Villain said:

Now, imagine him eating all your items twice in the same final combat!

You know you want to experience that.

-Villain

How can he eat them twice when I already lost them in the initial start of combat (including once 10 of 11 Items from a Blessed Dexter Drake!!!)?

Ithaqua especially remains high on my list of GOOs I really want to seal.

Uh, Dam, I think it's a lure to get you interested in Epic Battle.

mageith said:

I wouldn't say a board is totally ignored, but one definitely sees more action than the other in an average DH + IH game. Seems like it would often to better to have one board instead of both, in that regard. Granted, I don't have a massive cross section of games to draw a conclusion from.

I'm always altering my approach to Mythos management; eventually I'll settle on something that provides the "ideal experience" for my taste. Just this afternoon I separated everything out again. Gonna attempt something new for next game.

I now have one "base" deck comprised of base Arkham + BGotW + the Dunwich and Kingsport cards that open gates on the main board or otherwise reference locations in Arkham proper. So far as Arkham itself is concerned, I don't consider this dilution assuming the gate burst cards more or less even out, which they do: All 11 of the Dunwich cards are burst and as you mentioned the Black Goat cards include a mix of gates, both normal and burst. Even the Kingsport cards don't screw the mix, as the majority don't even open gates (most cause a monster surge, add doom tokens, etc). Beyond that I've separated all the other expansion into their own deck: DH, IH, KiY and CotDP.

When I speak of FFG's intention, I'm not basing my assumption on anything other than the numbers, pure math focused on the ratio of Mythos cards in the base game and each specific expansion. My goal, of course, is to create a deck that offers variance and challenge but also a proportionate distribution of gates across the boards in play (with a smattering of small box theme) using the ratio(s) as a guide.

Crunching some quick and dirty math (I really don't want to go into detail, it's a bunch of averages; a lot of hand written nonsense on scrap paper), I arrived at 16 / 7 / 8 (base deck / small box / big box) for a 31 card Mythos deck, the base deck being the large deck described above. The fact that there's so much going on in that particular deck should in no way effect the distribution of gates, nor the potential for gate burst cards (as it includes specific Dunwich cards and the entire BGotW Mythos deck). It simply means there's more variance in the 16 cards that otherwise make up more than half of the potential Mythos deck. The other 15 cards, comprised of DH or IH and KiY or CotDP should provide good potential for both small box theme and expansion board action. I have a feeling 3:1 against expansion gates may be a little stiff, but that will quickly become apparent either way as I playtest the formula.

Why do I feel the need to create a "formula"? I guess I want something to standardize our sessions, something to ensure structure when discussing the game afterward. If sessions aren't structured, if they aren't all based on the same foundation, it's hard to judge success over the long haul.

Will this be the formula that works for me? I dunno, but I'm excited to try!

Dealt myself several test Mythos decks and I've made a slight alteration, for anyone interested. Decided to move to 15 / 10 / 5 (AH / big box / small box) with an additional +2 for KiY. When using the KiY, the two extra cards are both "The Next Act Begins!" This guarantees the 1st and 2nd Acts are at least in the each deck, though they may not make an appearance dependent on the shuffle.

Tibs said:

::Puts Ackbar head on head::

IT'S A TRAP!

Dam said:

Without the epic combat cards, final combat is the easiest route against some AOs. With epic cards and the AO plots it becomes risky.

All in all, I think the Kingsport expansion works better than the Dunwich expansion.

Meh. I realized at about quarter to midnight last night that 9 out of the 11 Dunwich cards that place a clue and burst a gate in Arkham also reference a location or street on the Dunwich board. In other words, they cannot be permanently mixed with the main deck unless I intend to put Dunwich in play 100% of the time. My bad.

So that changes things. It's late in coming, but mageith's wisdom has dawned on me.

Keeping BGotW perma-shuffled with base Arkham may not be ideal. Having removed the 9 DH cards that also reference Dunwich, there remain only 9 gate burst cards out of 100, and that includes the 2 from Dunwich that can safely remain. Not great odds. If Dunwich is not in play and Goat is mixed wtih the base deck, the odds of a burst in Arkham are less than 1 in 10.

I consider gate bursts too important to leave to those odds in a non-Dunwich game.

The other option is to separate out BGotW and include a draw from that deck in every game. I love the flavor it adds and that's something I want in every session, but more importantly the potential for a gate burst is increased. I could see a focused draw from both Goat and Dunwich as being a little over the top, possibly creating a deck with far too many gates bursting in Arkham ... again, only experience will allow me to make that determination.

I like to think I'm still on topic. I hope someone out there finds my little journey helpful, though my revelations are likely nothing new. I'm certainly not the first to ride the wild Mythos donkey in pursuit of the "perfect mix."

Deek said:

No, you're not ;') I'm pretty sure I sent you a link to the discussion we had on this like a week ago? Or was it to someone else?

Okay, I just went back and found it, apparently I sent it to Barl (in this thread). Now I'm sending it to you :')

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=5&efcid=1&efidt=283973&efpag=0#284384

Cheers!

Having listened to the advice of long time players, crunched some numbers and dealt several dozen test decks, I've managed to concoct a fairly simple method of my own. I'll be playtesting it later this evening; the maiden voyage!

• The only deck I manage is Mythos, all other decks are all-in.
• My Mythos decks are organized and stored so as to keep the base game and all expansions separate.
• I choose which expansions I wish to use in a session (one big and one small), the other expansion decks are "returned to the box."
• I then employ a simple 12 / 10 / 8 ratio to create a 30 card deck. 12 base Arkham (w/ BGotW and specific KH) / 10 big box / 8 small box (+1 for KiY).
• NOTE: I do not consider BGotW to be a stand alone expansion. I instead use it to compliment and expand the base Arkham deck, adding the potential for gate bursts and general awesomeness. I've removed all mention of the Cult from my game. Kingsport is also ignored with regard to the board (I hate the Rift mechanic). Though the majority of the Kingsport Mythos deck is absent, several Arkham-centric KH cards are included in the base Mythos deck for the sake of variety.

I randomly draw 10 cards from the big box of my choice. This creates a 20:10 or a 2:1 ratio, which presents slightly worse odds than mixing an entire IH or DH Mythos deck (36) with the base Arkham cards (67), but not by much (1.86:1).

I randomly draw 8 cards from the small box of my choice. This maintains a 22:8 or a 2.75:1 ratio. This presents (on average) better odds than you would get mixing an entire small box deck with base Arkham. With CotDP, this presents much better odds than you'd normally receive, but more theme is a good thing! It's actually a tad worse than you'd enjoy with KiY, but I offset this by stacking the deck with 1 guaranteed "The Next Act Begins!" + the 8 random cards from the KiY (creating a 31 card Mythos deck).

The remaining 12 cards are randomly drawn from a mix of base Arkham and BGotW (plus a smattering of Kingsport). I currently keep Black Goat separate, but I might permanently combine these decks (again) to make the process even faster and more simplistic.

It's not perfect. Granted, it doesn't allow for a flexible use of expansions beyond the one big + one small format ... but that's the playstyle I intend to focus on for the foreseeable future.

So yeah. Long story short, 12 / 10 / 8 (+1 "The Next Act Begins!" if KiY is used). The result is a small, manageable deck for each session, one that's easy to separate and re-organize once the game is over. It should present a relatively focused experience, showcasing both the expansion board and the small box theme, hopefully maintaining the balance FFG intended. Or not. I might be way off base! The test decks have been promising, I'm hoping for the best!

I always use every single expansion released and I've never had a problem with theme dilution. They very idea that including MORE things from the Cthulhu Mythos WEAKENS the theme of the Cthulhu Mythos is one of the dumbest ideas I've read.

The only thing I could imagine it really affects is the Act cards and I've still lost 2 game out of the last six because of those cards so, again, absolutely no problem.

It doesn't weaken the theme of the Mythos, it weakens the theme of each individual expansion.

Exactly. It's the theme of each expansion that suffers, especially the small boxes. Of course the Lovecraftian theme is strong, it would be ridiculous to state otherwise.

I'm less concerned with theme and more concerned with certain mechanics. Gates bursts actually breaking a seal, monster surges, the Dunwich Horror, the Deep One Rising track, these all suffer when additional boards are in play. The more unstable locations you add, the less likely you are to see certain events occurring. Using the entire Mythos deck from every single expansion, I could count the number of times "The Next Act Begins!" has appeared on one hand. Exhibit items? Even more rare.

Don't get me wrong. I still love that all-in format for the gate rush madness it provides, but I no longer feel it's the "ideal" way to play. But that's just me.

Magic Pink said:

Just because you've lost to them doesn't mean that it's absolutely no problem. Remember that the point of the Act cards is that they're supposed to present a risk mechanic. If you play with multiple expansions and get a Next Act card and declare, "these cards are so infrequent now that adding the two doom tokens is much more likely to hurt me than to be worth it," and then lose to Act III because of that decision, then the risk element has been undercut and the entire mechanic undermined.

That is the problem, and it undeniably exists.

I have all the expansions but I'm quite a new player. I started to learn the game with just the base set and slowly built up the complexiety. Now I play games based on the following:

1) All the base set and just the main board.

2) Kingsport, Dunwich, Innsmouth Arkham encounter cards with cards mentioning expansion boards removed. This beafs up the location decks considerably with just a handful of cards taken away. For example, a train ride to Kingsport wouldn't make sense when no Kingsport board is in play.

3) Dunwhich unique items, standard items, spells and skills.

4) Kinsport's Epic Battle system.

5) Dunwich's Injury and Madness system.

6) Sheldon gang memberships.

7) Innsmouth's Other world cards. This beafs up the deck to a similar size to the Mythos deck.

With a little common sense, I've managed to create a decent, expanded set with which I'm happy to continue playing for some time. When I need a boost, I'll be inserting all the ancient ones, the investigators, the personal story cards and any other non expansion themed specific stuff that I can toss into the mix and all this will then become my 'base set'. Thereafter, I'll experiment with adding actual themed expansions one at a time to this 'base set', such as one of the smaller sets, or one expansion board and use a way of drawing alternatively from different Mythos decks to keep the current expansion in play's theme fresh and foremost.

AsylumSeeker said:

Hope you got them all at the same time and got some kind of a discount. When I ordered my 2nd set from Thoughthammer, I was able to get free shipping.

Tibs said:

The base set I was given as birthday gift, so no expense there, all the small boxes I bought together and saved on postage. Kinsport I picked up at a crazy price due to it being less popular and I found Dunwich and Innsmouth on Amazon in some kind of sale, about third off and free postage for each. Not a bulk buy but a savvy buy regardless. For all new stock.

:-)

Tibs said:

Except that it's not. They come up all the time for me. It may be a problem for you; it's not for me.

Magic Pink said:

All right. I have a couple of questions then.

Have you ever actually chosen to add the doom tokens to keep Act I at bay when playing with all expansions?
If so, then how does this compare to how frequently you chose to add the doom tokens when you used the King in Yellow expansion alone?

• If your answer is that you never add the doom tokens to return Act I, regardless of how many expansions you're using, or that you've never played King in Yellow expansion alone, then your argument is irrelevant, since you've never employed and experienced the risk mechanic for just King in Yellow alone. Remember that the risk mechanic is not necessarily the same thing as drawing three "Next Act" mythos cards in one game. If either of these experiences are the case for you, then my argument remains uncontested.
• If your answer is that you add the doom tokens significantly less when using all expansions than when using just King in Yellow, or that the frequency that you choose to add the doom tokens noticeably declines when more expansions are added, then your experiences are wholly congruous with my argument, and your experiences actually internally contradict the claim you're making.
• If your answer is that there is no significant change in how often you choose add the doom tokens, then five explanations are possible.
  1: You're just having weird luck. Somehow, no matter how big your mythos deck is, the six Next Act cards wind up within the top 93 cards (roughly) of the deck. You've been riding a strange statistical anomaly and eventually your games are going to start regularly demonstrating that Next Acts are ineffectively infrequent*.
  2: You're shuffling poorly. For this to be true you'd have to have had the Next Act cards close together, but somehow poor shuffling methods have failed to separate that block. This this extremely unlikely though.
  3: Your decision of whether or not to add doom tokens doesn't change, even though the frequency of the Next Act cards has. In this case, you're not really reacting to the risk mechanic in any meaningful wayin other words, you're reacting as though the chances for the next "Next Act" card is the same regardless of how many cards are in the Mythos deck, even though the chances are not the same.
  4: You yourself are using house rules or a custom deck that winds up significantly affecting the frequency of the Act cards. This would make you a dishonest hypocrite, so I assume you're absolutely not doing this.
  5: There is a significant change in frequency, but you just do not notice. Maybe you've just played so many games that have multiple expansions that the realized frequency of the Next Act cards in your games is something you've come to accept as normal. Playing with fewer expansions or with KiY alone either make the Act cards so frequent that you probably disregard their high frequency as a fluke, or that your relatively few games with fewer expansions underwent odd luck where the Next Act cards were under-emphasized (it happens).

*Remember that when I say "ineffectively infrequent," I'm talking about the presence of the risk mechanic, not whether or not you can get a 3rd act. If your Next Act cards are rare enough, you'll never add the doom tokens. If you somehow then get all three acts in a game, then there's nothing you really could have done about it because the smart decision was always to let Act I stay out. In this scenario the risk element is undermined completely.

If I had to guess, your experiences probably fall under bullet 3, sub 1 or 5.

Magic Pink said:

Ummm.... Either that means you don't shuffle well, or that you don't have all the sets yet ;')

Magic Pink said:

Avi_dreader said:

Hell I don't get them frequently enough and don't yet have Dunwich and Kingsport......and I use that KiY herald I knocked together a while back that makes you go looking for them.