I'm having lots of trouble shuffling my Dunwich Horror cards with the base game's cards. The Dunwich horror ones clump together so I either get no Dunwich cards or I get nothing but Dunwich cards. I don't do the bridge shuffle because it dings up the cards and that would drive me crazy.

I'm thinking of buying ffg's card sleeves so I can just slide the decks together. Is any one else having this trouble with Dunwich's cards clumping together? I'm also thinking of just keeping the two decks completely separate and the first two turns draw a mythos cards from the base game then the third turn draw one from dunwich then the next two turns draw from the base game then one from dunwich.

Play with them enough and they'll all work down to the same amount of wear.

In the meantime, this is how I shuffle:

First do a "Hindu shuffle." You just shuffle clumps around in your hands. This won't separate out the Dunwich Horror so much.

Then, deal out X piles (sequentially or "randomly") and stack them. X is closest to the square root of all the cards.

So, Dunwich and Arkham together have 113 cards. After the Hindu shuffle, deal 11 decks and stack them. Presto: no clumping. Additionally, the cards don't wear down as much. This is the tactic I use, and it works perfectly (so long as you remember how many stacks you're supposed to make for each deck).

I found that the Dunwich cards were cut out differently than the base game, so you could tell them apart while in the deck. I have since sleeved everything though.

Brine said:

Yeah I've noticed that too. That's why I was thinking about sleeving them but it was going to end up costing a lot of money to sleeve the base game and all the expansions so I wanted to see if anyone had any good shuffling methods

Out of interest what do you guys mean by sleeving? Silly question I am sure.

I still haven't played the game enough, and quite often wind up with "Draw 2 Unique Items" meaning; "Here have two holy waters" hehe.

Ebonrook said:

Never heard of card sleeves (aka card condoms) ?

FFG's own sleeves: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp

I'm a sleeving cheapo, especially since I nowadays sleeve all games pre-playing, so FFG's stuff is too pricey for my taste. Ultra Pro, Mayday and Arcane Tinmen are some other companies with "condoms".

Anyway, sleeving cards can certainly increase the life-span of your games, if you're intentioned to play it quite often. FFG sleeves are a little expensive, but they are really good. I haven't tried all the sleeves suggested bu Dam (please, Dam, no jokes, right? ), but I tried the UltraPRO. I still prefer the FFG sleeves, they're stronger and shuffling becomes very easy. Not to mention that once a Mythos card felt into a jug of water: no damage at all!

Tibs said:

I did something a little different.

I took separate piles of Arkham & Dunwich items, uniques & spells.

then I mixed them manually: Take 2 arkham spells, then 1 Dunwich spell , then 2 Arkham, then 1 Dunwich, etc etc etc and make it into one pile.

You will then have an evenly mixed stack of 61 spells. Then do the "Hindu" shuffle as described above.

For Uniques, mix 3 Arkhams to 2 Dunwich, for Common items mix 3 Arkham to 1 Dunwich, before the final shuffle

Julia said:

No fair !

I myself use Ultra Pro penny sleeves (so called because they are so cheap) for large cards, like AH's Mythos, OW and Arkham Encounter decks and Arcane Tinmen 63x41mm sleeves for small cards. Arcane Tinmen for me because they come in packs of 100 (vs FFG's 50) and are also cheaper, while only marginally less thick (IIRC, 100 microns for FFG and 80 for AT).

My reasons for sleeving are:

#1: added duration of components

#2: easier shuffling

#1 even though I have an absolute no food/drink policy when playing, but shuffling unsleeved, they do start to show wear eventually. Middle-Earth Quest after about 20 plays, but those cards see multiple shuffles each game, Talisman I sleeved about after 40 plays (now at 116).

When you evenly layer the cards, a Hindu shuffle will start to re-clump them. It'll take a few plays before the cards settle in and lose their "newly-unboxed" tackiness.

Dunwich cards are cut differently? I haven't noticed that...

My cards are still pretty much pristine after around 25-30 games, except a few notches on very few cards. What worries me is the amount of wear monster tokens have been showing...how do you guys deal with that? I was thinking of coating them with a spray varnish or finish, so the wear-down at least stops.

I've had the Arkham board come apart one day. Probably because of the way it is folded. So now the North side of Arkham and the Rivertown neighborhood square sit separately; I just put them artificially together, like a jigsaw puzzle

How much does sleeving the cards increase the thickness? I've been thinking of sleeving all my cards but I'm worried about them taking up even more room.

Tox said:

I don't think they're cut differently (although they may be, slightly), but newer expansions have glossier, tackier cards. They're brighter white on the spines and tend to clump together.

I had to give away my first Arkham set because riffle shuffling had warped all the big cards and creased all the little ones. Now, with my Hindu/root-pile method, they're still in very good shape.

As for the monsters... I gave up on them. I spent a few days reconstructing ALL of them in Strange Eons, so that I could print them on sticker paper and stick them to foam (to be lighter). They're nice and flat so the rough surface doesn't interfere with the image (although I had to spend HOURS airbrusing the dimples out of the Spectral Hunter, Lloigor, and Dark Druid). This also gave me the opportunity to print the expansion symbols directly on the monsters (but I forgot Kingsport's...), add "endless" to The Beast, and design two custom monsters that blend in seamlessly. I even had the chance to change up the images for some monsters. Each of my like 9 Cultists uses a unique picture, as do my Chthonians and Colours out of Space, and I even used brand-new images for the Moon Beasts (the star-nose mole image bothered me) and the Star Vampire.

It was a lot, a LOT of work, both re-designing and cutting.

Joseph_Lavode said:

Penny sleeves, not so much. Arcane Tinmen sleeves I use, I'd say roughly 25 sleeved = 75 unsleeved initially. The sleeves "settle down" quite a bit after some use, or you could put the deck(s) under a weight overnight if not the patient type.

I have found it depends on the quality of the sleave in how it aids or hinders the shuffling.
Sleaves save cards so worth the investment If you want you board games to last spent the extra bucks.
The FFG and sleaves of the same quality are hardy and almost bullet-proof but add thickness to the decks. Big towering decks when played with all expansions, we end up making half decks and start with one pile then onto the next.
Cheaper sleaves thinner decks but can become more slippery when stacked up. Also can break after heavy use and constant shuffles.

Paulis said:

I'm sorry, but the Talisman player in my just laughs at anybody calling AH's measly 130 card decks "towering". As I said, I use thin penny sleeves for Mythos and OW decks, with premium sleeves those decks (at 200+ cards) would be decently high. But Spell deck has the most cards currently and is it even at 150? Adventure deck in Talisman is currently at 300, with the next expansion adding another 72. For the record, that 300 card deck stands about 15.5cm (6" and change) tall, in 70+ plays it hasn't tipped over once.