I finished my first game tonight. I decided to play by myself because I was too excited to wait for a day that better suited my friends. I controlled three investigators (Darrell Simmons, Mandy Thompson, and "Ashcan" Pete), and the Ancient One was Azathoth.

I am pretty excited to say that I did win the game by sealing six gates. It was pretty great, and I cannot wait to play it with some other humans.

During the game a couple of things came up that I was not sure exactly how to handle, and I was hoping that the fine people at this forum could help me to make sense of these situations.

The first is one that actually occurred. If a location is sealed, and the encounter card drawn says, "A gate opens and a monster appears." does the monster still show up even though no gate could open? I played it that no monster came because there was no gate from which it could spawn. Is that the correct way to handle that situation or would the monster still come into play just like it would if the card had just said that a monster appears?

The second is a situation that did not actually occur, but I was still curious about it. I noticed that there are several items that say that they cannot be lost or stolen unless you choose to lose them. Does this mean that they are immune to loss if you are knocked unconscious or driven insane? Obviously, you choose which items you lose at that point, so do these items, in effect, not count toward the total number of items of which you must lose half?

Thanks for any information that you can share.

Hi there!

Congrats for winning on your first game! You've done wisely to play against Azathoth: the longest doom track and the little impact this AO has on the game allow a lot of time to learn how the board works and how to put the **** six seals on the table, so, well done sir!

As for your questions: sealed locations are a safe place. Hence, as result of encounters, no gate can open there, and no monster can appear. Even if the encounter sayes something like "a monster jumps at you as you approach the front door" (no mention of gates) you can simply smile and ignore the encounter.

And yes, you keep these items even if you go insane. Let's say you have five items, and one of them cannot be lost or stolen, and you are driven insane. You have to discard half of your items (rounded down), hence two. You cannot say "ok, two items, one of them is the item I cannot discard, so I discard only one item". You have to choose two items eligible for being discarded. BUT. If you have only items that cannot be discarded, you don't discard anything

Hope this clarifies your doubts. In case, ask more!

Hi and warm welcomes to this community You will find we are happy to field questions here. We may not always have answers though, the permutations involved in AH can be a complex web of madness.

1) Once a gate is sealed, any new gate trying to open there will fail to open, and this will prevent any new monster from appearing too. Seals can be burst however (removed) once you add Dunwich Horror or one of the other expansions with gate burst Mythos cards in.

2) These items cannot be lost or stolen unless you choose to allow it. This does come into play when you are KOd or driven temporarily insane, so you can choose not to allow them to be lost and that means they are not counted. You can also allow them to be lost in that case, to save something more valuable. The effect also comes into play when you are told something is stolen or that you must lose 1 item and when you default on a bank loan.

There's a FAQ at this regard (pag. 6)

Q: Some Items state that they cannot be lost or stolen unless you choose to allow it. When does this ability come into play?
A: It would come into play when an investigator goes insane, gets knocked unconscious, or defaults on a bank loan. It would also come into play when any other game effect specifically instructs you to lose an item or tells you an item is stolen.

Excellent! Thank you for the information. I am sure that I will have many more questions as I play more games.

I am sure you will! There is the rulebook, the official FAQ, then there is only us and the quivering trid nodes of Yuggoth between you and absolute knowledge :-)

Congratulations, Mud Turkey! I feel as though I'm late to the party, but Welcome to the Carnival!

It's a great game...I happen to play with all of the expansions and always with four Investigators. To dj's point, there are some great expansions and you'll enjoy each one for their specific theme. To Julia's point, definitely spend the time to understand how the board works. For your own sanity and that of your Investigators, play a number of games (and woin most of them!) before even considering an expansion.

I actually already bought some of the expansions, but I had not really planned to use them until I got a few games under my belt. I am currently attempting to get my friend to play tonight, but it may end up being another solo mission.

Which did you get? It is really a good idea to resist using them for a while as you say. I think a good rule of thumb for the point at which you really need to add your first small box expansion is after you have a good handle of the rules (you do not pick up the rulebook anymore) and have won 3-4 games. If you can beat the AOs with a smaller Doom track fairly consistently you then need another board. For that I would suggest Dunwich Horror.

Have fun with your next epic mission!

The expansions that I have are The Lurker At the Threshold, The King In Yellow, The Curse of the Dark Pharaoh, and Kingsport Horror.

I played another game last night, and I only had to reference the rulebook once compared to about twenty times the first night I played. I think I am progressing nicely. A couple of my friends are actually going to play with me next week, so I figure after those two games I may try to incorporate one of the expansions. Any suggestions on which one I should use from the ones that I have?

Something did come up last night that I had a question about. I was using Kate Winthrop, and the first Mythos card had a portal on the Science Building. In that situation should I re-draw the starting Mythos card, or am I fortunate enough to start the game with a free turn essentially? Thanks again.

dj's suggestion is spot-on and the general consensus around here (and elsewhere...meaning check out the threads/posts at boardgamegeek.com) is the best Big Box Expansion is Dunwich Horror and the best Small Box Expansion is the King in Yellow.

Are you talking about revised dark pharaoh? If so I recommend that as your first expansion experience. And as for Kate she gets you a turn to act without monsters or gates.

Glad you are handling the rules hands free now. Have you eyeballed the FAQ? Also, beware - the rules have some subtleties. Order of procedures in Upkeep phase is one of them - means you are stuck with last turns stats in some cases. There are other little but important rules like this to observe.

Excellent! Thank you for the information. I am sure that I will have many more questions as I play more games.

Yours thankfully

GM

Excellent! Thank you for the information. I am sure that I will have many more questions as I play more games.

Welcome to a whole new wonderful world. Stay a while, stay forever...... AH is the best game you can play with your clothes on........ :-)

Yours thankfully

GM

You can also play Arkham Horror with your clothes off. Arkham Horror is very modular.

Are you talking about revised dark pharaoh? If so I recommend that as your first expansion experience. And as for Kate she gets you a turn to act without monsters or gates.

Glad you are handling the rules hands free now. Have you eyeballed the FAQ? Also, beware - the rules have some subtleties. Order of procedures in Upkeep phase is one of them - means you are stuck with last turns stats in some cases. There are other little but important rules like this to observe.

I am talking about the revised version of Dark Pharaoh.

I will be certain to read through the entirety of the FAQ. I had just glanced over it prior to my first game.

I played another game last night, and two questions came to mind.

My first question has to do with the Outskirts. If, for example, the Outskirts is one monster from its cap and the board is at its monster limit and a monster surge occurs that sends out four monsters where would all of those extra monsters go? One would be added to the Outskirts to bring it to its max monster limit. From there is where I am getting somewhat confused. I believe the next one would send it over the limit, so it and all of the other monsters in the Outskirts would go back to the cup. Then what do I do with the last two monsters? Would they be sent to the cup with the other Outskirt monsters that went over the max, or do they stay in the Outskirts? I hope that is not too confusing.

**Edit**

I just found this in the FAQ, and it answered my question. The extra monsters are retained in the Outskirts.

The second question I have has to do with Lost In Time and Space. I just wanted to make sure that I was playing it properly. I have been sending the investigators there and delaying them. They then miss their entire next turn. The following turn I was standing them up in the movement phase. Then the next turn they can return to the board. Is that the proper procedure?

Thanks again for any clarification that you can provide.

a) the turn you go LiTas, you can't do anything else

b) the next turn, you raise your marker in standing position, and you can't do anything else

c) the next turn you return to Arkham during Upkeep (remember this because it's important for interacting correctly with monsters)

Thank you very much.

I am going to play a game with The Curse of the Dark Pharaoh tonight, and I had one question before I started. Do patrol markers and monsters interact in any way if they are in the same street location? Can they even be in the same street location? Thanks.

No, they do not, the lynch mob is only looking for you. They can share a street though.

Thanks. I played with The Curse of the Dark Pharaoh and Lurker At the Threshold. It was very long, and I finally lost on a monster surge when the Terror Level was at ten. It woke Azathoth up. There had been a gate burst early on in the game robbing me of the one seal that I would have needed to win. I had Amanda in R'lyeh with six clue tokens and an Elder Sign. Unfortunately, she drew the multicolored encounter and got to be devoured by Cthulhu. After that occurred I could just never get enough clue tokens to seal a gate. It was a sad situation.

Ach! pity. Amanda succumbing to Cthulhu with the clues and ES and that gate cracking back open were clearly the nuclear strike of your downfall. Did you use the Lurker herald (actually more like a hybrid herald/guardian) or the Dark Pharaoh? Did you use the heralds at all? I am asking because with the Lurker herald you may still have had a chance.

When your seals can melt, you have to reckon on needing 7 seals, not six, just as a safety net. Note that I said *can*. You have to assume the odds are going to throw one out although often they wont (but your clues will still be useful). Now, depending on which and how many expansions you add in and which gates you choose to seal first, the odds can increase alarmingly. You might need to have a plan that stretches to 8 or even 9 seals if you do not grasp this fact, Experience is the best teacher here, Another way you can contain the potential threat is by judicious use of Jacqueline Fine (the psychic) and by timing your final leap for the jugular/tentacle/foetod open maw of your enemy...

I elected not to use any Guardians or Heralds.

I started with Amanda, Gloria, and Monterey, and when Amanda got devoured I pulled Darrell. Right after Amanda got eaten the terror level really started increasing from monster surges. Gloria and Monterey had both been driven insane just before Amanda's death, so they had no decent items for fighting monsters to clear the board. The monsters that were around were mainly physically resistant on top of that, and Gloria had discarded her spells to pass The Great Ritual. Darrell drew two Holy Waters as his starting equipment, so I got two kills pretty quickly with him. After that his ability to fight was drastically reduced. I decided to get Monterey deputized in order to help gather clues more quickly and get him another weapon. He and Gloria also had the business associates relationship card, so that meant both of them would be getting a steady income. Not long after that Darrell discarded an ally to pass The Stars Are Right to get everyone a couple of items. We actually drew pretty well and got some shotguns. It was just too late at that point. The Terror Level was at ten, and we had two consecutive monster surges that ended up waking up Azathoth.

It was the longest game ever. The 39th Mythos card was the one that ended the game.

The losing items bit will change when you have access to Madness and Injuries, but yeah, it's at that point in the game I likely would have cut my losses. Good on you for following through!

I was just so close to being able to close the last gate the whole time that I could not stop. I actually was going through the last gate on the turn that the monster surge happened.