July 01, 2009

Happy Cthulhu er...Canada Day

Well, here it's a national holiday and people were out in large numbers to enjoy the sunshine and wave their maple leaf-emblazoned flags proudly. I'm proud to have been born in such a great country like Canada, and now we need to protect it more than ever...from the ancient ones!Over the past few months I've been doing demos for the Call of Cthulhu LCG, and have been please with the reception it's getting from most players. One of the major selling points is that after you buy your base set, it's a minimal investment. The Asylum packs are released on a (near) monthly basis and run around $12. That's around the price of three random packs of your average collectable game, so it's pretty easy to get into for little cost. So in preparation for league play I thought I would give you a few pointers on getting started with the contents of your base set.

There are seven factions in the Call of Cthulhu LCG:

- The Agency: A human faction of law enforcement agents. (Symbol: badge, Colour: blue)
- Miskatonic University: A human faction representing academics and learned folk. (Symbol: scroll, Colour: gold)
- The Syndicate: A human faction made up of mobsters, gangsters and reporters. (Symbol: Dollar sign in a red triangle, Colour: Black)
- Cthulhu: Cthulhu and his minions, as well as cultists and human worshippers. (Symbol: Squid, Colour: green)
- Hastur: Centers on Hastur's role as the King in Yellow, as well as his minions. (Symbol: the Yellow Sign, Colour: yellow)
- Yog-Sothoth: Yog-Sothoth, the humans who worship and study it, and undead monsters it controls. (Symbol: a key, Colour: purple)
- Shub-Niggurath: Shub-Niggurath is responsible for creating mutants, monsters and the like. (Symbol: a goat's head, Colour: red)

Alright, so now you know the major players. The stakes are simple; protect your beloved country, your planet, your sanity, and the very universe against these foul monsters! Or...take control of these slavering demons and their follows and leave a wake of death, instanity and destruction in your wake. In order to do these things, you'll need a deck to play with.

For the first event or two you'll need to to create a deck from the cards in your starter set. The easiest way to create a deck is to chose two of the factions and add their cards together. You'll be a little short, so choose a few of the non-affiliated cards (they're grey) to fill out your deck to a minimum of 50 cards. The rule book has some further suggestions on which grey cards will go better with your faction choices. I've chosen to put Hastur and Shub-Niggurath together, because I think red and yellow won't hurt my eyes. Oh and they've got some pretty nasty powers too! If you're not sure about buying the base set until you've played a few games, one of my demo decks will work fine too, and I'll be happy to provide you with one.

Each month (every other event, as we're playing bi-weekly) you can add cards to your deck by purchasing an Asylum Pack. You're also free to make trades among the other players to help build up your faction's strengths.

Keep in mind a few things if you decide to mix a human and demon faction together. If you have a card in play that has Heroic keyword on it, you cannot play a card that has the Villainous keyword. And vice-versa. They cannot co-exist, so if you do want to play one, you have to chose to destroy the other when you do. This isn't to say NOT to play two factions like this together, as you might be able to come up with a neat strategy for it, but just a warning.

I haven't got a full count of how many players will be joining the league. But I'm expecting to have our league support kit in the next few weeks. I'll be running another round of demo games on Sunday July 12th, and have few more demo decks to give away. If you're interested in a demo or joining the league, please let me know. I'd be happy to help you build your first deck and answer any questions you might have about cards or rules as best I can.

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