Enemy

Humanoid. Cultist.

Mythos
Fight: 3. Health: 1. Evade: 2.
Damage: 1. Horror: 0.

Spawn - Any empty location.

Forced - After Acolyte enters play: Place 1 doom on it.

It was only a small sacrifice.
Clark Huggins
Core Set #169. Dark Cult #1-3.
Acolyte

FAQs

(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)
  • Acolyte's Forced ability triggers during setup.
Last updated

Reviews

The usual mook from the early campaigns, Arkham Horror gets a lot of milage out of this enemy.


A few things;

  • If you draw them as an encounter and cannot place them in an empty location, you discard them! (e.g if 2 investigators are in the only 2 locations on the board then there is no valid location).
  • "Note that Acolyte can be spawned into the unrevealed location" (thanks elkeinkrad, posting this here as very important!)
  • If it is the witching hour (next turn agenda will advance) then you can ignore them, as the doom they add will be removed on advance.
  • These Cultists are never alone! So expect encounter cards that add doom to them or manipulate the board state around them. Games can very quickly spiral out of control if you leave them in play.

Don't let them trick you into ignoring them as they seem so simple to kill! Deal with them sooner rather than later - they have a habit of spawning all over the map in previously explored spots that take a whole turn to backtrack to (which feels terrible and stalls your game).

Also there is something about these guys that makes them a magnet for drawing Ancient Evils the next turn!

An absolute classic.

Antiundead · 29
Note that Acolyte can be spawned into the **unrevealed** location. I saw that some beginners missed that rule, so that they discarded only if all revealed locations are non-empty. — elkeinkrad · 486
An absolute classic. — Soul_Turtle · 441
I'm typically very happy to see these because they're easy to dispose of in 1 action, and in fact there are tons of options for disposing of them in 0 actions. And the fact that you often have control over where to place them is a great advantage. That said, there are scenarios that make these threatening, typically when combined with high Doom pressure, Ancient Evils, and a map design that causes them to spawn in hard-to-reach locations (e.g. Essex County Express). — CaiusDrewart · 3126
I both love and hate the Dark Cult encounter set. The set is well designed and super thematic, but can snowball in a hurry if you draw multiple from the set back to back. More than once I've let advancement eat the Doom token on Acolyte only to then draw Mysterious Chanting and dump 2 more Doom back on it. The Cultist Token from the chaos bag but be a kick in the head too when combined with cultists in play. In Midnight Masks for example: [Easy/Standard] -2. Place 1 Doom on the nearest Cultist enemy. [Hard/Expert] -2. Place 1 Doom on each Cultist enemy in play. Good (bad!) stuff — DrMChristopher · 479
Agreed Essex County Express is a hilarious example of these mooks getting out of control. I've heard of too many game just ending after 2 turns due to very bad doom luck. — Antiundead · 29