Greetings all,

After 10 or so games where the game gently kicked our hineys (barring a few sessions where Nyarly was beaten in final combat), we managed to defeat Azathoth by sealing. We played with the base set + CotDP for the Mythos & Otherworld encounters. Investigator cards and Arkham Encounters had the KH components in them too. It was a sweet taste of victory that inspired us to already set the date for a next game.

Two questions arose though:

1) While showing some other game content to a friend, I noticed that the Bast Guardian mentions an ally I hadn't seen yet. I looked through my cards and I didn't find Foolishness at first sight. A quick glance at the Arkham Horror wiki tells me he should be in Kingsport. I'll try looking thoroughly again next weekend, but I'm wondering if other people have had missing cards.

2) You have to evade or fight any and all monsters if you enter or leave a location containing them. The rules also say that, if you enter combat, your movement ends. Does this mean you can never leave a location unless there are no monsters there at the start of a turn? (Aside from evading them, that is.)

Oh, and last, but not least, a quick thank you for some good advice I read in these parts prior to playing. Some of it turned out to be really helpful.

1. i haven't had any missing parts encountered with games from ffg, but i bet if you're actually missing it (and just haven't put it in wrong deck or just missed it when you checked through), you could email/phone them and get the missing card sent out to you. that's my guess at least.

2. barring some exceptions; correct, you have to evade to leave the monster.

exceptions include; someone else using mi-go braincase on you, casting mist of releh, the monster is elusive, you are playing the nun and fight against a dimensional shambler and instead of getting to LiTAS you get to the asylum/hospital... and similar exceptions. but under normal movement rules; no, you have to evade or stand there fighting.

Hamu said:

Usually when cards go awry in manufacturing it's an entire stack of plastic-wrapped cards that gets misplaced, not just one or two cards. I remember when I bought StarCraft I was missing an entire Zerg combat deck and about half of a Protoss one (because those cards were packaged together.) So I'd be surprised if you were actually missing just one card - might want to check everything else from Kingsport, too.

That said, if you are missing anything, FFG shouldn't have a problem replacing it for you. I got all my missing cards and a couple replacement battleships in about a week.

Hamu said:

Correct. If you fight a single monster (win or lose), you stop moving in that space. If that space was the one you began your turn in, you're stuck there. To get out you must evade every monster there with you when you begin moving. On the bright side, if you lose in combat you're probably getting rushed off to the hospital where there usually aren't any monsters! =D

Edit: Even if you successfully run away from a monster after fighting a couple rounds of combat, you're still stuck. That doesn't count as "evading combat" for the purposes of continuing to move.

Hamu said:

Hmm... If you're looking for a basic strategy outline, here's a good one.

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Basic_Strategy

My boyfriend likes to make sure everything is in order so the day we bought the main game we brought it home and checked that all pieces and parts were correct. Sadly we were missing two or three ally cards. Its a big game with lots of pieces, so stuff like that can happen. I emailed Fantasy Flight and they sent the missing cards immediately. I can't even begin to describe how fantastic it was. So if cards somehow didn't make it into your set I'm sure they can help you.

Derufin said:

We had another fun romp with the game this afternoon. Hastur was defeated by sealing using CotDP and full KH. Hypnos was our Guardian. It's only the second succesful match and it already felt slightly laid back, haha. Come March, we'll try to up the ante and pay for our foolish hubris.

Regarding the missing cards: I did a quick count of my Kingsport Allies this afternoon and I had more than a few missing. There was no time to do a full check yet, but I'll look into it next time.

Thanks for the replies, folks. I'm looking forward to many more (merry?) games.