Um, I am checking out the Arkham Horror LCG Invocation event, and it appears you get a playmat and an alternate art of a character published in the core game. No mention of a scenario, wait, yeah, it mentions you could play one of the standalone scenarios. So no new special event scenario? That's the whole point of a special event like this. They will probably include 3 sets in a kit, and charge stores $50, which means each player will be charged $25 for a bring your own scenario experience? I hope I am missing something here.
Arkham Horror LCG Invocation scenario?
Yeah, I don't really get it. Each Invocation Kit includes stuff for 4 players: alt art Daisy card, alt art Daisy token, and player mat. And then I guess info about the Ultimatums. But I think players will have to bring their own decks and scenarios to play (or purchase at the store)?
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/9/18/invoke-thy-name/
Unfortunately you're not missing anything. It's a glorified Arkham LCG Night at your FLGS.
So assuming your FLGS is 25 dollars, that the normal price of a play mat, plus you get a bonus alternate art investigator, that is full bleed. It is also a way to entice people to join a community, difficult to do when there are no tournaments and I personally think this is a fantastic Idea and have been trying to get as many new people to meet me for my FLGS event so that our community grows because that is what is good for the game long term.
I have done the Lord of the Rings events for the last few years, and so I am fine with bringing my own deck. $25 for a playmat, promo card AND a scenario is about right. But no scenario = fail in my opinion. Having a scenario adds to the majority of the incentive to sign up, pay, and show up to the event. It's what drives the purpose for people to participate. If I wanted the playmat and alternate art card, I would probably just sign up, show up and pay for the loot, then leave, because most likely, the other 2 or 3 people are doing the same.
16 minutes ago, Redsavina said:I have done the Lord of the Rings events for the last few years, and so I am fine with bringing my own deck. $25 for a playmat, promo card AND a scenario is about right. But no scenario = fail in my opinion. Having a scenario adds to the majority of the incentive to sign up, pay, and show up to the event. It's what drives the purpose for people to participate. If I wanted the playmat and alternate art card, I would probably just sign up, show up and pay for the loot, then leave, because most likely, the other 2 or 3 people are doing the same.
For me it's not the price. You can usually sell alt arts and playmats for the cost of admission anyways to recoup what you spent. For me, though, this just makes it a glorified FNM. There's no incentive to go to that over any other LGS night if I don't get any new content out of it.
They could at least get some copies of Labyrinths of Lunacy to the stores so people can play some epic multiplayer matches. Or they could pass out the novella-exclusive cards.
On 12/6/2017 at 7:50 AM, Network57 said:Unfortunately you're not missing anything. It's a glorified Arkham LCG Night at your FLGS.
For those people who play alone and don't have a gaming group, this is their chance to find others.
AHLG has many more solitary players than the other FFG games.
And most of the player base are firm that this program not force participation solely to obtain new content. All unique mechanical content really must be in a format that can be purchased retail.
Of course, it would be a great bonus if the invocations could ship with a deck of CotR/CoH/LoL/novella cards for use with the group/handouts to participants. It just needs to be something that can be otherwise purchased.
The setting is thematically incompatible with tournaments. When Azathoth doesn't eat the world, all of humanity wins by definition.
16 minutes ago, jjvreed said:The setting is thematically incompatible with tournaments. When Azathoth doesn't eat the world, all of humanity wins by definition.
Nah, the main obstacle to tournaments is the game being a coop (a game pitting groups of cultists against one another would lend itself to tournaments, even in a Lovecraftian setting). Even then, having a scale of "how well did I do on this scenario/campaign?" could get around that (by comparing groups), but, as LotR showed, such a scale is hard to establish (and not necessarily desirable).
1 hour ago, Khudzlin said:Nah, the main obstacle to tournaments is the game being a coop (a game pitting groups of cultists against one another would lend itself to tournaments, even in a Lovecraftian setting). Even then, having a scale of "how well did I do on this scenario/campaign?" could get around that (by comparing groups), but, as LotR showed, such a scale is hard to establish (and not necessarily desirable).
I thoroughly agree with your viewpoint (and better articulated my initial response).
Edited by jjvreed
2 hours ago, jjvreed said:The setting is thematically incompatible with tournaments. When Azathoth doesn't eat the world, all of humanity wins by definition.
No, we just go into another round of overtime...
2 hours ago, jjvreed said:And most of the player base are firm that this program not force participation solely to obtain new content. All unique mechanical content really must be in a format that can be purchased retail.
It's long-established practice with LotR to use Fellowship events as an avenue for early release of content that's made more generally available later (Arkham does it, too, although thus far limited to cons with Labyrinths). I'm disappointed that didn't turn out to be the case here. Missed opportunity.
I wouldn't be surprised if FFG had intended for this to be a Labyrinths event, and something got messed up in the logistics such that Labyrinths wouldn't be available in time.
8 hours ago, rsdockery said:Or they could pass out the novella-exclusive cards.
This would kind of defeat the "exclusive" part.
Well,
I am going to be running the event at my LFGS next Friday night. I am going to bring my 4 player Playmat to run the scenario on, 4 sleeved up decks for us to play, my custom Cthulhu bag and coin cased tokens, two Team Covenant character boards, and the two POD scenarios to play (we will probably choose one or the other). I will let you guys know how it goes, and what those Ultimatums actually are (does everyone get a set of cards, or are they just going to be printed on a single piece of paper)?
Edited by Redsavina10 hours ago, Redsavina said:I will let you guys know how it goes, and what those Ultimatums actually are (does everyone get a set of cards, or are they just going to be printed on a single piece of paper)?
I attended my local event already. The Ultimatums are all printed and listed on a single piece of paper. I know they had multiple copies, but I don’t know if it was just one per kit or some other number, because not everyone got a copy.
Ok,
I ended up going to the Invocation 2017 event on Saturday evening at my LFGS. The other players who said they would attempt to make it never showed, however, I setup the game anyway, putting the Curse of the Rougarou scenario on the table ready to go. A young couple walked in, and the shop owner told them they were holding this special event, and they said another couple were scheduled to meet them at the shop shortly. Well, next thing you know, there are 4 players sitting at the table, with 4 decks I built, the Invocation playmats, my official scenario management playmat, my custom Cthulhu chaos bag containing chaos tokens in coin cases, all cards sleeved up, and two Team Covenant character trays. The players were quite unfamiliar with hobby board games, but after I set the tone for the game and the scenario, and spent about 5 minutes explaining basic rules, we began the game. I basically ran the game for them, and taught them rules, actions, how the turn based phases work, and some strategy as well, but totally let them make their own decisions as long as they were legal.
After almost 3 hours, they pretty much learned the game, and they had dealt 3 damage to the Rougarou (which he then had 17 health still), which at that point, then they said they were going to go get dinner, so they opted for the "Resign" condition at one of the locations, and took off for the evening. They were pretty cool folks, and said they had a good time playing the game.
I ended up with two sets of the kit (two playmats, and two sets of the Promo cards). The promo art character card looks really good, and the mini card is actually made out of a thick plastic, its not a card at all. The Ultimatums were printed on a single, double sided instruction sheet (8 1/2 x 11), which has text about the event and such. The store owner said I could keep the handout. The Ultimatums were just listed in the text (no images) and just had the name of the Ultimatum in bold, then a very short description. I think that was pretty weak. They should have done custom art for each one, and then printed one per card, with a pack for each player to take home and use in their scenarios as an optional challenge.
Overall, the playmat is sweet, and the alternative art cards look great (not sure why they did the mini card in the hard thick plastic instead of cardboard), but other than that, I think this kit fell way short. In the future, I feel it is absolutely necessary for them to provide a scenario to run, and a copy of the scenario for each player as well to take home and add to their collection.
Edited by RedsavinaThis event felt flat because it didn't align with the release of Labyrinth of Lunacy. If you compared this event to the LotR Fellowship event(which cost the same entry fee), the LotR Fellowship event crushes the Invocation event, because players got a special scenario(not everyone can make it to GenCon you know, and even fewer can make it to Arkham Nights) along with the promo and Playmat included. We had a good turnout at the local Invocation event, about 17-21 people(not sure if there was another group). Most of the complaints were in regards to not having something new for this event, whereas they could have just met up at home or some other place then coming to this event specifically.
So, here is how my LGS is promoting and running this to their email list, submitted without further comment:
QuoteCall of Cthulhu Living Card Game Invocation Event
Saturday, Jan 20th and 2pm. Limited to the 1st 4 players to sign up. $15 entry. 4 players will play against the worst horrors the game can caugh up at them. Win or lose, each player gets to go home with a unique promo card and play mat for their valiant effort. Pre-registration in store only for this event.
I agree with some of the statements above. The playmat and promo cards were pretty sweet but I had really hoped that there was going to be a scenario included. My group wanted to just pay the reg fee, grab their loot, and then reconvene at one of our houses to play since there was no real incentive to stay. Which, I guess explains why my FLGS decided to hold on to the promo cards until about 1 1/2 hours into the event before handing those out. Including Lunacy would have made the event 10 times better. As mentioned above, they hit the nail on the head with their LOTR Fellowship events. New scenarios to sit down and play and with the last 2 Fellowship events being up to 12 players, it got people invested for the experience. I also think they missed the mark with the Ultimatums. Being on a sheet of paper, of which there wasn't even enough for everybody, was a fail. If production costs were an issue/reason, they could easily have saved some $$ by making the promo token card out of card and not plastic. I would have happily accepted that if it meant I got the Ultimatums in card form. As it stands, I was unable to secure one of the sheets so the Ultimatums are pretty much dead to me.
On the bright side, I really like the playmat.
CoconutMonkey, you want a scan of the Ultimatums Sheet? I was able to bring one home from the event I attended.
Edited by Redsavina