As my topic says, this Friday we are bringing Mansions of Madness Second Edition to the table for the first time, having started with Eldritch, followed by Arkham. How does this one translate? Easier to start or setup? Anything that can be annoying to encounter that I can try and get in front of? Tips anything would be much appreciated.

There are common elements to most AH games: Investigators cooperate against the Mythos, find clues and fight monsters while the opposition advances further and further. There is an Investigator Phase and a Mythos Phase, everyone has a couple of actions to do stuff, there are skill tests and helpful items and every 'gator has to avoid damage and horror.

To play you have to know the core rules. But you also need the ability to understand card effects on the fly. MoM2 adds lots and lots of instructions from the app to that. Being able to use and understand the app is key. The rules do an ok job of explaining most app functions, but there is no reason not to toy around with the app before the game to see where everything is and what everything does.

Personally, of all the AH games I find MoM2 the easiest to learn and explain. There are some obscure rules that come up rarely (starting a fire, taking stuff from others), but if you pick the first scenario, you will understand most rules after a few rounds of play. When in doubt, try to follow the app's instructions to the letter without interpretation or overthinking.

5 hours ago, Samea said:

There are common elements to most AH games: Investigators cooperate against the Mythos, find clues and fight monsters while the opposition advances further and further. There is an Investigator Phase and a Mythos Phase, everyone has a couple of actions to do stuff, there are skill tests and helpful items and every 'gator has to avoid damage and horror.

To play you have to know the core rules. But you also need the ability to understand card effects on the fly. MoM2 adds lots and lots of instructions from the app to that. Being able to use and understand the app is key. The rules do an ok job of explaining most app functions, but there is no reason not to toy around with the app before the game to see where everything is and what everything does.

Personally, of all the AH games I find MoM2 the easiest to learn and explain. There are some obscure rules that come up rarely (starting a fire, taking stuff from others), but if you pick the first scenario, you will understand most rules after a few rounds of play. When in doubt, try to follow the app's instructions to the letter without interpretation or overthinking.

Perfect, then that is what I will do, start messing with the App today and tomorrow so I have a better understanding of it when we play Friday. I assumed, based on my reading of the rules, that much of the core stuff was the same, but every little bit helps. Of course next I have to try the card game, which I have already purchased.

The only common rule that regularly confuses people is "range". MoM2 has no concept if line of sight or different ranges, instead it uses an abstract "in range" for ranged combat, movement, distance and more. ?

But if any questions crop up, ask away.

If anything, Mansions is way easier and faster to set up than both of them.

You could order the items alphabetically, to better and faster find what
you need, but in terms of preparation, other than shuffling the spells,
conditions with backsides and the damage and horror cards, you just need
to have everything else (and the App) ready to go.

EDIT: If you are playing with less than 3 investigators, there are Insane conditions that you'll have to take out the deck; to help with that, on the backside (to the low right) there is a number next to the investigator icon.

The rules tell you to not jump right to the Reference Guide, but if you
do have trouble understanding a certain game element, you should just try
to look it up anyway.

Concerning starting Items and Clues: You won't find anything on the investigator cards and/or anywhere else, because the App tells you what your investigators start with (as a group) - you decide how to split it up - and how many clues everyone gets before you start the scenario.

Okay, so it took us a few minutes, but you were correct, it all just sort of clicks a one point. We had a 3 player game on the first scenario and were making good progress. I had just gotten a key and we had solved some puzzles when one of the other members had a cascade of bad horror checks and cards that ended up causing more horror and went insane. At the end of his next turns, because he was in a room alone with me and had a knife, the game ended and he won. I am assuming he killed my character, etc. Wow that dynamic I did not entirely see coming. Still we had a lot of fun, got a trippy ending and will need to try that first scenario a second time.

So session 2 last night. A group of 3 again, and the same scenario. This time I had added the first expansion and I dug that it added some objects from it, in addition of course to the layout being a lot different than before. My group didn't listen to me at every turn, reading a scroll I said not to, breaking an urn I advised against, you get the idea. Everybody wanted to do their own thing and it wasn't until the end that they listened to me. We essentially had one person insane, two of us wounded, me being one of the them and one person on the verge of both insanity and being wounded, making a run for the door. I ended up having to hold off a cult member and two deep ones in order to allow my wife time to make it out of the mansion. It was fun and not a little nerve wracking at the end there. Perhaps next time they will listen to me. I imagine combat would have been different at the end had we worked as a team. I purchased the Go7 organizer last week and put it together today. I like how you can slide the miniatures into place to transport/store things. Of course now I need to glue the miniatures down in order to take advantage. Is there any reason NOT to glue the miniatures to the base?

3 hours ago, hengst2404 said:

Is there any reason NOT to glue the miniatures to the base?

No one. Glue, like there's no tomorrow.

Some people abhor the huge bases and rebase their minis on smaller or transparent bases. If you are thinking about ever doing something like that, glue carefully, so you can cut the minis from the base with a hobby knife later.

If you are pretty sure that rebasing will never be an issue, glue the minis to the base like crazy. I found that with tall, slim minis (like the cultists) and the wide base, there can be quite a bit of leverage when a mini falls off the table and on the floor, so you want to make sure, the mini is really, really glued to the base.

Also you probably want to remove the cardboard tile before applying the glue. With some 1st edition minis, I did not think about that and by accident glued some tiles to the base. This was never an issue, until the 2nd edition came out and I wanted to replace the old tiles with the new ones. Very messy and ugly. I guess, 2nd edition will be around for some times, but you never know what the future will bring. So you might want to consider the option of being able to remove the monster tile at sone later point, therefore don't inadvertently glue it to the mini.

I'm one of those who rebased my minis on transparent bases. Putting nice figures like the MoM ones on bases as horrible as the ones included is like wearing $20 sneakers with a $1000 suit. To me it just looks awful.

If you don't mind that, there is the issue of storage. The bases take up a lot of space, it much easier to store the game without the models glued to the big bases.

Ahh, but the G0& insert actually allows you to slid the figures and bases, on rails in order to store everything. Pretty sharp. Once I have glued the minis I will put some pics up of the insert and everything.

17 hours ago, hengst2404 said:

Ahh, but the G0& insert actually allows you to slid the figures and bases, on rails in order to store everything. Pretty sharp. Once I have glued the minis I will put some pics up of the insert and everything.

This is probably one of the reasons that I have stuck with the old bases. I must agree that the clear bases and some of the bases that people have painted look AWESOME! But I really like my organization when it comes to games like this and the GO7 organizers hold everything perfectly in place. I'm probably going to have to see what I can buy as an expansion from there to hold all the new expansions that are coming out!

On ‎12‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 9:36 AM, LordPyrex said:

This is probably one of the reasons that I have stuck with the old bases. I must agree that the clear bases and some of the bases that people have painted look AWESOME! But I really like my organization when it comes to games like this and the GO7 organizers hold everything perfectly in place. I'm probably going to have to see what I can buy as an expansion from there to hold all the new expansions that are coming out!

Actually they already sell inserts for the expansions, although they fit in the expansion boxes.

4 hours ago, hengst2404 said:

Actually they already sell inserts for the expansions, although they fit in the expansion boxes.

Yes, but they are specifically designing something to work with BtT and SoA. Something that is more on par with the storage that from their other boxes. Their customer service said that it should be ready mid January.