It looks like I could have saved myself some time writing the above about HOST if I had just waited a few hours for Marius to do it and explain it in relation to the LCG:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp

All fake crankiness aside, its a great article Marius.

By the way, you called the Order of the Silver Twilight "tools". ....heh...."Tools"....

Hellfury said:

All fake crankiness aside, its a great article Marius.

By the way, you called the Order of the Silver Twilight "tools". ....heh...."Tools"....

Thanks. Yeah, well, the fast majority of the Lodge members don't know what's really going on. They are pretty much tools for the true objectives of the order. Who knows, maybe Carl Stanford himself may be just another puppet of the true powers behind the organisation. Deathless fanatic? For what agenda is he brought back?

Um... If I'm reading the most recent article right, these guys are replacing neutral cards?

The_Big_Show said:

Just in terms of distribution, I think. As I read it, it means we will see less Neutral cards coming out because we will have HOST cards.

That makes sense. Wasn't sure by how they worded it.

I have always been a bit impartial about neutral cards...

Seriously, the environment does not need a bunch more neutral cards at this point because there has been saturation of grey from previous APs.

Yeah, when I add up my stacks of cards (various factions) which I've managed to pick up the last few months since learning of and loving the game....I am amazed that the "Neutral Stack" is nearly DOUBLE the size/height of any single other faction I have. So seeing less of them would be a good thing...they should be "supporting cards" - but instead they ended up being (in terms of numbers) bigger than any other single faction, by a good margin.

In fact, raw facts according to DBLER site:

Total Cards in Database:

AGENCY- 64

MISKATONIC- 67

HASTUR- 68

CTHULHU- 65

SYNDICATE- 67

YOG-SOTHOTH- 65

SHUB-NIGGURATH- 66

NEUTRAL- 124 !!!

From Chaosium, here perhaps are some clues as to what the new expansion flush with the Hermetic Order of the Silver twilight might include:

esoteric books, shards of strange artifacts, and puzzling letters. Seven scenarios begin in Boston, characters investigate an organization in New York, run afoul of a coven in Scotland, roam the desert of the American southwest, vacation off the coast of Maine, explore the mysteries of the South Pacific, the People of the Monolith, and the Warren,

The Coven of Cannich
Devil's Canyon
The Worm that Walks
The Watchers of Easter Island
The Rise of R'lyeh

This is new old territory. Licensed from Chaosium all along, direvative in tangential ways, including countless overlapping characters, mostly from the shared genre, but also from the shared chaosium roots, this expansion is the closest interaction yet. Cthulhu CCG never felt so close to another game, not Arkham Horror, with its similar images, not AGOT certainly, but some of the rpg nyarly, but not much really. The Lodge is a smart divergence from patterns seen in the Asylum Packs. Loose enough to include any mythos icon, the AP with their serials even still are somewhat stifled and would benefit from other new cthulhu. And not just reprints.

I think back at the changes. Foundation AE release. The UT warehouse and guardian shoggoth, FR Strike the Shepherd, Glass of Mortlan, Shining Trap and Watkins, EE Klaus, Undercover secutiry, the Rituals, Anthro Advisor, Prof of Archeology, Hatchet Man, Dutch Courage, Vicotria, Scotto, Omar, KeyMaster, MN Patsy, Open for Inspection, Nyarly, Mulder and the Amazing Forgotten Cities, then the forsaken first four AP, the switch to LCG and release of core and the two free floating LCG AP, then the three LCG serials, and now two special expansions. Conspiracies, Dozens of new subtypes, Zoogs and old classics. Stunted synergy. Julias and Erins, and Houdini and Eirrighscht Zhahnne, Hastur unshaken, Lodges from a role playing game. Not rehashed images, I'm sure. But a dedication to a 1982 invention. A mythos direction, could have synergy like an old chaosium mythos deck. Usually includes original era references obscure and long awaited. Could take us fun places. Just keep us in touch with the real history lessons. The Machens and Dunsanys and Lovecraft and Chambers, and Blavatsky, and Blackwood, etc. I feel in good hands.Just steer clear of squeaky library book cart, puppy with scales, or a neutral cost six pick a card.

I have to say...the first part was interesting and I got it...the second part (the big paragraph) I didn't really follow....but I think - overall - you were talking about tons of old cards from the old CCG game I am not familiar with - that you are saying they could remake for HOST - and it would fit - but you end by saying "don't have a cost 6 neutral pick a card" - appx - which, again, I am not sure what card you were even talking about. - but I'm sure it was a good one, from "the good ol' days" of CCG.

You're right Rosh. It rambles in the end. I was just hoping for pertinent useful cards with good flavor.

For humor at the end, I hope for LCG to evetually allow for deck types that follow subtypes and that have useable synergy, like Gug or something. As frustration, I obscurely reference Broken Glasses and Mutant Spawn Soft and Cuddly, and beautiful useless neutrals. Sword of St. Jermore was glorious and would be a great image to retool.

We've fallen in line with a Chaosium 1982 module. I'm speculating on what that means.

I hate neutral cards. We agreed in our playgroup to never ever, under any circumstances include any of them in our decks.

The worst part is, it seems like other people made similar vows as no one wants to take the neutrals off of me in exchange for the cards I'd actually use...

Edit: Oh, actually, one guy took 2 dogs! Yay!

What's wrong with neutral cards? The only one's that get grumbles around my playgroup are Nodens and Rope & Anchor Tavern.

Six out of twenty cards neutral was my problem, fourteen factional cards per aeon has squelched this game.

Well, we're down to two neutrals per AP. To keep that new three per faction dynamic, and keep the lodge, neutral looks squeezed.

"The Order of the Silver Twilight features 3 copies each of 55 never-before-seen cards - 40 for Order of the Silver Twilight, 2 for each of the existing factions, and 1 neutral card"

"Sam Archer: Private Investigator, Degenerate Serpent Cultist, Feasting Ghouls, Fledgling Byakhee, and the heroic Harry Houdini!"

Yuggoth will be over before we know it. What's the next cycle?

The cycle is passing before me not through me.

johnny shoes said:

Thats certainly the question of the hour yet to be answered, Johnny. Its now 10 minutes before the bell strikes and still no answer...

Its so annoying in fact, I want to play my favorite Mythos card on FFG:

Its totally worth the 1 point sanity loss.

There will be collateral damage of course, but thats a sacrifice I am willing to make.

Why is it "10 minutes before the bell strikes" .... ? Is there some time FFG has said they will tell players when the next AP-thing will be ? Forgive me if I do not yet know this (common ?) knowledge ...

Rosh87 said:

Sorry, that was a florid way of saying that there are two more packs to be released before its time for the next cycle to begin. For context, FFG seems to announce the next cycle early to midway through the previous cycle. By this logic, we should have known what the next cycle was a couple months ago or earlier.

We do know what the next deluxe expansions is and thats really great, but thats a one off and frankly I think its not the compulsory buy that asylum packs are due to it being predominantly showcasing a new faction. Asylum packs are the meat and potatoes of this game.

I want something like this:

Note: This is not a "Response", you actually need to reverse time back to the state the game was in before the target card was played. Total madness during multi-player games!

Actually, I would welcome any cards that feature our old friends from Yith. The only thing I have in my paws is the original challenge deck. I have an open LCG challenge for people to win free FFG Cthulhu card sleeves but nobody has beat it yet... If any of you are in the Bay Area... However, this does not scratch the itch. I want some Yithian friends that I can play in actual LCG legal decks.

Agreed Tokhuah. The time of the Great Yithian Transference is long overdue.

Just to fill me in ....what is so special about the "Great Race of Yith" ....in Lovecraft stories ? Like...what is their role and history and do they oppose or serve the evil Old Ones and Outer Gods ?

-

Secondly - I've heard about this "Yithian Deck" - but what is so special about it ? Probably plays like Mi-Go decks right, with all characters being of that subtype and having a few special abilities here and there....right ?

-

Lastly - I was intrigued // annoyed by the fact that they (FFG) have apparently said that SOME special Faction-Specific cards will be in the big Silver Twilight expansion....meaning even if one doesn't want to play HOST for any pressing reason, they probably will "have" to get the expansion to have access to the new cards for the existing factions (and I bet they are really nice cards too - to further pressure you into wanting them !).

Make Hastur one of those cool Court of Y'htill - things I got in this old CCG pack ... the effect looks pretty potent. I guess it's supposed to be where the King in Yellow holds court or something.

The yithian deck was a promotional deck given out at league games where the winner of the event got to play against it with the organizer playing the deck. If they win, they got the deck. If they lost then the next person got to try. etc.

a 40 card deck that broke many rules such as card limit, etc. Pretty brutal, but not impossible to beat. LCG decks may have a tough time however since the power level has been toned down.

Click here for more information:

lmgtfy.com/

Lastly, Hastur needs no more help in being brutal, thankyouverymuch.

The Yithian deck, at least the English language version (other languages were horribly watered down, most Yithian cards cost more to play in other languages) was pretty horrible to face.

I only managed to beat it because I watched the first place winner of that tournament lose to it. Then when I played against it second, I had some idea of what it was capable of doing. I was really lucky with my draws (three of my four "On the Lam" Syndicate "jump to an other story" cards showed up in the first ten cards after my opening hand, AND my opponent, the tournament organizer made a play error and left himself one too few resources after his operations phase on the crucial sixth turn.

One of my Syndicate Character cards was responsible solo for 13 of the 15 sucesses I needed to win the game. I dubbed that card "Yithian's Bane" and put a little paper token inside its card sleeve.

- Chick

Excellent classic win chick, I remember. That Yithian Deck was rare indeed. If you didn't vanquish the deck, you got them from sanity points or some inside job. I wonder how much one still in the shrink wrap is worth...

I don't think any factional character will be absconded by the lodge. Indeed, a classic mythos character lodge appearance would add to the interwoven legend that is weird fiction.

The great risk and wonder of weird fiction is that the new character and the new evil, which won't stand up to the legends, at least hides in the genre well enough so as to belong.

Speaking out of hand, before I read the rpg module, will LCG lodge deliver on merit. I mean anyone can write, "I was a shipmate on the Emma and here's my story." Cthulhu fans aren't so much looking for hobbits, direwolfs, and panzers.

Rosh87 said:

I wont spoil this, because this is one of Lovecraft's better and more refined stories where he flexes his literary muscles. Read "The Shadow out of Time".

Thanks to public domain, you can read it here: www.yankeeclassic.com/miskatonic/library/stacks/literature/lovecraft/novellas/shadowou.htm

It explains their history quite well. As for who they serve or oppose...really Rosh, some things just cannot be quanitified into tidy packages such as you seem to continually seek. Its not an intergalactic gang of goonies who serve a gangleader or anything like that. Far too complex to simplify it in such a way. Its best to just cast the Derlethian dichotomy aside

But I MUST have Good - Bad - Neutral -!

Seriously though, thanks for the link. I have begun to read the story, and find myself instantly intrigued (having only gone through the first pages so far). It is interesting seeing how the early 1900's writers ...wrote...relative to our current speech / writing.

We might say, "He looked outside and saw that the sun was just beginning to rise."

Lovecraft (seemingly) would say, "His gaze turned to the nearby window where, slowly and inexorably, the first rays of the newly advancing dawn were at last becoming visible."

* - ps ....what is the meaning of Derlethian ? - is that like a Super Yithian ?