Ive played this game twice now with my brother and cousin and we weren't really challenged that much. we were just playing with the base game and the first game was against Azathoth (I can't remember how to spell his name but he's the guy that if he wakes up he eats that planet and you lose) the second game was against shubbi. The game starts out kind of difficult with lots of gates opening and a few monster surges happening but once we get 3 or so gates sealed it seems that we can just relax and take our time with the last 3.

Has anyone else had this experience? Does sometimes this game depending on what monsters and cards you draw not give you very much of a challenge?

There's a consensus that the base game is too easy. Most of the expansions take care of the problem. Dunwich Horror is probably the expansion to start with. If you want to stick with the base game, try playing against Yog-Sothoth.

Yes, two of the base game's biggest flaws are its low difficulty and the issue you described with sealing gates. I also second Yog-Sothoth as being the most challenging all-round base-game AO.

Dunwich and Innsmouth fix these issues pretty nicely. Both towns have extra unstable location spaces (so that you're never really out of danger of getting too many open gates), and both have gate bursts, although Dunwich's are better if you're using one of these two expansions by itself. Innsmouth also has the Deep One Rising track, which becomes more of a threat when you have more seals.

I hate to say "buy an expansion" as a way to fix the base game, but it's the truth. However, for reasons I don't want to get into here, if you're thinking between the two above expansions, get Dunwich. Innsmouth is great, but not as a first expansion and not all by itself.

Or you could use a house rule: when a gate opens on a seal, flip the seal to doom-side up (it is still a seal). If a gate opens on a doom-side-up seal, remove it from the board (but don't open the gate). Now you have a makeshift gate burst mechanic that keeps up the pace to seal!

Neat and simple variant Tibs! If the game still isn't challenging enough then have a gate appear if the token is on doom side rather than removing it from the board.

I recommend using Tibs variant and purchasing Lurker for using the variant gates if you can't afford to buy Dunwich. Lurker comes with Mythos cards that open two gates, a few gate burst (though not enough to satisfy so I would still use Tibs variant), new roleplaying aspects for fluff, and some not too challenging (as in complex) Location cards.

And just encase the game is too hard you will be introduced to a herald guardian hybrid variant to round it out.

That's a nice house rule. Another variant would be to roll a dice each time a seal keeps a gate from opening. If the roll is a '1', remove the seal and place the gate, but do not add a doom token to the doom track. Also, all flying monsters move that turn. This approach emulates the rules for gate bursts almost exactly.

avec said:

haha funny you should mention that my brother and I just finished playing a game (with two investigators each) against yog-sothoth and we lost that game. we only sealed one gate but we were 2 turns away from sealing four more but yog-sothoth awakened because there were too many open gates and he devoured most of the investigators before the fight even started.

Regarding the expansions I like to own all expansions to a game I play anyway so if you need them to make the game more playable it doesn't bother me too much. I also Ordered The Dunwich Horror and The Dark Pharaoh expansion they should get to me this Thursday. I'll be playing this Sunday so I'm hoping for a fun and challenging experience.

We just played our second game last night and I found that my opinion of the game's difficulty is changing as I go. The first game I found quite difficult (base game only), and we narrowly lost. Last night I added Dunwich and the permanent "King in Yellow" variant without the yellow markers and blights (thought it might be a bit much all at once).

We sent an investigator to Dunwich almost right away to control for wandering monsters, but for the whole game she had little to do: only one gate ever opened in Dunwich, and no monsters ever made it to a vortex. The King in Yellow cards didn't seem to show up much, and so we were really almost just playing with a base set again, with a whole raft of extra cards that never got drawn. We were playing against Azathoth, and we got elder signs (two) almost right away, so the doom track never really got past seven. The terror track was starting to be a problem, and our monster limit was always maxed out, but we sealed our sixth gate and won quite handily. I was almost disappointed. (I say almost because the game was really dragging on; we were introducing it to people who were not regular gamers of any type, and everything took time).

I realised afterward that we had forgotten about the 5+ player rule with monsters appearing, but even if our terror track had gone way up, I think with the lack of Dunwich activity the result would have been much the same. Does anyone whittle their mythos deck down to make it more difficult? Dunwich was such a ghost town this game that I thought it was a letdown after buying the expansion.

Zozimus said:

The blight cards are where KiY shows its teeth

Zozimus said:

Yep. When using only the Dunwich expansion, gates should open on Dunwich locations approximately one out of every four mythos phases (24.27% of mythos phases, to be exact). With the extra mythos cards from KiY, gates will open in Dunwich less frequently. You might want to get rid of some random non-Dunwich location mythos cards at the beginning of the game.

Zozimus said:

I suggest you don't try to play with both expansions, but instead just choose one of them for each game. Dunwich is more active if played with just the base game, and King in Yellow's Act mechanic only really works with the base game.

Oh, and the Herald (which brings the Blights) is the best part of King in Yellow.

I made a giant post in this thread on the subject of customizing the base game AOs with house rules to fix its difficulty.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=5&efcid=1&efidt=369525&efpag=1#372871

The base game is only "easy" as you keep playing it. Seeing that you're only two games in I'm 100% sure you're playing some rule wrong. So far that's been the case in every one of the "too easy" complaints.

The base game is too easy due to the terror level not doing much and the ancient ones being too easy to beat should they wake up. Yog and Cthulu are probably the toughest. You're also playing with a low number of people, which makes the outskirt limit very generous and monster surges mean little (monster surges are a NIGHTMARE with 8 people and an outskirts limit of zero).

Dunwich coupled with the King in Yellow herald will keep you busy for a long time.

Maybe Kingsport later on if you want some new invvestigators and ancient ones, though the expansion board is rather boring.

Dark Pharaoh can mostly be skipped. A lot of the stuff isn't that great and exhibit items almost never come into play.

Black Goat herald is ridiculously hard, corruption mechanic is a nice idea but doesn't really work.

Innsmouth is INSANELY hard. Seal victories are much tougher and some of the ancient ones are literally impossible to beat in final combat.

Threshold adds a very fun mechanic that works where corruption failed, though some think it makes it too easy. Not really a problem if you combine it with other expansions.

GrooveChamp said:

Not literally impossible, since people have done it.

Joseph is right, attack cancellers, Marie's double "witch blood" ability, Norman's "the path is lit" special ability and some other little things can help you a lot while fighting Innsmouth AOs in final battle. It's not an easy task, and probably you have to prepare for it for a longer time than with base game AOs, but nonethelle they are beatable. Never happened to me yet, anyway

I'm still baffled as to how AOs like Zhar, Cthugha or Uttaus can be beaten in the final battle. What's the point of giving Zhar two bodies with alternating immunities if you can't even defeat him once. Maybe I'm missing something.

zealot12 said:

You have to be very quick. Probably a smaller team will have better chances. And a team prepared for battle, for example with the top characters blessed. A one-man party with Marie Lambeau blessed and having 3 Shrivelling and an Alien device against Cthugha:

- base fight: +3
- 3x shrivelling: +18
- alien device: +2

produces a base attack of +23, Cthugha is -5, so 18 dice to roll. Let's suppose she completed her Personal story: the doom track will be shortened by 2. So 11 successes for killing the AO and saving the world. Statistics suggest us she will roll 9 successes with 18 dice. Let's say she has 4 clues. If she has no bad nor good luck, she is able to kill the AO in one round.

It's not something that can happen often, but it's definitely possible. Even a party with Joe Diamond, Patrice and Marie should be able to do it. I played games in which Patrice had 36 clues at a certain point. If I had decided to go for a final battle instead of searching for a victory by sealing, well..

As far as the Quachil thing is concerned... well, he's a very tough guy. But a party with Lily Chen (PS: remove 2 doomers from the doom track when the AO awakens), Norman (PS - The path is lit: roll 4 dice and remove a doomer for every success rolled) and Marie (PS - Witch Blood - remove two doomers again from the doom track) can easily make the final battle starting with Quachil at 6 doomers. You can even lower this quantity, if you awaken the AO via the "Call the AO" spell. You can reduce the AO to let's say 2 doomers. Shouldn't be that heavy to beat.

Obviously, if you play with different characters... well, some AO are simply impossible to beat in final combat, but there are some chances, after all!

Patricia + Joe Diamond + Shotgun = beat any ancient one in one turn usually.

Azathoth is the only ancient one that is litteraly imposible to beat in final combat.

Veet said:

B L E H ! ! !

Cosmic entities from beyond the pale, beyond terrestrial power and human understanding, like Shub-Niggurath, Eihort, Chaugnar Faugn, Quachil-Uttaus, Eihort, Rhan-Tegoth, and Zhar (bottom half)...but the PI has a boomstick built in a dirty coal-polluted factory over in Jersey by a rag-wearing transient stinking of hooch. Go, sixes.

B L E H ! ! !

Tsathoggua and Yibb-Tstll also laugh at Joe Diamond and Patrice bringing Clues into the final combat.

jgt7771 said:

Agreed ;')

Veet said:

This is one of the reasons why we use Kevin's clue-per-seal limit rule for final combat. No more clue scooping and shotgun shenanigans for us, it's either seal, or WORK for your FC win

Oh, yes, I forgot about Yibb And Thsathoggua-no clues. And Yibb requires a double amount of successes-and her X combat rating could be two digits if you play with all expansions. Haha, what a riot!

jgt7771 said:

I didn't say it SHOULD be like that, only that it is.