Hello all,

This saturday we're going for another tour of Arkham, so I dropped by the local gaming store and got my hands on Innsmouth. We're most likely going to pick good ol' Cthulhu as the AO, because 1) we haven't gone up against him yet, 2) he fits the theme of the expansion perfectly, and 3) the new AO's are sheer madness from the looks of it.

I remember reading about how Innsmouth is the most brutal of the board expansions and that the difficulty is severely increased by using it. However, our group isn't exactly made up out of hardcore veterans although we have been slowly getting the hang of sealing victories against the lighter AO's and such. But by peeking at Tibs' statistics, I see Cthulhu is in the upper half of the AO's difficulty ladder and that IH is the expansion with the highest chance of a loss.

To get to my question: does Innsmouth really beef up the difficulty to the ultra hard level? If so, what would be a good way to make it manageable (but not too easy, haha) for a group of mildly experienced amateurs? I've been thinking of throwing in Hypnos and perhaps diluting the Mythos deck with another expansion, but I'd like to hear your thoughts about it too.

Some extra info:

• A group of 5 investigators, three adults and two youngsters, aged 11 & 13. (They will get help from a fourth adult who will be coaching them, so the age barrier is generally not an issue.)
• Other available expansions are old CotDP and KH. All their components like Investigator Cards and Encounter Cards are always part of the game, even when not using their particular Mythos cards. The Kingsport board probably won't be used this time (unless advised otherwise).
• The Mythos deck will be limited to vanilla Arkham and Innsmouth.
• To get a maximum taste of the new investigators, the random drawing pool will be limited to the new ones.

A mighty thanks in advance!

Well if you are limiting investigator selection to Innsmouth investigators then the odds are high you will end up with Patrice. She will help a lot.

The thing about Innsmouth is that there is a high-frequency location that is right next to a vortex. Each time a monster moves off of the location, the Terror track and the Deep Ones Rising track both increase by 1. When the Deep Ones Rising track reaches 6, the Ancient One wakes up. Also, the location is difficult for investigators to reach and even harder to return from. You can reset the DOR track, but it's a pain.

There are other aspects of Innsmouth that make it hard, like Martial Law. But about 80% of what makes Innsmouth hard is that one high frequency location.

Like Veet said, there is also one ridiculously overpowered investigator. Don't use Patrice if you want a challenge.

Innsmouth is a pretty fun expansion and has the potential to really shake things up depending on the draws. My first suggestion would be to get someone there early on to go ahead and deposit some clue tokens on the fed track in case the Deep Ones track creeps up and to pull monster sweeping duty if need be. That way all you need to do is drop that last clue token or two when the need arises and keep monsters away from vortices.

Avec's dead on about the problems Devil's Reef can potentially cause. One fluke game I played recently with some friends got really nasty when a monster surge dumped 6 monsters on top of 2 more already there at Devil's Reef, as it was the only gate we had open at the time. Then to make things worse, 5 monsters moved into the nearby vortex that same turn which caused the Ancient One to awaken. This was early in the game too, with some of us not even carrying weapons!

I'll let you guess the result.

Yes, if Devil Reef is the only open gate, then each time you turn over a Mythos card, there's a good chance that it will basically end the game right then and there.

avec said:

I had completely failed to notice that monsters moving into vortices also raised the terror level (I knew it added a Deep One Rising token). Here it is in black and white from the rulebook.

In addition, there are special vortex spaces found on the
Innsmouth board. Investigators cannot move into vortices
under any circumstances (not even through the use of an
item). Any monster that enters a vortex is immediately
returned to the cup. For each monster returned to the cup
in this fashion, raise the terror level by one. In addition,
add one uprising token to the Deep Ones Rising track.

I have been finding Innsmouth hard enough without having to worry about the terror level!

With all of the sticky's on the board perhaps we need one for FOR (frequently overlooked rules).

Krawhitham said:

This is what makes Father Dagon so lovely to play with!

Krawhitham said:

It's the same for Dunwich, too!

Well, we lost miserably, but we did put up a decent fight. When Cthulhu awoke to the chants of the Deep Ones, the 6th seal was only a breath away.

The mythos deck gave us a brutal start. The game started with a gate on Devil Reef, followed by a monster surge there. Luckily, not all monsters moved, and a flyer was there, so the Deep Ones track didn't fill up completely. Then we had that environment that caused monster surges to add doom tokens. Then another monster surge the next turn. It took a good while before a non-Innsmouth mythos card popped up. And to think we spread the Innsmouth cards evenly before shuffling.

Patrice was drawn, as Veet predicted, and she got real lucky with her personal story thanks to a well-timed encounter. Finn Edwards (the bootlegger) also played along. He got to draw a couple of Common Items through the first half of the game and ended up with his inventory stocked full of whiskey. Funny thing that. The second half of the game was less enjoyable for him, as he got stuck in Y'ha-nthlei and Devil Reef, trying to survive nasty encounter after nasty encounter. And if an encounter's nasty outcome would help him escape from the ocean, he'd roll all successes. Getting him out at Falcon Point was a Herculean task as the streets were cluttered with nasties on the way to Innsmouth.

Anyway, loss or not, Innsmouth is a blast to play. I learned from a few mistakes which I'm hoping not to make next time around. It's too bad I'm in the middle of finals, because I'm dying to play again.

One (and a half) big question arose though: Finn starts out with a Bank Loan. Does this mean he gets another 10 bucks on top of his starting 8? And do Bank Loans interfere with trading? I remember reading something along those lines, but I can't find it right now.

Hamu said:

He's already received and spent that $10 bucks from his BL before the game. It's just there so he can't take another right away (and also a huge -1 to score if you don't pay it off ). BL doesn't hinder trading so you can pull cheese-monkey tricks with them if you want.

Dam said:

Avi_dreader said:

Or for Shallow Ones.

Hamu said:

I don't think this is official, at least not yet. But the thinking seems to be that, while Finn can't be forced to discard items, there are certain items that don't work unless you choose to discard them. So if Finn had Whiskey and he drew an encounter that said "you lose all your items," Finn would just ignore the effect. (He can also default on his Bank Loan without penalty.) However, the Whiskey won't do anything for him until he chooses to use it by discarding it. No one can take items from Finn, but he doesn't have a magical bottomless bottle of whiskey, or a never empty plate of food. Hopefully this point will be addressed in the FAQ.

Avec is correct. If part of an item's effect says to discard it, then even Finn must discard it: Finn's ability prevents losses, but discarding here is a cost.

Hamu said:

Oh, I get it. It's like a "thing," 'cause Finn Edwards is a bootlegger. It's like if Zoey ended up with a bunch of food, or if Michael got the brass knuckles. Or if Vincent got a dunce cap.

BURRRRN!

@avec: Indeed, haha. He'd discard the empty bottle allright, but the Common Item deck kept giving him a fresh supply like it knew whom it was dealing to.

Thanks for the help, folks!