This weekend, Arkham Horror and its expansions returned to our gaming table. We were facing Abhoth, but had problems with his Children of Abhoth.

His card states that, each time there is a monster surge, one of the Children of Abhoth is placed on the gate that triggered the surge. Two questions:

1. Is the monster surge still resolved as usual (ie. a number of monsters equal to the number of gates appear on the board), with the only difference that one of them is a Child of Aboth, or does the Child of Abhoth spawn instead of a monster surge, ie. is it the only monster appearing on a monster surge? We played the first variant (normal number of monsters, one of them a Child), but we weren't sure.

2. What happens if the maximum monster limit in Arkham is reached and a monster surge is triggered? Is the Child of Abhoth placed in the Outskirts? If it is placed in the Outskirts, it wouldn't count against the "3 Children in Arkham" limit which raises the terror level. By always keeping the monster limit at a maximum (sending the Children into the Outskirts), you could effectively neutralize Abhoth's Children of Abhoth in Arkham-abilty, so we were not sure that a monster surge with Abhoth could send his Children into the Outskirts. Perhaps one of them is replaced with a monster already on the board which is sent into the Outskirts in his place?

Any hints would be highly appreciated

Dunwich Horror said:

#1: You do the monster surge normally AND place a Child on the surging gate. Child doesn't count against the number of monsters surging, so you place X + 1 (Child) with each surge.

#2: Child of Abhoth are Spawn monsters (red dot in the bottom left corner on the picture side), they don't count against monster limit and never go to Outskirts.

Another related question: can spawn monsters move into vortexes and raise the Dunwich track? It happened when I was playing against Abhoth tonight and I just assumed they do, they go back to the AO sheet and raise the track by 1.

Another unrelated question: flying monster leaves Dunwich and goes to the Sky as per the rules, but what if there is already the maximum number of monsters on the Arkham board? Does it go to the Outskirts instead or is the max number of monsters allowed temporarily ignored?

Last unrelated question (sorry for hijacking the thread): when there is a monster surge, do monsters appear only on the Arkham gates or also on the Dunwich ones? If they also appear on Dunwich gates, and since there is no monster limit in Dunwich, the Horror usually takes very little to appear afterwards...at least in my experience.

Thanks for your patience!

p.s. Thought of other two questions: Mythos card that states a monster surge occurs but no gate opens...soooo, where does the Child of ABhoth appear?

And two, Mythos card that says Feds raid Arkham (so they also do Dunwich, as per the rulebook), every monster in the streets goes back to the pool. But the Dunwich Horror was on Sentinel Hill! So, does he go back to sleep or what? I played it as no, but still I'd love to know how you do it...

1) Yes, Spawn monsters can trigger vortexes. Since they don't go back to any cup, just place them back to wherever they originally came from (The AO's sheet, for example). Children of Abhoth and Servants of Glaaki are counter-productive mechanics in this way, since they were included in an expansion with a mechanic that can remove them from the board automatically, without player intervention.

2) Monster Limit is never ignored except for Spawn monsters (or Terror Level 10, but then there's an "awaken" monster limit). If a monster should take to the skies, but Arkham is at limit, the monster will go to the Outskirts instead. This goes for other movements that bring a monster into town from an expansion board (aquatic, Hound of Tindalos, etc).

3) ALL gates receive monsters in the event of a surge. Sometimes, the ones allocated to the Arkham gates will go to the Outskirts instead, but all expansion boards receive them as normal. Yes, if you want to keep the Horror asleep, be very careful about leaving gates open in Dunwich for too long.

4) If there are no open gates, then there is no monster surge. No Child of Abhoth necessary (at least that's what I'd do), or any other surge-triggered effect, such as a rubble token!

5) Spawn monsters are never affected by "return to the cup" or other similar effects. The Feds can do nothing about the DH, or Children of Abhoth, etc.

Tibs said:

What happens in the case the Mythos card drawn is a Strange sightings card? No gate opens, but a monster surge happen. It's not defined any surging gate, so where should I place the Child of Aboth?

Julia said:

I would venture to guess, first players choice.

Found the catch-all answer:

Q: Strange Sightings! – When you draw this card, do you roll randomly to find out which is the primary surging gate?
A: It is the first player's choice.

I win!!!

Tibs said:

Thank you all, guys!

Thank you for all the answers A few more questions came up during last night's (weird) games, but I can't remember any of them except one: third Child of Abhoth enters play, terror track goes up by 2, one Child leaves, then comes back again, so does the terror track go up by 2 again? If yes, I think I will not play against Abhoth again, he's just too tough...the Children are also super strong to kill...

Tox said:

The third child entering play does not increase the terror track by two and doom track by one. It says to do those things if all three children are ALREADY on the board. Which means if you have three monster surges, the third child goes on the board as usual, nothing else happens. If you have another monster surge before any of the children are killed and returned to the AO sheet, that's when you raise the terror and doom, because all three are ALREADY on the board. So as long as you always have one Child of Abhoth available, you're ok.

But for as long as all three Child of Abhoths (Children of Abhoth?) are on the board and are not killed, each monster surge after that will cause the terror and doom tracks to rise. So you definitely want to make sure one is dead at all times.

That should make Abhoth a little easier to handle, yes? Don't give up yet!

Right, I had misread that part of the rules Thanks for the answer!

But still, I think I'm going to try Yig next...