Find the following card sets in your collection and shuffle them well.

• The devourer below.
• Ancient evils.
• Striking fear.
• Ghouls.
• Dark cult.

- Find the locations and we're going to put them on the table. Your investigators start at the Main Path. You have 6 variants of Arkham woods. In this article we will discuss them all. Only the intention is that you will only use 4 of them. You can shake these up, but we prefer to use dices to make the choice.

- Place the Umôrdhoth cards and the location called Ritual site outside your playing field. These will come back later in the game.

- To give it a twist to what makes your playing session different every time. You need to add one more encounter set. Just like ours, use a dice or else shuffle one card from each set and choose it this way. The best thing is if you do it with a dice, you don't know which set you are shaking through the encounter deck.

- Your last step before we move on to the journal setup is to add an extra token to your chaos bag. This is an Elder thing token. One that looks like some kind of squid.

Agenda - The Arkham woods

After interrogating the Arkham Conspiracy Sect, you've learned that they perform a revenge ritual in response to the destruction of one of their master's hideouts. You entered the woods outside Arkham to try and stop them. The forest seems unnaturally cold and filled with a deadly silence.

This agenda will flip at 4 doom tokens. You have to remember that you had to add doom tokens to the agenda in the beginning. This has to do with how many of the cult members had fled. This part of the agenda will therefore flash by.

PRO TIP: First make sure your Investigator is fairly stable with weapons, items, and spells or at least one of you. This first agenda flips faster than you spell Arkham. We experienced that this was the best start, because you will find those clues later.

Act - investigating the trail

The evidence you've gathered has led you to the woods south of Arkham, where a ritual to summon an entity called "Umôrdhoth" is about to take place. With determination you go deeper into the forest, hoping to find the site of this ritual.

Your first assignment is immediately a difficult assignment. You have to find and obtain 3 clues per investigator. What we said before in the PRO TIP is that your first focus should be on making a stable investigator. Then look for those clues.

The first step or stage is behind us and we go deeper and deeper into the forest. Looking for the ritual.

Agenda 2 - The Ritual Begins

"Umôrdhoth...Umôrdhoth...Umôrdhoth..."

The song increases in intensity and reverberates in the cold air of the night. The thin clouds in the sky coalesce over the forests of Arkham, obscuring the faint light of the stars.

The cultists and monsters just don't stop and they only get stronger as the Ritual progresses. Each enemy gains +1 fight and +1 evade through the power of the ritual. With 5 doom you think you are safe for a while, but unfortunately it is no less true. Because in the previous round you had to shuffle your encounter discard pile back into the deck, a number of cult members have returned to give you extra doom. Think of, for example, Acolyte / Wizard of the Order, these enemies are very annoying to have in your playing field.

There are also 2 treacheries that we should absolutely not overlook. Ancient evils, this card gives your agenda 1 extra doom token and flips your agenda when you have collected the necessary doom tokens. This can get very annoying. Then you also have to deal with Mysterious Chanting, this card gives a Cultist enemy 2 extra doom tokens. Don't have a Cultist enemy on the table?? Then that's no problem at all! Find one in the encounter deck and place it in your threat area. This was of course a sarcastic piece, because this card is very annoying. You are so up to your doom numbers now.

PRO TIP: Get rid of those enemies with doom very quickly. Have one player focus on collecting clues and let the other get rid of these enemies.

Act 2 - Into the Darkness

The remaining cult members have followed you into the woods to try and stop you, and now they are blocking the path to your target. They stand ominously under the overhanging trees, silent watchmen in the night. You must defeat them or sneak past them if you want to access the site of their ritual.

Your mission is simple, these cult members are standing in your way to access the Ritual site. Get them out of the way or sneak past them.

Agenda 3A - Vengeance Awaits

The world begins to shift and change as the ritual nears its end. The air becomes chilly and the whole forest is covered with a layer of frost. The trees bend unnaturally and their shadows lengthen into an odd shape.

We have arrived at the last phase of the Agenda. This card has a Forced effect which means that these effects apply immediately if you get the required Doom tokens on the agenda.

• If the investigators are still working on Act 1, bring Ritual Site location into play (if it isn't already there) and spawn the set aside Umôrdhoth entity there.
• If the investigators are still working on Act 2 or 3, remove all enemies on the Ritual Site and spawn the set aside Umôrdhoth entity there.

These 2 effects only happen when you have reached the 5 Doom tokens and then only in the Mythos phase the agenda continues! This is something that we often missed in the beginning, but after a number of playing sessions with other players we learned this very quickly. Thanks @simontejobman ! It is therefore up to the investigators not to let this happen! No matter what.

Act 3A - Disrupting the Ritual

The site of the cult's ritual is in a large cave in a dark corner of the forest. In the center of the cave is a candlelit circle marked by rocks and mysterious runes.

 Okay your job is easy for this last Act card. You must do a skill test of 3 willpower or 3 agility. If you achieve success, you may place 1 clue on the Act. As soon as you have 2 clues per investigator, the Act flips! Unlike the Agenda deck, your Act deck flips as soon as you collect the necessary clues.

As usual, we also take a closer look at the locations. Not all locations will be used because you have to make a choice at the start of your play session. But we'll deal with them all.

Main Path / 2 Shroud, 0 clues per investigator, this location is connected to all other Wood locations. This Main path also has a trigger ability with a resign function. If it becomes too much for you.

Arkham woods - Quiet Glade / 1Shroud, 0 clues per investigator, for 1 action you may heal a damage or horror. 1 time per turn.

Arkham woods - Twisting Paths / 3 Shroud, 1 clues per investigator, at this location you are stuck and you can only escape/move by performing a skill test. In this case a skill test for 3 intellect.

Arkham woods - Old House / 2 Shroud, 1 clues per investigator, if you want to perform an investigation action on this location, use willpower instead of your intellect.

Arkham woods - Cliffsiede / 2 Shroud, 1 clues per investigator, if you want to perform an investigation action on this location, use agility instead of your intellect.

Arkham woods - Tangled thicket / 2 Shroud, 1 clues per investigator, if you want to perform an investigation action in this location, use fight instead of your intellect.

Arkham woods - Unhallowed Grounds / 4 Shroud, 1 clues per investigator, a location with a skill test when you enter this location. Do a skill test of 4 willpower. If you fail you get 1 horror and 1 damage.

Ritual Site / 3 Shroud, 2 clues per investigator, an inexhaustible source of clues. Every time at the end of the round, if there are less than 2 clues per investigator, top it up until it is.

The devourer below, Ancient evils, Striking fear, Ghouls and the Dark cult. These are the sets that we will use for the encounter analysis. You will be asked to select 1 additional set of the following sets of Agents of Yog-sothoth, Agents of Shub-Niggurath, Agents of Cthulhu or Agents of Hastur. But we will not deal with this one, because this is precisely a twist that we do not have in our hands. We will therefore discuss these further in another article. We are going to cover the following categories again.

1) Enemies / we look at which enemies to expect and what to do against these monsters.

2) Treachery / These are the pitfalls of the game. We have divided them into 2 groups with and without skill test.

3) Treachery with skill test / for this treachery you have to dive deep into the chaos bag again.

Most enemies and monsters will reappear in this scenario. We will therefore not deal with them all, because we can already read this in the previous analyses. If you are curious, take a look at the strategy guide of the previous scenarios.

Ghoul Minion / This minion is another fun challenge. This immediately appears in your Threat area and has a stat of 2/2/2, this is also not the highest and most difficult, but his 2 fight can make you bounce a bit in the beginning. This is probably your first playing session and you're still figuring out the rules with your eyes in the rulebook. This Minion does both 1 damage and 1 horror damage. This Ghoul minion will deal you 1/1 damage and horror if you're not careful.

Wizard of the Order / a boss among the cult members, 4/2/2 is a nice fight that you will have to do. His ability is not just popping up in an empty location, but after every Mythos phase this cult member gets a doom token. This speeds up the Agenda process. You will then have to take out this enemy as soon as possible. The Wizard inflicts 1/1 damage and horror, which is very low when you consider the fighting spirit that this wizard has.

Ravenous Ghoul / An upgrade of the Ghoul minion, 3/3/3 are the stats of this monster and it takes a little more thinking and math. This has a keyword prey, which means that if there are 2 investigators on a location, in this case they will compete with the one that has the lowest health left. The Ghoul may seem a bit stronger than the minion, but it brings just as much damage and horror.

Acolyte / This is the minion among cultists. His stats of 3/1/2 say he's a fighter, but the damage you get from him isn't that bad. He only deals you 1 damage. The only downside this cult member has is that he comes into play with a doom token. Just like the wizard, the Acolyte only inflicts damage and are not powerful enough to give you horror.

PRO TIP: try to take out all cult members before you too, but think about which monster you are going to take. The fact is that the cult members bring extra doom tokens with them.

Last but not least, the cards associated with a skill test.

Rotting remains / a true classic, you will not soon forget this card. It is in fact one of the first like Frozen in fair treachery cards that you come across in this game. These cards make it difficult for you from the start. With Rotting remains you have to undergo a willpower skill test of 3 points. For every point you lose, you get 1 horror damage.

Frozen in Fair / also a classic among connoisseurs and beginners. Like Rotting remains, it's the first treachery you'll encounter. This card is just that little bit more annoying. You are frozen with fear. Each fight, move or evade action costs you an extra action. At the end of the turn, you must do a 3 willpower skill test to make sure this card disappears. It is extremely important that you remove this card as soon as possible because you lose a lot of pace because of this.

Umôrdhoth's Wrath / a killer card, tests 5 willpower and for every point you lose you get a decent penalty. Or you lose cards from your hand, but if you don't want to, you get both 1 damage and 1 horror on you. If you only have 2 cards in your hand and you lose by 4 points, then you lose 4 damage and horror because you can't get rid of enough cards.

Investigators of Arkham Horror, thank you for reading the greatest strategy guide yet. This all has to do with it being a final scenario and a lot of things going on. We hope you have learned a lot from this analysis! Leave a comment what you thought!

Jeroen - dutch blogger company