Finally got my copy and had a 5 hour game test session with mah friends.

As it was first time we played - many rules was misunderstood or overlooked, I re-checked them after the game and pointed out what we were doing wrong.

BUT I'm still a little bit confused about gate stuff.

So, if an Investigator ends his movenent in location with an open gate(movement phase), then he is sucked through it(arkham encounter phase) and has an encounter in the world he is sucked to(other world encounter)? Am I right?

The second question is about rules saying that when investigators leaves other world back to Arkham(movement phase), he gets explored marker and stuff, and he has a opportunity to close/seal the gate in next Arkham encounter phase. Arkham encounter phase goes right after movement phase in which investigator went back to Arkham, so he can seal get immediately or must he skip his turn and wait for another Arkham ecnounter after this one?

MyNeighbourTrololo said:

You are correct. Movement phase = move to a location with an open gate; AE phase = go through gate; OWE phase = have an Other World encounter.

You may attempt to close/seal the gate the very same turn that you came out of the gate. Movement phase = come out of the gate, obtain explored marker; AE phase = attempt to close/seal gate. If you fail to close the gate, then on your next turn - Movement phase = evade any monsters that are there and stay there or move away and lose your explored marker; AE phase = if you are still there, attempt to close/seal gate again. Repeat.

Here is one more to go.

I noticed there is 3 enironment type cards: Weather, Urban and Mystic.

Can all the 3 types can be present or this doesn't matter and every kind of environment removes previous?

I tripped up on this assumption myself, but yeah there can only ever be one environment card active, regardless of the type... Could make for a more challenging, thematic variant if you can have one of each type active however.

"It's hot, the stars are aligned and there ain't a drop to drink, this city's a powder keg about to blow"

Multiple environments will work, until you get "Blackest Night" and "Sunny and Clear" at the same time.

Then it begins to be unclear to me, why there is 3 activity markers while there can be only one activity at the time?

Also, how do you handle enormous Mythos and Other Worlds Encounters decks? Do you take them full or do you separate lesser part from it for one game?

They just so big...

One activity marker for a rumor's abate location, one for some lingering environmental offer, one for a one-turn headline effect that would be good to remember.

And, I take the decks as they are and do a pile shuffle. Preserves the cards' quality and keeps things highly random. Takes quite a bit of time to do, though.

The struggle pushing forward.

It took me a hour to shuffle all the game decks with good quality of random.

One hour? Wow, you made sure it was completely random then...

Yemson said:

MyNeighbourTrololo said:

Was he thirsty?

Julia said:

MyNeighbourTrololo said:

I don't even use the activity markers. They always seemed like an unnecessary extra step to me. I just leave the card on the board next to the location it's taking place at.

Same here, Avi. Don't use the Explored markers either.

MyNeighborTrololo: If you're a true stickler for randomness, you might consider doing what I do: randomize the small decks fully using polyhedral dice. Instead of shuffling the small decks, use the dice to randomly select one card and place it on the table. This is the bottom of the deck. Then randomly select another and place it on top of the first. Do this continually until the deck is fully randomized. Obviously, it's not really feasible to attempt this with any deck over 50 cards. Where this method really shines is in the encounters. Whenever you draw an encounter, use the dice to randomly select one. You'll always get fully randomized encounters and never need to shuffle.

In fact, because I am so into this concept of true, dice-generated randomness, I have been considering using it for drawing monsters. I'll be sure to relate just how this bolt of mad inspiration plays out if I ever attempt it....

Walk said:

I suppose I didn't specifically describe the method just because of its complexity. Say we take a deck with 20 cards (I assume there's some combination of expansions that results in one of the decks having 20 cards, not that it matter). If you're unfamiliar, the traditional polyhedral dice have four, six, eight, ten, twelve, and twenty sides. These are generally referred to by the letter d followed by the number of sides; thus, a traditional six-sided die would be a d6, while a twelve-sided die would be a d12. Anyway, back to the 20-card deck. You roll a d20 and use the result to select one of the cards. Thus, if you rolled a 6, you would take the sixth card from the deck. You place this card on...whatever surface you're using and then roll the d20 again. Since there are only nineteen cards left, you would reroll a result of 20. You then take the selected card and place it on top of the other one. You then continue randomly selecting cards, rerolling any results for which there are no cards in the deck. For convenience's sake, I would suggest you switch dice as the number of cards in the deck gets smaller. Thus, when there are only twelve cards left, you switch to a d12; when there are only ten, you switch to a d10, and so on.

If you're interested in how to do it with decks larger than 20 (and you probaby aren't), it depends on the number. When a deck has between 21 and 30 cards, you roll a d6, with a 1-2 representing 1-10, a 3-4 representing 11-20, and a 5-6 representing 21-30. You then roll a d10 to determine which number within this range you get. If you get a result that isn't in the deck (like if you roll a 5 on the d6 and a 7 on the d10 when there are 23 cards), you reroll both dice. For 31-40 cards, you roll a d6 (or whatever) with the lower half of results representing 1-20 and the higher half 21-40. You then roll a d20 to select the card within this range. As before, if you get a result that the deck doesn't have, you reroll both dice.

So yeah, it can be unwieldy unless you're used to it, but it does ensure full randomization. I generally don't do it with decks over 40. As I said, the best use is for determining random encounters.

@ Walk

I'm willing to deal with a less than ideal measure of randomness given the alternative ;'D I like the game to flow as simply as possible, it's complex enough already. What I do do for a weird amount of randomness with the mythos deck sometimes, is I take the base game mythos cards, then I randomly draw out another 40-60 mythos cards from other expansions. Then I use that as the mythos deck for a while. Sometimes I'll prune it more carefully if I want to go for a mythos deck that'll emphasize certain activity (I usually make sure Innsmouth and Dunwich are active, and don't include any other expansion mythos cards because I dislike the dilution, granted, things are done a bit differently post-Miskatonic).

Well, it may sound insanely compelx, but you get used to it eventually. It's definitely faster to roll for an encounter than shuffle the deck. Of course, this is all assuming you have the dice.

I don't shuffle the deck of encounters each time, I just shuffle it once before the game and then just keep drawing the top cards and discarding them.

Also, what are you guys think of Shub-Niggurath Ancient One+Black Goat of the Woods Herald combo for the second time play(first for some)?

I know, it's too much for new players, but we a bit lower on time this time and don't have a 5 hours, only 3, so this setup will devour us fast.

Well, technically, you are supposed to shuffle them every time. I've heard some people do it you way, but shuffling each time is the official line. As to your second question: well...I mean, you're certainly right that it will devour you quickly. Black Goat games are insanely frantic and winning by sealing or closing is nigh impossible. So most likely you'll have a mad scramble for monster trophies and weapons before Shub awakens (or an equally mad but far more futile scramble for seals). Personally, I don't like this style of game, but you might. I would broach it to the others in your group. It's always annoying playing with a time limit, but you stand a decent chance of finishing in time without the Goat if the players know the rules and you set everything up beforehand.

So today, during our rapid game, my gaming group scared to face Shub-Niggurath feat. Black Goat of the Woods, so I picked Yig as the AO instead(I heard something in rules saying that Yig is for fast game, and we didn't had much of a time).

What my question is about:

We didn't manage to win by sealing gates(had an environment card which completely forbides sealing for it's duration) nor by closing all existing gates and in the end Yig awakened. And what surprised me - we defeated him with such an ease. This made me think we were doing something wrong.

So, what basically happened:

Everyone but one of us got cursed(one of us had Father Iwanicki ally card which grants curse immunity) as the start of a battle effect. None of us were cursed previously so no devouring.

Then, we all rolled our combat checks against him, substracting his combat modifer of -3.

Two of us were a good fighters, I was McGlenn with my Tommy Gun and maximum Fight parameter, and second one was deputized Zoey with complete personal quest and good unique battle quipment. Third was not so good Jenny Barnes as she was not that much of a fighter + she and me were cursed.

Tehcnically we killed him in 3 turns before he was even able to attack.

How we did this: We rolled our attacks and for each 3 successes we removed one doom token from him. If there was remaining unused successes(for example someone rolled 5 succsesses, 3 of them remove 1 doom token and 2 remains unused), I placed equal amount of clue tokens on Yig's sheet and used them for further success progress. Was I doing it right? Or should removal of a doom token completely reset all further successes of a same roll?

According to your description, it seems to me that you played in the proper way. Yig is rather easy to defeat in final combat: if you want some extra challenge, then use the Epic Battle cards from Kingsport.

Not so sure why he couldn't attack you before three turns. But anyway, you still need 30 successes to defeat him in final combat, and with 2 investigators cursed, it shouldn't be *that* easy

Yeah, with two cursed players, that would've meant a lot of 6s. Thank Nodens for your lucky streak?

Julie's right though, Yig is pretty much the runt of the litter. You could imagine the other elder gods playing keep-away going "aww look at him he's so angry , isn't that just pweshus??"

Julia said:

Too bad I don't have Kingsport and it will be quite some time before I will get my hands on it(I curse myself for ordering things blindly, while I was waiting for AH with other expansions I ordered I figured there is so much enjoyable stuff in Kingsport, like Eihort or Charlie Kane).

Sorry, I meant we finished him in 3th turn before he attacked us for his thirt time.

Well, when you rolling about 10 dice every attack - sixes are not that rare. And our most powerful fighter wasn't even cursed.

Treguard said:

Yeah, I guess I should thank him. Though first time I read this I thought you were talking about his guardian sheet which I don't even possess

By the way, had someone played with Lurker at the Treshold herald? How did it go for you?

I'm just still unsure about adding heralds into the game yet as we all are still new and there are some more first time players incoming, and Lurker seems to be most friendly herald from all I have(Dark Pharaoh, Black Goar, Lurler, King, Mother and Father).

If it's difficulty you're looking for, add a Herald. The Lurker is the easiest, and he's also quite fun. I would highly recommend him...it...the Lurker.