All Things Cthulhu Wars

The game is (Was?) back in stock at MM on as of Monday, so I picked up the base, and pledged OS3 at Wamp. I'm going to add on Sleeper, High Priests and possibly plastic gates when the pledge manager opens, so, yay, in for $400~450.

You know what, though? It's a better game and going to get more play than the other 7 titles I would have spent that on anyway.

Now I just gotta hope MM gets some of the maps back in stock.

Far be it for me to spend other people's money, but I think the gates are totally worth it in an otherwise plasticy game. They have a pleasing heft and chunkiness.

I do feel like I could probably cap this game with OS2 and leave it at that. The perfectionist in me (maybe "that is me") would like to get any balance updates in actual cardstock form, and it's possible (likely?) that the Ancients will be a better 8th faction than the Tcho-Tchos. The rings would be nice for improved neutral functionality, though I'm not even sure we've played with any yet.

Now I just gotta hope MM gets some of the maps back in stock.

They won't be. They are gone with the wind. Watch for the aftermarket pricing on those to skyrocket.

Just for laughs, I took at look at the OS3 page, to see what it would cost to belatedly get in on Cthulhu Wars. Ugh, the prices and some of the questionable accessories and expansions. If I ever go for this game, the only sensible option is the base game until I see if my friends will want to play. But I'm a sucker for big games and would probably also want the expanded boards for up to 8 players, as well as at least four of the expansion player factions. And because of the massive miniatures, that becomes just too expensive.

Michael Barnes wrote: Now I just gotta hope MM gets some of the maps back in stock.

They won't be. They are gone with the wind. Watch for the aftermarket pricing on those to skyrocket.

Sweet, love to capitalism.

I would definitely suggest to people that if you just have the base game, you have the best part of this game.

Take a hard look at the various extra factions and decide if you think their play-style appeals to you. Many are very reactive / turtle in their design. I'd have to look at them all again, but just off the top of my head, Ithaqua is the only one that stands out as being a lot of fun. Your mileage will almost certainly vary.

That is a very important point to make. The game is 100% complete out of the box. You don't "need" anything extra, really. The only thing I would say feels like it should have been in the base game was the High Priests, and that is the cheapest expansion pack. I played for quite a long time with just what is in the main box, and I think those four factions give you a wild range of possibilities and fun as it is. And yes, I do think that it is worth $200 on its own, and yes, I do think it is better than buying 2-3 other games in lieu of it. It is a premium game, and it is expensive. But I will tell you right now that it is one of about five games I own that I would regard as completely indispensable and irreplaceable. In the time I have owned it, I have played it probably more times and more frequently than I have any game since Settlers of Catan in the mid to late 90s.

The only thing I would add to Mark's comment though is that the additions are where the game goes from being one of the best DOAM to being the best DOAM ever published. Yes, I did that.

Like I've said before, when you start adding things to it, it becomes WILD. Like Cosmic Encounter or Wiz-War WILD. Crazy shit happens. Combos you never saw before come up. Somebody pulls something off and it's just amazing. Something that NEVER gets used suddenly turns into a game-winning MVP. It is volatile and you will occasionally come up with a compound that has something out of balance or that causes some kind of rules issue. Just like Cosmic or Wiz-War.

The key to me was when I realized that, for example, Great Old Ones pack 1 is not an expansion. It's 4 expansions. When we play, we might pull one out of there, one out of pack 2, and then something from Dreamlands. Or we may just use Azathoth and a couple of favorites. So you mix and match all that with factions and maps and you get a unique game every time for the most part.

It is a shame the maps are going to be hard to get because they really do bring a lot to the game. Charlie didn't care for it, but I've come to love the Dreamlands map. It's crazy. I love Yuggoth too, and Primeval Earth can be just brutal. It looks like the only maps in OS3 are the 6-8 player Earth (Which I will get because I don't have one of the bigger maps), Shaggai (which looks...I dunno), and an upsized Earth map (which I will probably wind up with). Here again, it's all you need and most folks would be satisfied with just the one map. But I love the idiosyncrasies of the other ones.

But yeah. Those bad boys are going to be BIG BUCKS. I would also predict that some of the other items not going in OS3 will blow up in value. Especially the Ramsey Campbell stuff, they will likely never do those again.

I'm slightly perturbed that I have no idea what will be available at retail shortly. I went in on Yothan pledge and added $200 for the pledge manager addons. Thing is all this arrives June 2018. I apparently have a base game arriving once retail opens up. I've also pre-ordered a bunch of neutral units (GOO pack 1, cosmic Terrors, Azathoth expansion and the Opener faction) through a local retailer. My issue is will I get screwed on the high priests, 6-8 player map, Sleeper & Windwalker expansions that I wouls like right away or have to order those through the OS3 pledge manager and wait a year. A lot of mystery surrounding availability and tying up an awful lot of money.

The items I pre ordered are still not guaranteed.

Makes it difficult to slide it all past the home minister.

Getting it in the door is one thing. Storing all of these massive black boxes is another. I am not exaggerating that I sold stuff to make room for it...so beware. Even the maps come in big boxes.

I would not count on anything at retail other than core. I would be cautious about any preorder not at Petersen Games. Factions will likely pop up but it'll be limited- in other words, ONE shipment. Shaggai, possibly. Cosmic Terrors, possibly. High Priest possibly. Everything else definitely no. They make this stuff to order- nothing is technically in unlimited production.

This is a pain in the ass as I want to "play now" and not next year. The word at my retailer was that their shipment should have arrived end of last month. Not sure if pulling the plug and gazing at the Petersen site constantly is the way to go. I might just say Eff it and just increase through the pledge manager and order the whole lot for next year.

If your shop is telling you that they are waiting on shipments of OS2 stuff...they ain't getting it. It's all gone. Petersen Games has nothing but the core game in stock.

When we got Tcho Tcho in at MM, I requested one for review. Our handler there said "no, we don't need coverage on that, we're only getting the one shipment and it won't be back in stock."

I would say that doing it in the pledge manager is the best way...maybe hold out for a while to see if there is a miracle (let me know, because I want to buy Sleeper and Tcho Tcho right now myself).

The wait does suck. I'd just as soon drop all the money now and get it in a few days. But so it goes.

Thirded or whatever. Of the seven plays I've recorded (which is probably many fewer than some others around here), only one's been with something other than the 3-to-5-player Earth map (and that was the 6-to-8-player Earth map), and I think only one has had high priests. The rest were vanilla base.

Last night was my first 6 player game, and it was fine. I was expecting more chaos than all the 4 player games I have had, but it felt pretty much the same. It was a learning game for 2 players, and 3 others hadn't played in a long time, but everyone had fun. It was my first game as the Opener and I found true love. I had mostly played the Black Goat before that, and never fully got a handle on their play style, but everything seemed to click with the opener. I would have won had I chosen my spell books in a different order. I raced out to a lead, did a super turn with my one off abilities and once people realized how close I was took 2 gates off me, and I ended up looking at possibly 28 points plus an Elder sign if I went for the win, so pulling that chit needing anything but a 1, I drew a 1 chit. So I finished the penultimate turn on 29 points with everyone else sitting on 5-15 on the doom track.

Next turn the Black Goat player won, and I forget how quickly things can change. I was sitting on 26 points with a 1 and 2 chit hidden, and everyone else was sitting on the doom track with 5-15 points. I just need to hold a gate to get to 30 points and had such a huge lead, and in the end was attacked by 3 players and reduced to pretty much nothing on the board, so finished the turn on my 29 points. The windwalker player had mistimed his spellbooks, and could only get one of the two remaining spellbooks that turn, but ended up with 5 gates, and so would clearly win the following turn once he achieved his final spell book, so I kept pointing out he was the real menace. And then as everyone was doing their rituals, the Black Goat player announced he had won, which was a real shock. He had quietly been sitting in 2-3 areas for most of the game, and was stuck on 13 points. He hadn't realized he needed all 6 spell books to win so as he was doing so badly, we all helped work out the moves required for him to get his final 2 spell books, and he took a 4th gate. He did a ritual, so from his start of 13 points, he gained 8, taking him to 21 doom, then flipped over 5 chits, which happened to total 11 points, taking him to 32 points. The windwalker player finished ahead of him on 34 points, but without the 6th spellbook couldn't claim the win. And of course the Yellow Sign player had given the Black Goat player 3 doom points when their spell book required them to give someone them, seeing as they thought the Black Goat player had no chance, which gave them the win.

Just saw on TOS that the map expansions and GOO packs went up for sale on Petersen Games site. Some are still left but no 6-8 player expansions. The plastic bits expansion is abailable as well as the colired gate pack. I went with Yugoth, Dreamlands and another GOO pack 1. If my preorder shows up I'll put'er up on Ebay.

I was going to buy Library but shipping was $28.

Ha, a day after I said they were gone...if they have stock, there is a chance MM will get something.