All factions
The Obligatory Cthulhu Set
ELDER THINGS
Medium-High
Terrorize other players into Madness with minions that are difficult to play, and actions that ensure they are penalized for drawing Madness cards.
Description
The Elder Things are one of the 4 factions from The Obligatory Cthulhu Set.
Terrorize your opponents into Madness with nightmarish monsters and abilities from the nether reaches of existence.
Other factions from the same set: Innsmouth, Minions of Cthulhu, Miskatonic University.
Cards Overview
The Elder Things have the usual 10 minions and 10 actions. The total minion base power (not counting any abilities) is unusually high at 39 or an average of 3.9 per minion compared to the usual 30 and 3. However, there are some restrictions on playing the highest powered minions (Elder Thing and Shoggoth).
Among their actions, there are:
* 1 play-on-minion action: Dunwich Horror,
* 0 play-on-base actions,
* 9 standard actions (2 that affect one or more minions, in bold): Begin the Summoning (2x), Insanity, Power of Madness (2x), Spreading Horror, The Price of Power, Touch of Madness, Unfathomable Goals,
* 2 actions that directly increase a minion's power: Dunwich Horror, The Price of Power.
2x Begin the Summoning - Place a minion from your discard pile on top of your deck. You may play an extra action this turn.
1x Dunwich Horror - Play on a minion. Ongoing: This minion gains 5 power. Destroy this minion at the end of the turn.
1x Insanity - Each other player draws two Madness cards.
2x Power of Madness - All other players reveal their hands, discard all Madness cards and then shuffles their discard pile into their deck.
1x Spreading Horror - Each other player discards cards at random until that player discards a non-Madness card.
1x The Price of Power - Special: Before a base scores, all other players with minions there reveal their hand. One of your minions there has +2 power for each Madness card revealed.
1x Touch of Madness - Each other player draws a Madness card. Draw a card and play an extra action this turn.
1x Unfathomable Goals - All other players reveal his or her hands. Each player who reveals a Madness card must destroy one of their minions.
Actions
2x Begin the Summoning - Place a minion from your discard pile on top of your deck. You may play an extra action this turn.
1x Dunwich Horror - Play on a minion. Ongoing: This minion gains 5 power. Destroy this minion at the end of the turn.
1x Insanity - Each other player draws two Madness cards.
2x Power of Madness - All other players reveal their hands, discard all Madness cards and then shuffles their discard pile into their deck.
1x Spreading Horror - Each other player discards cards at random until that player discards a non-Madness card.
1x The Price of Power - Special: Before a base scores, all other players with minions there reveal their hand. One of your minions there has +2 power for each Madness card revealed.
1x Touch of Madness - Each other player draws a Madness card. Draw a card and play an extra action this turn.
1x Unfathomable Goals - All other players reveal his or her hands. Each player who reveals a Madness card must destroy one of their minions.
Characters
1x Elder Thing - power 10 - Destroy two of your other minions or place this minion on the bottom of your deck. Ongoing: This minion is not affected by opponents’ cards.
2x Shoggoth - power 6 - You can only play this minion on a base where you have at least 6 power. Each other player may draw a Madness card. Destroy a minion here belonging to each player who does not do so.
3x Mi-go - power 3 - Each other player may draw a Madness card. For each other player that does not, you may draw a card.
4x Byakhee - power 2 - Each other player with a minion at this base draws a Madness card.
Strategy
Being a fairly complex faction, a skilled player can pull off pairing with another complex one, but if not, something simpler may be a wise choice.
Synergies
Being a fairly complex faction, a skilled player can pull off pairing with another complex one, but if not, something simpler may be a wise choice. Ones that help you fulfill your best minions' conditions fit well, or you might be one of those people that enjoys seeing your friends suffer...
*Miskatonic University: Playing against them is actually quite bad for you, as they have many ways to benefit and recover from Madness, so it's not a bad move to choose them simply to deny this.
*Shapeshifters: On a similar vein, Copycats and Mimics take advantage of your cards without suffering their penalties. Manipulate your own power boosts and Mimics to play Shoggoths and Elder Thing to profit from their high printed power.
*Tricksters: What better way to ruin everyone's night than by sacrificing two Gremlins?
*Minions of Cthulhu: If Madness is your thing (not judging here, but your opponents might), you might as well go all the way with it. The Minions allow you to chain together and recycle your punishing actions, and Star-Spawn spreads all the more chaos.
*Zombies: One of those simpler factions to rest your mind. They supply easy fodder to bring out the Elder Thing again and again.
*Dinosaurs: Another simple faction, their high power helps you bring out Shoggoths. If you're lucky enough to have Rampage and Elder Thing available, you can one-shot most bases all by yourself, but Dinosaurs don't help you much in summoning the monster.
Tips
Part of this faction's utility lies in how well your opponents know the Elder Things. You can pull devastating combos out of nowhere against ignorant or naive opponents. You force everyone to react to your cards, whether they knew of the threat beforehand or not. Savvy opponents can thwart you from playing your most powerful minions, or from utilizing their Madness cards by playing them themselves. Play mind games to control them and keep them unsure of your next move.
Sometimes your opponents get to choose between drawing a Madness card and facing a different penalty. All these conflicting choices you push onto your opponents tends to sow massive chaos. It is in your interest to keep track of who has Madness cards and how many, so you will know how much you can profit from them. When you do, to make sure your opponents aren't lying, several of the Elder Things' actions force them to reveal their hands, giving you the side benefit of learning what they have available.
The Elder Things' most powerful minions demand conditions from you in order to play them. Your opponents may try to prevent you from fulfilling these conditions, especially if you telegraph their threat with Begin the Summoning, since discard piles are visible to all players.
The "boss" minion Elder Thing still holds the record for the highest printed power ever published at 10. The card's wording is a little unclear, but clarifications say if you don't actually destroy two of your minions, including if you have no minions in play to destroy, you immediately place it on the bottom of your deck. It's not that free of a win. The minions can be from different bases.
Shoggoth's play requirement of at least 6 power on the base will most often be fulfilled with 2 minions (those minions are not destroyed). If your minions are too weak, you will need 3. Power boosts, such as Dunwich Horror, can drive this requirement down to 1 minion. Shoggoth will usually break and win you the base, but if your opponents decide to destroy their minions to delay you, you'll dominate it instead.
Mechanics
Terrorize other players into Madness with minions that are difficult to play, and actions that ensure they are penalized for drawing Madness cards.