A New FAQ for Arkham Horror: The Card Game is Now Available

Greetings, intrepid investigators of Arkham Horror: The Card Game!

It’s that time of year again. A chill wind blows across the benighted cityscape of Arkham, Massachusetts, and our investigators must once again steel themselves for new horrors, terrors, specters...and winter. Midwinter, to be precise. FAQ 2.3: The Midwinter Gala edition is here, and it’s just as terrifying as the last. Aside from some new rulings and clarifications, this FAQ contains a small update to the Taboo list as well as the introduction of alternate play variants in Ultimatums and Boons. Read on—if you dare.

Errata

When our hapless investigators perform a ritual or translate arcane secrets, a single word out of place can bring chaos. The same is true for Arkham Horror: The Card Game. With thousands of scenario and player cards in circulation at this point, it’s inevitable that the occasional card and game effects might not function as intended.

Horrifying ant-wasp hybrids weren’t the only thing we uncovered in The Feast of Hemlock Vale campaign. Since its release, we’ve found a few bugs that we aim to address in 2.3’s update. By adding a single trait to a card in The Lost Sister scenario, players no longer can softlock themselves with a few unlucky pulls from the Cavern deck. It was also a bit strange that you could recruit Judith Park in the Vale and take her into any scenario, so there’s been some updated wording to address that issue. A small change to one of the preludes ensures that a feud between two cousins can actually be settled amicably. And another errata may (depending) make it a bit easier (or at least not impossible) to grab the Prismatic Shard in Written in Rock.

You may also notice that the four mask rewards in Carnevale of Horrors now reflect the wording on the new mask suite in The Feast of Hemlock Vale Investigator Expansion.

Rulings and Clarifications

We’ve only included one completely new ruling in this update. Check out 1.30 Basic Action Types, in which we define basic actions. (Note that while grabbing a pumpkin spice latte is technically a basic action, we’ve omitted it from the card game for now.)

As a rule of thumb, a basic action is an action that you could resolve in full without playing a card or activating a card ability. Taking a Resource action, an Engage action, or a Move action are all basic actions. Attempting to Fight or Evade an enemy (without using a card ability or by playing an event) is a basic action. However, if you Play an event with a bolded Fight action designator, it is not a basic fight action. Likewise, if you Activate an action ability with a bolded Investigate action designator, that is not a basic investigate action. Additionally, we’d like to clarify that while Parley and Resign are their own action types with bold action designators, they are not basic actions (as they cannot be resolved in full without other triggered abilities).

This ruling really won't affect much at the moment, but we believe it is nevertheless important to define for future design space. Currently, this mostly matters for a card like Close the Circle (Edge of the Earth Investigator Expansion, 62), which specifically directs players to take a basic action without defining which basic actions a player can take. Likewise, defining Parley as its own action type may matter for other card abilities that care about which types of actions have been taken, such as Haste (The Dream-Eaters Investigator Expansion, 239).

We also updated 2.24, regarding action costs. Given the strength of exile and “remove from game” effects, we want to drive home the fact that those effects are absolute (especially when they factor into the cost for another ability). For example, you can’t use Pushed to the Limit (The Feast of Hemlock Vale Investigator Expansion, 113) to automatically evade all enemies at your location with Fire Extinguisher (Edge of the Earth IE, 80) and then shuffle it into your deck afterwards—exiling the Fire Extinguisher must happen in order to use that ability. This, again, isn’t a huge wrinkle, but it helps us maintain some of the balance and design space around these kinds of card abilities.

We’ve had plenty of new questions to stock the FAQ list as well! No, you can’t move damage to a card that doesn’t have health (but good try!). Using Eldritch Tongue (The Feast of Hemlock Vale IE, 128) to play Beguile (The Feast of Hemlock Vale IE, 10) will remove it from the game after Beguile attaches to an enemy. If an enemy with the elusive keyword moves away while you’re resolving One-Two Punch (Nathaniel Cho Investigator Starter Deck, 17), you can still attack a second time; no monstrous hybrids are safe from a good pair of boxing gloves. And you heard it right and you heard it here: tokens revealed with Rod of Carnamagos (The Feast of Hemlock Vale IE, 85) while attacking with Armageddon (The Innsmouth Conspiracy Investigator Expansion, 226) can result in some crazy damage.

The Taboo List

Like last time, we’ve taken a fairly light touch to the Taboo list in this update. The Taboo list is an optional set of adjustments to the power level of certain cards that we find under- or over-performing in the current meta. Underworld Market (The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expnasion, 77) and two Ravenous Myconid (The Feast of Hemlock Vale IE, 59 and 60) upgrades have been chained. (As a reminder: Underworld Market is still level 2 but now costs 2 additional experience—so it’s 6 experience instead of 4).

We've included a few additional mutations as well. Unscrupulous Loan (Edge of the Earth IE, 113) is laughably strong in standalone scenarios with no downside, and so it has been mutated for Campaign Mode only. And you’ll also notice that Empirical Hypothesis’s (The Scarlet Keys IE, 41) incredible draw power has been tempered with a “Limit twice per round” mutation.

Introducing Ultimatums, Boons, and Refractions

Ultimatums have been a semi-official element of Arkham Horror: The Card Game for quite some time, and we’re pleased to incorporate them in the latest FAQ. Ultimatums are optional variants that provide additional play restrictions for groups looking for additional challenges or new ways to re-experience a campaign or scenario. These restrictions can range from mild (such as the Ultimatum of Hardship, which reduces each investigator’s starting resources) to dire (as in the case of the Ultimatum of Finality, which turns investigator defeat into certain death or insanity). Long-time players may recognize some of these ultimatums from past Invocation events and marketing articles. We’ve included all of the previous Ultimatums and even added some new ones to the mix!

We’ve also introduced Boons in this update. Boons are optional variants designed to make the game easier. As a tribute to Lovecraft’s love of classical and Egyptian mythology, some of these boons are attributed to specific mythological figures. Solo players, often strapped for movement, may opt to take the Boon of Hermes to cover more ground. Players who are more interested in playing for the story than for the challenge may want to take the Boon of Osiris, which allows an investigator to continue the game after their first defeat. Or, perhaps, groups wanting a small but significant boost might take the Boon of Thoth to start the game with an extra card in their opening hand.

But wait! There’s more! We’ve also included Refractions, which are scenario and campaign-specific Ultimatums and Boons. For example, the Ultimatum of Venom gives extra teeth to the Poisoned weakness in The Forgotten Age campaign, whereas the Boon of Bliss gives players more time to complete Fate of the Vale in The Feast of Hemlock Vale campaign. Other variants address specific elements of certain scenarios that players may have found too challenging or too easy, or that might lead to a negative play experience. The Ultimatum of the Man, for example, makes The Man in the Pallid Mask immune to the effects of the Corpse Dweller enemy in The Pallid Mask.

We’ve provided these tools so you can play Arkham Horror: The Card Game how you want. Whether you use them to spice up a campaign you found too easy or finally steamroll Shades of Suffering is up to you. Whatever you choose, we hope it helps you enjoy the game more.

And with that, we’re out! Nick, Waleed, and I heard something about a missing shipment somewhere in Arkham so we’re on our way to investigate. Hopefully we can avoid any rampaging Ancient Ones!

Thanks for playing. You are the reason we make this game.

Josiah “Duke” Harrist, Game Designer

Nicholas Kory, Game Designer

Waleed Ma’Arouf, Game Designer

Alex Werner, Game Rules Specialist