• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Arkham Horror: The Card Game |OT| Cards of Cthulhu

I'm wanting Carcosa ASAP and will likely cancel my preorder with CSI if they don't ship soon. This was my first preorder with them and was hoping for it to come on or shortly after street release. Otherwise I can can just go local at MSRP.
 

BigDes

Member
Ok, sorry I am new to these kinds of games and this is probably a super dumb question but

It says to build decks for the investigators and then gives me a list of what the investigator should have in their decks

But there are five investigators and seemingly only two of them are given this list? I am a bit confused, are the investigator decks not as prescriptive as implied or is this just missing information?
 
Ok, sorry I am new to these kinds of games and this is probably a super dumb question but

It says to build decks for the investigators and then gives me a list of what the investigator should have in their decks

But there are five investigators and seemingly only two of them are given this list? I am a bit confused, are the investigator decks not as prescriptive as implied or is this just missing information?

https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgam...08-ab2d-3cdc6b206860/ahc_decklists_30_web.pdf

It only lists out two decks but here are the other "starter" deck lists.
 

XShagrath

Member
I'm wanting Carcosa ASAP and will likely cancel my preorder with CSI if they don't ship soon. This was my first preorder with them and was hoping for it to come on or shortly after street release. Otherwise I can can just go local at MSRP.

If you ordered through CSI, then they'll ship it out on 9/14, which is the street date. You'll get it a couple days after that. If you need it in your hands that day, then your better off picking it up from a local store.
 

hoggert

Member
Just played through Curse of the Rougarou. Took a couple of tries, but one of the stronger scenarios imho. Encounter deck spoilers:
The gug
is kinda bullshit though, and it having both high health and hunter felt a little overtuned with the amount of crazy bullshit in the encounter set. It was the sole reason we failed the first time through, and only drawing it a couple of times the second time through made things manageable enough to score a, slightly easy, R2 resolution.
 
had a few more rules questions

After evading an enemy it exhausts the enemy right? Can I attack the enemy after I evade it? Will it reengage combat when I do so, basically un-exhausting it?

me & the gf started the core set over tonight and we are trying to get the rules correct. we also made custom starter decks with different characters. I was basically useless and my gf took down the main ghoul guy all by herself (took awhile tho, 10 hp is a lot)
 
had a few more rules questions

After evading an enemy it exhausts the enemy right? Can I attack the enemy after I evade it? Will it reengage combat when I do so, basically un-exhausting it?

me & the gf started the core set over tonight and we are trying to get the rules correct. we also made custom starter decks with different characters. I was basically useless and my gf took down the main ghoul guy all by herself (took awhile tho, 10 hp is a lot)

Yes, evading an enemy you are engaged with both exhaust that enemy and moves it out of your threat area and into your location. You can attack exhausted enemies at your location freely and they won't engage you, you can even attack monsters engaged with other investigators at your location but be aware that if you fail that attack the damage goes to the investigator. You can even engage exhausted monsters as an action and move them into your threat area and they won't ready (but this is rarely useful given that enemies do this automatically) Monsters only ready during the upkeep phrase where if you are still in the same location they will immediately engage with you.

Anyway, excellent job making a custom deck. If it helps everyone is basically useless during their first character. Went through the first scenario in Dunwich legacy as a custom Agnes and was utterly rubbish at everything.
 
Yes, evading an enemy you are engaged with both exhaust that enemy and moves it out of your threat area and into your location. You can attack exhausted enemies at your location freely and they won't engage you, you can even attack monsters engaged with other investigators at your location but be aware that if you fail that attack the damage goes to the investigator. You can even engage exhausted monsters as an action and move them into your threat area and they won't ready (but this is rarely useful given that enemies do this automatically) Monsters only ready during the upkeep phrase where if you are still in the same location they will immediately engage with you.

Anyway, excellent job making a custom deck. If it helps everyone is basically useless during their first character. Went through the first scenario in Dunwich legacy as a custom Agnes and was utterly rubbish at everything.

Ha! I'm using custom Agnes as well. I started off well enough, but had some bad luck toward the end. I do enjoy her play style tho. My gf is playing the green guy(cant remember the name) and she was unstoppable combat wise and some very good chaos pulls.

edit:

we also played with this for the first time tonight

KYOoe3w.png
 
Ha! I'm using custom Agnes as well. I started off well enough, but had some bad luck toward the end. I do enjoy her play style tho. My gf is playing the green guy(cant remember the name) and she was unstoppable combat wise and some very good chaos pulls.

Ahh, yeah. The mystic characters are mega powerful but very unforgiving in response of bad luck. I dunno if you have access to Dunwich Legacy cards, but if you are interested in going deep with the mystic class it is worth getting cos you get access to Rite of Seeking which is a pretty core card for the class.
 

SCHUEY F1

Unconfirmed Member
I need to make some better dividers for my cards. Printed some out on some thicker paper but still a bit flimsy.
 
Getting ready to get back into the game. Previously I only attempted the first scenario months ago. I own the core set and all the expansions for the Dunwich cycle.

I am going to be playing solo two handed and want to have an enjoyable experience. Would it be better to play on the easy difficulty setting or get a second copy of the core set and/or open up The Dunwich Legacy to build better decks? I do want some challenge to the game but don't want the experience to be very draining since I will be playing two handed.
Any suggestions?

I did try playing the first scenario again last weekend with Roland and Agnes. Wasn't really feeling the game and quit, but also I was stressed out from the hurricane.
 
Ahh, yeah. The mystic characters are mega powerful but very unforgiving in response of bad luck. I dunno if you have access to Dunwich Legacy cards, but if you are interested in going deep with the mystic class it is worth getting cos you get access to Rite of Seeking which is a pretty core card for the class.

yes, I have all the expansions but not Dunwich Legacy itself yet. thanks for the tip, ill add that card for sure.
 

SCHUEY F1

Unconfirmed Member
First my first run-through of Dunwich and it was fantastic. I won by the skin of my teeth, but not without some sacrifices. I'm going to use my ending decks and play through the standalone POD scenarios.
 
So for Carcosa I am going as a survivor, William Yorick in fact. My current work in progress for his deck is this:

Asset (14)

2x Flashlight
1x Gravedigger's Shovel
2x Knife
1x Lantern
2x Machete
2x Rabbit's Foot
2x Leather Coat
2x Peter Sylvestre

Event (10)
2x "Look what I found!"
2x Dodge
2x Emergency Cache
2x Evidence!
2x Lucky!

Skill (6)
2x Resourceful
2x Unexpected Courage
2x Vicious Blow

The two major points of worry is I feel I have too many hand assets and I might dump knives since I have access to the machete and shovel (although unsure what to replace them with) and I'm also concerned I don't have enough resource gain to fuel the discard pull of Yoricks ability properly. But anyway, I'm mainly posting this up because I've never been a survivor before (although I have been a guardian before so I have that at least) so I was wondering if any experienced survivors had any card recommendations or tips on how to play the class. This character is going to end up in a 4 player game so I want to go in strong and not be a captain blunders.
 
What are some of the must have cards in each class? I can evaluate magic card alright, but this game is too new for me. Fyi I only have the core investigators.
 
Hmm, well I am in no means a card expert but from playing I've got a few ideas for the vital cards.

For Guardians I would generally always take Machete (perhaps 45 Automatic if you have good resource gain), Dodge, Vicious Blow and either Beat Cop or Guard Dog (Beat Cop is probably better for Guardians but they are both good allies). Machete is such a good weapon is makes most of the others completely useless and Dodge and Vicious Blow are just damage reduction and increase which are vital for Guardian players.

For Seekers, I would take Deduction, Mind over Matter and Dr Milan Christopher. Milan is arguably the best ally in the entire game, the resource gain from him is insane and he directly fuels Higher Education which is a bananas powerful card you will get from a later pack. Working a Hunch can be useful too for the once in a blue moon when you fail an investigation check. For Daisy in question, all the tome cards are great and worth taking too with her character power.

I'm not familiar with Rogues so well, but I would say Leo De Luca, Backstab and Elusive are all solid cards.

Survivors, like Rogues I am also not 100% used to, but I would say Lucky! and "Look what I found" are vital (in fact I would go so far as to say Lucky! might be the best 0xp card in the entire game). With Wendy Survival Instinct is also a great card. Annoyingly, Survivors have a lot of their best cards locked behind future sets but if you progress with them then Fire Axe, Dark Horse and Peter Sylvestre are worth keeping an eye out for.

Hope that helps.
 

Neverfade

Member
A buddy and I just tried the inaugural scenario and got thoroughly mollywhopped. Think I'm going to go back and craft a new deck or two and try one more time.

We played Skids and Daisy. I was Daisy, and I was fucking amazing at sucking up clues, but felt helpless against enemies. From my perspective, Skids didn't seem to super excel at anything we needed to get shit done.


Anyone have a better intro combo?

Other questions we had:

What's the timing on the upkeep draw and resource generation. Asking because I drew paranoia. Do I lose the incoming resource or not?
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
A buddy and I just tried the inaugural scenario and got thoroughly mollywhopped. Think I'm going to go back and craft a new deck or two and try one more time.

We played Skids and Daisy. I was Daisy, and I was fucking amazing at sucking up clues, but felt helpless against enemies. From my perspective, Skids didn't seem to super excel at anything we needed to get shit done.


Anyone have a better intro combo?

Other questions we had:

What's the timing on the upkeep draw and resource generation. Asking because I drew paranoia. Do I lose the incoming resource or not?
Roland+Daisy for sure. Or even throw Agnes in the mix. Skids and Wendy are definitely the weaker of the gang though.

You draw, then you gain a resource. So you'd go back to 1.
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
Thanks. Curious: Who's your go to investigator, Astro?

My go-to is Roland just because I'm a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy and he's a great fighter while still holding his own on clues. I think Daisy is my favorite just because I love support but you have to be in 3-4p imo for her to be really clicking (basically can have a fighter escorting her). Agnes is the most powerful and has the coolest effects so my friend swears by her.
 

maven

Member
Any suggestions?

I did try playing the first scenario again last weekend with Roland and Agnes. Wasn't really feeling the game and quit, but also I was stressed out from the hurricane.

I would definitely add the expansion cards (the rules say to add cards to the pool as you purchase them). A second core is nice, but less necessary if you have the expansions. Just pick what looks fun. Roland is a good choice. Daisy would be a good partner (if a bit bland). Agnes is cool, but a bit tricksy and needs some specific cards to shine.

I haven't found regular difficulty too punishing. The extra cards will help with this too. I would find the game far less interesting if it didn't get crazy every now and then.

Also, the first scenario is really like a tutorial. Skip to the second for a far more interesting game.
 

Neverfade

Member
A question for people who've played through the Dunwich cycle:

I bought some coin capsules to put my tokens in. I got a pack of 24, so I have 9 left over. I'm assuming since there are "mystery" tokens not mentioned yet in the rules that some will get added over the course of these games. Will 9 capsules be enough to get me through at least Dunwich (these capsules don't have a rim so they're not swappable -- I'd have to break it open to swap them) or do I need to purchase more? Standard difficulty.
 
A question for people who've played through the Dunwich cycle:

I bought some coin capsules to put my tokens in. I got a pack of 24, so I have 9 left over. I'm assuming since there are "mystery" tokens not mentioned yet in the rules that some will get added over the course of these games. Will 9 capsules be enough to get me through at least Dunwich (these capsules don't have a rim so they're not swappable -- I'd have to break it open to swap them) or do I need to purchase more? Standard difficulty.

Oh yeah, 9 should be fine. My groups never ran into all the token gaining moments but even if you did I can't see it being more then 9. Their are only 8 scenarios in Dunwich Legacy and you certainly don't add a new token with every one.
 

Neverfade

Member
Oh yeah, 9 should be fine. My groups never ran into all the token gaining moments but even if you did I can't see it being more then 9. Their are only 8 scenarios in Dunwich Legacy and you certainly don't add a new token with every one.

Thanks!


How did you guys play Rougarou? Was thinking of experimenting with some different decks and just using it as a one-off.
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
I don't think I've played it as a one-off, just a side quest after a couple missions. I don't want to spoil too much though haha. Arkham definitely has good ways of fending off against total min-maxing though, so I never mind having a pretty well-rounded crew.
 

Neverfade

Member
Well we played last night and failed due to the stupid wording. We had no idea what the hell
"investigator may advance"
meant so we just kept trucking. Turns out we could have totally fulfilled the mission requirements if we'd have known that meant we could have looked at that card and thus had more info. We just needed a few more clues.
 

hoggert

Member
Carnevale of Horrors is really, really hard. Feels like a good, balanced challenge but, oh man, my Jim was dead by the time the first agenda flipped. Even with a Grotesque Statue, Jim's Trumpet, and Alyssa out to peek the encounter deck we couldn't
kill or evade the cultists fast enough
or keep up with all the damage/horror from failed checks.
 
Carnevale of Horrors is really, really hard. Feels like a good, balanced challenge but, oh man, my Jim was dead by the time the first agenda flipped. Even with a Grotesque Statue, Jim's Trumpet, and Alyssa out to peek the encounter deck we couldn't
kill or evade the cultists fast enough
or keep up with all the damage/horror from failed checks.

It's really hard. We won on a second try but it involved plenty of lucky draws from the chaos bag and encounter deck toward the end.
 

hoggert

Member
It's really hard. We won on a second try but it involved plenty of lucky draws from the chaos bag and encounter deck toward the end.
Yeah, we tried again yesterday and got the "best" possible resolution and all but one of the victory points. We did horribly though. My girffriend's discard included two Peter's, poor Duke 😢, and two leather coats while mine was full of doubles of cops, dogs, Milan, and one Xavier (one of my last actions was to replay him just in case we drew yet another Elder God token lol.) Despite all those allies both of us were still one damage and horror away from dying. It was pretty intense, a little too difficult for my tastes to try soloing it (as my girlfriend said she would prefer to never play it again) but definitely one of the most memorable, if nail biting, gaming experiences I've had.
 
I would definitely add the expansion cards (the rules say to add cards to the pool as you purchase them). A second core is nice, but less necessary if you have the expansions. Just pick what looks fun. Roland is a good choice. Daisy would be a good partner (if a bit bland). Agnes is cool, but a bit tricksy and needs some specific cards to shine.

I haven't found regular difficulty too punishing. The extra cards will help with this too. I would find the game far less interesting if it didn't get crazy every now and then.

Also, the first scenario is really like a tutorial. Skip to the second for a far more interesting game.
Thanks. Maybe I will just go ahead and add in the expansion cards, missed that rule. I want to play the game as it was released i.e. core campaign with core cards only but also I want to have a good time.

Any recommendations for storage? I have this Broken Token organizer that I have yet to put together but that is certainly not going to hold everything.
 
If you ordered through CSI, then they'll ship it out on 9/14, which is the street date. You'll get it a couple days after that. If you need it in your hands that day, then your better off picking it up from a local store.
Cool yeah I was thinking it was 8/31 when I posted that. :)


Really looking forward to Carcosa. I just replayed Rougarou and got dominated as Jenny Barnes.
 

XShagrath

Member
Carcosa is in stores in the US today. CoolStuff, MiniatureMarket, and other stores have plenty of copies in stock.

I'm without power from Irma and am staying out of town at my mom's at the moment. I've got to go back to Orlando tomorrow to check out the house and water some plants with my wife, so I'll probably swing by the store and pick up my copies then. If I'm lucky, my wife will be down for playing through with me while we're here.



I'll also update the OP when I get home and have access to my PC again.
 
I'm on the 2nd month of my Gameworlds subscription and my copy of Path to Carcosa arrive today. Very excited to dig into it, although annoyingly I probably won't be able to play it till next week at the earliest (I may sneak in a solo game, see how I feel).
 

XShagrath

Member
Not many card/board games have an OT on GAF... makes me wonder if I should look into this...
Only other games I can think of are Magic and Destiny. Warhammer has one as well.

Arkham is a very unique game that I feel really incorporates elements from card, board, and role playing games very well. Definitely look into a runthrough of the first scenario from the core set (called "The Gathering") if you're interested. That scenario basically plays like a tutorial session to demonstrate the gameplay mechanisms without really spoiling the story too much.
 
Not many card/board games have an OT on GAF... makes me wonder if I should look into this...

I generally think of Arkham as being a role playing/story telling card game with elements from both games. If you are into either of those types of games or just like the cosmic horror books of the late 19th early 20th century then I think this is well worth anyones time.
 

SCHUEY F1

Unconfirmed Member
Got my copy of Carcosa. The scenarios look really interesting as do the new investigators. Think I will probably start with Mark Harrigan and Minh Thi Phan.
 

maven

Member
Thanks. Maybe I will just go ahead and add in the expansion cards, missed that rule. I want to play the game as it was released i.e. core campaign with core cards only but also I want to have a good time.

Any recommendations for storage? I have this Broken Token organizer that I have yet to put together but that is certainly not going to hold everything.

The core (especially a single core) is really limited with the cards it gives you. Anyway, all the crazy op cards need xp from the campaign before you add them to your deck, so they just slowly drip feed in over time.

I'm the wrong person to ask about storage. I've sleeved all my cards and put coin capsules on all my tokens. I'm currently waiting for this beast from OP Laser to arrive. Totally unnecessary, but should hold everything for a while yet.
 
Smh..
My shop told me to pass next week..
Like. Wtf...
And here I was pumped to play carcosa tonight..
I'll just play another du which campaign with gf and friends... oh well..
 
Seems like my copy of Carcosa shipped from Cool Stuff late Friday night. At first I was slightly bummed, but me and my friend still have 2 scenarios of Dunwich to finish so it isn't really that big of a deal. It'll get here when it gets here. Now I'm starting to debate if I just want to wait for it all to be released before playing, or go right into it once we are done with Dunwich.
 

hoggert

Member
Carcosa is kicking our asses. Played on easy and even cheated once, but we still ended up losing horribly. Low intellect stats on most of the new investigators compounded by bad draws combined with brand new, very rough decks made things spiral out of control very fast despite how forgiving the encounter deck in the first scenario is.

Liking Sefina a lot so far, the consistency you get with her opening hand is awesome but I found myself constantly running out of resources due to her low intellect. Probably need to spread out my choices a bit more, and not run doubles of pretty much everything.
 
The first scenario has a lot of rooms with unusually high shroud, guess you gotta have someone with good intellect or a few tricks up their sleeve to make it.

We made it by the skin of our teeth on standard difficulty, playing Lola and Mark.
 

hoggert

Member
The first scenario has a lot of rooms with unusually high shroud, guess you gotta have someone with good intellect or a few tricks up their sleeve to make it.

We made it by the skin of our teeth on standard difficulty, playing Lola and Mark.

Drawn to the Flame is pretty amazing for those rooms, especially with so many cards in the encounter deck that can be either ignored or dealt with a single action.
 

Moobabe

Member
A quick question in terms of the "packs"

I have Dunwich Legacy but 0 of the packs. How much am I missing out on? Can I get by with just getting the bigger packs? I don't want to spend a fortune :(
 
Top Bottom