What is the point of the Arkham Horror League? Are there prizes for the winning teams or for participating etc. I understand that there's different scenarios and whatnot, but those could be played outside of a league couldn't they. Excuse my ignorance, I'm just curious.

Thanks,

Matthew

It's the prestige, man, the prestige! It's all about honor, bragging rights and - most importantly - the fun. The scenarios are really great to play. The little changes from your standard AH game force you to do things a little differently and your established "standard rules of procedure" might not work.

The scenarios also create a sense of story and saga; the characters tend to develop a history and personality. It's almost like having an RPG element added to the game. The scenarios also add great plot twists and challenges that the regular game just doesn't give - it breathes new life and fun into a game that, despite having so much depth, can sometimes become a little "samey" (which can be said for any game). Of course the prestige counts for a lot. I've also noticed that my game group are completely hooked and can't wait to get started on the new league. Great fun all round!!

since we had the same 2 characters from the first character to the last we started making jokes about previous scenarios...

team Mandy & Joe rule!

It's a personal thing, probably. Our group loved the idea of being in a competiton with others and seeing our results up on the official homepage. Of course we could have played the scenarios without sending in the scores, but for us it adds to the fun.

there was also the added puzzle factor - "how on earth did they get that high a score for that scenario?"

Yeah speaking of that, can someone please explain how the Japanese team scored that high? I mean I read thier post on BGG, but seriously its like they had no bad rolls or bad luck at all. Ever.

I mean I played a scenerio once where the only two gates open on the board with Yog-soth were the gates to R'leyh AND we had an enviornment card where the penalty to close those gates was increased by -1 or -2. So at best it was -4[2] to finish off these two gates.

Could someone explain their method to me slowly? Or did they just game AH that hard that it was worked as a mathmatical equation?

Impressive results indeed.

Consider Scenario 3 in which they scored 62. With 8 investigators surviving, a final terror track of zero, ALL 20 gate tokens held unspent and ALL 64 (/3=21 points) monsters CAPABLE of being held as trophies in the possession of the group a score of 62 would be the maximum possible. When I saw that they had scored 62 I was momentarily impressed until I remembered that you could get points for completing tasks and missions and then their score seemed fairly ordinary. I am surprised that no other 8 player groups managed to surpass it. In fact I’m half tempted to round up another 7 half-wits a give them a good whipping in season 2.

Our 8-player team wasn't at all concerned about points. We just wanted to survive each scenario with our team intact. We only lost one character the whole league -- my character, Joe Diamond, when I graciously allowed another person to play that week in my place and he decided to fight the Moon Beast without checking what his stats were and got devoured for NO GOOD REASON!!!...sorry, just a little bitter -- and that was all we hoped for. Points, schmoints, we just wanted to play the scenarios.

sulphurea said:

::Shrug:: it's not *that* hard to get a maximum score if you don't mind using game exploits, playing a brutally powerful team, and spending obscene amounts of time. I'm slightly dubious about scenario three— but even that could be pulled off without too much trouble if you abused Daisy with lure monster in the street next to the Black Cave. I suppose if you use the elder signs and the mission that removes a doom token you can increase the elder track effectively by five— and then you can also use the dragons eye and darrell simmons at the church to probably get a few more doom tokens removed.

bioball said:

I am curious which investigators they used though. Can you link to their post?

Respect. Enjoy the up-and-coming league.

@ Avi: I am worthless, I cannot find the post on BGG but I remember they did not list thier characters (which was something I wanted to know as well). I do know they had the Photographer in order to cycle through the church inorder to find blessing for all the characters. But still it just seems amazing to me.

@BioBall: Especially since the rules state that once all the monsters or gates are gone, any further gate openings, or monster spawns would result in the waking of the GOO. Being able to time the gate closings and killing all the monsters is about impossible, I know, cause my team tried this on a few scenarios and always ran out of monsters far too early with only about half the gates in possession.

@Bravo: Yeah, that is exactly what I thought as well. I don't really care about points and problem keeping everyone playing consistantly with a complicated rule set is the reason the League is for honor, but still I am more just really curious how this team got the score. And its not just once that they pulled off the perfect game-- they kept doing it.

For the record, I am not trying to troll or hate on anyone. I am just curious and I am sure a lot of other people are as well.

EDIT: Also my players, who don't read these boards, always ask if anyone has posted the solution.

I wondered about this at the beginning of the league also and Avi was kind enough to point out the ways to keep the doom track down as he did above. So it is possible, the only issue I see is really timing the gates and monsters so that you dont run out of one over the other. plus as someone else stated, this scored may reflect alot of missions and tasks. With 8 players you certainly would have alot of free time to do stuff like this.

Bravo McWilley said:

::Shrug:: if you pay attention to these kinds of things, it should be possible to time them perfectly, or near perfectly ;'D especially if you're willing to redo your game. Personally, I think it is ridiculous and silly. I don't think it proves that you're a better player, it just proves that you're insane and anally compulsive ;') although that might be considered a merit badge among Lovecraft fans. I was able to get pretty disgusting scores, and had I planned things more carefully, I probably could've gotten perfect scores most of the time (of course, I was so sickened by score hunting that by scenario three, I quit).

Heh... I also forgot about Marie Lambeau (subtracts another doom token).

In retrospect, I think the ideal team for score hunting would be Daisy, Kate, Marie, Jaqueline, Joe, Charlie, Darrell, and Mandy. The reason I'd include Kate even though Arcane Insight was always taken out :') is because she can sit on an open gate and block gate surges (i.e. let you control the flow of monsters while waiting for another gate to open— that way you won't have to seriously worry about running out of monsters before you collect all the gates— if you do your math right and are constantly counting your trophies). As much as I like Rex and Wendy, I don't think they're essential if you're going for a control victory, whereas those other characters can make an extremely nasty combination for reducing (essentially nearly eliminating if you play right) chance when combined.

I think Kate sitting on a last open gate is the key element for making a balance of gate and monster collection possible in a semi-timely fashion. Without her, you may need to cut some corners, or do replays, or take major risks to get a perfect score (as opposed to a near perfect score).

Hrm... On second thought, I think you might be better off with Ashcan Pete than Joe Diamond (as much as I like Joe). There's a wide number of game features you can exploit with him. King in Yellow, Old Journal, Eltdown Shards, Daisy's Tome (Tome of Ivry?— this way in scenarios with DH you can get both alchemies almost immediately— then take out bank loans with everyone and start buying out store stock— sure, the alternative to this is just buying out so much of a store that there are only items like KiY, OJ, ES, and ToI in stock :') that's another way of playing it, although it's a bit of a trade off— I think Pete would generally be better than Joe in this kind of game in the short run as well as the long run— as he would allow you to seal two or three gates inexpensively early on, even though he doesn't have double dice and a nice gun ::shrug:: I think the the only time Joe's ability was really essential was for sealing the black cave in scenario three, without being devoured still, with an extra five clue tokens on Pete and Mandy and a lucky cigarette case in case he fails with them, I'd say it's not really an issue). ::Sigh:: I'm tempted to say boot Marie instead, but that extra doom token can really come in handy and her starting equipment's not bad either (for giving to Daisy).

As a new player I'm interested in the theory but I don't fully understand. How would Kate be able to "sit" on an open gate, exactly ? How would she go about not getting sucked in ?

Also, what exactly is dragon's eye use in controlling the doom track ? I never really understood what this cart meant when it said "location or gates".

I imagine you let Kate travel through the Other World, then emerge with an explored marker, allowing her to sit on the gate indefinitely without closing it, and also blocking monsters from coming through. A nastier interpretation of the "monsters cannot appear at her location" rule might be that, in the event of a monster surge, the same number of monsters appear... you just can't put any of them on Kate's gate. Interpreting the rules otherwise might be what was referred to as a "game exploit" earlier in this thread... both, I believe, would be valid readings of the rules (but there may very well be a FAQ item or thread that settles the matter that I don't know about).

I have a question about the "buying all available items" strategy... how does one deal with the FAQ (1.2 I think?) ruling that "if you *can* buy one of the three cards you draw, you *must* buy one"? Or was this ruling reversed?

Our group just found out about it and everyone is excited. I think the point is not only to run through the games but to be able to talk about them in a grander stage. Think of it as Arkham Horror, the mini series!

00zaphod said:

Hmm? That wasn't what I was referring to with "buying all available items." If you make such massive amounts of money that you could cycle through a shop's original deck three times and buy out all its items, *that's* buying all available items :'D Once you've bought out the shop, you have discardable items that become the "deck" after being discarded (which at that point is perhaps a card or two).

As for Kate, gates do not appear at her location— and since a gate can not appear when she is on a location, there can't be a monster surge that starts on her location (because the gate could not appear). Hmmm... On second thought (having reviewed the rule book— page nine) I am unsure. Well... At the very least she still should be able to prevent eight monster surges in an eight player game with only one gate open (while waiting for a second gate). It's not necessarily quite as strong as I imagined, but it's still strong enough to get the job done (keeping monsters under control while waiting for the rest of the gates to open).

Aureliano said:

You use Dragon's Eye with Darrell Simmons, this basically allows you to draw three out of (what is it, seven?) a location's cards in the base set (once expansions are added in, it becomes a little more difficult) . Then you go to South Church. It has an one encounter that allows you to roll a die for the possibility of removing a doom token. Later in the game, there is another encounter (that isn't that difficult to access) in Kingsport that allows the same sort of tactic (I'm not refering to the William Bain related stuff— I think it's the one with Olney).

And yes :') I was the first person to post this exploit on the old board ;') people were suggesting I cheated to get my score in the first game of the league.

This whole thing with Kate seem to imply a lot of "I think it works this way". Hasn't there be any official ruling about her ? Some of my friends found weird that I thought even though a gate didn't appear on her location, you're supposed to put a doom token anyway.

As for dragon card, I understand the whole "location card" thing (except I'm unsure if it works for Other Worlds encounters too), but what is a "gate card" ? Or "gate" ? Does that imply you can redraw a gate token if you don't like the dimension it's going to ?

Aureliano said:

I don't think a doom token would be added if a gate "opened" on spot where she was (because it wouldn't actually appear). I'd need to see the text on the dragon card, but I need to go and don't have time to look for it. I was under the impression that you can't use it in Other Worlds.

If we're talking about the Dragon's Eye, then it works with location and gate cards. If you look at the contents of AH, you'll note 63 Location cards (so 7 per 9 neighborhoods), 67 Mythos and 49 Gate cards (those being the OW encounter deck).