's even a spell.

The skill cards (+1 stats) are always active, right? The text below is just an additional benefit?

In exactly what instances do you horror check vs. monsters?

Our general strategy has been focus on Unique Items to try and draw elder signs. Collect 5 tokens and hit a gate unless there are too many on the board. Ignore all the other shops unless we get the inner sanctum membership. Eventually someone will emerge as the designated fighter due to items/stats. Burn tokens instead of losing rolls that cost us sanity/stamina. If we have more than 5, we burn them for beneficial things too. We've been known to burn the whole bunch at times. As such, we haven't lost a single investigator.

It's pretty late and I'm exhausted, so I apologize if this is incoherent. Just wanted to get things down after a fresh play session to make sure I don't forget. I might have actually forgotten some things too. I probably did.

Any help is appreciated!

#1: OTHER WORLD ENCOUNTERS Same as Arkham, draws starting with Player 1. Monster spawns, you gotta fight it right away. If you don't kill it and just sneak it, it stays in the outer world.

#2: When you get out, you don't have to fight the monster standing on the gate.

#3: If you succeed and dont have 5 clue tokens to seal, you can wait there until they either spawn on you order a card generates them for you, and then seal. If you leave, you lose your ability to seal.

#4: If a monster moves to you, you need to fight it immediately.

#5: How does landing on a space with multiple monsters work? Do we horror check all of them before fight/sneak starts?

#6: Is there a downside other than items/clue token loss when you go insane or go to the hospital? No delay or anything? Seems like a free teleport at times.

#7: Do you not have to fight a monster occupying your same space unless you or it tries to move? And in that case, is your only options fight or sneak (since movement stops when combat starts)?

#8: Spells are terrible, right? Except I guess the one that gets you out of outer world. If that's even a spell.

#9: Our general strategy has been focus on Unique Items to try and draw elder signs.

Added numbers to make quoting easier.

#1: Monsters don't stay on the board in the OWs, lose or escape, it goes back into the cup, win, you get the trophy (barring Endless).

#2: Return immunity only lasts for the turn you return, so you if get an OW encounter that is "return to Arkham", since you interact with monsters during the Movement Phase, next turn's Movement Phase you no longer have the free evade option.

#3: This is a BIG wrong. You have to have 5 Clues the very moment you close the gate to seal, if you don't, you can't seal, period. Once a gate is closed, it is removed from the board, you get it as a trophy, so there is nothing left to seal on future turns, apart from a new gate opening, you exploring the corresponding OW and closing that gate. You can sit on an open gate with an explored token and have someone bring you an Elder Sign Unique Item to use and seal the gate (remember, can't trade Clues).

#4: No. If a monster moves on you during its Mythos movement, you don't deal with it until the next turn's Movement Phase. Fighting the monster during Mythos would make things easier as starting your turn with a monster in your space, unless you sneak past it, you basically won't move at all during the turn. Could have someone ahead of you in the turn order (unless you're First Player) move to your space and kill the monster, freeing you to move if you're needed elsewhere.

#5: Each monster is dealt with one at a time, monster A horror + fight, if win, monster B horror + fight.

#6: You're down to 1 in that stat and can do nothing for the rest of the turn, so in order to heal up to full, you need to spend the following turn in the Asylum/Hospital

#7: You can always choose not to move, ending your move (even if you don't move) in a space with a monster, you have to deal with it. And monsters don't move away if sharing space with an investigator (barring Elusive)

#8: Spells aren't great, but if you only have Physical Weapons and monsters with Physical Resistance/Immunity, Spells provide Magical Attack.

#9: Note that you have to buy one of the items you draw in the Curiositie Shoppe if you can afford it, can't just cycle through for Elder Signs without buying anything. That said, with base only, there are 4 Elder Signs in 39 Unique Item cards, ratio is too favourable for the investigators.

There's also some confusion on when to test Horror (not Will) and fleeing from combat. I'd suggest rechecking rules on pag 14-15 of the core rulebook. Especially this sentence:

If the investigator successfully evades the monster in the first place, he never needs to make a Horror check at all.

Ohhh, ok. Thanks a lot you two! I will take this info to the group

A few more things that came up tonight.

1. Can we evade and stay in the same spot to not fight a monster on our space? Not sure why I'd do this, but just for reference.

2. Monsters that spawn via encounter cards are still only dealt with during movement?

3. When gates spawn via encounter cards, do you instantly get sucked in and delayed like you would for mythos?

Thanks again.

Oh, also, what expansion would you recommend to make the game more difficult?

1. Sure. Why doing it? A monster you cannot defeat in combat is guarding the gate you need to enter. Or the gate you need to seal after your free pass expired

2. Nope. Monsters appearing as result of "a monster appears" encounter are dealt immediately. If you defeat the monster, you gain the trophy (unless ithe monster chit states something else, like Mi-Gos, Warlocks, and so on); if you evade the monster, or you're defeated, the monster is returned to the cup. If a monster appears as result of "a gate and a monster appear", you're suck through the gate and the monster stays on the board (but you don't have to deal with it since you resolve the gate opening first)

3. Half of the answer lies in my answer n.2; as per the delayed clause, yes, you're delayed (and this means you need to have on average three OW encounters before returning to Arkham)

1. Sure. Why doing it? A monster you cannot defeat in combat is guarding the gate you need to enter. Or the gate you need to seal after your free pass expired

2. Nope. Monsters appearing as result of "a monster appears" encounter are dealt immediately. If you defeat the monster, you gain the trophy (unless ithe monster chit states something else, like Mi-Gos, Warlocks, and so on); if you evade the monster, or you're defeated, the monster is returned to the cup. If a monster appears as result of "a gate and a monster appear", you're suck through the gate and the monster stays on the board (but you don't have to deal with it since you resolve the gate opening first)

3. Half of the answer lies in my answer n.2; as per the delayed clause, yes, you're delayed (and this means you need to have on average three OW encounters before returning to Arkham)

Excellent, thanks!

two of the harder expansions? innsmouth +black goat of the woods. They are all fun though!

Looks like you've already got a lot of good answers, but yeah - the base game does get pretty easy once you get used to it. There are some house rules you can play with that help bump the difficulty a bit until you get one of the expansions - my wife and I used these until we got our first expansion Dunwich Horror (rules from: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/373807/house-rules-richard-lanius):

* Two monsters per gate in a game of 4 or more (instead of 5)

* Keep gates flipped until you go through them

If you're looking to make the game harder - Innsmouth is definitely a good expansion to go for. We lost a couple times to Dagon and Hydra after a pretty decent winning streak, so I'd definitely recommend trying that if it seems like the game is getting too easy for you.

There are already some great answers, but I noticed something in your post I thought I would weigh in on.

Under Combat, you note on a fail that after taking damage it is the next person's turn. Based on the rules on page 15, I think this is incorrect. After taking damage, you loop back up to the fight or flee option, and continue the combat. The combat does not end until you either escape the monster or one party is defeated.

There are already some great answers, but I noticed something in your post I thought I would weigh in on.

Under Combat, you note on a fail that after taking damage it is the next person's turn. Based on the rules on page 15, I think this is incorrect. After taking damage, you loop back up to the fight or flee option, and continue the combat. The combat does not end until you either escape the monster or one party is defeated.

Yes, that's correct

See, it always pays to read lots of posts - I learned something here I had overlooked. I think everyone clarified the rules pretty well, but I thought I'd add my two cents about adding an expansion. I just recently added Curse of the Dark Pharaoh to the base game and I'd say it's a pretty good way to go for a first expansion. It doesn't really increase the difficulty that much - hell you can go almost a whole game without dealing with any of the new mechanics it adds. But god help you if get one of those dual colored OW cards....

Yeah, I still have to pull one of those... but indeed, could be... interesting

Lol interesting is a good word - I would go with devastating. Unless the poor investigator who drew the card is armed to the teeth, you're better off considering him/her devoured and saving a few minutes by skipping combat.

Yep, that's the point. Having one devoured is not always that devastating...

*thinking on how to automatically trigger those when sending Vincent in an OW*

(seriously, I'm all in for tactical devouring of the weakest around. I remember one game I won because of Funnel Clouds that allowed me to get rid of a so corrupted Hank that was draining the entire corruption deck alone)

That's a good point - I don't think I've ever really tried to get someone killed off haha. But that totally makes sense - if you have the choice to sacrifice someone, go for the one with no weapons, curses, and corruptions.

oh my poor poor sacrifcial lamb that is tommy muldoon... i will always remember him and his sacrfice!

*thinking on how to automatically trigger those when sending Vincent in an OW*

Halleluja, preach, sister, preach!

I recall drawing one of the dual-colored OW cards and in the right spot. I think it was Monterey Jack, with 5+ Clues and an Elder Sign, hitting the game's probably first OW on turn 3, sadly, this meant no monster trophies, so meeting Shub-Niggurath in Yuggoth didn't go so well, beginning the downward spiral of the rest of the game, losing effectively two seals worth of resources .

Oddly enough, that exact same thing just happened to me in a game I was playing lol. Monterey Jack had to fight Shub too, and he went down taking an Elder Sign and 5+ clues with him. Only difference is it was a bit later in the game, so he had a few chances to not suck and die.

Just to pass, that when I purchased Arkham Horror I went to YouTube and watched videos on how to play. It really cleared up a lot of misunderstanding.