I recently purchased the Core Set for the CoC LCG, and have played about a half-dozen games with different faction combinations. I'm left wondering, however, if there are certain basic bits of strategy that will help me understand how the game is played. I understand all the basic mechanics, but I don't quite get how they fit together. Is there anyone who can help me to better understand the general "Flow" of the game?

remember sometimes the best thing you can do is play defense. be aware of whats on the table and if going for stories will leave you wide open for the opponent to get a free run (or nearly) at stories on their turn, dont do it. in most cases. if you can win the game well obviously do that, but if there is a next turn be prepared for it.

keep an eye on how many cards they have in their hand, alot of cards means there is a better chance they are holding a good card to hamstring you, but on that token also watch their domains. if all their domains are drained all you have to really worry about is whats on the table, there are a few 0 cost cards.

on the domain issue if you have a event that would be helpful defensively/offensively than playing a character that wont be able to fend anything off, dont play the character. wait until the character is helpful.

i guess to sum it up with something i was told when i started playing ccgs was board position includes cards in hand, so account for that.

an example if they have 2 weak cards on the table 10 cards in hand and 2 domains open, and you have 5 characters on the table, you might not be as well of as you think. they are holding on to something more likely than not.

with all that said this is a game of horror elements and in a way it comes out in the game play. dont be afraid to get one of characters killed or driven insane if it gets success tokens on stories and gets you closer to winning. but being closer to winning means you can still play your game without that character. whether that means events to stall them or being able to flood the board next turn. but dont be afraid to lose a character here or there.

i hope this is the kinda info you are looking for. but this is just my certain play style, youll develop what works best for your decks with playing. if you play someone that wins alot see if they will let you watch them play against a few people. see what they do with the cards they draw and all that. thats really the best way. but if you and a few friends are just starting i guess that wont be an option.

good advice, while you shouldnt be afraid of committing to a story, think ahead to the next players turn, will connitting leave all storys open to him, is it better to let him grab a couple early, let him do the work then you steal them off him etc (their are a few cards that can allow that )

As a beginner the hardest thing I have found is trying to decide with cards to assign as resources... I think this part of the game is a very challenging strategy wise. Especially in the first few turns, when you have to get resources started quickly.. I tend to try and get "something" out for defense but build up slowly... in-fact this game is a lot slower at the start than most duel-card games i have played.

I haven't got it worked out yet but I assume that you need to try and put "bad" cards in and have copies of them so they have a high draw chance...

My main problem with defense is that the opponent I've played against so far just leaves all his characters for defense himself, and waits for me to commit as an attacker before ever starting to commit to stories as an attacker himself. As such, if I leave characters on defense, he trounces me at the stories should I attack with anything less than most of my characters. Would the proper response be to just start attacking, as long as the Arcane struggle gives me a few defenders on his turn?

could well be a strategy, but look at his and your cards, if he has a lot how long did it take to get that many 3-4 turns, if so attack earlier.

if he is getting them out quickly, they must be low cards, change your deck if need be to counter his cards, out of interest what factions are you both playing?

thats exactly what arcane is for, it lets you be more aggressive. just remember youll only be able to ready one character per story and when their turn comes they ready all their characters. so the trick is bring only what you can, but if in the process you can wound or drive something on their side insane thats swings things too. just remember they also will get a chance to play new characters.

if all they wanna do is sit back and play defense and you can still get in there and get a success on stories eventually they will have to play some offense too or they wont ever get anything on stories.

it appears you know their playing still, play against the weakness is sometimes better than playing to your strength.

what factions do you play? i know you asked for basic strategies, but i mostly play shub so what im saying could be pretty useless if you play something different. i just dont wanna give you bad advice.

As to what factions I play, so far I've been trying out all of them. As I've said, I've only played about half a dozen games with just the core set, and have been trying out all the different factions. My opponent so far has seemed to develop a liking for Agency though, so that's what I'm primarily up against. The main problem that I've been having is that, seeing as the defender assigns second, he's able to distribute his characters so that they aren't injured, and kill some of mine, and as a result, even though I take a story or two, he soon has enough of a lead in characters that I can't surmount.

As a side note, I think I may be misunderstanding the rules for insanity. As I understand it, if a character goes insane, he is removed from the story, you can recover one character per turn, and the recovered character still readies on that turn; so if he only has one of his characters go insane per turn, he's at no disadvantage. Am I correct? Also, can the shotgun be used more than once in a turn if he can pay for it more than once?

no you can only use each sotgun once unless you can bring it back from the discard pile to use again, it seems you may be playint insane wrong,

when a character goes insane he is flipped over face down, on their controllers next go he is exhausted, on their next go he is readied, so it can give you a big break, i know youre just trying diofferent factions, but in the core set, try and pick 2, and get used to how they play, that will help you find strategies as well

Yeah. I can see where I was getting Insanity wrong now. I was caught up on seeing recovery before you refresh your characters, and missed the whole "The refreshed character remains exhausted until the owners next turn" line.

As for the shotgun, I don't see why it would be only usable once. I'm nnot talking about "Shotgun Blast", the event, I'm talking about "Shotgun" the support card. The one that allows "While attached character is committed to a story, it gains ' Action: Pay 1 to choose and wound a character committed to this story.'" It seems to me that it would allow multiple uses per turn, as long as you had the undrained domains to pay for it, but at the same time, that seems a little too... potent, as it would allow him to kill several characters each turn, provided I had no toughness.

iGaveHimLife said:

I would try not to put in "bad" cards if you can avoid it. If you have a few asylum packs along with a core set then try to have cards in your deck that will help you against different factions. An example would be playing a Hastur deck. They have lots of terror icons, but you would have a harder time generally against Cthulhu because many of those cards have terror as well. So try to mix in a few cards that let you strip terror icons from a character. If you're playing against MU, Agency, or Syndicate, you could feel pretty confident to resource those.

actually when a character goes insane, its just flipped over and keeps whatever state of exhausted or readied that it had. then during their refresh phase all characters ready, including insane ones. most people just dont bother to ready insane characters though cause there is hardly any use for it. but once a insane character is restored it is exhausted.

agency is pretty well rounded having willpower floating in there.

so try cthulhu and maybe syndicate. this way you should get some destruction (wounding and combat) and insanity from cthulhu, and combat and arcane (or exhaust their cards) with syndicate.

hastur isnt bad either for driving things insane either.....that is what hastur does best.

Afraid you are dead wrong on shotgun, Darknight.

A character with the shotgun attached, when committed to a story, can fire that shotgun as many times as he has undrained domains.

Chick

PearlJamaholic said:

Huh? Why wouldn't you restore insane characters? I always flip them over, and then next turn un-exhaust them unless I have a card that uses insane characters for some card text effect

iGaveHimLife said:

no....ready. by rules you can ready (unexhaust) insane characters, but its pointless in LCG, cause as soon as you restore them they are exhausted.

I am sorry i do not understand.. I am new and only played the LCG version... as I see it.. insane is basically just adds a delay to the un-exhaust stage.. ... So you got insane.. card is face up... next upkeep phase.. you can restore it... but it is still exhausted... then next upkeep you can ready... That is how it works doesn't it... you basically loose teh card for a hole etra turn unless you have ability the can restore sanity... ?

Why is that pointless?

I think what is trying to be communicated is that Insane (Face down) and Exhausted (Sideways) are two seperate conditions. Just because you are Insane doesn'e mean that you must be exhausted as well.... but recovering from insanity exhausts you. Restoring, which is to say, turning straight up from being sideways, can apparently be done to insane characters, but they remain face-down and insane, and exhaust as soon as they recover from insanity.

iGaveHimLife said:

commit character to a story (exhaust, turnside ways)

character goes insane (flip over, still exhausted)

your refresh phase, ready all characters. all characters are no longer sideways but still insane

restore, flip insane character face up, now it becomes exhausted again.

see pointless to ready insane characters. there are exceptions, a few cards have you exhaust characters to pay for the ability. but if youre not playing those cards just leave your insane characters exhausted cause as soon as you restore them (one each turn) they just get exhausted anyways.

Dsarvess said:

i missed your post when i replied and wont let me edit mine, but you got it before i did and explained it better.

PearlJamaholic said:

"your refresh phase, ready all characters. all characters are no longer sideways but still insane"

Um... are you sure? ... as I read it.. insane characters at this point just turn face up, they just flip up but stay exhausted (sideways) .. it also demo's that in the video tutorial made by FFG.

So you are not meant to "ready" insane characters... they go insane, next turn one of them becomes exhausted, next turn they become ready for use.

yes a character that goes insane is

1 st flipped over

2 then turned over and sideways, ehausted

3 then refreshed ready to use

arghhh no edit......

when a character is flipped over that denotes he is insane, the next start of the characters owners turn he is flipped over and exhausted, its not till the start of the next turn he comes into play, unless earlier by card effects

I see a lot of newer players play too defensively. Aggression definately pays in this game. Don't be afraid to lay on some pressure. Don't be afraid to send your peeps to their doom, if it helps you keep the advantage...

Marius said:

marius returns!!! havent seen you post in awhile again.

Just to confirm, you're all aware that each turn you get to ready all of your exhausted characters but only can restore ONE insane character. Some of the posts have talked about "restoring characters" and you only get to do more than one if you have a card effect in play to accomplish that. The 'Detailed Turn Sequence' on page 13 of the LCG rules is quite a handy reference.

On that topic - I just noticed a mistake in the Turn Sequence. It should say to ready all exhausted character and support cards (as per page 8 which gives details of what to do in the Refresh phase)...