Ia! Ia! Happy holidays ftagn!

As part of my super Christmas bundle, I was christened with five expansions, thus completing my Arkham Horror collection. In trying Kingsport tonight, I came across a few things that I was unsure of, and while my gaming group typically just makes on-the-spot verdicts concerning issues not found in the rulebook, some issues still arose where no easy answer came to us.

While against Atlach, Mystic environments don't have their special effects take place. Easy enough. But what if there's already an Urban environment in play? As I understood it, the Mystic one would open a gate, place a clue token, move monsters, then be discarded, leaving the Urban on the board. However, our group was pretty split on if the new environment, even though it was Mystic, would discard the Urban, thus leaving no environments on the board.

I also found the rules a bit lacking when discussing rifts past how to open and close them, with such questions as: can investigators enter spots with rifts? Directly related, what happens if a rift enters a space with an investigator? Or a gate? In that matter, what about a void? As I understand it, a rift wouldn't enter a void, but it starts on the same space as a gate, so can it also move back on top of gates? A basic rundown of rifts logistics in totale would be very helpful, because even though it opposes the general opinion I've gathered from many forum members, we actually very much enjoyed Kingsport, we just need to get these rough spots shaved away.

I also got Kingsport as a x-mas gift.

Maybe I will post some questions in this thread later as well.

One of your questions I think I have an answer for anyway.

The Urban Environment stays in play. You just look at the mythos card to find out where portas open and how monsters move, as well as where the new clue appears. Then the card is discarded without the environmental effect taking place.

It's the same with Ithaqua but with weather environments instead…

JBouthietteJr said:

Hi there!

Welcome aboard! Hope you could enjoy the ride into madness with all the expansions for AH!

As for your questions: yes, you (and the first friend answering you) were right, Atlach works exactly as Ithaqua (they have the same wording), and Ithaqua's ability was clarified in the FAQ (see pag 10):

Q: Ithaqua’s “Icy Winds” power says “All Weather cards are discarded without their special effects taking place.” What happens in a game with Ithaqua if a non-Weather Environment is already in play, and a Mythos card with a Weather Environment effect is drawn?
A: Do not replace or discard the existing non-Weather Environment card. Do the basic upkeep portions of the new Weather Mythos card (gate, clues, monsters move), but ignore its special ability and then discard it.

As for the rift movements and so on. You spawn the rift on the location shown on the Mythos card that caused the rift to open. In case there is no location shown on the card, you keep on drawing Mythos cards until you find one showing you a location (see FAQ, pag 25). Then the rifts can move, every time its symbol appears on a Mythos card during the "resolve monsters movement step". The rifts move, careless of everything. It can move over a gate (you're right, in many cases, you'll have a rift opening over a gate), and investigators can move through a rift. And rifts can enter a vortex (from FAQ, pag 25):

Q: What happens if a rift moves into a Vortex [DH, IH]?
A: It stays there. Note that when a mythos card indicates that monsters with the rift’s dimensional symbol move, a monster appears in the vortex, raising the terror level by one and adding either one Dunwich Horror token to the Dunwich Horror Track [DH] or one uprising token to the Deep Ones Rising track [iH]. The drawing of the proper dimensional symbol on a Mythos Card triggers appearance of a monster, NOT the actual movement.
Similarly, if the color of the dimensional symbol on the rift matches the background behind the corresponding dimensional symbol on the Mythos Card, add a doom token to the doom track, even if the rift can no longer move along a path.

Generally speaking, refer to KH rules on pag 8, FAQ clarifications on pag 25, and then fee free to ask all the questions you want here in the forum. There is always someone watching over these halls.

Hope this helps!

JULIA