High Priests

**High Priests** {CW-U3} is an expansion released with Onslaught One that provides a High Priest unit for each of the seven original Factions. A version that includes a High Priest for The Ancients—which was previously part of the CW Onslaught 3 Stretch Goal Box {CW-E20}—was added with Onslaught Three {CW-U3-O3}, and a version that includes the new *Evil High Priest* sculpts for each of those High Priests—as well as for Daemon Sultan—was added with Final Onslaught {CW-U3-O4}. A neutral High Priest was included with the Homebrew Faction and Unnameable Set, and loyalty cards for optional unique High Priest rules were made available as a download.

## Tips and Tricks:

### High Priest Strategies

* Sacrifice him during Gather Power to ensure you are First Player
* Recruit your High Priest in the first Action phase. Then sacrifice him to enable you to Awaken your Great Old (and still have Power remaining) the second Action phase.
* If your High Priest is alone on a Gate, and an enemy threatens to capture him, on your turn Summon a Monster and then immediately sacrifice the High Priest. He is safely removed from the map and your new monster is not only paid for, but can help defend the Area.
* Sacrifice him when the other players are out of Power to "resurrect" yourself. Now you have 2 Power left to spend on Actions while they have none.
* Sacrifice him to permit a Ritual of Annihilation at a critical time.

**Great Cthulhu:** Once everyone is out of Power, Sacrifice him and then steal a gate with Dreams. Alternatively, Submerge (1P), re-emerge (0P), then Attack (1P). A great way to get your spellbooks and steal gates.

**Crawling Chaos:** Once everyone is out of Power, Sacrifice him and then use Thousand Forms. Unless others have High Priests they want to sacrifice you are guaranteed the power.

**Black Goat:** Once everyone is out of Power, Sacrifice him and then Avatar with an area with only a Gate, Monster, and alone Acolyte. Either they send the Acolyte back, and then you Avatar with one of your own, or they send the Monster, and you Capture the Acolyte and take the Gate next turn

**Windwalker:** At zero Power, and if there are at least 2 enemies GOOs out, Sacrifice him and then Hibernate. You'll have 4P to carry over to the next turn.

### Unique High Priest Strategies

#### Asenath Waite

**Any:** The possibilities here seem great. Just had a Cthulhu or Windwalker war party arrive on your doorstep? Swap out one of their best monsters and replace it with one of yours. The reverse works too, go on a risky seeming offensive and then suddenly tip the tide in your favour. Weakly defended gate on the other side of the map? Replace one of their monsters with your own and suddenly you’re on the offensive.

Note wording is “Cultist” and you have choice, so you can presumably remove someone’s High Priest. Nasty.

**Black Goat:** If an enemy has a single monster guarding a gate, replace it with one of your Dark Young. Capture, and then if you have Red Sign simply take the gate. A huge swing for only 4 Power.

**Opener:** Just before your turn, replace an enemy unit with an Abomination. Then, before they ever get to attack you, spirit away their gate

**VS Black Goat:** They think they have a Dark Young safely controlling a gate. Just before your turn, replace that Dark Young with one of your own monsters, then recruit an Acolyte to control the gate

**VS Opener:** Have they just paid 4 power for a Spawn of Yog-Sothoth, and are about to replace it with Yog himself? No they aren’t, as it’s now a Starspawn. Just downright mean.

#### Crawford Tillinghast

**Any:** Most useful if the Units would die in the Battle but that sacrifice is worth the 3 Power cost. In situations where a lonely GOO has been attacked, suddenly they can have up to 3 meat shields. Also, handy to cheaply have 3 Units arrive at a Battle at a pivotal time, e.g. you really need to kill the lead player’s GOO.

**Cthulhu:** If the Units will be eliminated anyway, why not Absorb them into a Shoggoth instead? If you have the Shoggoth (and the requisite Units in your Pool) then 3 Power gets you 3 Units to be Absorbed, which is an extra 9 Battle dice. Squelch. No Shoggoth? No problem, place a Shoggoth and a Deep One or Acolyte to get 5 Battle dice and 1 more body to absorb kills.

**Crawling Chaos:** Drop 1-3 Nightgaunts into the Battle and then have them all Abduct, meaning you effectively deal out 1-3 Kills for 3 Power. Tidy.

**Sleeper:** Adding another Spawn might mean a big advantage in Battle dice if several Spawn are already on the Map.

**VS Yellow Sign:** Has the King just moved into a sparsely defended area to Desecrate? Pop Crawford and attack for a bit of regicide.

#### Ermengarde Stubbs

**Any:** A useful deterrent from a particular Area. Factions, such as Yellow Sign or Tcho-Tcho, that will be clinging onto a few Areas will find that useful, while Ms Stubb can help fortify a Black Goat nest when everyone comes a-calling.

#### Herbert West

**Any:** Suffered heavy losses and need to make sure you have plenty of Power next round? Trade Herbert West for 3 Acolytes to have 2 more Power next turn.

**Black Goat:** As a Faction likely to have Acolytes in their Pool, this High Priest can be useful, especially to avoid Power strangulation early on. For instance, Turn 1, Move, Build a Gate, get Herbert West, and then spend the final Power as you wish. Turn 2, Awaken Shub, sacrifice 2 Acolytes to get Red Sign, and then Eliminate Herbie. Recruit the final Acolyte, and then you have 2 Power for a Dark Young or something else.

**Cthulhu:** Likely to have Acolytes in the Pool after some Devolving. Pop them out to get the numbers back up, perhaps to fuel a timely Absorb.

#### Joseph Curwen

**Any:** The first element of this ability allows you to remove a gate about to be taken by a foe. This is useful to negate an opponent but leaves you down a gate, so not a brilliant strategy.
The 2nd element does allow you to place a Gate where you only have a Monster, and then use your Action to recruit an Acolyte to control that gate. That is mildly useful.
This ability does allow you to pay for a Gate in one turn, and then place it in a later turn. This lets you Build a Gate, and then do other expensive things on the same turn, such as Build another Gate or Awaken your GOO. This could then allow you to spring a surprise big Ritual.
For example, paying for Joeseph Curwen (plus move, gate, and cheap summon) in Turn 1 allows you to build a 3rd gate, protect it, and then place a 4th gate and protect it in Turn 2 (if you’re a faction with 1 cost Monsters). Yes, you probably need your opponents to be asleep to make this work, but you never know.

**Opener:** Might like getting the gate out without having the Acolyte there to help get his spellbook. Possibly allows you to spring to 4/5 gates and then get a large Ritual + Dragon Descending off without other players being able to react in time.

**Windwalker:** Place a Gate in your 2nd Glyph area after summoning Rhan-Teggoth, so avoiding having to lose an Acolyte, walk one there, or Summon a High Priest and then pay for a Gate.

#### Keziah Mason

**Any:** Makes any Area much less appetising to attack. In particular, might be able to hold a Gate with just a cheap Monster for company, as then an opponent will risk suffering 2 Kills just to take the gate. I might not bother

**Crawling Chaos:** Add Pains or Kills to Battle results involving Nyarlathotep to ensure The Harbinger is activated.

**Cthulhu:** Take Keziah with Cthulhu on a submerge-n-smash and either scatter hordes of enemies or get you Kill spellbooks easily.

#### Lavinia Whateley

**Any:** Spread the cost of your GOO over 2 turns rather than pay all at once. Especially useful for Factions keen to get their GOO in Turn 2.

#### Pitpipo

**Any:** If you are unfortunate enough to have a Kill assigned on your GOO, Pitpipo can take the bullet instead. For Factions that utterly reply on their GOOs this can be a game-saver. But honestly you should not be in that position anyway.

**Crawling Chaos:** Allows you to extend a final turn Nyarlathotep GOO-bashing rampage beyond a single unlucky or ill-planned battle.