https://giphy.com/gifs/yes-thor-mcu-3ohzdFRFAi7zQ0VKKI

Also,

The response from you, our fans, was incredible; and you asked, nay, demanded that we make this product.

I've been quoted on something!

I'm looking at the text and flavor text and am loving it!

Dog Monocle. 2$. 1 Intellect icon. Item. Tool. Classy.

• Barkham deck only.
• You get +1 Intellect while investigating and [+1] value during parley actions, because, honestly, look at you.
  • guessing on the bracketed value
• Memes haven't been invented

Take the Wheel . 1 Strength, 1 Agility, 1 Wild icons. What? No. Stop. That's bad. Bad dog.

• "Skids" O'Drool deck only.
• Fast. Play only during your trun.
• For the remained of your turn, whenever you enter a location, deal 3 damage to an enemy at that location.

Underlining for emphasis.

They're clearly having too good a time making this!

As much as comedy standalones aren't really my cup of tea, I am deeply amused that the dog version of Skids is better-designed than the official version. Especially that signature card!

Freaking awesome. First new AHLCG expansion I'll pick up in a while!

More!

50 minutes ago, Allonym said:

As much as comedy standalones aren't really my cup of tea, I am deeply amused that the dog version of Skids is better-designed than the official version. Especially that signature card!

Is he though? 1R for three moves, every turn, seems insanely OP to me. That's testless Track Shoes x2. I assume the scenario design lets it work.

1 hour ago, Duciris said:

Take the Wheel . 1 Strength, 1 Agility, 1 Wild icons. What? No. Stop. That's bad. Bad dog.

• "Skids" O'Drool deck only.
• Fast. Play only during your trun.
• For the remained of your turn, whenever you enter a location, deal 3 damage to an enemy at that location.

Underlining for emphasis.

They're clearly having too good a time making this!

Especially good is that that's a trait, not flavor text. 😂

Double, Double that puppy!

I'm looking forward to seeing Barkham decks at Arkham Nights next year.

22 minutes ago, CSerpent said:

Is he though? 1R for three moves, every turn, seems insanely OP to me. That's testless Track Shoes x2. I assume the scenario design lets it work.

It's not OP at all. It's situationally powerful, certainly, but he needs something powerful between his mediocre statline and unhelpful deckbuilding. The Track Shoes comparison is unconvincing, since half the benefit of Track Shoes is the test, and part of the remaining benefit is that it works in conjunction with other sources of movement. Sometimes, in a scenario, action for move x3 ignoring engagement will be a huge play, but often it won't do anything more than move x2 - it's not like every scenario even has many situations where you will want to move to a location 3 connections away. It's situationally excellent action economy, often decent action economy, and sometimes won't really help at all. It means he has an actual niche he's good at - the existing problem with Skids is that the only thing he truly has going for him is his ability, but it's a very generic ability and you have to be able to make the most of it to justify using him, and overusing it will significantly harm your economy, and he gets markedly worse on higher difficulties. The "O'Drool" ability is far less impressive than Elusive, for example, and as a repeatable effect is much less impressive than, say, Pathfinder. It also has more flavour - he's extremely good at running away and keeping his head down as a former criminal who can't afford to go back to jail, whereas the "O'Toole" ability has no flavour at all.

The "O'Drool" ability also feels like it would work very well for a Rogue 5/Survivor 2 deckbuilding selection rather than Rogue 5/Guardian 2 - and I've long thought that the guardian secondary class on Skids made no sense mechanically or thematically (and even hindered later investigator design, since it would make more sense for Tony Morgan to have access to Beat Cop and Handcuffs and Police Badge and a .45 Automatic then for Skids to).

You don't have to move three locations away. It may be more useful to reveal an adjacent location then come back, or two away then move back one. That's especially good for scenarios where you're looking for a certain location. It also gives you more options for Elusive later.

I agree on the flavor though.

Bah, can't believe we're debating a novelty investigator.

My opinion is Skid has gotten much more interesting lately considering how many new ways we have to bank resources in Rogues. Having a consistent way each turn to spend that cash for a universally useful effect is significant. Also Bow+Venturer Skids builds are quite good.

That said, thematically Skid's O'Drool is a dog driving around in a car. That is fantastic. So his design clearly wins.

16 minutes ago, CSerpent said:

You don't have to move three locations away. It may be more useful to reveal an adjacent location then come back, or two away then move back one. That's especially good for scenarios where you're looking for a certain location. It also gives you more options for Elusive later.

I agree on the flavor though.

Bah, can't believe we're debating a novelty investigator.

None of those applications strike me as particularly overpowered, especially as you need to use the ability beforehand (so if you find the right location first move, or you get hit by an "end your turn" or "you can't move" effect upon entering it, you've wasted a resource). Shortcut and Pathfinder and Track Shoes all already help you more effectively look at new locations. And that's again a cool investigator niche, like a scout.

The reason for discussing it, to my mind, is because my play group is already discussing getting rid of "O'Toole" Skids and just pretending he and his signature card are the "O'Drool" versions. So I want to make sure there's nothing I'm missing that would make that game-breaking.

1 minute ago, Allonym said:

None of those applications strike me as particularly overpowered, especially as you need to use the ability beforehand (so if you find the right location first move, or you get hit by an "end your turn" or "you can't move" effect upon entering it, you've wasted a resource). Shortcut and Pathfinder and Track Shoes all already help you more effectively look at new locations. And that's again a cool investigator niche, like a scout.

Sure, you've wasted a resource in that case, but I think that's a reasonable bit of insurance for those scenarios.

1 minute ago, Allonym said:

The reason for discussing it, to my mind, is because my play group is already discussing getting rid of "O'Toole" Skids and just pretending he and his signature card are the "O'Drool" versions. So I want to make sure there's nothing I'm missing that would make that game-breaking.

Oh, I'm definitely using O'Drool in a real campaign regardless. A dog driving up stairs and running over cultists in the Arkham Historical Society is too rich.

So pleased to see that they are releasing this. The April Fool's joke was just so appealing as a concept. I agree with Allonym that comedy standalones aren't really what I'm after but this looks like it is so well done, that it is a must-buy for me.

I'm so happy!

I am dying! This is bow-WOW!!

11 hours ago, CSerpent said:

Oh, I'm definitely using O'Drool in a real campaign regardless. A dog driving up stairs and running over cultists in the Arkham Historical Society is too rich

I am wondering how they would play in the City of Ulthar...

12 hours ago, Duciris said:

I'm looking forward to seeing Barkham decks at Arkham Nights next year.

I’m looking forward to seeing the costume contest!

I do hope the back of the Investigator cards doesn't include "Barkham Horror only" - given Skids O'Drool's weakness & event don't , I think we're safe.

Unfortunately, I think the unique rules would stop you running Duke and Ashcan Pete as Investigators in the same party...

I don't think I'll buy this. The joke looks moderately funny, but I'm not sure it'll hold up for an entire scenario.

Though I kinda want that card as an alterate signature for Skids. Because I want to see him jack a car in Dim Carcosa, or drive through the window in the Last King.

3 hours ago, dysartes said:

I do hope the back of the Investigator cards doesn't include "Barkham Horror only" - given Skids O'Drool's weakness & event don't , I think we're safe.

From the article: "The canine investigators included are not intended for use in the rest of Arkham Horror: The Card Game, nor are human investigators meant to be involved in the affairs of their animal friends. (But we know you'll still try it anyway.)"

I expect that there'll be words to that effect somewhere in the scenario guide, but as they say - it's your game do what you want. The only time it would matter is at events, where if there is enough interest there may be specific Barkham-themed games anyway.

While this pack isn't for me, hats off to FFG for allowing their design and art team to do something silly that it looks they really enjoyed while also supporting and promoting a charity.

Question is, can they now have it out by Christmas 🙂 I really like this as a holiday, intro to Arkham game. One of those who really wanted it when they ran it as April fools. I think this is a pretty good way of peaking peoples interest and the charity tie in is just icing.

Bark Harrigan having a built in Bandolier is pretty fun. I'm very interested to see what their deck building is like. The only thing we know for certain is no cats in the decks

Also it will be fun to see how many of these cards do actually tease something coming in a later product.

I assume this is the 78 card standalone scenario pack format considering the price point. I wonder how much of that will be player cards. I assume we were shown all the investigators considering that's 15 cards right away leaving 63 cards. If we get a cards for each aspect and a neutral that's another 18 cards out, which leaves 45 cards for the scenario. I wonder if it will require core box encounter sets to play.

1 hour ago, Andyh19 said:

Question is, can they now have it out by Christmas 🙂 I really like this as a holiday, intro to Arkham game. One of those who really wanted it when they ran it as April fools. I think this is a pretty good way of peaking peoples interest and the charity tie in is just icing.

I'm expecting a Feb/March release, but I'll gladly be proved wrong

32 minutes ago, dysartes said:

I'm expecting a Feb/March release, but I'll gladly be proved wrong

Maybe April? The circle complete, like a dog chasing its tail.

The Laboratory Labrador is not pictured as a labrador!? 0/5 stars, would not recommend.

But this actually could be really fun. I adore the mental image of Skids O'Drool plowing Skids O'Toole's car though hordes of cultists. You just know two bad dogs like them will end up together.