Am I the only one that think that the new faction was the less useful thing to think about in this moment?

I mean, we already have 7 factions; in this 7 factions, at the moment, 2 are the most important for different reasons (Hastur and Agency). Then we have a couple of good enough factions (shub and yog), then a couple of "wannabe" factions (syndacate and cthulhu) and a completely useless one (miskatonic).

The game is everything but not well balanced! And now, they introduce a new faction that, considering the first spoiled cards (ok, too early maybe), has the serious chance to be miskatonic #2 !!

The only thing I appreciate with this is that (hopefully) we will have less neutral cards (and ok, of course I appreciate the new expansion with more and new cards).

But really, this new faction is the first thing that I consider "bad idea" since the beginning of the LCG era. They should focus on other problems, first:

- balance the factions

- better wording of cards (try to avoid errors and not clear texts)

- healthy metagame in a "competitive" level

After you solve all these problems, you can start to think about a new faction! It is _plenty_ of mechanics, out there, that have some potential to become part of entirely new archetypes!!! Why spend time on thinking of _new_ mechanics?? (because a new factions means this: new mechanics to avoid overlap with other factions...).

Bah.

Konx.

What's wrong with Miskatonic? I think that the ability to win stories on turn 1 is pretty nifty. Not to mention their draw/discard engine, investigator support and the super awesome spell that Binding is...

Wait...do you mean "on the first turn they can actually go in and attack stories" - since you aren't allowed to go to stories on your Turn-1, if you go first in the game...right....or is there some special card combo or sequence of cards that a Miskatonic deck can get in their starting hand that will allow them to actually pick up 5-success tokens on a given story...and win it before the opponent has even drawn cards (had their half of the turn) ??? If so...please elaborate Manitou !

Open for Inspection.

Cost 2. Attach to a story Card. Attached story gains Arcane, Investigation, Investigation.

So on my first turn (if I go second), I say a Laboratory Assistant and put Open for Inspection on a story. IF I manage to go to stories unopposed, I can win 3 investigations, 1 skill and 1 unopposed. So win the story on my first turn.

The key is to figure out how to get to the story unopposed (or with a zero skill opponent) when I only have 1 resource at my disposal, but it has happened.

Correcting past/present weaknesses and creating a new faction don't have to conflict.

Most of the issues you've cited have shown a clear improvement with the 'Yuggoth Contract' cycle

so I believe we have seen a turn around. The competitive potential of this game could continue to

improve but I realize it is limited. I enjoy playing all the factions including Miskatonic University

in my local leagues as well of course in the most casual of circumstances. I would like to see more parity

but It's not a big issue for me because I'm not solely focused on competitive play. I would like to see new

mechanics and deck archetypes introduced while they continue to improve the game. I'd be very disappointed

to see another 'Julia Brown' or 'Dreamlands' like cycle that has nearly no effect on the meta!

Konx said:

Correcting past/present weaknesses and creating a new faction don't have to conflict.

Most of the issues you've cited have shown a clear improvement with the 'Yuggoth Contract' cycle

so I believe we have seen a turn around. The competitive potential of this game could continue to

improve but I realize it is limited.

I think that the competitive potential level of this game is _huge_! It is plenty of mechanics that have been proposed and never developed in a consistent way, since the beginning of the LCG (polar, just to name one). Anyway, it is true that there are cards that could define an archetype (things in the ground, for example).

I enjoy playing all the factions including Miskatonic University

in my local leagues as well of course in the most casual of circumstances. I would like to see more parity

but It's not a big issue for me because I'm not solely focused on competitive play. I would like to see new

mechanics and deck archetypes introduced while they continue to improve the game. I'd be very disappointed

to see another 'Julia Brown' or 'Dreamlands' like cycle that has nearly no effect on the meta!

The point is exactly this: if they develop a new faction this means that they have to characterize this faction. And the only way to do it is introducing new concepts in the game (subtype, abilities, stuff like this). And it is already plenty of concepts that have never been developed! If you are mainly a casual player I can understand that a new faction means more fun;

I like casual playing too, but sometimes it is fun to play "competitive", it is fun to try to build the "best" deck to defeat other's player decks and at the moment there is a huge bug in the deck building phase, because a deck that cannot defeat hastur/agency with at least a 60-70% chance is far from being competitive (assume you play a 5 round tournament: if you face 3 hastur/agency you must win at least 2 rounds, and then hope to win against the other 2 non-hastur/agency to be almost sure of being in top-4...)

My only hope is that with the new faction they start a new "design phase" to solve the problems of the game.

Konx.

GrimWizard said:

A new faction is the last thing I wanted to see for this game.

Colour me disappointed.

Manit0u said:

I agree. MU is a fun and dynamic faction to play.

Hey! I have been quoting you alot lately...

Manit0u said:

Well, seeing as how Miskatonic is currently the worst win-loss deck (joint with Yog-Sothoth), I'm seeing quite a few issues with them. First, they lack Willpower for most parts. In combat they are the weakest faction I think, even Hastur "could take them". Of course, they rule Investigation, but losing 2 characters to the other two struggles beforehand, they are left with 1 token for I, maybe another for skill. Arcane lets them generally ready a character, but they have to be prepared to lose two more to defend.

Running mono-faction decks for each of the factions, Syndicate is just running away with it, 16-5 win-loss currently. Agency can blast people away, Prize Pistol in particular is just NASTY. Syndicate has tricks up the wazoo, exhausting especially, they rushed Miskatonic 3-0 in 3 turns last game (as in 3 turns for Syndicate who went first). Non-human factions hate Investigation, but trump them in T and C. Tips on Miskatonic (and maybe Yog-Sothoth as well) would be appreciated, though perhaps in another thread. In an ideal situation, all 7 faction decks would be fairly balanced (then again, balancing the 6 races in mono-format in W:I has been unsuccessful for now).

Dam -

Perhaps you could start a new thread in the deck construction area, and post up your current MU and Yog deck? I know Tokhuah has had a pretty successful MU based deck that adds a small bit of another faction. (Used to be Hastur, now Agency) He also loves Yog.

This has always been a niche game back since the CCG days.

The new LCG concept supports this to an even greater extent.

The competitive environment may improve but it will never be 'huge'.

Considering the turn out for regionals and worlds it's got a ways to go

before it even becomes a blip on the radar screen. Understand that with

FFGs' shift to a casual game (LCG) their commitment to support a

competitive environment is very limited.

Konx said:

I think that the competitive potential level of this game is _huge_! It is plenty of mechanics that have been proposed and never developed in a consistent way, since the beginning of the LCG (polar, just to name one). Anyway, it is true that there are cards that could define an archetype (things in the ground, for example).

I still don't see why FFGs cannot do both, introduce a new faction

with new mechanics and game concepts while furthering existing ones.

The point is exactly this: if they develop a new faction this means that they have to characterize this faction. And the only way to do it is introducing new concepts in the game (subtype, abilities, stuff like this). And it is already plenty of concepts that have never been developed! If you are mainly a casual player I can understand that a new faction means more fun;

Konx.

Dam said:

It is true that mono-tonic is not the ideal deck to go with, although they do have some cards that are very funky and help with their weaknesses (Mad Genious, Sleeping Pills and Doctor Carson't Treatment to deal with T struggles, some +toughness items or Rabbit's Foot that help with C, also Celano Fragments and The Necronomicon to help out if the game drags on for too long). They're very good as a support faction for some decks though, Agency and Yog in particular since they synergize very well with Investigator subtype and their draw engine is great to support Yogs recursion. Also, Yog gives miskatonic exactly what they lack and that's T and C icons.

Here's a Yogotonic deck I'd be using:

Yog:

2x Yog Sothoth
3x Fishers from Outside/Hermetic Scholar
3x Servant of Nodens/Son of Yeb
3x Disciple of the Gate
3x The Sleepwalker

3x Casting Off the Skin
3x Gathering at the Stones
3x Calling Down the Ancients
3x Unspeakable Resurrection

Miskatonic:

2x Dr Carson

2x Twila Katherine Price, Queen of Unknown Kadath

3x Chess Prodigy

3x Visiting Author

3x Focused Art Student

3x Mad Genius/Cafeteria Lady

3x Binding

3x Horrid Dreams

2x Unearthing the Ancients

Something like that. Should cover all the fields nicely.

AHAH! I FOUND THEM! It took quite a bit of digging through old files and such, but I found two of the old cards that I mocked up (complete with type on Halt!) a couple years back when I suggested essentially this same faction.

Does that not look eerily similar to anyone else?

Kennon it's true, a spot on match. Uncanny. No cans. The feds are coming to subpoena your files. Reference, the background time piece and the steel blue, even the faction symbol, which I like better than the FFG Order triad cross. Leave crosses out of it. You always did have a feel for the user made card.

I thought they were arrows...

Personally, I would love to see more fan made cards around here. Even if they were for the CCG.

If there was a card creator around for CoC you probably would. I've looked for one but Magic seems to be the only game that gets them.

Why thank you, Johnny. I've long been a fan of creating my own cards and have some irons in the fire for a game design of my own. But that's neither here nor there. Still, it's an unsettling resemblance.

Hellfury, was he possibly referring to the shape that the arrows are within? It does appear to be a cross.

Out of curiosity .....what stories do these, apparently diabolical, Order of the Silver Twilight guys even appear in ?

Also - what is that symbol actually meaning....does anyone know significance (if any) of the three arrows pointing outwards ?

Lastly - what is their ultimate goal ? - like ....from what I can tell, they know about The Mythos - creatures, spells, etc - but what do they actually want ? - Do they want to help Cthulhu (specifically) awaken from his sleep so he can destroy humanity ? Do they see this as a good thing / - why ? / how ? - and lastly, do they actively oppose the other Great Old Ones // Outer Gods - in favor (only) of Cthulhu, or do they actually try to help any and all of them to escape their sleep / imprisonment ?

Rosh87 said:

The "Silver Twilight Lodge" is an adaptation of the the Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight, who are the primary antagonists in the Call of Cthulhu campaign Shadows of Yog Sothoth . That name in turn is a play on The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn , a magical order in Britain in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Besides the occultists Samuel MacGregor Mathers, A. E. Waite, the poet William Butler Yeats, and Aleister Crowley, the Golden Dawn's members included two writers of "weird fiction" who influenced the development of the Cthulhu Mythos, Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood .

H.P. Lovecraft admired both Machen and Blackwood, and listed both as "Modern Masters" in his critical work Supernatural Horror in Literature . The " Dhol Chants " and the word " dhole " among other elements of the Cthulhu Mythos, were drawn from Machen's fiction, and Blackwood's short story "The Wendigo" was a major source for August Derleth's story " Ithaqua ".

The Lodge leader Carl Sanford is named after Carl Sanford Petersen , creator of the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game.

After the arkhamhorrorwiki.

Manit0u, a most impressive historical piece. Nice going!

Quite interesting Manitou ....but what about the specific ?'s (in addition to their background/origin) - on what the Order wants, etc- the relation to the Old Ones - etc ?

Rosh87 said:

Rosh87 said:

Just read up on the Golden Dawn to get an idea.

Rosh87 said:

The nearly 30 year old roleplaying book calls the Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight collectively (and appropriately enough) 'HOST'. HOST is essentially a cross between Miskatonic and the Syndicate as we know them. They run a criminal organization (or are lead by a criminal organization? Tail wagging the dog? You decide.) and are well learned in esoteric occult lore. They appear like any other lodge, such as the shriners or masons. But HOST are in actuality a recruitment tool for Carl Stanford who himself is a cultist of some ranking of Cthulhu. (in the small bits of fiction blurbs interspersed in the adventure, we see that Stanford's mommy never loved him...)

Mi-go are again involved, this time Stanford sends one in disguise to the unsuspecting investigators to share information with Stanford and to ultimately lure them away to their doom (which for some reason involves cannibals).

Other things such as an avatar of Nyarlathotep who is allowing a local business collective secretly backed by HOST to make oodles of money from the usual strange futuristic devices and the usual 'Shoggoth Power Plant' plot twist that was used to death in CoC later on (and thankfully not seen in the LCG or CCG that I know of), These are all machinations of Stanford. (when you see Stanford's card, this explains the Cultist and Mask connection)

There is possibly a direct corollary to the direction of the card game in certain ways I assume, since this is a Call of Cthulhu card game and with it all the oddly contrived background it sometimes involves..

Which, Rosh, brings us back to the enigma of the red-gloved man. While I still beleive that "Mr. Fingers en Rouge" is actually a disguised Mi-go (mi-go were never really good at disguises and many things about them just didn't sit right upon close inspection such as "Why red rubber gloves? To hide your pincers?!?") , the Mi-go do owe great fealty to Nyarlathotep and would likely follow the current avatar's direction. So Nyarlathotep is undoubtedly involved (as he ALWAYS is, it seems) but perhaps less directly than being the red-gloved man himself.

HOST was never directly malevolent, as they were merely tools for bigger things and some honestly believed that they belonged to a benevolent group such as shriners. Basically dupes, even if some members want to be part of something evil. You have to be high ranking indeed to be privvy to how HOST really works. But as to where FFG are taking it in relation to the Chaosium background is anybody's guess. I suppose we will find out for certain this October during the Arkham Nights seminar.

Rosh87 said:

SPOILER WARNING!

SPOILER WARNING!

SPOILER WARNING!

In the Shadows of Yog-Sothoth campaign the ultimate goal of the Silver Twilight is to raise R'lyeh and awaken Great Cthulhu, bringing about the return of the Old Ones now rather than in a few thousand years.

The Lodge is basically a boys club (so Silver Twilight Temptress shouldn't exist) with most members being unaware of the true nature of the Lodge. Only a few are brought through the ranks (Keeper of the Silver Gate, Knight of the Outer Void, Son of Yog-Sothoth and finally Wizard) and told the great goal in mind.