Hello all. A friend of mine got Arkham Horror as a gift this year, but she puts me in charge or learning game rules (cuz I love it). Anyhow, most of the rules in AH are pretty clear, or well enough errataed that I can figure it out. But I cannot find an answer to this question, so please help me out if you could…

Situation: A Flying monster spawns at a gate location. During a later Mythos phase that monsters symbol is drawn for movement, but there are no Investigators in the monsters location, or ajoining street.

As I read it, the monster does nothing, just stays where it is. Option B in the flying moster rules only covers what to do if there IS an Investigator in the adjacent street, and option C only states the monster will go to The Sky if already IN a street (no mention of a Location).

Likewise, I see no way for an Investigator to simply go after a flying monster that is in The Sky. All they can do is wait around in the street and hope that monsters movement symbol is drawn, correct?

Thanks for any feedback here.

Download the new FAQ. Page 12 has a whole section on "The Sky and Flying Monsters."

Quick answers, though: a Monster will move to the Sky from a Location or a Street space, and there is no way for an Investigator to get TO the Sky, but there are a couple of ways for an Investigator to AFFECT the Sky (Lightning Gun, a Spell or two).

And believe me, you will find that the game will have plenty of ways to get you in the Streets to be targets for divebombing…so "waiting" won't be too much of an issue. (Really, who wants to wait for a Flying Polyp to land on you?!)

Nagash59,

The rules governing Monster Movement would probably be in the Top 10 ost Asked Questions. In this example which you cite, the Monster would move to the street and since there are no Investigators in the street, the Monster would move to the sky. Later, it would move from the Sky only if there's an investigator in a Street Area.

Cheers,

Joe/the Professor

I'm sorry JGT ~ I didn't even see your response…

Hi all,

Im fairly new to Arkham Horror (base set only thus far), with 4 games under my belt - 2 wins, 1 loss (but only because I later realised we were mistakenly increasing the doom track on a monster surge) and 1 called off because it got too late and people had to get home before the trains stopped running - and even newer to the forums, this being my first post.

Re the flying monster movement, I wanted to ask if anyone uses any additional house rules around this, as in last night's game we were drawing a LOT of flying creatures, who, as there never happened to be any investigators nearby, immediately went into the skies.

Following the rules to the letter, (and clarifying I'm doing it correctly it in the latest faq) it seems a flying monster will only come out of the sky if their monster movement symbol is drawn on the mythos card AND there happens to be an investigator in the streets. The problem with this is that I've found investigators pretty much will never end their turn in the streets; it's only occured a handful of times in my 4 games when either dealing with a rumour or getting thrown into the streets by an encounter.

This makes it very rare for a flying creature to come out of the sky, and we ended up with 4 who stayed in the skies for all of the game last night, and with our monster limit being 6, we could only ever have two monsters on the board before they would go in the outskirts. This was a bit frustrating as I like fighting the horrors, but wasn't willing to wait out in the streets for no reason but to try and tempt the creatures down.

Has anyone else found this an issue? Am I playing it right?

The fix I thought of would be that if a flying creature in the sky draws their movement symbol, and there is no investigator in the streets, it will instead go to the street area next to an investigator in a location (eg if there's an investigator in the science building the flying creature would go the MU streets), meaning the investigator must either fight or evade the creature to get out on their next movement. Does anyone play a similar rule?

Any thoughts or suggestions on this are most appreciated!

Thanks in advance, apologies for the rambling post!

I'm sure there are a number of House Rules governing the Monsters in the Sky. One of the great things from a game-mechanic standpoint, is that as more monsters fill the city and a few are in the Sky, filling the OUtskirts becomes an issue, which leads to clearing the Outskirts and raising the Terror Level…yeah, Arkham isn't easy on the ol' Investigators.

Klaive64 said:

I've experienced the same thing, but I wouldn't call it an issue; it's just how the game works. From what you're writing it does indeed seem that you're playing it right. You are, of course, free to make house rules if you wish, but drawing monsters will always be a game of luck (or the lack of it). In one game the sky may be crammed full of fliers, while in the next the gates may be guarded by several Chthonians, Ghosts and Dark Young. This game has more than just fliers to spew out. ;-]

I think you're right, it's just luck of the draw that we had so many flying creatures and they all ended up stuck in the sky.

I will stick to the normal rules for now and see if I have the same issue.

Muchos Gracias!

It stays at the gate until activated if it should be activated and nothing happens afterwards then it goes to the sky waiting until it activates again and combat should happen to get rid of it