So my gaming group and I moved away from AH in search of new worlds and boards to conquer a few months ago. Just recently though we have heard the siren's call and rejoined the ranks of AH addicts. We have been playing slightly differently this time around however. For each expansion, we own all of them, we take that expansion's mythos and a even number of core mythos and blend them. Therefore we are trying to achieve a sort of blended focus of single expansion with core mechanics. We felt that we owned all these expansions but never saw many new mechanics, this seems to be a common problem on this board. Now the observation part. Since this we have yet to win a single game. Not one. Before we were regularly stomping through AH winning I would say 75% of the time. But now with this new concentrated approach, we are getting crushed. Anyone else seen anything like this before? For the record we started with the revised pharoph(sp.) and got smashed repeatedly. Does the concentration really matter this much??

Sorry for the ramble and most likely repeated grammatical errors, trying to type this out quickly before work gets going.

Cheers,

Mike

Need more information.

The primary differences between the way you're playing now (one expansion) and then (all expansions) is the number of unstable locations and the non-dilution of the Mythos deck. Before, you were playing Speed Arkham: Gates could open in 20 separate locations, and the diversity could have too many Gates open in 7 turns (or even less). As such, you had no time to focus on anything but Clues and Seals, and you were probably exceedingly efficient at that. Also, you might have had a great many less monster surges (because it was easier to draw a non-duplicate Gate Location) thus making it easy to travel to Clues and Gates.

So WHY are you getting crushed? Is it because the focused attention of Gates on a single expansion board is activating the Dunwich Horror/Deep One Rising Track? I've seen many games end abruptly from one or two surges on Devil Reef, and I've seen the wee hamlet of Dunwich crawling with monsters. Is it because your strategies are hindered by a greater presence of monsters from surges? The more times you go to the Cup, the better your chances of pulling something nastier than you'd prefer. That's one failed Evade check away from a trip to the ER, which can screw up many plans.

On the other hand, being a living entity, the game could be righteously pissed at you for abandoning it for so long.

Well, I realized that 3 boards at once will be ridiculous, so when I finally received all of the AH expansions, I built 3 mythos and 3 OW decks - one for KH, one for DH and one for IH.

Played our first last sunday. Was Dunwich board with Dunwich Horror herald, Organized Crime institution and Hypnos Guardian. Abhoth as an Ancient One.

Game was filled with DH-involved events thanks to good-built dunwhich deck. And Abhoth awoke. And we defeated him in our first final battle with this final battle deck. Was fun. We were lucky to have two Shotgunners(Charlie Kane with randomed common shotgun and Wilson with fixed shotgun) and there was this final battle condition that adds +1 per six and substracts -1 from ones. So with shotguns one six was 3 hits. And Abhoth dont has any physical resistances. Was brutal.

Just a guess, but two things come to mind regarding CotDP: first, the gate frequencies are going to be slightly more uniform than usual, with places like the Science Building somewhat more active than they would otherwise be, and second, you're going to be seeing a hell of a lot of double-doom mythos cards.

I'm thinking maybe it's the board…

We're Family…we'll always take you back…

(hehehe…and yes, I like that movie)

This game is alive. Full stop no counter arguement allowed. There have been more times that I can count where my group has been one seal away, AO has 4 doomers left and he still wakes up and crushes us.

A better example might be how we tried the same setup with KiY. Constant terror and act cards made the game seem actually self aware. The reduced number of mythos cards combined with the focal point on the expansion seems to be the right mix to increase difficulty. That being said we also seperated our monsters by expansion as well. Playing with the core + any expo monsters also increases the tension. Before we did this, I felt as if half the monsters we had never even seen before, even though we have played more than 75+ games.

Finally we seperated out all items as well. I really wanted to experience the expansions as focused as possible. Having two seperate common etc decks makes for an interesting balance. We made the rule that when acquiring a new item you must first roll for which pile the purchase is coming from… this had some weird side effects though. For instance the core unique deck has, I think, 4 Elder Signs. While some expansions have additional unique items but no additional Elder Signs. Thus going to purchase new uniques could yield that purchases only come from the expo deck… thus reduced probablity of Elder Sign acquisition.

Finally we are going to be trying one new expo + core a week. I finally feel like our group is seeing what each expansion has to offer.

Last but not least we still have yet to pick up Miskatonic (sp.) expo… is this truely worth it for what we are trying to achieve?

Cheers

Miskatonic does help with some of the mechanics that were previously diluted, most obviously The Act cards.

I use all expansions together and get regularly crushed (but not always) - I don't see this as a problem myself.

I didn't think AH was a game it was possible to win 75% of the time, unless I'm a particularly poor player.*

(*this is entirely possible)

Not all mechanics are seen in every game - sometimes the Dunwich Horror never makes an appearance and sometimes he's out quite quickly.

The Kingsport & Innsmouth boards always seem to need attention at some point.

I think just using one expansion at a time (with the base game mythos cards) should highlight the different mechanics better.

The way you're playing it should make the game a LOT harder. Innsmouth or Dunwich will be crawling with monsters and thus Dunwich Horror/Deep Ones Rising tracks will fill before you know what happened. (But it'll be a wild ride, especially Innsmouth!) The only expansion which shouldn't be much harder would be Kingsport, since the Rifts will progress the same no matter what Mythos cards are played.

Think about the King In Yellow- how the "Touring Performance" is so much harder cause all those "Next Act Begins" cards are concentrated right up front- but that expansion was designed for it. Innsmouth/Dunwich were not. I've tried a 1/2 ratio of Innsmouth vs Arkham Mythos cards (I shuffle 7 Innsmouth and 14 Base Game cards together) and it makes for an INSANE game every time- 50/50 would be impossible.

I think you've stumbled upon a good variant for people who claim the game's "too easy"….

Without a doubt, this has made the game that much more enjoyable for our gaming group. When you are first taught how to play AH, the game seems impossible to win; however, as many people have noticed, the longer you play the better you actually become at the game. There is without question a skill curve involved. The decisions you make as a group, whether its deciding to speed close gates or farm your characters, impacts the way the game develops. A group who knows these and other strategies has a definate advantage over a "green" group.

The 50/50 ratio seems to be just about right. It has brought about a new challenge for our group. Of course again I am hearing the call to get a new board game (honestly not sure why seeing as how we have so many already). Hopefully I can dodge the call, but its doubtful. Anyone have any exciting recommendations coming out soon? Been looking at Yaggadrisl (sp.).

Finally I think that if FFG was to introduce a collectors edition variant I would be the first in line. The AH series and other ones like it are games I hope to play with my kids some day and pass them on to their generation. I remember playing Hero Quest 1st edition with my dad. I would wait all day for him to come home from work and have the board already setup and be ready to go. Its because of memories like these that I think boardgaming will continue regardless of how the video game market develops. Tabletop games have some sort of magic that cannot be recreated in RGB.

Off the soap box and back to the horror. I am excited to see how these 50/50 gaming sessions will continue to progress. I think we will try to do a DH concentration next. My group has always debated if you could "farm" the horror for items and we shall soon see.

I just wrote my bit on another current topic in the forum (combining decks) about how my group plays with all the expansions. Mike, your group sounds very similar to mine. We rule Arkham Horror and in fact just the basic game, we have never lost a game including the 1st one I ever taught to my group. From there we just added expansion after expansion and no kidding, rarely lost. The only time we ever really got conquered, and repeatedly lost is when we play with every expansion and go completely hardcore. Meaning we play with all 9 heralds, all 3 institutes and all 3 guardians at the same time. This is a version we have never won though we have come close. Ok, one time we lost on the 1st round but really, we did come close once! But what we have never done is what other people have written on this forum (including you) is to play the game with separate decks for a more focused themed game. I have to admit, this is a pretty interesting variation to me but y'all have to explalin some mechanics to me. Do you all just round-robin which deck to pull from? Or is it a random determination? Or is it player's choice? Will definitely have to give this a try when I get some feedback from y'all. Because one of the things that you definitely lose when you throw everything together is you lose the feeling of theme. The Yellow King is one of my favorite expansions but it rarely affects the game when you're playing with everything.

Team Wrong said:

That IS hardcore. I've never even thought of doing this.