Top 10 Enemies You Hate To Draw

“Roar”

Enemies. Don’t we all just love to hate them?

Well, fellow Investigators, today we are taking a closer look at all these badboys (and girls). From aloof to massive. From hunter to retaliate. From a small pest to a big boss. Enemies come in different shapes and sizes. So, for your entertainment and the loss of my sanity, I tried to make a Top 10 based on the most annoying enemies in the game. The enemies that make you go “Oh $!%&!” when you draw them.

However, there are a lot of enemies in the game. A quick search on arkhamdb gave a result of 288 different enemies. Sigh. Going through all of these is a daunting task. So I decided to create some order in this chaos. We’re mostly looking at enemies that make you curse when you draw them. So they have to be coming from the encounter deck. Thus, I decided to exclude all the enemies that spawn from a scenario effect (i.e.: The Royal Emmisary, Ichtaca, The Conductor) and weaknesses (i.e.: Tony’s Bounty, The Thing That Follows). This made the amount of enemies to go through down from 288 to 146. Which almost halved it! My next step was to individually rank all these enemies on a scale of 1 to 4. Where 1 would be “okay to draw” and 4 would be “Oh $!%&!”. I would then rank all the 4’s individually to form a Top X. This brought the number of 146 enemies down to 26 enemies. I judged these 26 enemies individually, and following that is this list; the Top 10 Enemies You Hate To Draw! Now, without further ado, the actual Top 10:

Number 10: Vengeful Serpent

One quick glance over this card would give ne the assumption that this enemy isn’t that bad. With only 2’s for his stats and the minimal values for damage and horror, you could argue the Vengeful Serpent is barely an inconvience. But the problem lies in the “Vengeance 0“. Whereas other enemies with vengeance values are favored to be evaded constantly, a hunter vengeance-enemy can quikcly become very annoying, when not slain. Killing it would not invoke Yig’s wrath and thus your Nathaniel could just do a quick punch. The true problem is that there are 3 copies of this enemy. Drawing the first one? No problem. Drawing the third one? Big oof. That’s 3 Vengeful Serpents in your face. Have fun with your next turn. The simple solution is to not kill these Serpents, but the encounter deck doesn’t make it easy for you. Entombed can quikcly throw a wrench in your plans, for example. What makes them more annoying, is that the Vengeful Serpent isn’t scenario-bound. It shows up multiple times! Very annoying. That is all. Thank you for listening to my TED-talk.

Number 9: Poltergeist

I dislike Geists. I love their theme, that they need to be “banished” by occult cards. But this card has proven to me, time and time again, it will mess with new players. Imagine being a Combat-focused investigator; like Zoey or Silas. You’re enjoying these Fanatics that are eating up clues, cocking your Automatic, brushing of your Machete, general Guardian stuff. Out of nowhere, this enemy shows up! 2 Intellect isn’t cutting it here. At this point you’re calling your cluegathering friends to come and banish this enemy. Now, I know; Mystics can deal easily with this, Fine Clothes help and not to mention the Enchanted Blade. But an unaware and more inexperienced player will surely be caught off guard.

Number 8: Goat Spawn

The Goat Spawn haven’t seen much action yet. Sure they have 1 scenario in which they show up guaranteed, but their only other appearance is a random one. For a core set enemy, that’s not alot. But unlike the Agents of Cthulhu (who are starting to appear a lot), I have no ambition of encountering these Shub-Niggurath’s spawn. It might be trivial, but anything with hunter and retaliate is enough for me to make me hate it. Top it off with an odd number of Health, which is still awkward to deal with (Spectral Razor and Vicious Blow exist, I’m aware, but it’s still awkward), and the Goat Spawn is annoying on it’s own. However, Goat Spawn adds insult to injury with it’s Forced-effect. Taking 1 horror after killing it? That’s just mean. How traumatizing must the death of a Goat Spawn for a human to go insane? Scary stuff.

Number 7: Rift Seeker

Our first scenario-specific enemy, the Rift Seeker. First of all, I’m trying to find a gate to Carcosa, not read a whole book printed on a card, chill. Second, can we talk about these traits? This is the only non-Humanoid Cultist (I mean, actual Humanoid, not trait-bearing). I still can’t figure it out, but it appears this thing is gigantic and there is a small human-being on the back of this Byakhee? It sort of resembles the Agent of the King. Is he the Cultist and not the actual Byakhee?
But all these things don’t make the Rift Seeker annoying. The Rift Seeker comes in with an odd-health value, but at this point in Carcosa you should be able to deal with it. The problem lies in the text. When it attacks you, you either die faster or place more doom. We all hate doom. Remember Ancient Evils? Hate it (Different list, but okay). But this Byakhee has a deal for you; you can discard it for the slight exchange of 2 Doom! 2 DOOM!? Pass.

Number 6: Inconspicuous Zoog

What do you mean “Cancel all excess damage and move it to a connecting location”? I’m going to level with you, I almost put Ancient Zoog on this list as well, but then I realised the Ancient Zoog is only annoying, because Inconspicuous Zoog is such an annoying target for it. This enemy isn’t hard to deal with, it’s barely a threat. But it’s annoying to a point of frustration. This is not a Top 10 Hardest Enemy-list, but a list about enemies I don’t want to draw. Welcome Inconspicuous Zoog, you have deserved your stay!

Number 5: Hand of the Brotherhood

It’s very popular to hate on Boundary Beyond. The whole scenario is filled with annoying, troublesome factors. But one of those, at least to me, is the Hand of the Brotherhood. This enemy can disturb a whole gameplan. Not being able to trigger action or reaction triggers on (possibly) multiple locations is the topic of many of my curses during game sessions. The Hand of the Brotherhood is not a hard enemy by any or all means, but it has everything it needs to be here. Spawns at an empty location, a doom generating effect, slowing down the pace of the game. Oh well, atleast it’s not Aloof.

Number 4: Deep One Bull

Can this guy relax for a second? What redeeming qualities does this Deep One Bull possess? It hits like a truck. Killing it’s friends makes it a hunter. Getting hit makes you lose a card. High health value which is also odd. Oh, what? You thought an enemy this strong, that appears in multiple scenarios, would at least carry the text “Victory 1“. But reality is only negativity when dealing with the Deep One Bull.

Number 3: Cats from Saturn

Am I the only one who things these creatures are phallic-looking?
This has to be one of the potentially worst X’s there is. Having a bad run, can net you an alarm level of 5 or 6. Which means you not only have, suddenly, 6 enemies in your Threat Area. But it also means that you just lost 6 cards from your deck. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing on Swarming, I like the mechanic. But I just wish that the Cats from Saturn could stay there and would let me enjoy my Moon-Holiday for what it is.

Number 2 – Conglomeration of Spheres

Why does this not carry a “Victory 1” line? Dealing with 1 can be okay. Dealing with 2, is annoying. But everything over 2 (due to reshuffles) is enough to actually make me pause the game, pour myself some tea and look at eBay to check for what prices Arkham LCG is being sold for nowadays.

Number 1 – Thing in the Sarcophagus

It has everything annoying about the Conglomeration of Spheres, but on steroids. High health value, no “Victory 1” clause, some sort of Trait ability which makes me insane, hunter and, finally, a name that I find very hard to spell. I love Guardians of the Abyss for it’s difficulty, but this Thing needs to take a hot bath and enjoy a break.

So
Did you agree? Probably not, that’s cool. Let me know which non-weakness, non-special spawn enemy you find frustrating. Or let me know why you disagree with me. I’m very curious to listen to all your opinions. But please remember, this is all my opinion. Disagreeing is totally fine, but please be nice and respectful when providing feedback or in arguments about this topic. I hope to see you soon for the next Top 10 List!

PS: This is list is based on the current releases and will not be updated to include future enemies. The most recent release is “In Too Deep” and “Dark Revelations”.