Hey everyone,

I just bought Black Goat of the Woods yesterday and was looking at everything that was including and had a couple of questions :

1) In the set-up section, it states to place 8 of each color corruption cards on top of each other, yet 16 of each are included. Are you supposed to deal out 8 of each color or is this a typo and you should really make a stack of 32 (16+16)?

2) After reading through both the Cult encounter cards and the corruption cards, it's not entirely clear to me why any investigator would ever willingly join the cult or have an encounter at one of those locations, as they all seem to be almost entirely negative. Am I missing the point of something?

3) I now have all of the small-box expansions and after looking at all the Heralds, they all seem so unreasonably hard that I can't ever imagine actually playing with them. The game is hard enough as it is, does anyone ever actually play with a Herald?

Thanks in advance!

eeeealmo

eeeealmo said:

1)Yeah, it's supposed to be 32.
2)You're not, the mechanic wasn't designed very well (although milk is underestimated, the trick to using it well is having a buffed fighter wipe out all monsters on the board in one turn on an expansion board and getting loads of trophies). Plus it's really hard to get membership when you're not playing the expansion. It's... Bleh. ;') also, re: this and question number three there's a reason I made a custom herald for Black Goat of the Woods. Here's a direct link.

http://s622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/?action=view&current=BlackgoatofthewoodsFINAL.jpg

eeeealmo said:

eeeealmo said:

I'm not sure about #1, and I might have been playing it wrong.

The Cult is a bit tricky - Miskatonic adds a few more positive ones, but generally the Cult provides items and clue tokens at a nasty cost. Whether or not that cost is worth it is up to the player. But it's a small matter because the odds of finding the Cult are stupidly small anyway.

Yes, Heralds do make the game harder, but that's kind of the point! They spice it up a bit to keep things from getting too easy. Though, I would recommend the Lurker at the Threshold if you want an easier game, as his benefits can often outweigh his cost if you're quick enough at sealing things.

Just to (probably redundantly) add my voice to the proceedings:

1. Yes, it's a typo, you're supposed to have all 16 green and all 16 red.

2. You're right, there's not a huge incentive to join the Cult. I suppose it's generally safer than the worst of the encounters at those locations (none of the Cult Encounters have anything on "A gate and a monster appear!"), but it's still not a very compelling option. There are instances where it might be a bad idea not to join, i.e. with Speak to Your Friend or if you get the encounter that lets you get a Membership and absolutely cannot afford to lose 2 Stamina.

3. The Black Goat is murderously difficult. I got the Black Goat expansion first and played with it all the time. After I got Dark Pharaoh, I switched over to him (and later others) and never looked back. Your post would seem to indicate that you don't have Kingsport, Innsmouth, or Miskatonic, so I'll give you the rundown on the other Heralds, none of which are nearly as hard as the Goat. The King in Yellow can be managed if you are extremely vigilant about the Terror Track, which isn't that difficult with the base game (it becomes more problematic with Dunwich). The Dark Pharaoh is annoying, but you should be fine as long as you stay away from the Curiositie Shoppe and the Ancient Whispers marker. Of course, if you're Cursed, you're in big trouble, but being Cursed is pretty rare. The Lurker is probably the easiest. If you ignore the Pact system, he'll mostly leave you alone. There is supposedly a way to game the system and manipulate the Pacts to your advantage with minimal repercussions, but I haven't discovered it yet. Of course, I've only faced the Lurker once.

If you're wondering, Naacal Key and the Call Ancient One spell are also annoying. Naacal Key has no use whatsoever (except maybe in conjunction with a devouring gate from Lurker). Call Ancient One is extremely exploitable.

Basically, you bought the worst expansion in the game. But hey, now you have the Dark Druid. He's pretty cool, and totally worth $25. Well, maybe not.

If you're looking for a better herald, the Tattered King (from King in Yellow) and Father Dagon (from Innsmouth Horror) are both quite good. I like the Lurker on the Threshold (from the expansion with the same name), but like Walk said, he's exploitable.

avec said:

Oh... I don't know about *no* use... I could see it potentially being exploited by Ashcan Pete for a closing win.

Avi_dreader said:

Heh, I don't know if you remember, but you're the one who came up with the "devouring gate" use for the Naacal Key.* It was the last time that I posted to say that the NK was useless. I should post "the Naacal Key is useless" every six months or so, just to see what you come up with.

*If want to get rid of a weak investigator, give him the Naacal Key and have him pick the devouring gate from Lurker. Then choose a new investigator.

Cross reference to another thread: how hard is it to be devoured? Not hard at all if you have BG, the NK, and are playing with Lurker gates!

avec said:

The Naacal Key is a pretty good way to pass Pete's obtuse Personal Story, as that is how I managed to do it once (one of the few times).

So...ALMOST useless.

It could also be useful for completing missions when you have to get to (insert OW area here) and there aren't any gates to that locale.

jgt7771 said:

Avi_dreader said:

Excellent work, and it really helps to salvage some mechanics that were botched in the expansion and had real potential. I'm gonna print it and try it with my group.

eriktheguy said:

Thanks :') I hope you guys enjoy it. It was designed to be more fun than difficult. Although of course, it can kill you if you aren't careful with it :')

You might not want to print it out in color yet though, I'm going to update this slightly eventually (so it's clear what to do with dual hexagon gates and where Dark Young go instead of the outskirts).

Yep, not very much to add to what my mates said, but... if you don't dislike playing with custom material, you might enjoy a little institution I created to boost a little the cult activities. You can have a look at that here

Stop the presses! I've been playing 'Black Goat' wrong all along....This was my first expansion to Arkham Horror (or to any other game) way back in the mists of October 2009. At first I thought they included duplicate Corruption cards so I took the duplicates out, not realizing that there's a card with a black or white movement symbol for each Corruption. Believe me, having only 16 cards total in both decks makes Corruption a real threat!

Then I corrected my mistake and included all 32 cards...

Which is still wrong!!! Looking at this Forum it finally dawned on me; this is like the Allies set-up in Dark Pharaoh 2- I think we're meant to include 8 red and 8 green Corruption cards sight unseen and discard the rest into the box. That's how I'm gonna play it next time...

Fake Ghost Pirate said:

32 is right. You're supposed to play with all Corruptions (16 green and 16 red) in. And sometimes they're not enough. It depends heavily on the games you play, of course, but if you go for a 5-investigator game, drawing 2 hex monsters and 1 normal per gate, then you risk to run out of corruptions pretty quickly! Or ask Avi some easier way for being corrupted to death!

Of course, if you're playing with Black Goat, Corruption is the least of your worries. And, come to think of it, so are monsters, since there's not much of a chance the Terror Track will kill you before the Doom Track does (or at least, that's always how it seemed to me).

I usually play solitaire with 2-3 Investigators- I'd recommend using only 16 Corruptions for fewer than 4 players.

Then again, I have to 'Nerf' the monster surge=Doom rule cause I never have a chance with that in play. Without it the Herald's not so bad, unless you're using half the Corruptions.

I've been playing black goat more, and while I love corruption. I never see it! We have played 3 games with Black Goat and it never surfaces even with Miskatonic Horror.

Curse of the Dark Pharaoh and the king in yellow add obvious theme. Black Goat, not so much.

I've been playing black goat more, and while I love corruption. I never see it! We have played 3 games with Black Goat and it never surfaces even with Miskatonic Horror.

Curse of the Dark Pharaoh and the king in yellow add obvious theme. Black Goat, not so much.

Have you played with the herald? If so are you remembering to gain a corruption whenever a hex monster is defeated?

Hey there,

Well broke open this expansion this week for the first time and tried it out -- I actually ended up playing with the custom Herald and Institution on this thread and had a lot of fun with em.

The Cult of a Thousand certainly brought out the corruptions in a big way, and by the end every investigator was a member and had a bit of corruption -- only 2 cards in the deck by the end of it! Michael McGlenn was positively dripping with corruption cards, lol.

I scrogged a couple rules by activating corruptions on the wrong colors a few times and also forgot to do away with them on closing of a gate, but I got a technical win by sealing 6 gates. I tried for a complete gate seal (not sure whether that should always be a goal), but that can be a tough -- kept playing and finally was done in when Shubby bust through with 2 investigators LITAS.

Also liked the substitute Black Goat herald listed here -- was wondering how often people play with the in-game herald. Is it really that much tougher? Also, was playing with 1 Cult encounter replacing the location encounter when a member of the Cult on cult locations, and 1 Cult encounter plus the location encounter when going to other unstable locations. Was that a correct interpretation? The custom herald and institution stuff was a lot of fun -- great work you guys.

By the way, Milk of Shub Niggurath saved my butt twice in this game, basically clearing the board allowing people through gates. Again Michael McGlenn, the corrupt madman of the party...

Aye, Milk is great

Happy you enjoyed the custom material hereby hosted

As for the original Herald... I do like it. But I also need to be in the right mood. Still, I won with that one and Rhan-Tegoth, so, I'd say it's doable