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Lichtenstein posted:what That’s so cool. Run with plenty of desperate cards in group play, go full martyr. Ward of Protection and “I’ve Had Worse” look great for him.
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Mar 30, 2018 17:34
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LifeLynx posted:Is there a recommended build for two decks built out of two core sets to tackle the core campaign co-op? This guy has decks for all of the core box characters built from two cores. https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/67/roland-2-core-5-char-pick-up-and-play-1.0
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Mar 30, 2018 17:47
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Lichtenstein posted:what Well, I don't think any of us expected THAT... My first thought is of Cal as a self-destructive, pipe puffing, pill popping, martyr. He could probably use a lot of bears and coats, and a rabbit's foot glued to his neck.
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Mar 30, 2018 18:32
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Fuuuuck this expansion is going to be so good. I can't believe how great they're making this game with every release.
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Mar 30, 2018 19:03
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haha Calvin looks amazing, cant wait to misplay him and completely tank our next run
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Mar 30, 2018 19:03
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I bought myself the entire Dunwich cycle for my birthday and I'm completely obsessed. Still working through Night of the Zealot two-handed with Skids and Daisy. Are there any cool strategy/lore blogs out there that you all would recommend? The FFG blog posts have been great and I've also enjoyed the investigator strategies on Delve 2 Deep. Also, just generally, have you solo players found more enjoyment playing with one or two investigators? I'm kind of wanting to try Dunwich with just Jim or Agnes.
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Mar 31, 2018 16:01
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I'm surprised so many people think Calvin looks good. Dude seems like the worst character in the game, easy. IMO he shouldve been 8/8 with a cap of like +4 or +5 to his abilities. As it is he's gonna have to take 3 damage/3 sanity to just get to be an average character, and that's his ability. I wasn't impressed with the new Guardian chick either tbh. But this dude just seems worse. That said I'm still glad with the overall direction as they're still pushing the boundaries on the system. The new expansion's looking to be very interesting.
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Mar 31, 2018 16:48
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I don't think all the characters have to be strong as long as they are interesting.
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Mar 31, 2018 18:25
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Calvin is pure risk/reward and push your luck, and if his base stats were too good he would be OP as hell. It's a slippery slope to have a character with such a strong ramping power, especially given that future cards can synergize with that design so well making it even stronger compared to other characters.
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Mar 31, 2018 18:33
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He can be shut down pretty hard by events though. One of the semi-spoiled cards gives - 1 maximum health which is a much bigger deal if you are intentionally riding the edge. Another forces you to discard an asset and transfer all damage on it onto your investigator. Whether he is good or not is dependent on way too many variables that we just don't know yet.
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Mar 31, 2018 19:16
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I've got a strong feeling Calvin will be this kind of ID that's playable, if somewhat too janky for his own good, until the day some critical combo mass propels him into godhood. Like, right now rushing for the curse of the rougarou allows for some ridiculous numbers and we haven't even seen any of the obvious follow-ups, such as assets increasing damage capacity of the investigator cards, or some events that ask you to hurt yourself for some powerful effect.
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Mar 31, 2018 19:27
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Eh I don't even know if his design is that interesting. Mark has a similar damage for power thing, only he has actual stats. I just think they went to far nerfing him. Like before he's even functional you have to put in a ton of work. I don't know if the payoff is work it.
alansmithee fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Mar 31, 2018 |
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Mar 31, 2018 19:32
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Lichtenstein posted:I've got a strong feeling Calvin will be this kind of ID that's playable, if somewhat too janky for his own good, until the day some critical combo mass propels him into godhood. Werewolf Calvin is hilarious.
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Mar 31, 2018 20:59
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I finally cracked open my Dunwich box and played the first scenario two handed. I’m still screwing up the order of stuff and forgetting important things and reading crap wrong but man oh man is this a fun rear end game even by yourself. Can’t wait to play more tomorrow.
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Apr 1, 2018 07:07
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oh my god essex county express ahahaha gently caress you
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Apr 1, 2018 07:25
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Essex county express remains one of my favorite scenario's. It's challenging, it's very much build around it's theme which it executes so well and it's different from other scenario's. Just too bad about them loving up the math on the doom a bit which means you can theoretically die on your first Mythos phase in 4 player.
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Apr 1, 2018 10:22
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What is it about the Cthulhu mythos that makes it such a good theme for games like this? I guess the race against time nature of the stories matches up well with snowballing game mechanics where you're trying to win right before things completely spiral out of control, and when you do manage to pull off an unlikely win it's that much more memorable. I think maybe also it's because in Lovecraft's stories the humans never actually win; the best they can do is to postpone universal doom for a while, which isn't how things generally go in the games but there's still that sense that the deck is stacked against you right from the start. That's partly why these games make me laugh so much. That whole 'how are we gonna get hosed up this time?' aspect keeps me coming back. You're doing well for the first time ever, blowing away chumps left and right like you're Doom Guy then all of a sudden an Ancient One hits the table and you have to read his stats twice to make sure they're real. "Uh... run??" And by 'these games' I mean this and Eldritch Horror, the other FFG Cthulhu game I've played and loved. Ah, that time we were almost about to prevent the return of the Dark Pharaoh but we couldn't put a scratch on the sphinx monster that embodied the final mystery we had to solve. Our professor companion held a Promise of Power and also... two Dark Pacts... which according to him was totally fine and normal and there was no chance he would be instantly devoured by an unspeakable horror the next time the omens went awry. Fortunately for us, and the rest of the world, peer pressure is a thing that exists, and he agreed to claim the power that was promised. The ritual commenced, the heavens parted, and the monster was instantly slain. Oh, and the professor died horribly as well. But hey, that's otherworldly power for you. So I've been collecting AH for a while but haven't played much past the core scenario until recently, and I really love AH's multiple different story resolutions and campaign system where not getting the best outcome doesn't end the game, it just makes things harder for you in the next chapter. I think the newest EH expansion introduces a campaign system, which I'm looking forward to. I'm also looking forward to some duo Dunwich Legacy tomorrow, but just now I tried a solo Carnevale of Horrors as Jenny Barnes and uh, I didn't make it past the second location. I kind of knew rogues needed time to set up their rig but I decided to just dive in right away, and the first carnevale dude I tapped on the shoulder wasn't an innocent reveler but a 4/4/3 badass who smashed my face in a couple of times. I used Narrow Escape to safely play Jenny's Twin .45s and blew him away, but I couldn't afford enough ammo for Round 2 against the next guy who also didn't turn out to be an innocent. I haven't actually seen what an innocent reveler looks like yet but I know two things about them : 1) I'm supposed to save three of them, and 2) the mythos deck really, really wants to kill them. So that should be fun.
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Apr 1, 2018 14:52
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Just chewed through Midnight Masks with Skids and Daisy. I think Daisy was singlehandedly responsible for recruiting all but maybe one of the six cultists. Acidic Ichor burned the Wolf Man into submission and a tricky plan toasted the Masked Hunter as soon as it came on the scene. Skids was able to sneak the mortician out, but Daisy was the real champion. I really like how the thematic elements of the cards aren't overdone. You can always see what the thematic intention is. Like the mortician having a high evade: You're not evading her, you're sneaking her out of the hospital. So it can have these rich thematic bits without weighing down the "do actions; bad stuff happens" game-play loop. And the decision and design around campaign play is just astonishing. Coming into Midnight Masks I was excited and nervous. I had new toys to play with, but I knew there would be bigger challenges, too. I'm assuming the game has been wildly successful for FFG. I hope the game has a very long lifespan. And I haven't even finished the core campaign yet!
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Apr 1, 2018 17:31
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The first time we did Midnight Masks we missed the "per investigator" part of the clues needed to spawn each cultist. So we did a full sweep and recruited them all. With bullets. A lot of bullets. Reading the "all cultists managed" text was really amusing afterwards.
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Apr 1, 2018 20:53
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Kalko posted:What is it about the Cthulhu mythos that makes it such a good theme for games like this? It's driven from a business end actually, not thematic or setting. The Cthulhu games blew up in the hobby gaming sphere because it was a reasonably popular IP that was in the public domain, so no licensing fees and complete creative freedom was available to any company that wanted to make a game based on it. FFG was one of the first/biggest to do so and they put so much money into the art and world building that they're still riding on it a decade or more later. I'm completely ok with it, because Arkham LCG is one of my favorite games of all time and has made me love the setting and characters, but that's all a side effect of the IP being open domain back when FFG was starting out.
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Apr 4, 2018 17:51
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It's a fairly broad, malleable, and occasionally deep source material too. Adding, subtracting, and contradicting from 'the canon' are almost encouraged by all but the most insufferable of grogs *I take that back, most people aren't as well versed in the teachings of their god of choice as they are the writings of The Prophet: H.P.L. Even if they don't know Lovecraft specificly, they know that 'weird horror' vibe when they see it.
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Apr 5, 2018 03:08
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Yesterday we were playing at the local game shop and a guy at the next table asked what we were playing, and after we said "Arkham Horror card game," he asked, "do you get to play as Batman?"
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Apr 5, 2018 03:59
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PJOmega posted:The first time we did Midnight Masks we missed the "per investigator" part of the clues needed to spawn each cultist. So we did a full sweep and recruited them all. With bullets. A lot of bullets. Reading the "all cultists managed" text was really amusing afterwards. Yeah, I did that as well except we did it legit. I think Ashcan pete had personally killed 4-5 cultists by the end of it with duke and a fireaxe which made that text super comical.
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Apr 5, 2018 04:45
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DontMockMySmock posted:Yesterday we were playing at the local game shop and a guy at the next table asked what we were playing, and after we said "Arkham Horror card game," he asked, "do you get to play as Batman?" I hope you said yes
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Apr 5, 2018 04:51
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Bottom Liner posted:I hope you said yes Well, you can play as an orphan, a dilettante, a detective and a weirdo, so I think that counts.
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Apr 5, 2018 08:39
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At the very least point out that you can play the Scooby-Doo gang.
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Apr 5, 2018 16:38
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Played Midnight Masks last night with my wife as Daisy and this proxied Calvin Wright deck. Took a little bit to get rolling, but once I had 5 damage and 5 horror on Calvin + a Fire Axe fed by Madame Labranche, and Dark Horse in play there wasn't a single test I couldn't pass. Being able to recur Madame Labranche with Resourceful can mitigate the dangers of taking damage from the encounter deck. Because of the slow start and some cautious play we were only able to get 3/6 cultists, though. Since Midnight Masks is more sandboxy I have no idea how Calvin would do in a scenario where time is more of a concern. Also interested to see how Calvin would play across a longer campaign. For one, I have no idea what kind of cards would be good additions to the deck. But as he is, I think he's pretty strong. The risk/reward, constant fear of death playstyle was pretty fun. I'd recommend giving it a try!
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Apr 5, 2018 16:54
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I'd prioritize the Red Gloved Man and Charisma while making sure I always have 2x A Test of Will and Devil's Luck since they'd help mitigate how risky he wants to play. I'd also take "I'll see you in hell" since he wants the trauma and it can be a powerful effect.
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Apr 5, 2018 17:08
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So what does count as 'you' for Calvin wrt damage? His card and the assets he's played?
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Apr 5, 2018 17:11
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I played through all but the last scenario of Carcosa for the first time this week. I played as Jenny, one-handed solo with an evasion focus. In retrospect I would have done things differently. I had stealth in my deck early on. While it helped save resources I should have just taken Cat Burglar instead. Being able to disengage multiple enemies without a skill check and move with a single action would have saved me so much misery. I stuck with the Flashlight instead of upgrading to Lockpicks, thinking that the limitation of one investigate check per turn would be too limiting. I was wrong. Most locations only had one clue and shroud values were hard enough that I had to frequently commit resources with streetwise and flashlight charges. Cat Burglar + Lockpicks would have saved me a ton of resources in the long run. Sleight of Hand + .41 Derringer or Flashlight never came up. The Derringer was mostly underwhelming because +2 combat wasn't enough to deal with the more scary hunter enemies. Backstab combo'd with Double or Nothing was my primary method of dealing with monsters worth victory points. I eventually took Fight or Flight, which is an amazing card that makes everything work so much better. Considering how often I was nearly defeated by horror, I should have taken it much sooner. I'm a huge fan of Alyssa Graham in single player. Switching her out with Leo (1) wasn't worth it. Anyone else played one-handed evasion decks? What are some things that work particularly well for them that I might have missed?
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Apr 6, 2018 19:44
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I ran solo Wendy through the first six Dunwich scenarios recently and I was mostly evading everything because it seems like that's kind of what Wendy is supposed to do as a 4-agi Survivor. I have a solid understanding of general card game mechanics but for AH specifically I'm still very much in the learning stage when it comes to evaluating cards and building decks, so I've been including a bunch of 1-ofs for testing and I think Waylay is pretty good. My current deck is weaponless but I have 2 x Backstab, 1 x Waylay, and 1 x Fight or Flight because sometimes you do actually have to kill something. FoF is pretty interesting in that the bonus lasts for the whole round, but it's only good in the late-game because you obviously need to have some horror to make it work. I'm running 2 x Lantern to help get me through the first scenario before I get Lockpicks, and also because a Backstab + Lantern discard is enough to slay just about any important non-elite enemy. Once you get Lockpicks Wendy becomes an investigation powerhouse and I'm really pleased with 2 x Double or Nothing for clue-grabbing efficiency, and it also works with Backstab in a pinch (I could have slain [Blood on the Altar]Silas Bishop pretty easily with that but I went for the other option instead). The rest of my deck is trying to do stuff with Scavenging and recurring items to feed Wendy's ability but I've hardly made any use of that aspect of it so far. I added 1 x Elusive between campaigns because free movement is incredibly useful (too bad Wendy can't use Shortcut) and the disengage comes into play a lot with all the evading I end up doing. But yeah, sooner or later evaded hunters will catch up with you and I don't think there's any investigator in the game who can get away with zero killing.
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Apr 7, 2018 10:14
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RE: Latest spoilers, if you aren't putting a backpack inside a backpack you're doing it wrong, imo.
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Apr 14, 2018 13:23
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OPs kind of empty. How much playtime would I expect out of the base set?
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Apr 15, 2018 14:23
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Splicer posted:OPs kind of empty. How much playtime would I expect out of the base set? Outside of replaying with different decks/investigators/difficulties you're looking at around 30 minutes to an hour per scenario. Maybe a little less for the first scenario and maybe a little more for the second.
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Apr 15, 2018 15:37
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Probably a little more than that your first time, just because you're still grappling with the rulebook, but that sounds about right. A single core has ok replay value too, but not the best. A second core ups it a decent amount, and is necessary for more than two players.
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Apr 15, 2018 16:19
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My friend gave me a single core for the holidays and we did a run through The Gathering with 4 players and the game-suggestion sample decks. We got a lot wrong but got the RPG feel right. I picked up a second core, full Dunwich, and the first two standalones. And a carry box system; that's not strictly necessary but a good idea. Anyway, I had a good time soloing Daisy and Zoey through all three parts of Night of the Fanatic. The rules feel more solid and I'd like to run my friend through a campaign with a strong duo. Night of the Fanatic again, or push on to Dunwich? He's done Roland once, and Rex might work too. I'd like to use either Daisy or Agnes. I also like Jenny, but I worry she needs to be part of a bigger team to get up and running.
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Apr 15, 2018 18:51
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Xlorp posted:My friend gave me a single core for the holidays and we did a run through The Gathering with 4 players and the game-suggestion sample decks. We got a lot wrong but got the RPG feel right. I picked up a second core, full Dunwich, and the first two standalones. And a carry box system; that's not strictly necessary but a good idea. If your friend hasn't played Dunwich with more than a single core I'd recommend playing that again. It gives out a lot more xp which means more deckbuilding opportunities. Playing a long cycle with a trickle of xp would be horrid if you didn't know what you are doing when putting together your deck. I also really like Midnight Masks, so any excuse to run it again is a good one. Common wisdom is that Jenny is fine 2 player as long as the other investigators can handle early problems. One of the strongest duos is Zoey + Rex.
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Apr 15, 2018 19:22
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Speaking of Jenny, I played a lot of solo Dunwich last week with her while trying to learn the ins and outs of the game and it feels like her base stats (3-3-3-3) actually present more of a challenge to deck building than other investigators who have clear strong and weak stats. The more I play, the more I appreciate how big a difference a single point makes to your chance of success when passing any test, which I guess goes to show the game has some solid math at its core. Granted, my only basis for comparison is a few standalone duo scenarios with me playing Daisy and then a full duo Dunwich campaign as Harrigan (the highlight of which was my trusty pal, the local Beat Cop XP2 whipping out his truncheon and landing the killing blow on extra-dimensional god-like being Yog-Sothoth on the final turn) so maybe it has more to do with the difference between solo and group play when it comes to specialization rather than raw stats. Anyway, after reading this thread and bits on ArkhamDB and from playing the first few Dunwich scenarios a heap of times, this is the current iteration of my deck : Assets 2x Physical Training (Core Set) 1x Machete (Core Set) 1x Switchblade (Core Set) 2x .41 Derringer (Core Set) 2x Leo De Luca:The Louisiana Lion (Core Set) 2x Flashlight (Core Set) 1x Jenny's Twin .45s:A Perfect Fit (The Dunwich Legacy) Events 1x Dynamite Blast (Core Set) 2x Elusive (Core Set) 2x Emergency Cache (Core Set) 2x Think on Your Feet (The Dunwich Legacy) 2x Sleight of Hand (The Path to Carcosa) 1x Fight or Flight (The Unspeakable Oath) Skills 2x Overpower (Core Set) 2x Unexpected Courage (Core Set) 2x Double or Nothing (The Dunwich Legacy) 2x Quick Thinking (Undimensioned and Unseen) 2x "Watch this!" (The Pallid Mask) Treacheries 1x Random Basic Weakness (Core Set) 1x Searching for Izzie (The Dunwich Legacy) So unlike in group play where you can specialize in fighting or investigating, a solo deck needs to be able to do both. In the specific case of Jenny where you don't have a natural stat advantage for one or the other you'll do fine against most of the board but you'll run into problems with both the high shroud locations and the high attack/HP monsters. The way forward here is to leverage the one advantage Jenny does have : money! Her trait plus the rogue card pool means you can generate a lot of resources quickly and then pump them into expensive but powerful assets like Leo De Luca or Streetwise, but there is kind of a feast or famine element to consider; when you're cashed up you can beat any challenge pretty handily, but when the money runs out you don't have much to fall back on. So with regards to specific cards, the context here is that the deck is of course trying to fight and investigate, but I also considered its overall action economy because having highly efficient turns is kind of the secret to winning at AH. I also gave some thought to handling what the encounter deck can throw at you, but only in general terms; I didn't want to tailor my deck to any particular scenario. 1) Fighting. I experimented with three, four, and five weapons and settled on five for consistency. Machete for weak mobs or Sleight of Hand into .41 Derringer for the more threatening ones. It's annoying that Jenny's Twin .45s don't work with Sleight, and they often require a lot of setup beforehand, but if you really need to kill something that guaranteed +1 damage is a life-saver. Weapons that don't do bonus damage are trash. Elusive and Think on Your Feet are important for avoiding fights you don't need to take, and in a pinch they can also combo with Dynamite Blast. Fight or Flight is a good late-game trick when you've accumulated a heap of horror. The bonus lasts the entire round so you can use it to guarantee a kill or evade on even the toughest mobs. 2) Investigating. Sleight of Hand into Flashlight whenever possible before playing the Flashlight outright. I tried Lockpicks a few times but the fact you have to exhaust them means you can't do multiple searches so I ended up keeping the Flashlights. After you get Streetwise they're still good for saving you cash. Also, if your location has two or lower shroud you can use Double or Nothing to 'cheat' an extra clue (apply the Flashlight effect first and your shroud is 0 x 2). 3) Action Economy. Did I mention Sleight of Hand yet? I generally hard mulligan for Leo De Luca and the games where you don't get him make me wonder how the hell non-rogue investigators make it through solo at all. The Quick Thinkings are a staple here too, for the same reason : simply taking more actions per turn is strong as gently caress. Elusive and Think on Your Feet are great combat tricks but they also help you get around the map without spending actions. You don't have to be engaged to use Elusive, and you can use Think on Your Feet to move to an unrevealed location. When doing The House Always Wins second, I found it impossible to rescue Peter Clover without Elusive and I'm Outta Here (after revealing the Back Alley) because there simply isn't enough time to move normally, especially if there are mobs in the way. Card cycling (or card draw) is an important part of your action economy, and I initially tried Perception and Guts and Overpower together, but in the end I settled for just Overpower. With Leo it didn't feel completely awful to use actions to draw cards every now and then. 4) The Encounter Deck. So this is basically just willpower tests. I was running Guts for this but I found most of the time they sat in my hand, and even when I used them it didn't feel like I avoided a particularly nasty fate very often. The milling mechanic in a few Dunwich scenarios doesn't really come into play if your deck is generally efficient, and I have Physical Training if I really need to pass, and it doubles as asset protection along with the empty Flashlights and Derringers. The nastiest encounter cards for me are Unhallowed Country, which blanks Leo, and Kidnapped! for similar reasons, but that one is an agility test so I can usually handle it with Streetwise. I basically chose to just eat whatever the encounter deck threw at me, but I did have Unexpected Courage to help out if I really needed it. And now for the general upgrade path for the first few scenarios : -> Charon's Obol -> Adaptable, swapping 1 x Double or Nothing for I'm Outta Here as a safety net for the Obol -> Streetwise 1 x Emergency Cache -> 1 x Hot Streak or 1 x Switchblade -> 1 x Lupara 1 x Emergency Cache -> 1 x Hot Streak 1 x Double or Nothing -> The Gold Pocket Watch I found Double or Nothing was generally pretty poor value after the first couple scenarios because there were fewer situations where I could use it safely, so it was my main priority swap along with the Switchblade when making any scenario specific swaps with Adaptable (amazing value, it pays for itself with the first swap). Last thing I will say is regarding resource generation, I tried Lone Wolf for a long time but I hated how the second one you draw is always dead, and I don't think the trickle is as good as what you can get from "Watch This!" which also has better icons. I'd love to hear from more experienced players whether anything I've said here does or doesn't make sense, or what you think of my deck or Jenny in general. I'm going to play the last Dunwich scenario with this deck soon and it'll be interesting to see which resolution will be easier, if I make it all the way...
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Apr 16, 2018 12:12
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I'm pretty sure you want Milan or Alyssa Graham over Leo in a solo run. Leaning towards Milan since Jenny can leverage that money and doesn't particularly need to avoid anything. Also Lupara's are amazing, get them early.
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Apr 16, 2018 12:41
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I've seen Milan in some decklists and the +1 intellect is really tempting (I didn't think I needed extra resources) but having the extra action from Leo every turn feels really forgiving if things go sideways and I can sometimes get greedy with it too by overextending for an extra victory point or even a better resolution. I was getting Lupara early for a while but I kept coming up short on cash for Streetwise so I started prioritizing Hot Streak. I guess the Milan money might help there too. I should definitely try it.
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Apr 16, 2018 13:08
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