Hi all! I just got the game and am starting to figure out the rules - ran into a quandry straight off.

I flip the first mythos card - A gate opens in the witch house and a maniac appears there. I check the movement symbols but there's no match so he stays put (right?).

Okay - first investigator moves - she's got a big bad gun and wants to take the maniac out . So she moves to the space and--

Here's the question--

Does she get to face the maniac (fight him) or does she immediately go right through the gate into the otherworld, ignoring the maniac and leaving him back in Arkham (until she can get back to face him?) and this face the otherworld encounter instead???

Any help is appreciated, or correction if I've messed up in the set up.

Thanks and warm regards,

Dane

Roy Batty said:

Phase order is very important in Arkham Horror. For your first few games you'll want to keep the pages of the rulebook open to the Phase breakdown and follow them fairly carefully to get the timing of things right.

In your example, the investigator will move to the Witch House during the movement phase, and fight the Maniac (which also happens during movement phase). Then during the Arkham Encounter phase she will be drawn through the gate into the Other World on the gate marker. Then during Other World Encounter phase, she will have an Other World encounter.

And you were right with the monster movement thing. A monster will never move if it's symbol is not on the mythos card, with a couple of rare exceptions that crop up in expansions, but you won't have to worry about them for a while yet..

Just to re-iterate - combat is a part of the Movement Phase, not the Ecounter Phase (unless a new monster is spawned as a result of the encounter). That's sort of counter-intuitive to me, but that's the way it works.

Mike