Allies deck

I think another good thing to do is get rid of CotDP. It's a poor expansion all around and it dilutes the ally deck.

I've been trying to play as "correctly" as possible. but one house rule I do use with DH is to start with all allies avaibale and dioscard alternately 2 or 1 ally whenever the TT rises. This keeps it close enough to the normal game for me without missing any guys at start up.

Truth to be told I only ever gain allies that I meet in encounters. I've yet to use Ma's to "buy" a friend. But then I didn't realise that Ma's wasn't a random draw until I saw another concurrent thread. I could have done with prof Roce to spead up last nights mid-game.

Cheers - Chris

We use all allies. Whenever the Terrortrack rises or a Mythoscard tells to drop 1 ally, we drop 3 (Close enough with 34 allies).
When you get to choose an ally, you draw 11-Terrortrack allies, pick one of them and shuffle the rest back.

Tyberius wrote:Last night after shuffling and keeping 11 allies, and once again never coming across an ally that a card said I could take, I devised the following house rule that works regardless of the number of increasing allies with each additional AH supplement.

Step 1: Roll 9 dice
Step 2: Check terror track
Step 3: The terror level is the number of successes required to take the ally.

This means you automatically find your ally when terror=0, and as the terror track progresses you're less and less likely to find him or her. (And you have zero chance when terror=10)

Lastly, If you're cursed or blessed, you have a worse or better chance to get the ally, which also fits the theme.

I haven't tried this yet, but I'll give it a shot my next game.

Neat, but harsh! You're under 5% once the terror level gets to 6, and under 1% at 7 (unblessed, anyway - blessed is 25% at 6, 9% at 7, and 2% at 8, and also has the nice property that it's 50% at 5).

@ C.H.A.D.
Do you mean it dilutes them due to replacing allies which might turn up due to an event, or do you think the in-game value of the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh allies isn't particularly high?

Last game I didn't use any house rules regarding allies. After setup, I looked at the starting allies and decided that recruiting Thomas F. Malone would be a good choice. Then I focused on the Witch House, and met him.

I admit that I was lucky, but nonetheless I think the original rules are OK if you know which ally was in the initial deck, and where you can meet him / her.

How's this...

Guardian: Arkham Visitor's Bureau

Start of Game: When preparing the Ally deck, any allies returned to the box are placed on this sheet instead.

Tourist Trap: At the beginning of upkeep, randomly select two allies on this sheet and add them to the Ally deck. Players may inspect the Ally deck.

Economy Class: Instead of $1, players may spend their entire movement to move from one train depot to another.

This variant should keep the randomness of the ally deck (so that players will not always purchase the best allies), but allow some access to more allies, which is typically needed later in the game, not earlier. Yet this variant doesn't overshadow Charlie Kane's ability. The train movement is from another thread, where the OP said if you didn't have $1 to ride the train, you could be trapped in Dunwich. (Me, I always keep $2 or $3 on hand at all times!) Myself, I think the variant needs some more "oomph", especially if this Guardian is used with only a 5-ally expansion...

aka. Washu! ^O^

ced1106 wrote:Tourist Trap: At the beginning of upkeep, randomly select two allies on this sheet and add them to the Ally deck. Players may inspect the Ally deck.

You wanna do WHAT?!? So if the game progresses (and eventually people start leaving town), there are MORE allies available instead of LESS?

I don't think that's in the spirit of the game - however, play it how you like it.

Teydyn wrote:We use all allies. Whenever the Terrortrack rises or a Mythoscard tells to drop 1 ally, we drop 3 (Close enough with 34 allies).
When you get to choose an ally, you draw 11-Terrortrack allies, pick one of them and shuffle the rest back.

I do it similar minus the discarding 3 allies because Glaki (evil zombie maker guy) likes this

ced1106 wrote:Economy Class: Instead of $1, players may spend their entire movement to move from one train depot to another.

That's perfect, because (a) it solves the no-money pain, and (b) Train Station Encounters!

EXCELLENT IDEA. I will try this immediately.

tibs wrote:Glaaki is very interested in this variant.

Tibs, QUIT READING MY MIND! The horror, I'm going to the window now!

I got DH a couple of weeks ago and it is doing a great job kicking my butt and the butts of my sons when we get together to play. Glaaki in particular has been problematic. I have faced him three times and lost. I have the game set up and have been playing against him yet again. The doom track is at 9, servants of Glaaki have stripped my team of virtually all their possessions, and the ally deck has been completely discarded to the box except those allies already bonded to investigators.Looks like Glaaki is going to win again!

The only house rule we use is that all allies are placed in the deck. We discard two every time one is called for, but only count them as one for Glaaki's purposes (when discarded because the terror level increases.) If an ally is discarded for any non-terro level reason, then we don't do the two for one rule...another servant comes forth.

Ah well, enough typing on the board. I must take a deep breath and go meet my fate. I want to be devoured early enough that I have time to play again tonight.

The 2 games I played with the CotDP rules (start 22 allies, remove 2) we had way more allies than reasonnable. (Ashcan pete had 3 of them, he asked for a bus instad of the police car !)

Beeing followed by an ally must remain unusual and the base rule works perfectly for us. Moreover, the B plan if he's not available is usually nice enough.

PS : I got rid of CotDP expansion. Dont like it and it's diluing DH that I'm fond of. (Waiting for KiY in french that should be in store next month !

)