4 of us, and 4 losses. Well, can't say it was unexpected. We knew that we will lose and one players was pretty new to Arkham but he knows the mythos. Everyone insisted on Innsmouth, so there we went. Games went pretty horrible for us. First Shub-Niggurath devoured us in a short game were we just adjuested to Innsmouth board and the new player learned rules. He's quite knows boardgaming so it needed only one game for him to adjust. Ok, know rules are more or less clear, and then...Cthugha. Yeah, well, he awoke due to the doom track. Basically it was goodbye after couple of miserable attempts of attack. Then came Ghatanthoa and mythos hated us even more. Deep ones rose once again and with crappy items and high horror track we were pretty weak against him. Finally, Cthulhu came to the scene. And that was a fairly long game were we almost succeeded to pick up six elder signs on the board. Of course, he awoke. If we had more time and mythos hated us a little less we would've got him. I forgot all the investigators we played, but since we played just a couple of times before, and some of us just today for the first time, we made alot of mistakes. Up until last game we hadn't made plans who will do what until it was too late. We were prepared for Cthulhu and it was going great up unit the last 3 mythos cards that screwed us. We had a lot of fun even if we lost and everybody loved all 4 games. We just need to work on our strategy. Less wandering around and more focus on buying and utilising all items and our special abilities.

Anyway, I don't regret a single penny spent on this game. It was well worth it for the fun we had. I will organize a small learning league with just the base game for some friends that also want to play and spread the madness ^^.

Any general tips for beating Innsmouth is appreciated. Also, sorry for disorganized post, it's really late here.

Next time we're going easy on ourselves with Kingsport board

Glad to hear you had so much fun despite losing, it will make victory all the sweeter when it finally comes.

Hello Cardinal Nicodemus,

and welcome to the Innsmouth Madness! It's a marvellous board, but, as you've experienced, it's not so easy to deal with! Basically, some tricks to survive: if you're not that good yet at winning in short times, you should probably work a little on the Fed track during the first turns. Try to put asap four clues on that track, so, later on during the game, you can easily spend the last two clues and clear the DOR track (it would be a major pain clearing the tracks after Martial law is declared). Pay a lot of attention to gates opening in the inacessible areas (Devil reef and Yhan'thlei): you can easily lose a game in 2 or 3 turns if you have a gate there. Possibly, use Silas in the first games: he's a great help because of his ability to reach aquatic location and should give you a breather when you have to reach distant places quickly. And maybe play with some easy AO, just to become more confident with encounters and the board dynamics.

As for Kingsport... Kingsport only games aren't that easy. Be prepared to have gates bursting often, and tons of monsters to control. Anyway, usually KH only games are great!

I'm 3 wins, 2 losses so far with Innsmouth. I am playing 4 investigators between myself and my girlfriend - and we've both been playing for a few years now so we probably have a slight edge on your group.

The only change in my play style is to simply close, rather than seal certain locations. We look for opportunities to win via closing all the gates, rather than being focused on 6 elder signs.

Perhaps if you wish to make Innsmouth slightly easier you could decide to ignore Gate Bursts until your group becomes more experienced.

Hey,

thanks for the comments and pointers. I am already looking forward to another play soon. However, card dillution kills me. Especially with mythos deck. Also, I wanted to include more items so we mixed those from BGotW and Dunwich. Didn't turn out so good, because I find frustrating when drawing, for example, a unique item - only getting some stupid mission which you don't have time to do anyway. What do people make of missions/tasks? I find them to be quite hindering if you really need something, especially if it's already mid game or later. Also, how or what to include/exclude to make game more smooth?

Cardinal Nicodemus said:

Keep everything, that way you won't get kick-ass Magic Weapons and Elder Signs each visit to the Curiositie Shoppe. Drawing Mission, Mission, Milk of Shub-Niggurath when you're desperate for a weapon and having to buy one of them = . If there is no chaff or chaff is trimmed, each visit to CS is that much more likely to be profitable, whereas with a huge deck with everything in it, you have to decide if you want to chance it or go for Clues somewhere else.

I've always liked the Tasks, to be honest. Most of them are kinda handy, and aren't TOO distracting. Missions, however? Meh. Only about 2 or so that are feasible to do on a regular basis. But! If you keep bad spells in (such as Wrack, one of the worst in the deck, IMO), why not keep all the Taksks and missions, too?

There is that one mission that gives 10 clues...I think I even managed to complete it once. Don't remember the outcome of the game, though. Probably still lost

One of my dreams is becoming Captain of the White Ship (it never happened to me, yet) and winning by For the greater good .

Cardinal Nicodemus said:

In order to minimize Mythos dilution, my group only uses the Mythos cards from basic Arkham and each of the Horrors. The only small box expansion that we use the spells, common items and unique items from is Lurker; we use all of the spells, common items and unique items from each of the big box expansions. We find that this combination ususally makes for a pretty exciting and close game, with activity on all four boards.

I would advise you not to be too quick to write off Tasks and Missions. Among the Tasks, Newspaper Assignment and Minerology Report can be extremely helpful and are usually worth the time taken to finish them. Among the Missions, I too have completed the Light of Reason Mission once upon a time. The removed Doom token from the Sacrifices to Make Mission can be the difference between victory and defeat, and the Walking the Ley Lines Mission has twice given us victory against the most fearsome Atlach-Nacha. Finally, tonight we WON in final combat against Daoloth because I had completed the Sealing the Beast's Power mission!

Oh, so THAT's what Walking the Ley Lines is for...I never thought of that, or any other reason, to complete it. Then again, I don't have KH yet, so I think I can forgive myself for that...

EcnoTheNeato said:

You can call it the A-Bomb (Atlach-Bomb).

In multiple player games, Tasks (and, to a lesser extent, Missions) are great, as sometimes in the midgame, after everyone has gone through a first round of Gate Seals, an Investigator might find himself without a clear to-do list. (Like, why have Mark go gather Clues when Akachi's in play?) Tasks are perfect for an "earthbound" Investigator to get something done.

Has anyone considered that Miskatonic Horror might have Tasks and Missions that require the outer towns? Cold Spring Glen, Artist's Colony, Esoteric Order of Dagon, Silver Twilight Lodge: "Emissary of Evil". DELIGHTFUL.

jgt7771 said:

This is also my hope. Some of the Missions and Tasks are great. Even if often there is not enough time to complete them, they are an interesting sub-challenge.

Julia said:

One of my dreams is winning by exploiting Join the Winning Team with William Bain ;'D

Avi_dreader said:

That card is banned from my games. It's a non-sense when soloing ("Hey! I won the game! ups, I've also lost the game! Ehm... shall I be happy?"), and it's sad when playing with friends (totally against the coop spirit of the game). BUT there is an interesting way of using this awful card if playing one of Amikezor custom Scenarios (with Charlie having to complete Joining the Wining team, and Akachi having For the greater good; playing against Atlach and you win only if you of the two main characters is able to complete his mission. Very, very fun to play)

Julia said:

Sounds interesting.

But yeah...I don't really like the idea of Join the Winning Team (or the Nyar plot card that's similar). I wouldn't mind if they wanted to do some major work on a traitor character idea or something, and I actually don't mind the Nyar one in theory (it's the fact that the player has to choose to be evil and "wins" if Nyar wins that bugs me...if there was just some random will-based chance to give in to temptation, and it was universally bad, that'd be different), but AH is at its heart entirely cooperative, and if you're going to introduce a traitor mechanic it needs to be really well-thought-out and probably quite detailed.

Sdrolion said:

Heh... Apparently you missed the thread where I explained how to exploit Join the Winning Team. Basically you can use it with Professor Rice or William Bain to repeatedly gain those allys' joining benefits. You don't actually try to *pass* the mission, you just trade it to another investigator so it clears off and you can do it again and again. I was so proud of myself when I finally figured out how to make that card useful ;'D

Avi_dreader said:

Nope, I didn't miss it, but my memory did. Got the idea. Zero doomers left, and a poor old man seduced and abandoned all the time. Wonderful.

Julia said:

"We really need your help this time Professor! Just kidding, sucker! We really need your help this time Professor! ... He never seems to learn, does he?"