What you said in the video isn't wrong, but based on the confusion shown in the comments below it bears repeating that the statement "Engaging an enemy provokes attacks of opportunity" should be clarified to "If you are engaged with a ready enemy then using the Engage action to engage another enemy will provoke an attack of opportunity from the enemy you are currently engaged with".
Does that attack of opportunity goes to the investigator that it's currently engaged with or does it go to the investigator that is making the engage action? Also, I play true solo, if I do an engaged action on an exhausted enemy, does it do an attack of opportunity on me?
@@ziggman13 the attack of opportunity only happens against the investigator making the engage action if they are already engaged with a different enemy. The attack of opportunity comes from the enemy the investigator was already engaged with so if that enemy was exhausted, I'm pretty sure you are safe to engage another enemy.
Time to unlearn what you just learned. :) Enemies do Exhaust after attacking, but they do not disengage so they stay with the investigator and do not switch target. Which is also why it does not matter 99% of the time since upkeep is right after the enemy phase.
Can you please pinpoint to the rule which says that? Just watched a video where it says that it does disengage and after that at upkeep can change the engaged investigator.
On the "Players can choose the player order each round", note that this only applies to the Investigator phase. In the mythos phase and enemy phase it is "In Player Order", which means starting with the lead investigator and rotating clockwise. So the player order is fixed for drawing encounter cards and resolving enemy attacks. Sometimes this is significant.
A super helpful video. Just to add some information on Permanents that's relevant for a handful of investigators: Whilst Permanent cards do not count towards your deck size, they DO count towards class card access limits. For example, if you take Arcane Research (a level 0 Mystic Permanent) in Norman Withers, it doesn't count towards his 30 card total deck size, but it DOES count towards his limit of only 5 level 0 Mystic cards. On the other hand, this can actually work in your favour for Lola Hayes because it can make hitting her deckbuilding requirements easier.
For videos like these, I think a lot of people would appreciate it to cite the sources. IE: Where specifically is it laid out in the rulebook (such as the page number), errata/FAQ clarification (including version), developer's note/post (ie: on BGG forums) etc so people can verify and/or interpret the rules for themselves.
4:28 A monster never disengages themselves. So after attacking it exhausts but does not re-engage when it readies because it never stopped being engaged in combat. I think. This is why Zoe does not keep getting resources from the same monster throughout the enemy phase/upkeep phase.
@@ziggman13 Yes if I recall correctly that is the only basic way to get an enemy to disengage. (Or by Engaging it with another Investigator, but that doesn't work in true solo.)
And i think you missed a big one here. Because not everyboby knows, that tests on encountercards in someone threat area can be done by any investigator at the same location. So someone else can help you climb out of your "entombed" or can clean you "bedeviled" for you
That's really a big one, we did wrong for several campaigns. It also applies to weaknesses of a treachery type, like "Internal Injury" or (there's the proof) "Narcolepsy".
This is a big one I only discovered last year. Great for those weakness cards that take two actions to discard. Anyone at your location can use two of their actions to discard it for you.
One important rule that is often get wrong is that activate action can be done on a scenario card that is in play and at the same location as the investigator. This includes the location itself, encounter cards placed at that location, and all encounter cards in the threat area of any investigator at that location. A weakness in the threat area is considered a scenario card when in play and is considered a player card while in the deck. Good content by the way !
This is a really important rule. It stems from the general ruling you cover that Weaknesses are considere Encounter Cards if in the Threat Area. Super-duper important. Note - COSTS can only be paid by the cards or effects the person taking the Action controls. Eg. Roland's Hospital Debts - anyone can pay the cost (resources) from their own resource pool, but only Roland can pay from Roland's pool! Eg. Akachi's Angered Spirits - anyone can exhaust a spell they control, but you can't exhaust someone else's spell.
So with treachery cards, can other investigators perform tests, like having the Mystic take the Willpower test if they're at that location but they didn't draw it?
I think a good one to remember is that the equipment has its own seperate Fight action, meaning you cannot combine the +1 combat from Kukri, Machete and .45, and for firearms such as the .45, you can only consume 1 ammo per fight action unless the action says you may commit more ammo. Definitely messed this up a bit, using contracombo to stockpile massive amounts of ammo and shredding everyone
Just want to say thank you guys for these types of videos where you evaluate cards/investigators and rules etc... Very helpful. Love your banter. Look forward to more.
The exhaust after attacking rule also plays into the final Act of the Guardians of the Abyss. But to clarify, the exhaust after attacking doesn't disengage the enemy from the investigator. (Evading both disengages and exhausts.)
Correct. And therefore the Prey doesn't come into effect because Prey breaks ties during engagement. And if the enemy doesn't disengage then it doesn't leave the player threat area.
6:33 And Skill cards are kind of the exception. You can't just ignore the text of a Skill card when committing. It always has text specifically relevant to committing the card. (I know you know. Just saying to clarify for anyone new / confused.)
Video idea: you would play fan made scenarios (those on BGG for instance) and share your review with us, so we would know which ones are worth downloading/printing depending on our players group's taste. With a non spoiler part and then a spoiler part of the review. Sounds fun right ? 😊
I think a big part of this is that there are a ton of very specific rules and on top of that the core set rulebook isn't organized as well as it could be. There are some intricacies of the rules that my play group only go after playing through the core set scenario like 3 times.
Have played my first two games recently. I was planning to scour the rules reference over a few days to see things I've surely missed, but now I don't have to :) You guys are great!
I think another rule that people get wrong the most is the "Grim Rule". People often will say 'oh this enemy would hunt towards this investigator because it would be the worst possible outcome', or 'we should spawn this acolyte at the farthest location because it's the worst outcome for us'. I see people often say 'Oh our group Grim ruled it as this rule' which is incorrect. The Grim Rule is only for if the players don't know the ruling for some situation offhand and don't want to slow the game down to check it, so you do the option that's the worst for the investigators and move on.
@@PlayingBoardGames Although to be fair, playing it like that also adds to the concept of the game, and makes it even harder. And it doesn't break any rule, since you can choose where it spawns. You don't have to, but if you like getting hurt, you can 😁
There are two attitudes towards the rule that Permanents don't affect your decksize. As Travis said "you don't have to take anything out when adding them in" vs the thought going through my mind before he said it "you don't get to take anything out when adding them in".
that your skill can't drop below 0 is the rule I got wrong for such a long time and it was very annoying - it doesn't only matter for cards like flashlight but also for cards like rotting remains! (I once took 5horror of that cards, because I didn't know that rule)
Yeah, played this wrong for a while and when I realised it changed the way I thought about those treachery cards that have you perform a test and take x damage/horror where x is the amount you fail by.
I'm really enjoying these list videos. My suggestion for a video would be most thematic locations (art, flavor text, connections to other locations, and rules all support the theme of that location). I just started playing the game but I really love the lounge from The House Always Wins. Sending an ally away to go small talk and gather clues while the pit boss watches definitely gives that bar/casino feel.
The last rule is so true. So many times we just skimmed a card and we played it completely wrong. Even when replaying scenarios, always read the cards, because it's so easy to miss something
There should be one more. Once you go through all cards in your deck, you take 1 horror, reshuffle your discard pile and draw from your new deck as usual.
Hunter comes and then attacks simultaneously was the biggest revelation after we played through everything till Arkham asylum where there is a hunter who’s card says that it does not attack after moving, which brought some second thoughts on the hunter mechanic :))
I think I've been playing this right. The hunters get their own sub-phase before the enemy attacking happens, getting them into place to join in. Hunter enemies are awful.
One that I forget a lot (partly because it feels so arbitrary, and partly because playing multihanded-solo makes it easier to forget and have to rewind) is that even though you can commit as many cards as you want to your own skill check, you can only commit *one* card to another investigator's skill check. (Although each other investigator can each commit one.) Maybe Minh would just be broken without this rule or something, but it feels weird for the rules to so strictly limit support role and cooperation in this one aspect. (And it makes "off-class" icons (which are already weak) much less useful than they could be.)
9:00 Lucky not working on an adjusted-to-0 value is quite a subtle interaction. In Step 5 of the Skill Test Timing, when you calculate your skill value, it isn't made clear. But under 'Modidiers' it explains that calculations of a value get recalculated from scratch, so if the value was below 0 and set to 0, it may still be below or at zero after adding the +2. Genuinely unintuitive, in my opinion. I t really needed a mention in the flow chart for Skill Test Timing. Note - An Auto-fail token still sets to 0 after the calulation, so you can't Lucky an Auto-fail to 2. It's worth mentioning, Granny Orne DOES work, because she doesn't change the Skill Value, she directly changes the amount you fail by. Eg, If I auto-fail a test of target 3. I have a margin of -3 (3-0). Granny can add one to that to make it fail by 2, even though I still have a result of -3.
I'm going to give you a bonus rule I still get wrong even after playing since day one of the release of the game. A phase is not the same as a round, and all the Investigators have a Turn within the Investigator Phase.. A Round is all the way from start of Mythos to end of Upkeep. A Phase would be the individual segments within a Round. Mythos, Investigator, Enemy, Upkeep. A Turn is one Investigators Turn within the Phase. For example, Nathaniel Cho can use his ability once per phase. That means he can use it in the Mythos Phase, and then again on his Turn in the Investigator Phase. This is relevant for your ruling at 12:10 You can choose the order in the Investigator Phase, but NOT for the Turn. You cannot modify the order in Mythos Phase or Enemy Phase or Upkeep Phase.
I do not understand why this matters for the mythos face or upkeep. Let say A B and C are playing the first round. A starts, then B and finally C. Ennemi phase : nobody. Upkeep : they do it in the same order. Next round : mythos phase. A has to draw first, then B and finally C. Investigator phase : B starts first, then C and finally A. Upkeep phase : do they play in BCA order or still ABC ? And for the next mythos phase, do they play BCA or ABC as it was at the beginning. I have the feeling it should be the second option while reading your comment but i never played this way.
@@Jinjoledoggo In the Mythos Phase, the lead investigator always draws their encounter card first, followed by other investigators in clockwise order ("in player order") -- this can matter for fringe cases like Alyssa Graham/Scrying where information is known about the top of the encounter deck, and can also matter if, say, the lead investigator moves due to On Wings of Darkness and this changes what other investigators they can/can't commit a card to, to help with a skill test on *their* encounter card. Turns in the investigation phase aren't done "in player order", so the group just chooses someone to go first, and then after that turn ends they choose someone to go next, and so on.
3:40 Amusingly you could read "Prey only cares when..." as " 'Prey only' cares when..." Actually, it annoys me that 'Prey' and 'Prey only' are different enough to confuse the issue. Linguistically, 'Prey only' works more like how you might intuit prey to work in the first place - which is why it is gotten wrong a lot until pointed out. I'd have preferred a different keyword for 'Prey only' like 'Quarry' or 'Fixate'.
One thing that groups get wrong sometimes is enemy types. Timetimes an effect on an agenda or an enemy will buff other enemies with certain traits. Usually it will happen with Creatures or Monsters, but sometimes our group refers to all enemies as one of these words, not realizing they are traits, and apply the buffs to all enemies. Creatures are usually aomewhat animalistic or just an actual normal animal. It is hard for me to say what common thread connects all Monsters aside from a monsterous appearance, but I'm sure some non-monsters appear monsterous.
Fantasy flight need to make an arkham horror lcg videogame that teaches you the rules. Like there are two modes. Rules mode and playing mode.. in rules mode it tell you why it attacks or why the card move, ect ect. While the other mode is just playing the games without all the text box coming up explaining the rules and why you got that outcome.
One more note on enemies exhausting while attacking: They only exhaust when they attack *during the enemy phase*, or *as if it was the enemy phase*. (hi, Watcher's Grasp, you're actually not nearly as awful a treachery as I first thought, since you give a full turn afterward of the Spectral Watcher just hanging out in someone's threat area and not attacking) Attacks made for any other reason don't cause the attacking enemy to exhaust.
Unrelated: When you explore, you draw until you find a treachery, an enemy (in Return to TFA), or a location *that matches the criteria of the ability that caused you to explore*. There's only one scenario where this isn't "a connecting location" (The Boundary Beyond, where it's a location that's the same as your location), and I have never seen anyone get that wrong when playing that scenario since it's written right there on the card, but while we're talking about the rules I might as well point that out.
The stuff I got wrong my first few plays, mainly made the game more difficult. Like I thought "limit 1" on Manual Dexterity or Guts to mean only that 1 card can be commited to a skill test and no other card in your hand of any type. And I only counted the foot icon on Manual Dexterity for +1, not +2. I only just had prey rules for the first time with a friend because i've been learning to play true solo with the starter decks otherwise. I think I did fine otherwise with the other rules mentioned. I tend to be unique in getting non common mistakes wrong instead of what's popular or common to mess up. My brain just works different.
As a new player to the game, I have found your videos really helpful and this one probably the most helpful. I am sure I have got a number of these wrong in early games. Thank you.
Another good rule is that in the circle undone, haunted effects at locations only happen in you fail a skill test *while investigating*, not just anytime you fail a test at that location.
For exploring it's actually not a connecting location but a location that matches the criteria on the agenda/act card. Mostly it is a connecting location but I think in Boundary Beyond it is a location with the same symbol as your location.
I think Guardians of the Abyss explains the explore mechanic a bit better maybe. It explicity states draw until a valid connecting location or a treachery
Good and useful video, thanks for making it. If I may add one thing, although it's not really a rule but it's about terminology: the investigators symbols are willpower (head), intellect (book), combat (fist) and agility (foot). It's just, it's so weird when I hear you say "I have 2 head" or "I have 3 foot". The investigators are humans, not mutated Chaos Warriors ;p Just my humble 2 cts :)
The part about the impossibility to get your skill value reduced below zero after a test came to me as a shock. Does this mean that if I use the Torch to investigate a location with a shroud value of 2 (with my intellect value of 3) and I draw a -5 token I still pass the test? Or, in other words, whenever I am able to reduce a test difficulty value to 0, the only thing that can screw me over is the red token, correct?
If and then rules get confused so often too! Likewise, the Game state must always change if possible (can't choose to lose 5 resources if you don't have 5 resources to lose, must choose other option)
I honestly think that Prey is just a mistake of a mechanic. ('Prey--X only' being the obvious exception, as that makes for good gameplay, as does 'Spawn--Engaged with Prey'). It almost never matters, is actively confusing to new players (who generally think of it as a spawn-engaged-with instruction), and often even when it might *seem* to matter it actually doesn't (e.g. when Hunting towards investigators while a non-Prey investigator is actually closer to the enemy than a Prey investigator, Prey once again doesn't matter). And introducing it in the very first scenario via the random chance of Ravenous Ghoul is *definitely* a mistake. While teaching new people how to play, I would strongly recommend simply telling them to ignore Prey text, and that you'll bring it up when it actually becomes important (i.e. enemy weaknesses, Ghoul Priest, and Masked Hunter).
To expound a bit further: even though Prey does almost nothing in game, players still need to spend mental overhead thinking about whether or not it *could* matter, and it requires players to process the ability when first reading the card (which can also reduce ability to process the other aspects of a card). It eats time and mental effort and textbox space, so it's *worse* than just doing nothing. Most Prey enemies would be better for game-enjoyment if they just had a cleaner, emptier text box (let alone other possibilities like using that space for fun flavor text).
Enemy exhausts after attacking. Does that while 2 investigators is standing in 1 location that can technically take turns in who’s engaged with the enemy, since he’s exhausting every turn and we are deciding he will engage someone else each time?
Skill cards give you the icons AND the effect on the card. It took me a while to be sure of that, that Vicious Blow didn't just give you +1 damage but also +1 in your combat skill. And an other one : Read the Setup of the scenario ! For Forgotten Age, I did the Explore mechanic right, but during the Setup, while creating the exploration deck, I thought I had to put each treachery specified, I skipped that it was only "one copy" each of the treacheries. So I had a massive exploration deck and basically draw two treacheries each turn without ever finding a location !
Well i'll be. I think we are playing it right, but always good to check. Been watching a bunch of your videos lately, as while i played NOTZ and dunwich a bit, with the 6 pack expansions and how hard they were to get in New Zealand, we stopped. Now the big boxes are coming out, i'm picking them up and am gonna try kicking off my group again with Carcosa shortly. You're channel has lots of excellent advice, good stuff and keep it up
There's actually no lockpick involved in Manual Dexterity's art. it's just someone that tries to crack a safe combination simply using their hand and their senses.
Is it really that big? This almost never matters because they ready during the upkeep phase immediately after the enemy attack phase. There are only a few situations with exceptional rules where this matters, like the Lumbering Gug they mention.
So big, in fact, that I think that is the exact reason you are told to put engaged enemies in your threat zone. That way it can be exhausted while still avoiding confusion over the enemy being evaded or just exhausted but still engaged.
I think Arkham Horror really is a gamers game, in many games getting rules slightly wrong or completing steps out of sequence may not be that big a problem but in this game is can make very large differences. A simple example, During upkeep players are supposed to draw a card 'then' take a resource in player order. This simple rule is most likely done incorrectly by most, it is only under specific circumstances that the importance of a rule might be highlighted but breaking it can impact the playing of future cards, the completing of Act's, the winning of scenarios. The game is littered with examples of rules being played incorrectly that are only brought into question under certain card play and circumstances but the impact of not playing rules correctly and just as importantly in the right sequence is huge when somebody likes to claim that they have beaten certain scenarios
i think i'm misunderstanding the second to last rule. let's say for example, i'm using shriveling on agnes. i am now attacking, but using mind instead of fist. something like holy rosary would add +1 to the value, making it a 6. if i wanted to commit cards, or teammates wanted to commit cards, would they commit mind pips since i'm using mind, or would they commit fist since it's an attack action? in the case of lockpicks, since it's still an investigation, people would have to commit book pips, but lockpicks allows you to add your foot score as a bonus. but in a case like shriveling, where you're outright replacing the fist skill for the mind skill for the attack, would you then want committed cards to be mind or fist?
Wait, for the first rule, does that mean that whenever an enemy attacks and gets exhausted afterwards, it also gets disengaged? Would this mean then that any enemy that has forced action upon engaging would trigger it each time they prepare after an attack?
No, exhausting does not automatically disengage. There are a few discussions elaborating on this in threads under the most-upvoted comments on this video. Thematically I find it intuitive, think of it as an assailant tiring themself out momentarily with an aggressive movement like a lunge (exhausting), but they have not given up their fight/pursuit and left you alone (engagement). A successful Evade action results in the enemy being both exhausted and disengaged, but otherwise the states are not intrinsically coupled. (Intuition: attacker lunged, defender made a slick dodging move that not only evaded the lunge but left the attacker so out of position that the defender easily escapes far away).
Question about 14:03. I understand this rule in the context of the Lockpicks card that tells you to “add” your value from a different skill to the test. But other cards like Abyssal Tome tell you to “use” a different skill for the test. So in this case, if you want to commit additional cards to the test I would assume you have to play cards with the icons of whatever different skill you’re “using” in place of the original skill. Is this correct?
if you draw a monster from the encounter deck, does it go to the investigator's threat area, or does it follow the "spawn in location" description on the card?
If an enemy is exhausted through evasion, then it won't be engaged to that investigator anymore. If it is engaged to an investigator, then yes, another investigator can "pull" it off with an engage action. Enemies only exhaust after attacking during the enemy phase, do not disengage, and will quickly ready in the upkeep phase. Enemies do not exhaust after attacks of opportunity.
@blinxy511's response is totally correct. However, you are allowed to engage any non-Massive enemy at your location that is not already in your threat area (barring any special text that stops you from doing so). It's not very efficient behavior to evade and then re-engage an enemy, but you might need to do it sometimes to ensure the enemy doesn't go after other investigators at your location.
Both previous answers are 100% correct. Additionally, the Lumbering Gug mentioned in the video would also spend time engaged with an investigator while exhausted during the enemy phase. In all cases, you can "pull" it off another investigator. Often it's necessary to avoid dealing damage to an investigator by failing your fight test on an enemy they are engaged with, or to play a card that only works with enemies you are engaged with.
With you can't use foot icons on lockpicks. What if you commit a card that has book and foot icons, would it count then, or does the game ignore the icons that would boost your score completely if they don't match the test
Suprisingly, I don't think I got any of these wrong. For a time, I did get the dirst one wrong, but luckily it hasn't mattered. There have also been times where I read a card incorrectly, but it usually just made the card better than I thought it was. Occasionally, I have mussed or forgot the word "non-elite" on a card, which matters.
A few small corrections: "Players can choose the player order... in the investigator phase." During any other phase they cannot. When they draw the encounter card during the mythos phase, or resolve the enemy attacks during the enemy phase or draw a card during the upkeep phase, they must do it in "player order", in other words clockwise starting from the lead investigator. Permanent cards ARE part of your deck, they just don't count toward your deck size and you never shuffle them. This is important for stuff like the limited pool of cards that Dunwich investigator have or Lola's deckbuilding requirements. Shrewd Analysis counts as a Seeker card in the deck and so Lola only needs 6 more seeker cards to reach her quota. Conversely bonded cards are not part of your deck, even if you might end up shuffling them inside it.
The second to last, committing cards only ro skill test you are performing, is subtle. I knew about it, but never thought of the case 'add foot to investigate' as still limiting to book icons only. at least not consciously. most of the others I got wrong at some point or another, but can recall them and know I am playing right since a while, but that one got me thinking now
faq was very helpful, made arkham alot easyier. but i still lost ran out of time. skidds o toole and the other flying lady were smashing through the gathering and i was enjoying the tests and gimics then it was you died. lol. ow well. keep trying. got more cards coming so hopefully ill win a campaign. being a beginer is hard. got some good damage in and i dodged some enermys till it was a negative 8 monster on the midnight mask. nothing i could do.
Something, I'm actually not quite sure about: Would a "Prey only" enemy, if engaged by another player than his prey, move away from him, towards his prey? I'm pretty sure, no, he would just attack the player he's engaged with and exhaust. But pretty is not 100%.
If it's been engaged by another investigator, a "Prey only" enemy is stuck with them (and will indeed attack them). (You can confirm this in the Prey rules, btw.) Note however, that if the engagement is broken (generally due to evading), the "Prey only" enemy won't engage again. Also note that in order for a non-Prey investigator to engage the "Prey only" enemy, they'll have to manually engage them e.g. via the engage action. Unlike most enemies, a "Prey only" enemy won't automatically engage anyone except its Prey. Although as a further note to that, unlike with aloof there's nothing stopping an investigator from just attacking a "Prey only" enemy that's just sitting there.
@@anaphysik Thanks for the reply. I knew most of the other stuff, but still was slightly unsure, if another investigator could engage to stop the movement to the pray.
I wanted to know what will happen when you are engaged with an enemy and you activate your Machete? Does the enemy do an attack of opportunity before the Fight key word activates, because I performed an action other than Fight or Evade?
If by activating you mean playing it from your hand then yes, the enemy will attack you. If by activating you mean using its action (with an arrow) when it is already in play, then no, just like any other weapon
When a second investigator shows up and engages the enemy that is currently engaged with the firs investigator, who then gets the attack of opportunity?
In that case, no one would get attacked. Engage actions only trigger attack of opportunities from enemies the person taking the engage action are currently engaged with.
So this means that if investigators 1 and 2 are in the same place and each of them is engaged with an enemy, that if for example investigator 1 would now, while being engaged with his own enemy, decide to help investigator 2 to free himself, engage that investigators enemy, then the enemy he is already engaged with would trigger an attack of opportunity. Is that correct?
While we are at the subject and thanks for your time and wisdom, can I „attack“ an enemy without being engaged to it? For example if two investigators are at the same location and one is engaged with an enemy, can the second investigator then attack (fight test) and deal damage to that enemy without first engaging it?
@@shadeinthedark1308 Yes, you can attack enemies engaged with other investigators. However, if you fail and miss the attack, you'll deal the damage of the attack to the investigator engaged with that enemy.
For the "After a test ends, your skill value cannot be below zero." rule: where is that actually stated? I was able to find the statement that the Automatic Failure token causes the skill check to fail, with you total skill value result being set to 0 (and automatic success setting the difficulty to 0). But I'm not able to find the ruling stating that after the test resolution is done, the total skill value is set to zero if it's negative.
It's under Modifiers in the Rules Reference, which says that "A quantity on a card (such as a stat, an icon, a number of instances of a trait or keyword) cannot be reduced so that it functions with a value below zero. Negative modifiers in excess of a value's current quantity can be applied, but, after all active modifiers have been applied, any resultant value below zero is treated as zero." It then proceeds with an example which also explains the rule's interaction with Lucky.
SPOILER for "The Essex County Express" Sometimes all you have to remember to read before starting the first investigation phase is a lot. We forgot to read the unrevealed side of the train cars and wondered why there were so many pointless clue locations, we realized at the end we were playing the scenario fundamentally wrong. We'll replay this one quickly before playing the next scenario just to get the experience of the actual mad investigative dash against the clock, we may not even finish it and move on to the next scenario.
When Exploring in The Forgotten Age do you examine the non connecting locations in detail before discarding? Personally I see this as a bit if a cheat, but others seem to do this.
On my first playthrough I like to be surprised, so I don't examine them then or, in future runs, if they have multiples that they could be I don't examine them either. It's more fun to be surprised. I only look for the location's symbol.
@@wadesutton4148 Ok, but as far as I know the rule reference book is recommended only if players get confused, or to say use along the play. Some of these rules sound way important and should be pretty much highlighted at 1st. But tnx for direction in any way :)
That's a side effect of how Fantasy Flight Games makes their rulebooks. They make it easy to learn, but hard to master. With a lot of these rules, they come up rarely enough that the cases where players play them wrong don't really break the game, but bend it in either direction. There's definitely a case for players reading the rule reference, but we hope this video is a nice starting point for new players to grasp some of the more edge case rules.
It still only cares about book because that's the only skill being tested. The other skill is being added to the test, but because it isn't being tested, committed cards won't add those icons.
To be fair though the "explore" has been very clearly explained in the campaign guide of The Forgotten Age: If any other location (ie a non-connecting location) is drawn, place it next to the exploration deck, and draw the next card from the exploration deck. Repeat this process until a location of the indicated type is drawn, or a treachery is drawn. After this action has ended, shuffle each location next to the exploration deck back into the exploration deck.
I just started playing and I'm confused about the FORCE. For example, the last agenda of the first scenario of the core game, do they spawn every round??
I don't see anything about spawning on the card, arkhamdb.com/card/01107. "Forced abilities initiate and interact with the game state automatically at a specified timing point." Whatever it says, at the time it says to activate, then you do it if you can.
Basically, anything that says "Action: Do (thing) with (modifiers)" doesn't work with another similarly formatted thing. They are separate actions. But they will work with stuff that says "When doing (thing), (modifiers) happens." So Sharpshooter works with the Fight action on any firearm, but having multiple weapons out generally just gives you different options.
I don’t think you are interpreting the engaging rule correctly. If player A is engaged to an enemy, player A can only attack, evade, parlay, or resign. Player B could engage that enemy without triggering an attack of opportunity. At least that is my understanding.
We might not have been clear in the video, but we're aware of what you're explaining, and you're correct. We were speaking more if player A (engaged to an enemy) wanted to engage a different enemy.
We are interpreting it correctly. Engaging provokes an attack of opportunity. It does not provoke an attack if you engage an enemy another player has and you have no enemy because there is nothing to provoke an attack of opportunity from. However, if you have an enemy and you engage an enemy, it provokes attacks of opportunity. We could've explained this in greater detail.
The attack of opportunity happens after costs have been paid, but before the action itself has been resolved. So the normal sequence would be: 1. I spend an action to Engage. 2. I check to see if I am engaged with an enemy who will attack me. 3. I resolve the effects of the action meaning I engage the new enemy, putting it into my threat area and resolving any other effects that happen when I engage an enemy (e.g. Zoey getting rich). So if I'm free at stage 2, everything's cool. If I already am engaged with an enemy, that enemy is going to thwack me for ignoring it.
Wait!! All doom token is discarded from play. Doesnt mean the next agenda has no doom tokens? So in the gathering I have 3 turn for agenda 1. Then a new 7 turns on agenda two. And a whopping 10 turns in agenda 3?
Do I have to engage an Aloof enemy to attack it? or can I attack without engaging if I am alone in a location with it. L Also does retatliate happens with enemies not engaged with the investigator? Normaly I only engage enemies to save other players, also in the enemy phase, if the enemy is ready it automatically engages.
You need to engage an aloof enemy before you can attack it. Yes, if you fail an attack against an enemy with retaliate that a teammate is engaged with you, you damage them and the retaliate hits you.
Another rule people get wrong. Any investigator can do the action on a card in your threat area if they are at the same location. If you have a weakness that takes two actions to clear someone else can do it on their turn.
Hello there! I have one question about "committing skill icones". I currently play Minh Thi Panh and I wondered if her effect (after an investigator at your location commit a card to a skill test, that card gains "?" Until the end of the test. Limit once per round.) works with non-matching skill icones cards of a skill test. From exemple: I have nothing but a Guts for an investigation. I shouldnt comit it as it tests the intellect skill and not the will. But i commit it because the card gains "?". Am i allowed to do this ? Kiss from France and nice content !
no you are not allowed. 1st: You commit a skill card to a test. You can only commit skill icons to tests, when there are at least one matching skill icons. 2nd: Minh's ability adds a skill icon (?) to the commited card. Have a good one :)
@@danieladam1545 so i can't because the ? Icone is added after we commit the card, and I actually can't commit it if it doesnt have the icone i test at the first glance. Is this what you're saying ? Thank you
Question. How does a zero level permanent card impact the deck? Shrewd Analysis is zero level. Does that mean if you begin the game with it in hand you have an effective deck size of 29 for the first scenario? So is deck size just max cards, or the number a player must have in their deck to play?
Permanent cards does not count towards deck size and all cards start in play. Permanents cannot be removed from game due to any game effect. Your "normal" deck size written on the back cannot be changed, but cards can be added to your deck, which not counting towards deck size
@@peterhilger4461 I feel like I’m still missing something. If I take shrewd analysis (a zero level perm card) at character creation would that allow me to take an extra card in order to bring deck size back to 30? (In Essenes making it a free ability for any seeker). Or would I start with 29 and have a free card slot to upgrade to at the end of the first scenario? Either way would there ever be a reason for a seeker or someone with access to seeker cards to not take Shrewd Analysis?
@@biznesstime83 Again, permanent card do not count towards decksize. They are also never in your drawing deck and so never on your hand. Permanent cards will be placed somewhere in you area and just stay there.
@@peterhilger4461 So If you built your deck you can virtually take 10 permanent level 0 cards and still have to built your deck with the (mostly) 30 cards + random basic weakness (which could also be a permanent if you draw indebted) and your two character specific cards. Taking Shrewd Analysis makes only sense if you plan to take two of the special level 0 cards which the trait "unidentified" or "untranslated", because it allows you do upgrade both the to cost of only one. But the big, and for me this is a major downgrade, you cannot choose to which upgraded version of you initial cards you go. For me playing this game a very long time and playing a lot of seekers i never play this card because i want to decide on my own, how i upgrade my untranslated and/or unidentified cards. The other permant level one card "arcane reasearch" is a whole different story. It gives you a mental trauma but over the span of a 8 scneario in a campain it gives you basically 14 exp points for free ( 7 times 2 exp). This tradeoff i normally always take as a mystic (in 80% of my mystic games I even take two of them to start with 2 mental tauma but have double spell upgrade exp cost reduction)
Wait!!!! After the enemy attacks in an attack of opportunity, it exhaust? So I can search get hit and then it exhaust and when its its turn it just get ready again?" So basically if I search 3 times it will only attack me twice in a round?. So I search, it hit me and exhaust. Next time i search, it only ready. Last turn, i search, hits me and it exhaust. Then on monster phase it ready again?
We could've explained this better. Enemies only exhaust when they attack in the enemy phase. Attacks of opportunity happen outside of that phase, so they don't cause the enemy to exhaust.
@@PlayingBoardGames so if they have retaliate and exhausted, do they retaliate if i missed ? Or will they ready. Or if they are exhausted they stay like that until end of clean up round
If you look up the rules for attacks of opportunity. If you are engaged with an enemy and then engage another enemy, the enemy you are engaged with will attack you. This is because attacks of opportunity trigger on any actions that are not fight, evade, parley, or resign.
@@PlayingBoardGames And I might be too much into Arkham Horror 3rd Edition, where meeting a monster as an effect of movement means, that you automatically are engaged with that monster. This is different in the card game
What you said in the video isn't wrong, but based on the confusion shown in the comments below it bears repeating that the statement "Engaging an enemy provokes attacks of opportunity" should be clarified to "If you are engaged with a ready enemy then using the Engage action to engage another enemy will provoke an attack of opportunity from the enemy you are currently engaged with".
0:09 0:09 0:09 0:10
Does that attack of opportunity goes to the investigator that it's currently engaged with or does it go to the investigator that is making the engage action? Also, I play true solo, if I do an engaged action on an exhausted enemy, does it do an attack of opportunity on me?
@@ziggman13 the attack of opportunity only happens against the investigator making the engage action if they are already engaged with a different enemy. The attack of opportunity comes from the enemy the investigator was already engaged with so if that enemy was exhausted, I'm pretty sure you are safe to engage another enemy.
Better way to word it. Because if you move into a location with an enemy, they automatically engage. So no attack of opportunity.
Time to unlearn what you just learned. :) Enemies do Exhaust after attacking, but they do not disengage so they stay with the investigator and do not switch target. Which is also why it does not matter 99% of the time since upkeep is right after the enemy phase.
I was about the post the same =D.
Thank god.
I'm pinning your comment because it's particularly relevant to the video at hand.
Can you please pinpoint to the rule which says that? Just watched a video where it says that it does disengage and after that at upkeep can change the engaged investigator.
@@PlayingBoardGames Also important: enemies only exhaust after they attack in the Enemy Phase. Not when they make an attack of opportunity.
The rule I missed was that you can only commit a card to a skill test that another investigator is making if they’re at the same location as you.
On the "Players can choose the player order each round", note that this only applies to the Investigator phase. In the mythos phase and enemy phase it is "In Player Order", which means starting with the lead investigator and rotating clockwise. So the player order is fixed for drawing encounter cards and resolving enemy attacks. Sometimes this is significant.
Gloria Goldberg’s investigator card ability text is a stark reminder of that rule.
A super helpful video. Just to add some information on Permanents that's relevant for a handful of investigators: Whilst Permanent cards do not count towards your deck size, they DO count towards class card access limits. For example, if you take Arcane Research (a level 0 Mystic Permanent) in Norman Withers, it doesn't count towards his 30 card total deck size, but it DOES count towards his limit of only 5 level 0 Mystic cards. On the other hand, this can actually work in your favour for Lola Hayes because it can make hitting her deckbuilding requirements easier.
"All Doom Leaves Play When the Agenda Advances" This one I played wrong for years! And Arkham Horror is already hard enough when played correctly. =/
I know right!, the game just got easier for me lol
So all doom on all locations and on all enemies?
@ Yeah, and all player cards too, like Arcane Initiate. Only noticed in a campaign that have cards specifically saying that you don’t remove them.
some times its like 5 doom on each cultist and that why im lossing. ill keep that in mind for future games, and dodge everything.
@@qwertyman459 But those on cultists also count to agenda threshold
For videos like these, I think a lot of people would appreciate it to cite the sources. IE: Where specifically is it laid out in the rulebook (such as the page number), errata/FAQ clarification (including version), developer's note/post (ie: on BGG forums) etc so people can verify and/or interpret the rules for themselves.
4:28 A monster never disengages themselves. So after attacking it exhausts but does not re-engage when it readies because it never stopped being engaged in combat. I think.
This is why Zoe does not keep getting resources from the same monster throughout the enemy phase/upkeep phase.
Than it only disangeages if you evade? Because I just started playing true solo, this is kind of important
@@ziggman13 Yes if I recall correctly that is the only basic way to get an enemy to disengage. (Or by Engaging it with another Investigator, but that doesn't work in true solo.)
And i think you missed a big one here. Because not everyboby knows, that tests on encountercards in someone threat area can be done by any investigator at the same location. So someone else can help you climb out of your "entombed" or can clean you "bedeviled" for you
That's really a big one, we did wrong for several campaigns. It also applies to weaknesses of a treachery type, like "Internal Injury" or (there's the proof) "Narcolepsy".
Oh huge! Did not know that!
Other investigators can only commit 1 skill card to someone else's test right?
This is a big one I only discovered last year. Great for those weakness cards that take two actions to discard. Anyone at your location can use two of their actions to discard it for you.
One important rule that is often get wrong is that activate action can be done on a scenario card that is in play and at the same location as the investigator. This includes the location itself, encounter cards placed at that location, and all encounter cards in the threat area of any investigator at that location. A weakness in the threat area is considered a scenario card when in play and is considered a player card while in the deck. Good content by the way !
This is a really important rule. It stems from the general ruling you cover that Weaknesses are considere Encounter Cards if in the Threat Area. Super-duper important.
Note - COSTS can only be paid by the cards or effects the person taking the Action controls.
Eg. Roland's Hospital Debts - anyone can pay the cost (resources) from their own resource pool, but only Roland can pay from Roland's pool!
Eg. Akachi's Angered Spirits - anyone can exhaust a spell they control, but you can't exhaust someone else's spell.
So with treachery cards, can other investigators perform tests, like having the Mystic take the Willpower test if they're at that location but they didn't draw it?
In the case of Frozen in Fear you can’t because it’s not an action. But you can ask a mystic on your location to get rid of a Dream’s of R’Lyeh.
I think a good one to remember is that the equipment has its own seperate Fight action, meaning you cannot combine the +1 combat from Kukri, Machete and .45, and for firearms such as the .45, you can only consume 1 ammo per fight action unless the action says you may commit more ammo. Definitely messed this up a bit, using contracombo to stockpile massive amounts of ammo and shredding everyone
Just want to say thank you guys for these types of videos where you evaluate cards/investigators and rules etc... Very helpful. Love your banter. Look forward to more.
After the first time I played this game last year, I immediately searched this topic. Great to have a video version now!
The exhaust after attacking rule also plays into the final Act of the Guardians of the Abyss. But to clarify, the exhaust after attacking doesn't disengage the enemy from the investigator. (Evading both disengages and exhausts.)
Correct. And therefore the Prey doesn't come into effect because Prey breaks ties during engagement. And if the enemy doesn't disengage then it doesn't leave the player threat area.
Does the enemy exhaust after attacks of opportunity?
@@Doreenrrrr No. Only in the enemy phase. (Or if a card effect (very rare) says "attacks as if it were the enemy phase.")
@@anaphysik cheers bud
6:33 And Skill cards are kind of the exception. You can't just ignore the text of a Skill card when committing. It always has text specifically relevant to committing the card.
(I know you know. Just saying to clarify for anyone new / confused.)
Video idea: you would play fan made scenarios (those on BGG for instance) and share your review with us, so we would know which ones are worth downloading/printing depending on our players group's taste. With a non spoiler part and then a spoiler part of the review. Sounds fun right ? 😊
Commenting on this 9 months later to say I'll finally have my first spoiler/non-spoiler review of a custom campaign coming out in the near future.
@@PlayingBoardGames Great, thank you very much and looking forward to watch it
Good idea
I think a big part of this is that there are a ton of very specific rules and on top of that the core set rulebook isn't organized as well as it could be. There are some intricacies of the rules that my play group only go after playing through the core set scenario like 3 times.
Have played my first two games recently. I was planning to scour the rules reference over a few days to see things I've surely missed, but now I don't have to :) You guys are great!
I think another rule that people get wrong the most is the "Grim Rule". People often will say 'oh this enemy would hunt towards this investigator because it would be the worst possible outcome', or 'we should spawn this acolyte at the farthest location because it's the worst outcome for us'. I see people often say 'Oh our group Grim ruled it as this rule' which is incorrect.
The Grim Rule is only for if the players don't know the ruling for some situation offhand and don't want to slow the game down to check it, so you do the option that's the worst for the investigators and move on.
That is a very good point. Maybe we can make a video discussing this in the future.
@@PlayingBoardGames Although to be fair, playing it like that also adds to the concept of the game, and makes it even harder. And it doesn't break any rule, since you can choose where it spawns. You don't have to, but if you like getting hurt, you can 😁
thank you for these explanations. Every once in a while I find out something I'm doing wrong while playing. you've been very helpful
Just picked up the core set, your channel has been invaluable in picking things up, even if a lot of the card talk goes over my head right now.
There are two attitudes towards the rule that Permanents don't affect your decksize. As Travis said "you don't have to take anything out when adding them in" vs the thought going through my mind before he said it "you don't get to take anything out when adding them in".
that your skill can't drop below 0 is the rule I got wrong for such a long time and it was very annoying - it doesn't only matter for cards like flashlight but also for cards like rotting remains! (I once took 5horror of that cards, because I didn't know that rule)
Yeah, played this wrong for a while and when I realised it changed the way I thought about those treachery cards that have you perform a test and take x damage/horror where x is the amount you fail by.
I'm really enjoying these list videos. My suggestion for a video would be most thematic locations (art, flavor text, connections to other locations, and rules all support the theme of that location).
I just started playing the game but I really love the lounge from The House Always Wins. Sending an ally away to go small talk and gather clues while the pit boss watches definitely gives that bar/casino feel.
The last rule is so true. So many times we just skimmed a card and we played it completely wrong. Even when replaying scenarios, always read the cards, because it's so easy to miss something
There should be one more. Once you go through all cards in your deck, you take 1 horror, reshuffle your discard pile and draw from your new deck as usual.
I didn’t know this one. Thanks
Although you take the horror after you've completed the draw. Could be relevant in certain cases.
Hunter comes and then attacks simultaneously was the biggest revelation after we played through everything till Arkham asylum where there is a hunter who’s card says that it does not attack after moving, which brought some second thoughts on the hunter mechanic :))
I think I've been playing this right. The hunters get their own sub-phase before the enemy attacking happens, getting them into place to join in. Hunter enemies are awful.
One that I forget a lot (partly because it feels so arbitrary, and partly because playing multihanded-solo makes it easier to forget and have to rewind) is that even though you can commit as many cards as you want to your own skill check, you can only commit *one* card to another investigator's skill check. (Although each other investigator can each commit one.) Maybe Minh would just be broken without this rule or something, but it feels weird for the rules to so strictly limit support role and cooperation in this one aspect. (And it makes "off-class" icons (which are already weak) much less useful than they could be.)
9:00 Lucky not working on an adjusted-to-0 value is quite a subtle interaction. In Step 5 of the Skill Test Timing, when you calculate your skill value, it isn't made clear. But under 'Modidiers' it explains that calculations of a value get recalculated from scratch, so if the value was below 0 and set to 0, it may still be below or at zero after adding the +2.
Genuinely unintuitive, in my opinion. I t really needed a mention in the flow chart for Skill Test Timing.
Note - An Auto-fail token still sets to 0 after the calulation, so you can't Lucky an Auto-fail to 2.
It's worth mentioning, Granny Orne DOES work, because she doesn't change the Skill Value, she directly changes the amount you fail by. Eg, If I auto-fail a test of target 3. I have a margin of -3 (3-0). Granny can add one to that to make it fail by 2, even though I still have a result of -3.
I'm going to give you a bonus rule I still get wrong even after playing since day one of the release of the game.
A phase is not the same as a round, and all the Investigators have a Turn within the Investigator Phase..
A Round is all the way from start of Mythos to end of Upkeep.
A Phase would be the individual segments within a Round. Mythos, Investigator, Enemy, Upkeep.
A Turn is one Investigators Turn within the Phase.
For example, Nathaniel Cho can use his ability once per phase. That means he can use it in the Mythos Phase, and then again on his Turn in the Investigator Phase.
This is relevant for your ruling at 12:10
You can choose the order in the Investigator Phase, but NOT for the Turn. You cannot modify the order in Mythos Phase or Enemy Phase or Upkeep Phase.
I do not understand why this matters for the mythos face or upkeep. Let say A B and C are playing the first round. A starts, then B and finally C. Ennemi phase : nobody. Upkeep : they do it in the same order.
Next round : mythos phase. A has to draw first, then B and finally C. Investigator phase : B starts first, then C and finally A. Upkeep phase : do they play in BCA order or still ABC ? And for the next mythos phase, do they play BCA or ABC as it was at the beginning. I have the feeling it should be the second option while reading your comment but i never played this way.
@@Jinjoledoggo In the Mythos Phase, the lead investigator always draws their encounter card first, followed by other investigators in clockwise order
("in player order") -- this can matter for fringe cases like Alyssa Graham/Scrying where information is known about the top of the encounter deck, and can also matter if, say, the lead investigator moves due to On Wings of Darkness and this changes what other investigators they can/can't commit a card to, to help with a skill test on *their* encounter card. Turns in the investigation phase aren't done "in player order", so the group just chooses someone to go first, and then after that turn ends they choose someone to go next, and so on.
JBT unknowingly saving future generations of my investigators
Been playing for a couple of years and I still get a lot of these things wrong. Cheers for the good video.
3:40 Amusingly you could read "Prey only cares when..." as " 'Prey only' cares when..."
Actually, it annoys me that 'Prey' and 'Prey only' are different enough to confuse the issue. Linguistically, 'Prey only' works more like how you might intuit prey to work in the first place - which is why it is gotten wrong a lot until pointed out.
I'd have preferred a different keyword for 'Prey only' like 'Quarry' or 'Fixate'.
This sort of linguistic confusion is why when I'm talking about "Prey ... only" I try to always use ellipses.
One thing that groups get wrong sometimes is enemy types.
Timetimes an effect on an agenda or an enemy will buff other enemies with certain traits.
Usually it will happen with Creatures or Monsters, but sometimes our group refers to all enemies as one of these words, not realizing they are traits, and apply the buffs to all enemies.
Creatures are usually aomewhat animalistic or just an actual normal animal.
It is hard for me to say what common thread connects all Monsters aside from a monsterous appearance, but I'm sure some non-monsters appear monsterous.
Fantasy flight need to make an arkham horror lcg videogame that teaches you the rules. Like there are two modes. Rules mode and playing mode.. in rules mode it tell you why it attacks or why the card move, ect ect. While the other mode is just playing the games without all the text box coming up explaining the rules and why you got that outcome.
Prey only is another one that most people get wrong, since it's a bit different from the generic Prey
One more note on enemies exhausting while attacking: They only exhaust when they attack *during the enemy phase*, or *as if it was the enemy phase*. (hi, Watcher's Grasp, you're actually not nearly as awful a treachery as I first thought, since you give a full turn afterward of the Spectral Watcher just hanging out in someone's threat area and not attacking) Attacks made for any other reason don't cause the attacking enemy to exhaust.
Unrelated: When you explore, you draw until you find a treachery, an enemy (in Return to TFA), or a location *that matches the criteria of the ability that caused you to explore*. There's only one scenario where this isn't "a connecting location" (The Boundary Beyond, where it's a location that's the same as your location), and I have never seen anyone get that wrong when playing that scenario since it's written right there on the card, but while we're talking about the rules I might as well point that out.
The stuff I got wrong my first few plays, mainly made the game more difficult. Like I thought "limit 1" on Manual Dexterity or Guts to mean only that 1 card can be commited to a skill test and no other card in your hand of any type. And I only counted the foot icon on Manual Dexterity for +1, not +2.
I only just had prey rules for the first time with a friend because i've been learning to play true solo with the starter decks otherwise. I think I did fine otherwise with the other rules mentioned. I tend to be unique in getting non common mistakes wrong instead of what's popular or common to mess up. My brain just works different.
As a new player to the game, I have found your videos really helpful and this one probably the most helpful. I am sure I have got a number of these wrong in early games. Thank you.
I'm glad we've helped. Thanks for watching. :)
Another good rule is that in the circle undone, haunted effects at locations only happen in you fail a skill test *while investigating*, not just anytime you fail a test at that location.
For exploring it's actually not a connecting location but a location that matches the criteria on the agenda/act card. Mostly it is a connecting location but I think in Boundary Beyond it is a location with the same symbol as your location.
This was an awesome video guys. Should really help many players, old and new.
I think Guardians of the Abyss explains the explore mechanic a bit better maybe. It explicity states draw until a valid connecting location or a treachery
A question, I had pretty much every new player asked about Permanents: No, you can't push them into the beyond.
Good and useful video, thanks for making it.
If I may add one thing, although it's not really a rule but it's about terminology: the investigators symbols are willpower (head), intellect (book), combat (fist) and agility (foot).
It's just, it's so weird when I hear you say "I have 2 head" or "I have 3 foot". The investigators are humans, not mutated Chaos Warriors ;p
Just my humble 2 cts :)
I chalk it up to their in-group terminology. Its charming hearing them say that Wendy has no punch
The part about the impossibility to get your skill value reduced below zero after a test came to me as a shock. Does this mean that if I use the Torch to investigate a location with a shroud value of 2 (with my intellect value of 3) and I draw a -5 token I still pass the test? Or, in other words, whenever I am able to reduce a test difficulty value to 0, the only thing that can screw me over is the red token, correct?
Yup! That's correct.
Yes, this is why Darrell is so good.
If and then rules get confused so often too! Likewise, the Game state must always change if possible (can't choose to lose 5 resources if you don't have 5 resources to lose, must choose other option)
You can choose to lose 1 (if you don't have more) but not 0
I honestly think that Prey is just a mistake of a mechanic. ('Prey--X only' being the obvious exception, as that makes for good gameplay, as does 'Spawn--Engaged with Prey'). It almost never matters, is actively confusing to new players (who generally think of it as a spawn-engaged-with instruction), and often even when it might *seem* to matter it actually doesn't (e.g. when Hunting towards investigators while a non-Prey investigator is actually closer to the enemy than a Prey investigator, Prey once again doesn't matter).
And introducing it in the very first scenario via the random chance of Ravenous Ghoul is *definitely* a mistake. While teaching new people how to play, I would strongly recommend simply telling them to ignore Prey text, and that you'll bring it up when it actually becomes important (i.e. enemy weaknesses, Ghoul Priest, and Masked Hunter).
To expound a bit further: even though Prey does almost nothing in game, players still need to spend mental overhead thinking about whether or not it *could* matter, and it requires players to process the ability when first reading the card (which can also reduce ability to process the other aspects of a card). It eats time and mental effort and textbox space, so it's *worse* than just doing nothing. Most Prey enemies would be better for game-enjoyment if they just had a cleaner, emptier text box (let alone other possibilities like using that space for fun flavor text).
A very helpful video. Thank you!
Sooooo useful, thank you !!
Enemy exhausts after attacking. Does that while 2 investigators is standing in 1 location that can technically take turns in who’s engaged with the enemy, since he’s exhausting every turn and we are deciding he will engage someone else each time?
Skill cards give you the icons AND the effect on the card. It took me a while to be sure of that, that Vicious Blow didn't just give you +1 damage but also +1 in your combat skill.
And an other one : Read the Setup of the scenario ! For Forgotten Age, I did the Explore mechanic right, but during the Setup, while creating the exploration deck, I thought I had to put each treachery specified, I skipped that it was only "one copy" each of the treacheries. So I had a massive exploration deck and basically draw two treacheries each turn without ever finding a location !
I think to have hunters hunt for their prey alone is a bit more fun than just using them to hunt for anyone near. maybe I will make it a house rule 🤣
Well i'll be. I think we are playing it right, but always good to check. Been watching a bunch of your videos lately, as while i played NOTZ and dunwich a bit, with the 6 pack expansions and how hard they were to get in New Zealand, we stopped. Now the big boxes are coming out, i'm picking them up and am gonna try kicking off my group again with Carcosa shortly. You're channel has lots of excellent advice, good stuff and keep it up
The lockpick example is kinda ironic since you can't commit menual dexterity which portraits someone with... lockpick
There's actually no lockpick involved in Manual Dexterity's art. it's just someone that tries to crack a safe combination simply using their hand and their senses.
As I slowly descend into madness because of the rules...Is it wrong? Or are the Elder Gods toying with us?
Yey! New content! Keep up the great work, JBT! Would love to see B and T in the video.
Once we're back in person you'll be able to see all of our faces again. ;)
Funny, entertaining, and informative. :3
Bad guys exausting when they attack is a big one.
Is it really that big? This almost never matters because they ready during the upkeep phase immediately after the enemy attack phase. There are only a few situations with exceptional rules where this matters, like the Lumbering Gug they mention.
So big, in fact, that I think that is the exact reason you are told to put engaged enemies in your threat zone. That way it can be exhausted while still avoiding confusion over the enemy being evaded or just exhausted but still engaged.
Thanks you for this video!
I think Arkham Horror really is a gamers game, in many games getting rules slightly wrong or completing steps out of sequence may not be that big a problem but in this game is can make very large differences.
A simple example,
During upkeep players are supposed to draw a card 'then' take a resource in player order.
This simple rule is most likely done incorrectly by most, it is only under specific circumstances that the importance of a rule might be highlighted but breaking it can impact the playing of future cards, the completing of Act's, the winning of scenarios.
The game is littered with examples of rules being played incorrectly that are only brought into question under certain card play and circumstances but the impact of not playing rules correctly and just as importantly in the right sequence is huge when somebody likes to claim that they have beaten certain scenarios
i think i'm misunderstanding the second to last rule. let's say for example, i'm using shriveling on agnes. i am now attacking, but using mind instead of fist. something like holy rosary would add +1 to the value, making it a 6. if i wanted to commit cards, or teammates wanted to commit cards, would they commit mind pips since i'm using mind, or would they commit fist since it's an attack action?
in the case of lockpicks, since it's still an investigation, people would have to commit book pips, but lockpicks allows you to add your foot score as a bonus. but in a case like shriveling, where you're outright replacing the fist skill for the mind skill for the attack, would you then want committed cards to be mind or fist?
In your example of attacking with Shriveling, you'll commit mind symbols. You are right that it's because you're using your mind instead of fist.
Wait, for the first rule, does that mean that whenever an enemy attacks and gets exhausted afterwards, it also gets disengaged? Would this mean then that any enemy that has forced action upon engaging would trigger it each time they prepare after an attack?
No, exhausting does not automatically disengage. There are a few discussions elaborating on this in threads under the most-upvoted comments on this video.
Thematically I find it intuitive, think of it as an assailant tiring themself out momentarily with an aggressive movement like a lunge (exhausting), but they have not given up their fight/pursuit and left you alone (engagement).
A successful Evade action results in the enemy being both exhausted and disengaged, but otherwise the states are not intrinsically coupled. (Intuition: attacker lunged, defender made a slick dodging move that not only evaded the lunge but left the attacker so out of position that the defender easily escapes far away).
Question about 14:03. I understand this rule in the context of the Lockpicks card that tells you to “add” your value from a different skill to the test. But other cards like Abyssal Tome tell you to “use” a different skill for the test. So in this case, if you want to commit additional cards to the test I would assume you have to play cards with the icons of whatever different skill you’re “using” in place of the original skill. Is this correct?
That is correct.
@@PlayingBoardGames thanks :)
if you draw a monster from the encounter deck, does it go to the investigator's threat area, or does it follow the "spawn in location" description on the card?
If it has spawn instructions, it spawns according to those instructions. Otherwise, it spawns with the player who draws it.
Awesome topic for a video. Q - can you engage an exhausted enemy to "pull" it off another investigator?
If an enemy is exhausted through evasion, then it won't be engaged to that investigator anymore. If it is engaged to an investigator, then yes, another investigator can "pull" it off with an engage action. Enemies only exhaust after attacking during the enemy phase, do not disengage, and will quickly ready in the upkeep phase. Enemies do not exhaust after attacks of opportunity.
@blinxy511's response is totally correct. However, you are allowed to engage any non-Massive enemy at your location that is not already in your threat area (barring any special text that stops you from doing so). It's not very efficient behavior to evade and then re-engage an enemy, but you might need to do it sometimes to ensure the enemy doesn't go after other investigators at your location.
Both previous answers are 100% correct. Additionally, the Lumbering Gug mentioned in the video would also spend time engaged with an investigator while exhausted during the enemy phase. In all cases, you can "pull" it off another investigator. Often it's necessary to avoid dealing damage to an investigator by failing your fight test on an enemy they are engaged with, or to play a card that only works with enemies you are engaged with.
With you can't use foot icons on lockpicks. What if you commit a card that has book and foot icons, would it count then, or does the game ignore the icons that would boost your score completely if they don't match the test
In that case it would add the book icons, but not the foot icons.
Suprisingly, I don't think I got any of these wrong.
For a time, I did get the dirst one wrong, but luckily it hasn't mattered. There have also been times where I read a card incorrectly, but it usually just made the card better than I thought it was. Occasionally, I have mussed or forgot the word "non-elite" on a card, which matters.
A few small corrections:
"Players can choose the player order... in the investigator phase." During any other phase they cannot. When they draw the encounter card during the mythos phase, or resolve the enemy attacks during the enemy phase or draw a card during the upkeep phase, they must do it in "player order", in other words clockwise starting from the lead investigator.
Permanent cards ARE part of your deck, they just don't count toward your deck size and you never shuffle them. This is important for stuff like the limited pool of cards that Dunwich investigator have or Lola's deckbuilding requirements. Shrewd Analysis counts as a Seeker card in the deck and so Lola only needs 6 more seeker cards to reach her quota. Conversely bonded cards are not part of your deck, even if you might end up shuffling them inside it.
Thanks!
Enemies don't exhaust after Attacks of Opportunity.
The second to last, committing cards only ro skill test you are performing, is subtle. I knew about it, but never thought of the case 'add foot to investigate' as still limiting to book icons only. at least not consciously. most of the others I got wrong at some point or another, but can recall them and know I am playing right since a while, but that one got me thinking now
"This will make The Forgotten Age a little less difficult", No not really!
faq was very helpful, made arkham alot easyier. but i still lost ran out of time. skidds o toole and the other flying lady were smashing through the gathering and i was enjoying the tests and gimics then it was you died. lol. ow well. keep trying. got more cards coming so hopefully ill win a campaign. being a beginer is hard. got some good damage in and i dodged some enermys till it was a negative 8 monster on the midnight mask. nothing i could do.
Something, I'm actually not quite sure about: Would a "Prey only" enemy, if engaged by another player than his prey, move away from him, towards his prey? I'm pretty sure, no, he would just attack the player he's engaged with and exhaust. But pretty is not 100%.
If it's been engaged by another investigator, a "Prey only" enemy is stuck with them (and will indeed attack them). (You can confirm this in the Prey rules, btw.) Note however, that if the engagement is broken (generally due to evading), the "Prey only" enemy won't engage again.
Also note that in order for a non-Prey investigator to engage the "Prey only" enemy, they'll have to manually engage them e.g. via the engage action. Unlike most enemies, a "Prey only" enemy won't automatically engage anyone except its Prey. Although as a further note to that, unlike with aloof there's nothing stopping an investigator from just attacking a "Prey only" enemy that's just sitting there.
@@anaphysik Thanks for the reply. I knew most of the other stuff, but still was slightly unsure, if another investigator could engage to stop the movement to the pray.
I wanted to know what will happen when you are engaged with an enemy and you activate your Machete? Does the enemy do an attack of opportunity before the Fight key word activates, because I performed an action other than Fight or Evade?
If by activating you mean playing it from your hand then yes, the enemy will attack you.
If by activating you mean using its action (with an arrow) when it is already in play, then no, just like any other weapon
When a second investigator shows up and engages the enemy that is currently engaged with the firs investigator, who then gets the attack of opportunity?
In that case, no one would get attacked. Engage actions only trigger attack of opportunities from enemies the person taking the engage action are currently engaged with.
So this means that if investigators 1 and 2 are in the same place and each of them is engaged with an enemy, that if for example investigator 1 would now, while being engaged with his own enemy, decide to help investigator 2 to free himself, engage that investigators enemy, then the enemy he is already engaged with would trigger an attack of opportunity. Is that correct?
@@shadeinthedark1308 That is correct!
While we are at the subject and thanks for your time and wisdom, can I „attack“ an enemy without being engaged to it? For example if two investigators are at the same location and one is engaged with an enemy, can the second investigator then attack (fight test) and deal damage to that enemy without first engaging it?
@@shadeinthedark1308 Yes, you can attack enemies engaged with other investigators. However, if you fail and miss the attack, you'll deal the damage of the attack to the investigator engaged with that enemy.
For the "After a test ends, your skill value cannot be below zero." rule: where is that actually stated?
I was able to find the statement that the Automatic Failure token causes the skill check to fail, with you total skill value result being set to 0 (and automatic success setting the difficulty to 0).
But I'm not able to find the ruling stating that after the test resolution is done, the total skill value is set to zero if it's negative.
It's under Modifiers in the Rules Reference, which says that "A quantity on a card (such as a stat, an icon, a number of instances of a trait or keyword) cannot be reduced so that it functions with a value below zero. Negative modifiers in excess of a value's current quantity can be applied, but, after all active modifiers have been applied, any resultant value below zero is treated as zero." It then proceeds with an example which also explains the rule's interaction with Lucky.
@@BalooSJ Thanks for taking the time to answer my question! I was definitely looking in the wrong place then. :)
If you use arcane just initiate, you KNOW doom leaves play when the agenda advances
SPOILER for "The Essex County Express"
Sometimes all you have to remember to read before starting the first investigation phase is a lot. We forgot to read the unrevealed side of the train cars and wondered why there were so many pointless clue locations, we realized at the end we were playing the scenario fundamentally wrong. We'll replay this one quickly before playing the next scenario just to get the experience of the actual mad investigative dash against the clock, we may not even finish it and move on to the next scenario.
When Exploring in The Forgotten Age do you examine the non connecting locations in detail before discarding? Personally I see this as a bit if a cheat, but others seem to do this.
On my first playthrough I like to be surprised, so I don't examine them then or, in future runs, if they have multiples that they could be I don't examine them either.
It's more fun to be surprised. I only look for the location's symbol.
9:50 so if I use the flashlight to reduce the location value to 0, the automatic fail will not fail anymore?
No, the autofail will always cause you to fail.
If these rules are valid, why aren't they in official rule book?
They are. But many are in the Rules Reference book and some people don't read it presuming the Learn to Play book explains everything.
@@wadesutton4148 Ok, but as far as I know the rule reference book is recommended only if players get confused, or to say use along the play. Some of these rules sound way important and should be pretty much highlighted at 1st. But tnx for direction in any way :)
That's a side effect of how Fantasy Flight Games makes their rulebooks. They make it easy to learn, but hard to master. With a lot of these rules, they come up rarely enough that the cases where players play them wrong don't really break the game, but bend it in either direction.
There's definitely a case for players reading the rule reference, but we hope this video is a nice starting point for new players to grasp some of the more edge case rules.
@@PlayingBoardGames Thanks for the video and clear ups.
What if I commit something like eureka to a lockpicks or read the signs test?
Does it still only care about the book?
That seems very weird to me.
It still only cares about book because that's the only skill being tested. The other skill is being added to the test, but because it isn't being tested, committed cards won't add those icons.
@@PlayingBoardGames I've definitely been playing that wrong then. Luckily doesn't come up all that often. Thank you for explaining.
What do you think about "Swarming X" with Zoey Samaras. One resource for the entire swarm, or X resources ?
X resources. Zoey loves a swarm.
To be fair though the "explore" has been very clearly explained in the campaign guide of The Forgotten Age:
If any other location (ie a non-connecting location) is drawn, place it next to the exploration deck, and draw the next card from the exploration deck.
Repeat this process until a location of the indicated type is drawn, or a treachery is drawn. After this action has ended, shuffle each location next to the exploration deck back into the exploration deck.
I just started playing and I'm confused about the FORCE. For example, the last agenda of the first scenario of the core game, do they spawn every round??
I don't see anything about spawning on the card, arkhamdb.com/card/01107.
"Forced abilities initiate and interact with the game state automatically at a specified timing point."
Whatever it says, at the time it says to activate, then you do it if you can.
What about attack of opportunity? Does the enemy exhaust from that?
They don't.
Wait, can I benefit the +1 damage from Vicious Blow on an attack from Shrivelling?
You cannot commit a Vicious Blow to a Shriveling action because it uses brain while Vicious Blow commits for a fist.
Does enemies exhaust aftet attack only in enemy phase or also in other phase if it doesnt say that this attack doesn't exhaust an enemy?
Enemies only exhaust after attacking in the enemy phase.
Question, If I have a knife and a gun in play, can I play them both in one attack, or do they have to be played in separate actions?
They have to be separate actions.
Basically, anything that says "Action: Do (thing) with (modifiers)" doesn't work with another similarly formatted thing. They are separate actions. But they will work with stuff that says "When doing (thing), (modifiers) happens." So Sharpshooter works with the Fight action on any firearm, but having multiple weapons out generally just gives you different options.
No 15 should be no 1 :))
I don’t think you are interpreting the engaging rule correctly. If player A is engaged to an enemy, player A can only attack, evade, parlay, or resign. Player B could engage that enemy without triggering an attack of opportunity. At least that is my understanding.
This ^
We might not have been clear in the video, but we're aware of what you're explaining, and you're correct. We were speaking more if player A (engaged to an enemy) wanted to engage a different enemy.
We are interpreting it correctly. Engaging provokes an attack of opportunity. It does not provoke an attack if you engage an enemy another player has and you have no enemy because there is nothing to provoke an attack of opportunity from. However, if you have an enemy and you engage an enemy, it provokes attacks of opportunity.
We could've explained this in greater detail.
@@PlayingBoardGames Thanks for the clarification, I was also confused. Now it's clear :)
The attack of opportunity happens after costs have been paid, but before the action itself has been resolved. So the normal sequence would be:
1. I spend an action to Engage.
2. I check to see if I am engaged with an enemy who will attack me.
3. I resolve the effects of the action meaning I engage the new enemy, putting it into my threat area and resolving any other effects that happen when I engage an enemy (e.g. Zoey getting rich).
So if I'm free at stage 2, everything's cool. If I already am engaged with an enemy, that enemy is going to thwack me for ignoring it.
Wait!!
All doom token is discarded from play. Doesnt mean the next agenda has no doom tokens? So in the gathering I have 3 turn for agenda 1. Then a new 7 turns on agenda two. And a whopping 10 turns in agenda 3?
Each new agenda starts without any doom, so yes, you get a bunch of turns on each new agenda.
Do I have to engage an Aloof enemy to attack it? or can I attack without engaging if I am alone in a location with it. L
Also does retatliate happens with enemies not engaged with the investigator?
Normaly I only engage enemies to save other players, also in the enemy phase, if the enemy is ready it automatically engages.
You need to engage an aloof enemy before you can attack it.
Yes, if you fail an attack against an enemy with retaliate that a teammate is engaged with you, you damage them and the retaliate hits you.
Another rule people get wrong. Any investigator can do the action on a card in your threat area if they are at the same location. If you have a weakness that takes two actions to clear someone else can do it on their turn.
Hello there!
I have one question about "committing skill icones". I currently play Minh Thi Panh and I wondered if her effect (after an investigator at your location commit a card to a skill test, that card gains "?" Until the end of the test. Limit once per round.) works with non-matching skill icones cards of a skill test. From exemple: I have nothing but a Guts for an investigation. I shouldnt comit it as it tests the intellect skill and not the will. But i commit it because the card gains "?". Am i allowed to do this ?
Kiss from France and nice content !
no you are not allowed.
1st: You commit a skill card to a test. You can only commit skill icons to tests, when there are at least one matching skill icons.
2nd: Minh's ability adds a skill icon (?) to the commited card.
Have a good one :)
@@danieladam1545 so i can't because the ? Icone is added after we commit the card, and I actually can't commit it if it doesnt have the icone i test at the first glance. Is this what you're saying ? Thank you
@@Jinjoledoggo Thats what I'm saying :) Ur welcome
Question. How does a zero level permanent card impact the deck? Shrewd Analysis is zero level. Does that mean if you begin the game with it in hand you have an effective deck size of 29 for the first scenario?
So is deck size just max cards, or the number a player must have in their deck to play?
Permanent cards does not count towards deck size and all cards start in play. Permanents cannot be removed from game due to any game effect.
Your "normal" deck size written on the back cannot be changed, but cards can be added to your deck, which not counting towards deck size
@@peterhilger4461 I feel like I’m still missing something. If I take shrewd analysis (a zero level perm card) at character creation would that allow me to take an extra card in order to bring deck size back to 30? (In Essenes making it a free ability for any seeker). Or would I start with 29 and have a free card slot to upgrade to at the end of the first scenario?
Either way would there ever be a reason for a seeker or someone with access to seeker cards to not take Shrewd Analysis?
@@biznesstime83 Again, permanent card do not count towards decksize. They are also never in your drawing deck and so never on your hand. Permanent cards will be placed somewhere in you area and just stay there.
@@peterhilger4461 So If you built your deck you can virtually take 10 permanent level 0 cards and still have to built your deck with the (mostly) 30 cards + random basic weakness (which could also be a permanent if you draw indebted) and your two character specific cards. Taking Shrewd Analysis makes only sense if you plan to take two of the special level 0 cards which the trait "unidentified" or "untranslated", because it allows you do upgrade both the to cost of only one. But the big, and for me this is a major downgrade, you cannot choose to which upgraded version of you initial cards you go. For me playing this game a very long time and playing a lot of seekers i never play this card because i want to decide on my own, how i upgrade my untranslated and/or unidentified cards.
The other permant level one card "arcane reasearch" is a whole different story. It gives you a mental trauma but over the span of a 8 scneario in a campain it gives you basically 14 exp points for free ( 7 times 2 exp). This tradeoff i normally always take as a mystic (in 80% of my mystic games I even take two of them to start with 2 mental tauma but have double spell upgrade exp cost reduction)
@@peterhilger4461 * Permanent cards will be placed there at the start of every game
Wait!!!!
After the enemy attacks in an attack of opportunity, it exhaust? So I can search get hit and then it exhaust and when its its turn it just get ready again?"
So basically if I search 3 times it will only attack me twice in a round?. So I search, it hit me and exhaust. Next time i search, it only ready. Last turn, i search, hits me and it exhaust. Then on monster phase it ready again?
We could've explained this better. Enemies only exhaust when they attack in the enemy phase. Attacks of opportunity happen outside of that phase, so they don't cause the enemy to exhaust.
@@PlayingBoardGames so if they have retaliate and exhausted, do they retaliate if i missed ? Or will they ready. Or if they are exhausted they stay like that until end of clean up round
An evaded enemy with retaliate doesn't retaliate if you miss. They stay exhausted and don't ready until clean-up.
Where can I find the rule about engaging an enemy provokes an attack of opportunity?
If you look up the rules for attacks of opportunity. If you are engaged with an enemy and then engage another enemy, the enemy you are engaged with will attack you. This is because attacks of opportunity trigger on any actions that are not fight, evade, parley, or resign.
@@PlayingBoardGames Thank you! You really have to read that twice to come to the aha effect.
@@PlayingBoardGames And I might be too much into Arkham Horror 3rd Edition, where meeting a monster as an effect of movement means, that you automatically are engaged with that monster. This is different in the card game
Honestly, you're 100% right. It was later on in our Arkham life where we all collectively realized engages caused attacks of opportunity.