Cthulhu Wars: Elder Shoggoth Expansion [CW-U31] (Kickstarter Special) Petersen Games

Board Game Geek Rating: 7.18
Board Game Geek Avg Player Rating: 8.06
Players: 2 to 4
Published: 2015
Content Notes: Kickstarter Elder Shoggoth Cthulhu Wars Board Game Expansion by Petersen Games from the Daemon Sulton Kickstarter campaign. Please note: unless otherwise stated paid add ons from the Kickstarter Campaign are not included.

The Elder Shoggoth represents the original Shoggoth created by the Elder Things, or possibly a spawn of Ubbo-Sathla. Things get a little fuzzy when you go that far back. The Elder Shoggoth is, of course, a Terror, and a remarkably dangerous one. 

Like other Terrors, it costs 2 Doom and 2 Power to acquire, after which it appears at your Controlled Gate. 

It costs 4 Power to summon otherwise, and has a Combat of (only) 2. But its function is pre-Battle. It has power of Prime Cause. In any battle, before rolling dice, choose ANY of your units (including the Elder Shoggoth) and replace it with any other unit from your pool. Any other unit – including any previously-awakened faction Great Old One so long as you met other awakening requirements. For example, you could re-awaken Tsathoggua if the battle area had a Formless Spawn, since that’s its only requirement. Or you could re-awaken the King in Yellow if the battle area didn’t have a Gate. A more complex Great Old One’s requirements, such as those of Ithaqua or Cthulhu, would also need to be met, but you can look those up on your own. It’s usually not that hard to engineer. Also, as previously stated, you can’t create a faction Great Old One that you hadn’t already awakened once. And you can’t create a non-faction Great Old One at all (like Glaaki), because it’s not in your pool. 

Now, if you do choose to replace the Elder Shoggoth itself, you pay nothing, and no one gets a reward. Imagine re-awakening Nyarlathotep for free. Well worth the Elder Shoggoth! 

But if you decide to replace some other unit, you have to follow these rules: 

1) pay half the new unit’s Power cost, rounded down. You’d pay just 1 Power for a Starspawn, for example (normally cost 3). 

2) if you create a Terror, the enemy in the battle gets 1 Doom. 

3) if you create a Great Old One, the enemy in the battle gets 1 Elder Sign. 

Let’s break this down

Okay, assume that some villain captured Cthulhu’s Gate in R,lyeh. You, as the Cthulhu faction, seek vengeance. So you move the Elder Shoggoth and a cultist to the South Pacific and declare Battle. Pre-battle, you replace your cultist with Cthulhu. You can do this, because you are meeting the awakening requirement of “a Gate in your starting area”. You’d have to pay 2 Power for Cthulhu, who normally costs 4 to re-awaken. Then the enemy would get 1 Elder Sign. You’d then complete the battle in the area (don’t forget Cthulhu’s Devour) with Cthulhu and the Elder Shoggoth. Instead you could have replaced the Shoggoth with Cthulhu, saved 2 Power and not given the enemy an Elder Sign. But you’d have lost the Elder Shoggoth. 

In another example of the power of the Elder Shoggoth, imagine you, as Black Goat, are attacked in the Elder Shoggoth’s location, where you have a ghoul. Pre-Battle you use the Elder Shoggoth to replace a Ghoul with a Cultist. This costs you nothing, and gives the enemy nothing. But your combat went up by 1, and now you have a Ghoul in your pool to re-summon elsewhere. This may seem like a puny use, but why not? The point of the Elder Shoggoth is you can be endlessly creative.  

Or you could replace a cultist with a Formless Spawn as Sleeper, or a Spawn of Yog-Sothoth as Opener, and so forth.  Or a Gnoph-Keh as Windwalker – man those things are expensive. 

The Elder Shoggoth is invaluable if you are a faction that struggles if its Great Old One is killed – such as Crawling Chaos, Black Goat, Sleeper, or Opener of the Way. Or if you are a faction that really relies on certain monsters. 

Since the new unit appears pre-Battle, it’s particularly good to use for units with a pre-Battle ability, such as Wendigos, Shoggoths (duh), Proto-Shoggoths (more duh), or a Wizard (uh-oh).

–from the publisher

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