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Arkham Horror: The Card Game |OT| Cards of Cthulhu
- Thread starter XShagrath
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Another quick question folks: If an investigator attacks with a weapon like shotgun, that same investigator can throw a skill like vicious blow on top of it to get the extra damage and modifiers correct? Or can they not be stacked?
They can be stacked, it's the only way some of the harder foes could conceivably be killed
I have had the Path to Carcosa lying around for a while now but have never played it until now(I have all the sets, but it seems I spend more time organizing and pimping stuff out then I do playing). Anyway, I made a Father Mateo and Zoey deck that would be in theme for them as the two religious characters. Mateo is interesting in that he isn't really great at anything but he can manipulate a great deal and his combos are awesome. Zoey is being played only with sharp weapons (no guns). The random weaknesses we got were indebted for Mateo and paranoia for Zoey which seemed perfect for them. We ended up getting some real bad draws of the chaos bag and decided we would run through it again to see if it was that the decks need work or that we really did just have mega shit luck.
A few questions I have though.
Yup. In lore the way it works is after you shoot the monster you start bashing it with your gun. From the text of the card: "With a sickening smack, he struck the abomination over and over... until at last, it stopped moving."
A few questions I have though.
1. If Serpents of Yig comes out and seals the Elder Sign, can I play The Codex of Ages and take it away from the serpent and seal the Elder Sign to the book? Based on the card text, serpents say to search the chaos bag for the Elder Sign and then seal it, while the Codex simply says to seal the Sign.
2. What does the descriptor "expert" mean? Seal of the Elder Sign has it as a descriptor and I don't know if that is a special modifier like "exceptional." Am I allowed to buy two of them to have in my deck?
2. What does the descriptor "expert" mean? Seal of the Elder Sign has it as a descriptor and I don't know if that is a special modifier like "exceptional." Am I allowed to buy two of them to have in my deck?
Yup. In lore the way it works is after you shoot the monster you start bashing it with your gun. From the text of the card: "With a sickening smack, he struck the abomination over and over... until at last, it stopped moving."
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2. "Expert" is just another trait on a card. Just like Mateo can take "Blessed" cards, there might be some other investigator later that can take "Expert" cards (or not take them).
Do you have an explanation from the rules as to why that is? I posted the question on the official Fantasy Flight forum too so I guess I'll get a second opinion there but the text on Serpents specifying that you search the chaos bag first before sealing it (while The Codex makes no such distinction) leads me to believe otherwise.
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In the Forgotten Age campaign guide, it states how sealing works.
I guess they just added extra wording to Serpents of Yig because it's not the same type of seal that you see on Codex of Ages or Cthonian Stone?
Thanks for responses as always guys! Was looking for sleeves for the cards, which ones do you all use?
Also - any suggestions for a carrying case?
Also - any suggestions for a carrying case?
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Well, that makes sense. I haven't actually read the campaign guide for Forgotten Age because I don't plan on starting it until after it is done. :P
I use the Fantasy Flight sleeves.
In terms of carrying cases, you are in for the fun nightmare that is figuring out storage for this game. I use a combination of things. Binder for player cards, long box for campaign cards (with printed dividers), the original box (for investigator cards, weaknesses, and extra tokens), the Return to the Night of the Zealot box (for the original campaign), dice bag (as chaos bag and for storing resource tokens), ziplock bag for the investigator decks currently in use, and everything that doesn't fit in that is in it's original packaging or a ziplock bag.
It is super inelegant and I don't know why they don't just officially release a giant box with dividers. People would pay top dollar and it would be super cheap to make. Compare it to the Smash Up that released the Big Geeky Box that holds everything I need in one big box.
Running through Dunwich again, we decided to take a themed pairing of the two religious characters. These are the decks I built: Father Mateo and Zoey Samaras. We ended up dying right at the very end of the first scenario in Carcosa which led me to make some tweaks and now we are taking them through Dunwich and so far everything is going pretty smoothly. Maybe this will finally be the time I get the good ending?
Good luck with them. I've honestly has trouble with the first Carcosa mission whenever I've run it. I think it is probably the most difficult starts to a campaign (although I haven't played the remix of NotZ yet). I've never achieved a no deaths Dunwich run so if you get that you've out investigated me.
Welp, shit very quickly has been hitting the fan in that Dunwich run. I feel like The House Always Wins is way more difficult as a second scenario than Extracurricular Activities. We ended up just barely making it through that scenario, and then my Mateo ended up getting defeated by physical trauma in The Miskatonic Museum. Mystic's really do become the most useless characters if they can't set up. Encounter cards resulted in me discarding two copies of St. Hubert's Key, two copies of Arcane Studies, and one copy of Flashlight, Drawn to the Flame, and Rite of Seeking. Zoey did great though, and was able to keep up with the pace of the enemy. I am keeping an updated campaign log at the deck links I included in my previous post.
As I am playing through this, I can see where the areas for improvement are. I think I actually enjoy the deck building aspect just as much, if not more, then actually playing the game. I literally have 8 decks currently waiting to be tried out. That new bow weapon looks super snazzy and I want to try to run it with Wendy or Ursula.
As I am playing through this, I can see where the areas for improvement are. I think I actually enjoy the deck building aspect just as much, if not more, then actually playing the game. I literally have 8 decks currently waiting to be tried out. That new bow weapon looks super snazzy and I want to try to run it with Wendy or Ursula.
Just started the path to Carcosa over the weekend (finished the first 2 scenarios), definitely an interesting start, but overall successful. Decided to go back to Agnes, she's just so versatile and fun to play.
We were also able to talk to everyone at the party and get all their clues, except Ashleigh. We got really lucky in that regard as everyone who "turned" was someone we had just finished getting all the clues from almost every time. And we usually were out of the room to avoid the horror damage.
I just got the return to night of the zealot. The box for storage is pretty dissapointing. It can be customized but at this price point I expected better.
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I was pretty excited for the storage at first too. Thought the "card catalog" look on the side would be an awesome way to keep things organized if they kept it up for the different cycles. But the box is way too big and wide for what it needs to be, so I ended up just tossing it and the dividers.
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https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/9/5/return-to-the-dunwich-legacy/
Return to Dunwich Legacy!!!!
Return to Dunwich Legacy!!!!
Kinda perfect timing. I just bought the entire Dunwich cycle. I 'might' be able to finish it before that new box releases.
Cool will be getting all the return boxes now so I cna store AH TCG in a much nicer set up then my dinky oversized shoe box.
As I posted not too far above, the return boxes aren't much better than dinky oversized shoe boxes.
Dinky oversized shoe boxes don't come with nice dividers
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Dividers can easily be printed out from BGG. The problem I (and a lot of others) have with the box is it's way too wide. If it was the width of a standard card box, I'd absolutely use it for storage rather than chucking it in the closet (and eventually the garbage).
I eventually need to figure out how to print stuff well, also I need to get a printer and laminator.
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Laminator date really cheap, at about $20. Depending on how much you need to print, you could always do it at some place like Staples.
I think my printer (Brother color laser) was about $200-230 or somewhere in there.
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Looking forward to this one. TFA hasn't stuck with me as much as the other two cycles. I've enjoyed it, and I am still constantly amazed at how they can make each scenario feel unique. The story though, hasn't really hit me in the same way. Maybe it's too convoluted, or maybe I just haven't been following it as closely. I have a feeling we'll be giving it another run-through soon, as I'm pretty sure we're going to fail miserably in Depths of Yoth. :(
Ah, sad to hear about TFA. I own all of Dunwich/Carcosa, as well as all that's out for TFA. Once TFA is done, i'll probably stop here for now in terms of acquiring new cycles. I have enough investigators and player cards to last a very long time. I'll probably see back in a year or three to pick and choose the cycles that people consider the best. I might still pick up Guardians of the Abyss if it's good bc I do like the idea of a mini 2-scenario campaign to introduce the game to people.
I'm still playing through Dunwich now (my first full campaign), still on easy and 2 scenarios left. I found reading the Dunwich Horror beforehand enhanced my experience. We started 4 players (my SO as Akachi, me as Jenny Barnes, two friends from the UK as Minh and Harrigan). Unfortunately, we didn't finish the campaign while they were still here, so we were left with 2 of us and 4 characters. Rather than play 2-handed, we decided to just bring our characters and have the other 2 retire. Though we didn't have a fighter/investigator duo anymore, Akachi was very versatile as a mystic, being able to both fight and investigate with the proper spells, and Jenny with her extra supply (and Streetwise) could function as a pretty good investigation and not bad fighter.
I have to say, while Night of the Zealot was a fun 3-scenario campaign as an demo to sell me on the concept of the game, the full cycle is where the game shines. I've been thoroughly enjoying the deck construction involved as I've been slowly improving the deck throughout multiple scenarios. It brings back the fond memories I had of playing M:tG back in the 90's.
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I wouldn't say TFA is bad at all. I'm not a big fan of the "supplies" mechanic, but several of the scenarios are really cool and very different than what we've seen previously. I think part of the issue is that we've added a third player, and we've kinda been breezing through things not really soaking in all of the narrative. I'm playing a Dunwich campaign at work, and they're a lot more into it thematically, whereas one of the guys in my normal group just likes the mechanics more.
Aah ok.
I finished Dunwich. Fun campaign! My partner won the scenario, while my investigator was killed.
Ouch.
I finished Dunwich. Fun campaign! My partner won the scenario, while my investigator was killed.
I had the encounter card where you take 10 dmg if your deck is empty. I then drew the encounter card that tests against willpower 5, and you discard the top card of your deck for each pt you fail by. I drew the tentacle, which is -X (twice the shroud value of the location which was 6), so -12.
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You played that one wrong. No skill test can ever go below 0, so the max cards you would have to discard would be 5 on that one.
Whoops. Maybe I would have lived after all! I only had 1 hp left at that point, so maybe not.
Just squint and say you would have survive :P that's my rule of thumb for AH:TCG games hard enough as is
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I love the game to pieces, but there's a number of factors on why I won't go. First and foremost, it's just too expensive for me to travel from Florida for just a single event. Secondly, I really don't get the appeal of gaming conventions/events overall. I understand a lot of people see it as an opportunity to play games they don't have, or meet new people. I'd rather just keep that money and buy more games for my group and play with them. I can play these scenarios a little bit later down the road, when they're available for purchase at retail.
Just got this and played through The Gathering solo with Roland. New to gaming but I loved this. Epic battle at the end where I was like "how am I possibly going to do this with my stats?" But I was able to evade and use dynamite and get through it finally.
Question: I unfortunately ended up with 2x mental trauma. Should I move on with Roland to the second scenario or am I pretty screwed? If I don't, should I just start over with The Gathering again? If I do, any suggested deck upgrades? I have 4 xp and just the base set.
Edit: One of those mental trauma points came from a scenario card I drew during the final encounter. I forget the name, but I needed to put 3 clues on it, which had to be investigated before the end of the scenario or I got 1 mental trauma. But I didn't have any investigation attempts as this was in the last room, so I had to take the point. Did I do that right or could I have kept investigating in the final room (after defeating all enemies) before I ended the game?
Question: I unfortunately ended up with 2x mental trauma. Should I move on with Roland to the second scenario or am I pretty screwed? If I don't, should I just start over with The Gathering again? If I do, any suggested deck upgrades? I have 4 xp and just the base set.
Edit: One of those mental trauma points came from a scenario card I drew during the final encounter. I forget the name, but I needed to put 3 clues on it, which had to be investigated before the end of the scenario or I got 1 mental trauma. But I didn't have any investigation attempts as this was in the last room, so I had to take the point. Did I do that right or could I have kept investigating in the final room (after defeating all enemies) before I ended the game?
It sounds like you're mistaking damage for trauma. Trauma can only happen in the gathering scenario by either running out of sanity by taking too much horror or
killing the priest and burning down your home
I think the biggest draw for convention is to see things you wouldn't normally see around your local stores and play games that you wouldn't normally play or get to try. I went to PAX Unplugged last year and had tons of fun. It also help if the destination city is somewhere interesting. Philly is a fun city to visit with lots of stuffs to see and great foods at the Reading Terminal. I won't do this for just one day event like Arkham Night unless it's driving distance. Also this year someone is hosting Lunacy at PAX so should be fun. No one around here that I know play this game and as much fun as it is solo, I think this game really shine at 2-3 players.
No it was mental trauma. The card is Cover Up. Here's a thread about it including a reply from a dev. Looks like I played correctly (no clues left = you are screwed with trauma).
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1670726/rolands-cover
And yeah my second trauma was from what you said in the spoiler.
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We should try to organize some remote play sometime.. Either via TTS (ugh!) or through Discord. I heard about a while back about people on MB playing via Discord /w one player controlling the encounter deck, and all players having the locations set up. It's not ideal, and maybe a little extra bookkeeping, but I'd much prefer that to digital.
Have you try Ocatagon? I downloaded it eon ago but never got around to use it. I know guys on Mythos Buster used that more than actual cards.
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I've tried OCTGN before, but didn't really care for it. For much the same reasons I don't like TTS. I enjoy the tactile nature of the game. We've both spent enough money upgrading the game that we should our upgrades as much as possible! Also, I've never really spent the time to learn how to use that (or TTS) effectively, so every time I do jump into something, it's frustrating trying to learn the hotkeys and UI stuff.
I'm not going, given I'm on the other side of the world. To be honest, I'm just asking because I'm trying to secure a copy of Ashcan Pete for Arkham Horror 3rd Edition. He's my favourite investigator, or one of at least.
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I'm sure he'll release eventually through an Arkham 3E expansion. I doubt they'd do an exclusive investigator (especially one that popular). So the only advantage would be having him early. I don't know how many components are used for investigators in Arkham 3E, but you could probably proxy him fairly easy.
I would just play the 3rd scenario and see how it goes. It will be rough for sure, especially with Roland but if you have access to horror soak cards, I would spend some xp and buy them. : P
Took your advice and just went ahead with the next scenario (the second actually) and came out fine. Some dicey moments with all of the enemies spawning and doom tokens galore but I made it through without any additional trauma and picked up 4xp.
I'm really loving this game but was a little disappointed at the lack of options when it was time to upgrade. I went through my deck and spread out only the cards I could add and there were like, a dozen maybe? 15? So of course I went ahead and ordered the Dunwich expansion lol.
Also kind of bummed with the lack of flexibility for multiple characters with one core set. I want to go two-handed for my next run but quickly discovered I can't just go ahead and pick any two characters and have free reign with card choices. Hoping the additional Dunwich Investigators and Player cards help with that a bit because I don't feel like buying a second copy of the game just days after buying the first.
It's a little stingy to not include additional copies of cards that multiple investigators can use, isn't it? They already made the art and designed/balanced the abilities. How much more does it cost to print the cards? At least include enough for any two decks to work.
This has been an on going thing with FFG since they came up with this LCG. Their reasoning was to keep the cost down, but I think they better off including some additional cards and bump the price up to 49.99 or split the class like Magic, but then you would have more people complain about that. The problem is being LCG so you don't have huge secondary market for cards like CCG. If you really enjoy the game then 2nd core is actually not a bad investment, you won't have many cards go unused if you later on pick up Return to Night of the Zealots or pick up more expansion. I found it's really convenience to have 2nd Mythos cards and I can have 2 campaign going.
And please don't take this as I am defending FFG, I think they are hurting the game more by doing it this way but I think their original vision is for 2 people to each pick up their core set and then share and trade cards. They are doing House starter decks for Game of Throne so may be we may see investigator only deck in the future. As for upgrade choices, with just core set you won't have much but there are 5 class there are only so many cards they can give you after all they want you to keep buying cards. As for Roland, 4xp I think you could upgrade Beat cop and Vicious blow.
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Getting a second core box might as well be mandatory. Getting doubles of various mythos packs or deluxe expansions isn't neccessary most of the time. The only exception to the latter is if you have a group of 3-4 that plans to play only off of your collection. While you'll largely be able to play 3-4 with one person's set if everyone picks a different class, some of the better neutral class upgrade cards come in mythos packs which are cards everyone may want.
I both AH to play 2p mostly, and was also heavily against the concept of having to get a 2nd core, but I was fortunate enough to have 2 other friends who were interested in trying it out, which forced my hand into getting a 2nd core now for 4p. They're not in the same city anymore, but now I have the 2nd core for our 2p games, which I now feel is 100% worth it if you are well invested in the game. The question is then whether you are invested enough in the game.
If you are unsure, get one of the deluxe expansions (Dunwich, Carcosa, or Forgotten Age), which add new player cards. Play through the new scenarios, get the additional 6 mythos packs (which add player cards too) to complete the 8-scenario campaign. 1 core set should be enough to play through it on easy with some moderate amount of customization. This will give you a good idea of whether or not you want more customization (if you do, get 2nd core). If you're ok with playing through the campaigns on easy for the story and less for the customization, just get new expansions instead.
I personally love the deck customization. I consider it as important as the narrative aspect of the game. Knowing what I know now, I would still have bought a 2nd core even if I didn't have that 4p opportunity.
If you are unsure, get one of the deluxe expansions (Dunwich, Carcosa, or Forgotten Age), which add new player cards. Play through the new scenarios, get the additional 6 mythos packs (which add player cards too) to complete the 8-scenario campaign. 1 core set should be enough to play through it on easy with some moderate amount of customization. This will give you a good idea of whether or not you want more customization (if you do, get 2nd core). If you're ok with playing through the campaigns on easy for the story and less for the customization, just get new expansions instead.
I personally love the deck customization. I consider it as important as the narrative aspect of the game. Knowing what I know now, I would still have bought a 2nd core even if I didn't have that 4p opportunity.
Man I really want to get into this game but I can't convince any of my friends to join me. Doesn't help that I've never played a table top game like this before so even if they did join me there would probably be a lot of confusion.
Would I still have a good time playing this solo?
Would I still have a good time playing this solo?