Game: Arkham Horror - The King in Yellow Expansion

Thread: Re: Deck optimization when playing with The King in Yellow by itself

camustafa — 2008-11-19T21:28:17+00:00

Here's an executive summary in case the above is too long or complicated to wade through or you need a quick reference.

Assuming you have shuffled in your expansion cards in for all decks, remove the following cards:

- All cards belonging to other expansions, and

- Some cards from the base AH set, as follows:

Mythos deck including the Act Cards: Five random Environment cards, plus six random Headline cards, plus one random Rumor card.

Mythos deck without the Act Cards: Twelve random Environment cards, plus eight random Headline cards, plus two random Rumor cards.

(Optional (for both): Do not remove No One Can Help you Now or Good Work Undone.)

All other decks: Leave the full complement of AH and KiY cards shuffled together in all the remaining decks.

Unique items deck, optional: Remove seven random KiY cards and fourteen random AH cards. Do not remove the Elder signs and The King in Yellow tomes.

Common items deck, optional: Remove two non-weapon KiY cards, ten non-weapon AH cards, and two weapon AH cards.

Spells deck, optional: Sort out the spell cards and use the CotDP visiting exhibit method for the Spells deck only.

Thread: Deck optimization when playing with The King in Yellow by itself

camustafa — 2008-11-19T14:11:27+00:00

If you are like me, you have a problem with playing Arkham Horror (“AH”) with its expansions. Neither style of play (visiting or permanent exhibit) seem entirely satisfactory. The visiting exhibit tends to over-emphasize the expansion cards, sometimes to the point of making the game too hard or zany, or both. The permanent exhibit style can result in the expansion cards being diluted so that their effect on the adventure seems minimal. In some cases, the permanent exhibit style may have a diluting effect on key base game cards as well, especially with multiple expansions in play.

I came up with the idea of modifying the decks to something in the middle. A permanent exhibit that plays a larger role in the daily life in Arkham, if you will. In order to do this right, I examined the numbers and distributions of all the KiY cards and the effects of adding them into the AH decks.

A quick observation before we begin. Below I recommend removing various cards (mostly) randomly, while also removing or keeping specific cards. You may think that this is too much of a hassle, especially if you don't want to sort your cards by expansion (or even in some cases, by type). Do not be discouraged. I also give you how many cards of each type you should remove to arrive at the desired result. This method should easily work even if you have shuffled all your expansion cards in. Here's how in four (really three) easy steps.

Start going through your mixed deck, removing the cards that you need to take out as you go. (Make sure not to remove the cards you should keep.)

Make a separate pile of “must-go” cards.
(Note: Make separate piles for each type that has its own removal requirement.)

Stop when you have removed the right number and type of random cards.

Make sure you have also removed all the must-remove cards. If not, find them and take them out.

Voila! You are done. When the game is over, you can add all the cards you removed back in, if you wish, or, if you have found a set that you particularly like, keep playing with it. It really should not be too difficult or time consuming to create these decks.

Anyway, on to optimization! We start with the deck that needs the most work.

Mythos Deck:

Recommended action: With Act cards in play, create a new, balanced 82-card deck by removing AH base set cards.
Optional action: If playing without the Act cards, create a different, balanced 64-card deck in a similar manner.

I begin with the Mythos deck because this is what drives the game's engine. It's very important to get the Mythos deck right, much more so than the other decks. I aimed for a chance to draw an expansion card which is somewhere around 33%. I then analyzed deck make up to make sure the random card removal mechanic I suggest did not skew the deck towards a particular type of Mythos card.

If the Act cards are in play, adding the 27 KiY Mythos cards into the 67 card AH Mythos deck results in a deck size of 94 and about a 29% chance of drawing an expansion card. In a 20-25 turn game, about 6-7 expansion cards should come up. I wanted to slightly increase the chance to draw expansion cards to about 33%, which translates to 7-8 cards drawn during a 20-25 turn game. It follows that my ideal deck would have a total of 81-82 cards after adding in the KiY cards. You could play around with this number if you wish, of course.

The obvious solution is to remove some AH cards, but I also did not want to do this willy nilly. Keeping the make-up of the Mythos deck similar to the original set is just as important as increasing the chances to draw an expansion card. It would change the game quite drastically and decrease enjoyment if the deck ended up with too many or too few of a certain type of card. For example, if there were now too many environment cards, the environment effects would change too quickly to be meaningful because we would draw them too quickly. On the other hand, a particularly nasty environment could stay in the game far longer than it would have with the vanilla AH set if we had too few of them in the deck.

Here are the types of Mythos cards in the base set, followed by the chance to draw each type:

Environment (ENV): 24 (36%)
Headline (HDL): 36 (54%)
Rumor (RMR): 6 (9%)
Other: 1 (1%)

Here is what I arrived at in terms final deck composition. This deck has about a 33% chance to get a KiY card with every draw and one that keeps the chances to draw particular kinds of cards about the same:

ENV: 19 AH + 11 KiY = 30 (37%)
HDL: 30 AH + 14 KiY = 44 (54%)
RMR: 5 AH + 2 KiY = 7 (9%)
Other: 1 AH = 1 (1%)

Total cards: 82

Here are the AH cards you would remove to get to this final distribution:

ENV: Remove five random cards (optional: do not remove No One Can Help You Now).

HDL: Remove six random cards.

RMR: Remove one random card (optional: do not remove Good Work Undone).

Note that The Story Continues is listed under OTHER, and has to stay since it is needed to reshuffle the deck. No One Can Help you Now and Good Work Undone make the game more challenging. They are also very thematic. I feel that those two cards really should be in every game of Arkham Horror so I prefer not to take them out.

Note also that this deck has a slightly increased chance of drawing a The Next Act Begins card (increased from about 6% to about 7%). I do not feel that this increases the challenge level too much and thus do not compensate for it.

Optional: Some people like to play without the Act cards. This changes the number of headlines KiY adds and the finial deck size.

ENV: 12 AH + 11 KiY = 23 (36%)
HDL: 28 AH + 8 KiY = 34 (53%)
RMR: 4 AH + 2 KiY = 6 (9%)
Other: 1 AH = 1 (1%)

Total cards: 64

I'll leave the exercise of which AH cards in this scenario to remove to the reader.

Other World Encounters deck:

Recommended action: Add all the expansion cards in with all the AH cards.

It is sufficient simply to add the KiY cards in with the AH cards to get about a 30% chance to draw an expansion card, which is similar to the effect I aimed for with the Mythos deck. As an added benefit, the results are still quite balanced in terms of color.

Arkham Encounters decks:

Recommended action: Add all the expansion cards in with all the AH cards.

Here, KiY adds five new cards to each location's seven card deck, which gives a roughly 42% chance to draw an expansion card. Though this number is larger than what I aimed for with the Mythos deck, I do not believe that this is a problem since many of the expansion encounters are quite varied in terms of beneficial versus harmful events. If you were so inclined, you could remove one or two KiY cards randomly from each location before adding them in, but in the end it is just not worth the bother.

Spells deck:

Recommended action: Create a new, balanced deck of 45 spell cards by removing some AH cards.
Optional action: Use CotDP the visiting exhibit method to draw a KiY spell 50% of the time.

One could aim for a 33% chance to draw a KiY spell card by shuffling the 15 KiY spell cards in with 30 AH spell cards. If you have shuffled all your spell cards in already, you would need to randomly remove ten AH spell cards to achieve this result.

Optional: The problem with the spell deck is that the number of cards drawn from here will usually be smaller compared to the Mythos deck. Depending on the number of players and the characters that get chosen, you may end up with anywhere from a single spell to just a handful of spells. Few games will see much more than 6-7 spells in play. The KiY spells are also very different from AH spells (whether you feel that they are more or less useful is a separate issue). If you wanted to see more of them in action, you could aim for the 50% rate that the CotDP visiting exhibit method gives.

Unique items deck:

Recommended action: Add all the expansion cards in with all the AH cards.
Optional action: Remove some AH and some KiY cards to keep the chance to draw an Elder Sign roughly the same as in stock AH.

This is another important deck to get right because of the Elder signs. Shuffling in the 21 KiY cards to the 40 base AH cards should result in a 34% chance to draw an expansion card. At the same time, the chance to draw an Elder Sign also reduces from 10% to about 6.5%, making the game somewhat more challenging. If this is not an issue for you, you could stop here.

Optional: If you wanted to keep the Elder Sign draw chance at 10%, you could remove some cards from the deck. Randomly removing 7 KiY cards and 14 AH cards (other than Elder signs and The King in Yellow tomes) should give the desired result. I like keeping The King in Yellow tomes in the deck because they are so thematic to this expansion. This gives a final deck of 40 cards, with a 35% chance to draw an expansion card AND a 10% chance to draw an Elder sign.

Common items deck:

Recommended action: Add all the expansion cards in with all the AH cards.
Optional action: Keep weapon drawing chances the same by removing some AH and some KiY cards.

Adding the 19 KiY common item cards to the 44 card AH deck results in about 30% chance to draw an expansion card. This result is certainly acceptable, but it also dilutes the chance to draw a weapon since KiY only has two weapons compared to the 24 in stock AH. The weapon draw chance drops from about 55% to about 41%. If this does not bother you, you could stop here.

Optional: Weapons are to this deck what Elder Signs are to the Unique deck, even though they do not impact the game quite as much as the latter. Therefore, you could make sure that the weapon draw chance stays about the same by randomly removing two non-weapon KiY cards, 10 non-weapon AH cards and two AH weapon cards. This gives a deck size of 44 cards. The deck has a ~36% to draw an expansion card and a ~55% chance to draw a weapon.

Note: Make sure to keep the cards you removed from this deck handy. Many encounters instruct you to find a specific card from the Common Item deck. This way, you won't have to go looking for them in the box.

Conclusion:

KiY is somewhat easy to integrate by itself though it involves a little more work if one wants to get the Elder Signs and Common Deck weapons right. The problem becomes harder when multiple expansions are in play. For my deck optimization for The Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (“CotDP”), see this thread: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/2838869

I also have a deck optimization strategy for playing KiY and CotDP together at the same time, which I will post in the base set's forums.

Thread: Re: Optimal deck construction for the king in Yellow Cards

mageith — 2008-11-18T23:12:29+00:00

jodokast wrote:
Yes that is the simpliest way of construction to get the 15% chance. What I'd be interested in are two things -
Is 25 Mythos cards about right a game?
Probably closer to 20 cards, depending on GOO and number of players and your goals.
For example, many players think a final battle is a draw. If you want a final battle, the game is shorter. There is even cards that call the Ancient One on at weaker than full strength.

I usually count the number of Mythos cards I've used. I usually play 4 player games. I usually play to seal. So we might have 10 or so gates called, 4 or so surges, 3 or so bumps, 1 or so elder signs and 1 or so other kind of card if we win.

What percentage range is optimal for the KiY to have an apparence?
Completely personal preference. Lots of things happen about 1/6th of time (17%): Dunwich horror or rift spews a doom token. Discard a blessing, curse or patrol wagon.

As point out, the touring version of KIY almost assures that ACT III will appear if you ignore the Next Act Cards. 19% per draw. 20 draws = 3.8 Next Act Cards! (Of course it's not that simple). I play KIY a lot as the touring version. We always add doom tokens for the first Next Act Begins. If the second act comes before it looks like we will win very soon, we add two doom tokens again.

Thread: Re: Using Storm of Spirits

ColtsFan76 — 2008-11-17T12:23:50+00:00

Is it +4 or +3? My spreadsheet shows +3 but maybe I typed it wrong.

Regardless, the spell only works if you devote the required number of hand to it. The only way to use this in combo with something else is to have a 3rd hand.

Thread: Re: Using Storm of Spirits

Dam the Man — 2008-11-17T12:01:29+00:00

You're right, spells lose their bonuses/benefits as soon as you stop allotting hands to them. "Until the end of combat" allows you to get +4 and use Lore instead of Fight if you somehow don't manage to kill the monster on the first combat check.

Thread: Using Storm of Spirits

Weloi Avala — 2008-11-17T11:42:10+00:00

Hey all,

A questions concerning one of the spells from the expansion: Storm of Spirits.

The spell requires two hands, swaps fight for lore in combat checks, and provides +4. My question is whether:

1) first combat check: cast, and attack using lore, with a +4 to the check.

2) wield a weapon for the second and following rounds, while still using lore instead of fight for the combat checks.

Can that be done? I suspect not, since the spell probably loses effect the moment both hands are not being used for it--but thought I'd check here, as the 'until end of combat' part of the spell description gave me hope....

-M.

Thread: Re: All of Arkham's a Stage, and We Are Merely Players (Part 2)

Amator — 2008-11-17T05:19:58+00:00

This is perhaps my favorite session report ever. Should my schedule arrange it soon, I'd like to try and replicate your effort with Dark Pharaoh. Kudos, sir!

Thread: [TehTentacle reviews] A Spectral Tragedy

Baraduribagugar — 2008-11-15T21:01:24+00:00

Hello there all you geeks, arkham- and tentacle-fans! This is my second review and this time it will be the King in Yellow, introducing the spectral tradegy to Arkham's town people. This expansion is actually my personal favourite, 'cos it's my first expansion bought for the game, so it's kind of special, you know what I mean

[The Review]

It' a yellow box

Let's pick up the game box, it's nice, sturdy and - oh, yellow. Matches with the title, just as the cover art which probably portrays the Tattered King himself; Hastur. Is there something missing? Nope, the tentacles too are there, pouring from inside Hastur's cloak, presenting the perfect Arkham theme, by which I of course mean tentacles.

Again, the artwork and components are the very top-highest quality as you would expect from FFG. Shiny cards, big and small and some yellow sign tokens and three riot monster chips. It seems pretty pricey, but then again, you get pretty much with it, many more hours of Arkham fun in my case.

What is it like, tell me! - Well it's yellow

The King in Yellow is the first expansion to introduce the nice herald mechanic. It comes with the herald sheet, presenting the tattered king, has a pretty cool picture even though it looks more like a mummy to me. It doesn't have as much game-altering rules as those that come with the newer ones, but boy - the blight cards are nasty, they are what change the game - and I like them a very lot!

The blighted persons have totally seen the Yellow Sign, now passing it to everyone else (or just doing suicide stuff), I like the Dean especially. The blight cards really do their precious job making the games in some parts real difficult. And hell, the riots when they're out! An angry mob running freely around the town just to stop in front of the St. Mary's hospital exactly when you're visiting it! Damn!

The big cards, well they are the basic, mythos cards are just evil (I mean very), and very interesting when it comes to theme, I'll talk about them a bit later. Then there are the small cards, unique items, common items, and spells. The common items include some nice items like the sedanette, athame, press pass and director's diary, which will come in hand when playing with the herald. The time bomb is fun, but usually won't do much, it might sometimes be a good way to get rid of one riot chip.
Also the unique items are mostly good, there's a few of some neat magical weapons, some really weird stuff and tomes and shit; like the carcosan page, that's pretty cool, being in other world you might need your friend toss you a tommy gun or magic sword (or the knife in some cases).
Then there are spells, with low sanity costs, some having high casting modifier. I've only find it useless that some of them use the magical effect cards which could have been explained in the rules and maybe being replaced with a few extra cards, blight maybe.

Yellow to the very insides

I've always liked the small expansions being more thematic than the big ones and the King in Yellow is no exception; it hits the very spot with it's theme, and it's strong I tell you. The King in Yellow is being played in the town and for that there are the three card act-deck and the 'next act begins!' -mythos cards. Originally the King in Yellow is supposed to have only two acts, but this was obviously changed to better match the gameplay. To get all the juice from the act threat, I would recommend always playing either with the Touring Performance style or throwing out about half or more of the base game's mythos cards and then shuffle with the expansion mythos cards, also same with the gate cards.

In the gate, mythos and location card can be found tens of hints and links to the original book by Robert W. Chambers, which I myself am reading and have searched a lot about on the internet. The guys at FFG must have read the book pretty well; there are good links with the original book all around, some of them being actually hidden. Heck, there's even a mythos card which actually said something about the original publisher of the book.

I've found the yellow sign!

The King in Yellow is a good expansion, there are few things that trouble me, yet holds it the place as my favourite expansion. Though it doesn't actually contain many new mechanics, it gives tons of fun, can sometimes greatly alter the difficult, is thematically strong and is also well converted to fit with the original Arkham Horror theme and gameplay.
If the idea of maddening book/theatre play appeals to you I'd consider it. If you just want something new for the base game I'd still recommend it. And for an Arkham Horror fanatic like me, it's of course a must buy, though at the time of writing I think it's out of print. When it's back to print it can be well worth of checking out.

I like the King in Yellow and I give it 8.5, I think I've fallen to the hands of a living god....

Thread: Re: Optimal deck construction for the king in Yellow Cards

ninjadorg — 2008-11-08T09:38:12+00:00

Or you could just put the 6 next act begins cards on the top of your Mythos deck. That way you're certain to see at least one of them come up.

Thread: Re: Optimal deck construction for the king in Yellow Cards

jodokast — 2008-11-07T20:20:56+00:00

I think the most simple solution is this:

- Take the 6 "Next Act Begins" cards out of your deck. Then take the top 88 (67+27-6) Mythos cards and shuffle the "Next Act Begins" cards back in this stack.

- The remaining cards are set aside.

- After a Mythos Card is resolved, put it on a discard pile.

- When the game is over, take out all "Next Act Begins" cards from your discard pile and put them back in the Mythos Deck.

- Then count the remaining cards of your discard pile, shuffle them with the deck you had set aside. Put that many cards back in your Mythos deck, shuffle again and you are ready for the next game.

Yes that is the simpliest way of construction to get the 15% chance. What I'd be interested in are two things -
Is 25 Mythos cards about right a game?
What percentage range is optimal for the KiY to have an apparence?

Thread: Re: Optimal deck construction for the king in Yellow Cards

jodokast — 2008-11-07T20:15:59+00:00

Black Goat has 88 Ancient One cards, but only 23 are Mythos cards.

Thanks. It seemed weird but the geek listed it as 88 Mythos cards. I'll change my figures now.

Thread: Re: Optimal deck construction for the king in Yellow Cards

almar — 2008-11-07T15:43:34+00:00

Thread: Re: Optimal deck construction for the king in Yellow Cards

bill_andel — 2008-11-07T15:12:38+00:00

Remember, too, that the recommended way to play - touring performance - places the KiY cards atop the other Mythos cards. So this really gives you a 6 in 27 chance (~22%) of drawing a "Next Act Begins". Even playing with the Dark Pharaoh touring exhibit variant - i.e. two Mythos decks, one KiY, one everything else and alternate drawing between decks - drastically reduces the urgency of the Acts (by half). I would think, then, that the ideal distribution would be to have "Next Act Begins" cards coming up every 1 in 4 to 5 cards.

I can think of two ways FFG could address this:

1) Print additional "Next Act Begins" cards to be mixed in, depending on which supplements are in play. This would require additional "Next Act Begins" mythos cards for each expansion. These could be printed with expansion symbols (i.e. Dark Pharaoh, Dunwich, Kinsport, Black Goat, etc.), so it would be simple to add or remove the correct quantity of cards for whatever expansions are in use. But it would be a lot more cards.

2) Reprint the "Act" cards themselves (I, II, III) with monster movement or dimensional symbols such that the symbols have a 1:4 to 1:5 chance of appearance, and replace "Next Act Begins" Mythos cards with "Strange Sightings" Mythos cards (which also open no gates, add no doom tokens and move all monsters). With this solution, it would not matter how many expansions were in play, so long as the distribution of monster movement/dimensional symbols were consistent across mythos cards from all sets. Assuming the dimensional symbols are uniformly distributed among the Mythos cards, and as there are nine dimensional symbols (moon, circle, square, diamond, triangle, hexagon, star, cross and slash), the 2:9 proportion of "Next Act Begins" to KiY Mythos cards could be maintained simply by selecting two dimensional symbols for each of the Act (I, II & III) cards.

Thread: Re: Optimal deck construction for the king in Yellow Cards

Dam the Man — 2008-11-07T12:33:54+00:00

jodokast wrote:

Now the original base game has 67 Mythos cards. This is increased to 27 with the KiY so with just the two games together there should be a 14.8% chance of seeing all three act cards. Dunwich adds 36 more mythos cards dropping the percentage down to 7.2%. CoDP has 18 more dropping it to 5.28%. Kingsport 22 dropping it to 3.73%. Black Goat according to BGG adds 88 (!!!!) which would be 1.24%.

Black Goat has 88 Ancient One cards, but only 23 are Mythos cards.

Thread: Optimal deck construction for the king in Yellow Cards

jodokast — 2008-11-07T12:04:44+00:00

Hi, I've noticed several comments about the dilution of the King in Yellow "The next act begins" cards, particularly after this is merged with other expansions. I decided to work out some particular statistics for the game.

After some research I decided to use the HYPGEOMDIST formulea in Excel. This is mostly because after talking to several people who actually did sensible statistic papers at university this is the formulea to use. They could be wrong, if they are correct me.

The data I had was as follows -
There are 6 "The next act begins cards". This may be variable, I may have counted my deck wrong. But I counted all the mythos cards in my stack and dug out the only 6 I could find.
We are looking for 3 "The next act begins cards" to give the threat of ending the game.
The more interesting data is how many cards would be drawn in the average game. This is a vital piece of information and I wish I had some actual data. I pegged this at 25, but I could be wrong.
Even more difficult to determine is the percentage chance of having all three act cards arrive. How dangereous ought the cards to be. So I have decided to do a scale and repeat my results below. The % is the % chance in a game of three act cards appearing over a 25 Mythos card game.
5.025% - 151 cards
9.93% - 113 cards
15.12% - 93 cards.
Look at the margins A difference of 20 cards makes a 5% increase in the likelyhood of seeing that third king in yellow card.

Now the original base game has 67 Mythos cards. This is increased to 27 with the KiY so with just the two games together there should be a 14.8% chance of seeing all three act cards. Dunwich adds 36 more mythos cards dropping the percentage down to 7.2%. CoDP has 18 more dropping it to 5.28%. Kingsport 22 dropping it to 3.73%. Black Goat according to BGG adds 23 (corrected) which would be 2.69%.

Now my feeling would be to have the percentage to appear at 15%. This is because you want it to influence some games, but not every game. Additionally I think the percentage is low enough that it may not be a threat, but if two of them arrive early then you may have some difficult decissions to make. Suggestions?

P.S. if you disagree with my maths please to comment.

Image

Hininsul — 2008-10-13T15:21:01+00:00

The King in Yellow Spanish Edition (El Rey de Amarillo)

Thread: Re: Do you think some fresh ideas from the expansions should be included in the main game as basic elements of the game??

KingPut — 2008-10-12T04:28:37+00:00

GogTad wrote:
are the The injury and madness cards in the king in yellow expansion?

if not what expansion do they come in?

Injury and Madness cards come with Dunwich Horror. We always play with injuries and Madness cards. Having your character collect a couple of of injury and madness cards during the game is like a badge of honor.

Thread: Re: Do you think some fresh ideas from the expansions should be included in the main game as basic elements of the game??

GogTad — 2008-10-12T04:02:22+00:00

are the The injury and madness cards in the king in yellow expansion?

if not what expansion do they come in?

Thread: Re: King in Yellow sold here

johnweldy — 2008-10-09T19:07:14+00:00

Out of stock.

Thread: Re: Reprinting Date?

bioball — 2008-10-03T01:33:01+00:00

Okay-- its killing me. I really, really want!

My mistake was getting Dunwich first. I should have been calm and bought King in Yellow as my first ex-pack. I would then not be in this predicament.

Thread: Re: Reprinting Date?

tel999 — 2008-09-21T23:59:09+00:00

Just found that I need one too, one of my "Riot" monster counters is missing. I 'could' make my own up but, i'll always know it's different and lurking somewhere in the box.

I know damn well though that as soon as I buy it they missing counter will turn up.

Thread: Re: KiY vs Tough Houserule Variants

ketchupgun — 2008-08-20T18:21:54+00:00

Grazzi Luca!

I wasn't sure if these famous houserules developed out of a need to fix the basegame (which the expansions did afterwards) or if they are just as modular as the expansions in order to adjust how much you want to lose...i mean win ..no matter what combination of expansions and rules you are playing with

Thread: Re: KiY vs Tough Houserule Variants

Luke the Flaming — 2008-08-20T17:07:33+00:00

We play with all the expansions (minus the Kingsport board), four characters (even with only two or three players) and several house rules to increase difficulty ("weak" seals, two monsters per gate, no final battle, etc.). The game became very hard (we win less than on third of the challenges), but we enjoy it in this way.

It all depends by the degree of difficulty your group needs to enjoy the game (someone likes to win often, others to win about half the attempts, others to have a nearly impossible challenge, etc.).

Have fun!

Thread: Re: possessions setup question

ketchupgun — 2008-08-20T03:37:00+00:00

thanks Colts
I setup/played it correctly then.
and lost.
and enjoyed it very much!

for the record...which would have cleared up this post in the first place...my two investigators only had random possessions...so yes, in Touring Mode, they only got KiY stuff.

Thread: Re: possessions setup question

ColtsFan76 — 2008-08-20T02:57:11+00:00

TheKinginYellow wrote:
ColtsFan76 wrote:
Actually, I was reading over my copy of Black Goat of the Woods.

Bastard.
Either you went to GenCon, or you got connections, because I've heard that poor mortals like myself can't get our hands on it until it's released in the next few months.
Now where's the emoticon for pure envy?

Grimstax was there and was awesome enough to pick up a copy for me. Just arrived in the mail today!

(that'll teach you to mock me with your shamless plugs and smart comments!)

Thread: Re: possessions setup question

TheKinginYellow — 2008-08-20T02:50:18+00:00

ColtsFan76 wrote:
Actually, I was reading over my copy of Black Goat of the Woods.

Bastard.
Either you went to GenCon, or you got connections, because I've heard that poor mortals like myself can't get our hands on it until it's released in the next few months.
Now where's the emoticon for pure envy?

Thread: Re: possessions setup question

ColtsFan76 — 2008-08-20T02:44:18+00:00

ketchupgun wrote:
ok..so I don't think I got an answer there....

In Touring Mode, all the character possessions will come from KiY (because those stacks are on top)?

All Random possessions will unless you somehow manage to burn through the top portion of the deck.

All Fixed possession will come from the non-KiY portion of the deck.

Thread: Re: possessions setup question

ketchupgun — 2008-08-20T02:41:30+00:00

ok..so I don't think I got an answer there....

In Touring Mode, all the character possessions will come from KiY (because those stacks are on top)?

Thread: Re: possessions setup question

rules_heretic — 2008-08-20T02:22:33+00:00

Just for clarity...

For a fixed possession (.45 Automatic) you go fishing through the entire (combined Base and KiY) Common Items pile until you find it irrespective of where the card happens to lay.

------------------

Modified for clarity!

Thread: Re: possessions setup question

ColtsFan76 — 2008-08-20T02:13:09+00:00

TheKinginYellow wrote:
P.S. ColtsFan must be slipping. At this rate he's going to have to settle for the bronze.

edited to add shameless plug and smart-ass comment
Actually, I was reading over my copy of Black Goat of the Woods. So when your copy arrives, I'll already have those answers!

(and taking care of wedding stuff and other errands with the fiancee - but the first line sounds better)

But actually, you are both right (well THE KiY is more right). The game is set up one of two ways depending on the style. You played it correctly for the way you played: stack the new on the old for the Touring Performance. Mix them all together for the Permanent Performance.

Both of these are Step 6 items while drawing random Possessions is step 9.

Thread: Re: possessions setup question

TheKinginYellow — 2008-08-19T23:57:14+00:00

All the King in Yellow cards go on top of their respective decks if you are using the Touring Performance.
From the rules:
6a. ...Then shuffle the new Spells, Common Items, and Unique Item, into three separate decks, and place them on top of their respective decks (so the new Spells are on the top of the original Spell deck, the new Common Items on the top of the original Common Item deck, and so on).

Also, don't be too discouraged. There might not be a lot of weaponry in TKiY, but some of the best common items are in that set. (Press Pass and Athame come to mind).

Or, {Warning: shameless plug to follow} just use my tables for assigning character-specific common items to your investigators. You can find it here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/245924

P.S. ColtsFan must be slipping. At this rate he's going to have to settle for the bronze.

edited to add shameless plug and smart-ass comment

Thread: Re: possessions setup question

Matchstickman — 2008-08-19T23:41:08+00:00

Set up is entirely seperate from playing the game, which ever variant you are using. Take the cards from ALL the decks as the character dictates.

It's difficult enough as it is to win KiY without the GOO influencing your mind before the game starts!

Thread: KiY vs Tough Houserule Variants

ketchupgun — 2008-08-19T21:43:44+00:00

I've been playing AH for a few months now, and adding alot of houserules that "fix" the game (ie: Stormknight gates, 2 monsters per gate, to mention a few).

Now with KiY in play, is this a case to keep these houserules...or do most people play with the original boxed rules when adding expansions.

How would this apply when I get DH?

thx so much

Thread: possessions setup question

ketchupgun — 2008-08-19T21:40:14+00:00

Just soloed my first game with KiY.
got completely KILLED by Act III.

anyways...I played it as the "Touring Performace" because I wanted to see all the new cards.

But I was wondering...I set up my investigators' possessions from the KiY decks. (needless to mention they were pretty unarmed). are you supposed to give them their possessions from the base cards, and then put the new KiY cards on top of those stacks (in Touring Mode)?

Thread: Re: Reprinting Date?

ketchupgun — 2008-08-18T19:23:13+00:00

i'm pretty sure I just bogh the last KiY in Toronto.
I looked EVERYWHERE for it and only one store had one left.
TONS of CotDPs lying around though. and Dunwhich is available here and there, but KiY is really hard to find around here.

Thread: Re: All Expansions In Play -- Take Act I, or Doom Tokens?

Kobold Curry Chef — 2008-08-06T17:38:57+00:00

mrbeankc wrote:
You want to live dangerously then play King in Yellow as the traveling show with that nasty herald.

With all 4 expansions played together it's extremely doubtful that you are going to get the 3 acts during an average game play. The point of the acts is to force players into hard decisions but with the 6 cards mixed into what is such a huge deck with all 4 expansions it's unlikely you'll ever see Act III. My suggestion is to not even include them in the game unless you are playing the King in Yellow as a scenario i.e. traveling show.

In your situation with the Act cards in play I would simply let Act I go and not worry about it unless Act II shows up and then maybe take action to stop that one. But otherwise I'd ignore it.

I do suggest though that you try out the Dark Pharaoh and King in Yellow expansions as scenarios rather than mixed in with the rest of the game. It's adds great flavor and change of pace.

Yes, we have done so with each expansion. The Travelling Performance of KiY is vicious -- the Act cards ate our lunch but good when we got three in a row towards the end of the game!!

I'm in favor of leaving in the Act cards even with all the expansions. Since each expansion tends to make the game even harder, the Act cards tend to give the investigators a break for a turn. No new gate, no monster, and (unless you really want to prevent Act I) no doom tokens. Also, you never know -- in a recent game we had two Act cards pop up back to back, even with all the expansions mixed in!

Thread: Re: All Expansions In Play -- Take Act I, or Doom Tokens?

Luke the Flaming — 2008-08-06T17:37:13+00:00

Ignore the Acts.
If you always add the 2 tokens required by Act I, you'll end with 49 games on 50 made harder for nothing (since you won't draw 3 Acts). It's better to lose just the 50th game (due to the rare "triple Act") and play the other 49 with no additional difficulty, than paying the option of a "non auto-defeat" game on 50 by adding two doom tokens (for free) in the other 49.
Have fun!

Thread: Re: All Expansions In Play -- Take Act I, or Doom Tokens?

Rygel — 2008-08-06T17:06:19+00:00

With all 4 expansions in play you should let the nest act begin. It is very, very unlikely you will another "Act" card before the game ends.

Thread: Re: All Expansions In Play -- Take Act I, or Doom Tokens?

mrbeankc — 2008-08-06T15:52:57+00:00

You want to live dangerously then play King in Yellow as the traveling show with that nasty herald.

With all 4 expansions played together it's extremely doubtful that you are going to get the 3 acts during an average game play. The point of the acts is to force players into hard decisions but with the 6 cards mixed into what is such a huge deck with all 4 expansions it's unlikely you'll ever see Act III. My suggestion is to not even include them in the game unless you are playing the King in Yellow as a scenario i.e. traveling show.

In your situation with the Act cards in play I would simply let Act I go and not worry about it unless Act II shows up and then maybe take action to stop that one. But otherwise I'd ignore it.

I do suggest though that you try out the Dark Pharaoh and King in Yellow expansions as scenarios rather than mixed in with the rest of the game. It's adds great flavor and change of pace.

Thread: All Expansions In Play -- Take Act I, or Doom Tokens?

Kobold Curry Chef — 2008-08-06T15:14:58+00:00

This has happened in three different games this month, so I thought I'd ask everyone their favorite way of dealing with this situation.

We play with all four expansions at once, because we like to live dangerously. In the first turn or three, we draw "The Next Act Begins." It's very early, so spending two doom tokens doesn't seem like a heavy price. I've been advocating accepting Act I instead, for these reasons:

1) With all four expansions in play, the six "Next Act Begins" Mythos cards are very unlikely to come up again during your typical 15-20 turn game;

2) When we lose, it's usually because the GOO awakes while we're a turn or two from getting that sixth seal.

On the other hand, Dawn and Amy say that by paying the doom tokens and blowing off Act I, we're making it pretty much impossible for Act III to ever show up.

(If we were doing a Touring Performance game, I'd always pay the doom tokens, of course.)

Thread: Re: Dagon the herald

Pnakotus — 2008-08-06T01:09:38+00:00

Yeah, making the Deep Ones toughness 3 is absurd. They're just human-sized, normal-matter animals; saying they're up there with Dholes and Star spawn is inane. I'd question the horror stats too - frickin Mi-Go have a -1 on horror, and they look like tyranids. Having a harder check than dark young, byakhee and dholes is crazy. Good idea and excellent graphic work, however!

Thread: Re: King in Yellow with Dunwich and Kingsport

DavidT — 2008-08-02T23:59:01+00:00

ced1106 wrote:
mrbeankc wrote:
I was thinking of alternating the mythos card being drawn from the KiY deck and the regular deck to keep Kingsport and Dunwich a part of the game.

That works. Since you want a KiY traveling exhibit version, you may just play the KiY and DH mythos decks separately, alternating draws from each deck. I wouldn't even bother with playing with the base set (and possibly KH) mythos cards, since this even further decreases the likelihood of gates opening in Dunwich.

AFAIK, gates don't open in Kingsport.

Here's a Scenario you might find amusing. Lemme know if you want the original Strange Eon version of it. Did you download the Dunwich Horror Herald?

That scenario looks fun. Is there a big repository of these scenarios somewhere? I've seen the three on FFG's summer league site, but your Dunwich scenario is new to me.

Thread: Re: King in Yellow with Dunwich and Kingsport

DavidT — 2008-08-02T23:56:33+00:00

mrbeankc wrote:
We don't plan on combining the KiY Mythos cards with the regular Mythos cards but playing it as the traveling show version. So I expect we're going to see mucho act cards unless we get really lucky.

Good luck...

Thread: Re: King in Yellow with Dunwich and Kingsport

Grimstax — 2008-08-02T12:38:06+00:00

I agree with ColtsFan; if you want to highlight KiY, then only use the Arkham board with the KiY cards. You could still probably use all the items, madness/injury cards, etc. from Dunwich; just don't use the Dunwich Board since no KiY mythos cards will open a gate at Dunwich. Should you reach the "regular" Mythos cards pile, simply ignore any that have a Dunwich gate opening on them to avoid having to separate all those cards. However, the odds are almost overwhelming that you won't reach those regular Mythos cards. KiY is, in my opinion, the hardest of the expansions if played on its own.

On another note, even though the "Next Act" cards don't come into play as often if you mix all the Mythos cards together (you can always take another mythos card on top of the Next Act if you want to avoid a "free mythos turn"), the expansion still adds lots of difficulty to the game with the blight rules. Those blights will still come up every time the terror level increases.

Thread: Re: King in Yellow with Dunwich and Kingsport

ColtsFan76 — 2008-08-02T12:22:38+00:00

mrbeankc wrote:
We don't plan on combining the KiY Mythos cards with the regular Mythos cards but playing it as the traveling show version. So I expect we're going to see mucho act cards unless we get really lucky.

I've only played with the Kingsport expansion once so far. I was sure Gates appeard in Kingsport but I guess I'm wrong on that. That still leaves Dunwich though which does have Gates appearing there from the mythos cards.
If you use the traveling show version, then the game will most likely be over before you see any of the AH, DH, or KH mythos cards. If you don't want to shuffle them all together, then I would recommend you do this:

Shuffle all the AH, DH, and KH cards and form one Mythis deck. Form a 2nd deck with KiY. Every Mythos phase, alternate back and forth between drawing 1 Mythos card from teh KiY deck and the next turn from the AH/DH/KH deck. This way, you still give some focus to the KiY but make the other boards a part of the game as well. If "The Story Continues" card comes up, reshuffle both decks into their discards separately (i.e., retain both decks). You can do this with any of the decks you please (alternate between encounters, drawing items and spells, etc.).

Or if you really are just trying to highlight KiY (which would be the point of playing the traveling version), just play with AH and KiY.

Thread: Re: King in Yellow with Dunwich and Kingsport

ced1106 — 2008-08-02T10:17:36+00:00

mrbeankc wrote:
I was thinking of alternating the mythos card being drawn from the KiY deck and the regular deck to keep Kingsport and Dunwich a part of the game.

That works. Since you want a KiY traveling exhibit version, you may just play the KiY and DH mythos decks separately, alternating draws from each deck. I wouldn't even bother with playing with the base set (and possibly KH) mythos cards, since this even further decreases the likelihood of gates opening in Dunwich.

AFAIK, gates don't open in Kingsport.

Here's a Scenario you might find amusing. Lemme know if you want the original Strange Eon version of it. Did you download the Dunwich Horror Herald?

Thread: Re: King in Yellow with Dunwich and Kingsport

mrbeankc — 2008-08-02T09:27:58+00:00

We don't plan on combining the KiY Mythos cards with the regular Mythos cards but playing it as the traveling show version. So I expect we're going to see mucho act cards unless we get really lucky.

I've only played with the Kingsport expansion once so far. I was sure Gates appeard in Kingsport but I guess I'm wrong on that. That still leaves Dunwich though which does have Gates appearing there from the mythos cards.

Thread: Re: King in Yellow with Dunwich and Kingsport

Luke the Flaming — 2008-08-02T09:12:38+00:00

Kingsport is triggered by "monster movement", not gates (so it is not affected by how many expansions you add to the deck).

You may house rule that the six "Next Act" cards from KiY (very unlikely to see more than one with such a big Mythos deck) instead of adding a (useless) Act card open a gate in Dnwich instead. Just an idea.

Thread: King in Yellow with Dunwich and Kingsport

mrbeankc — 2008-08-02T09:01:20+00:00

Going to be playing later today The King in Yellow for the first time and the plan is to play it with the Kingsport and Dunwich expansions. The problem is the King in Yellow Mythos cards only have gate locations for the Arkham map. So for those who have played The King in Yellow, how do you play the game with those two expansions? I was thinking of alternating the mythos card being drawn from the KiY deck and the regular deck to keep Kingsport and Dunwich a part of the game.

Thread: Re: Do you think some fresh ideas from the expansions should be included in the main game as basic elements of the game??

mageith — 2008-07-29T16:48:15+00:00

JimJohnny wrote:
In my opinion some special rules or ideas that were introduced over various expansion sets should be included in the main game as basic rules. These are:

- The injury and madness cards

These make the game a lot better. They give it a more realistic feel, and they boost the role-playing idea. The rule to discard half your items, go to 1 stamina or sanity just suck. By losing equipment your character gets crippled and it takes some time to recover. Usually this does not happen before the end of the game. On the contrary, injury/madness cards only add a minor penalty(at times is not that minor but this is ok, u know a amtter of luck).

It makes the game a lot easier in my opinion. We don't use them any more. It also leads to the strategy of retiring characters until you get one you want. There is a penalty for that in the final scoring, but I'm not sure that that many folks actually keep score.

- The herald variant

A great idea to give a reason to terror track to be, apart from closing the shops. In most of my games the terror track did not seem to play any important role. Most of them it reached 3 or 4 and that was all. Especially if you keep an eye in killing some monsters now and then.
With dunwich, the terror level varies a lot. Sometimes its low and sometimes its high. I have all the expansions and include all the monsters. The monsters tend to be mightier in the later expansions and more difficult to deal with and hence the terror level tends to go up.

Now with the herald variant and the blight cards you have to be careful with the terror track and it is an extra thing to have to keep in mind. It also boosts the role-playing of the game since NPCs suddently turn against you and cause more trouble as if you did not have quite some trouble already.
We actually don't play the blight cards that much because they are so fidgity. As you point out, it is another thing to keep track of. It certainly makes the terror level more significant and game in general more difficult.

Of course they make the game more difficult but I believe the terror track needed this fix.
The main impact of the terror level is to reduce the score of your game, if you are keeping score.

Thread: Re: Reprinting Date?

Frantic Ferret — 2008-07-24T19:44:11+00:00

I believe they're the Summer League scenarios being put out over at FFG. The first two were just using the base game and then they are going to start adding expansions into the mix.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ah_league.html

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pdclose — 2008-07-09T20:54:31+00:00

The King In Yellow sign is easy to duplicate in embroidery or fabric paint. Here done in shiny yellow rayon thread against a shiny black background and lined in shiny silver-grey satin. A unique monster tile-drawing bag!

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Partizan242 — 2007-12-12T20:54:48+00:00

A Riot and a Gug menace the University streets

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Partizan242 — 2007-12-12T20:53:19+00:00

Three yellow signs mean three blight cards in play

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Partizan242 — 2007-12-12T20:06:13+00:00

The yellow signs are helping Ithaqua to awaken

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willdesigns — 2007-07-03T04:06:47+00:00

Uncut Sheet

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willdesigns — 2007-07-03T04:00:22+00:00

Relevant Mythos Cards

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willdesigns — 2007-07-03T03:48:51+00:00

Acts

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willdesigns — 2007-07-03T03:40:06+00:00

Magical Effects

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willdesigns — 2007-07-03T03:38:15+00:00

Spells