Friday, January 3, 2014

Headline:  "A Midwinter's Night Dream" or "We whipped it, we whipped it good"

Ancient One

Zhar

Investigators

Luke Robinson, the Dreamer - Susan
Amanda Sharpe, the Student - Rob
Joe Diamond, the Private Eye - Justin 

Patrice Hathaway, the Violinist - Rachelle
Mandy Thompson, the Researcher - Robbilee
Gloria Goldberg, the Author - "Young" James

End of Game

We closed and sealed 6 gates, with 10/11 doom tokens on the track.  That was a close one!

House Rules/Game Setup
Robbi randomly selected 3 Ancient Ones, and James selected Zhar from those three.  

Since this is James's first Arkham Horror game, and some of us are very tired (we're starting at 9pm), we elected not to use Heralds, Guardians, or Institutions.

We each chose a character of our choice, once we realized how tough Zhar was going to be (why do the new players always choose such tough AOs?).  Then we determined relationships:

Luke and Amanda:  Business Associates
Patrice and Mandy:  Socially Connected
Joe and Gloria:  Collectors

Expansions in play
Curse of the Dark Pharaoh
Dunwich Horror
The King in Yellow
Kingsport Horror
The Black Goat of the Woods
Innsmouth Horror
The Lurker at the Threshold

Heralds, Guardians, and Institutions

[none]

Highlights

  *  The game started with Justin and James dropping all of the little tokens on the floor.
*  Then Justin spent ~1 hour describing every aspect of the game to James in great detail.
*  Due to the rumor drawn on the 2nd turn, the 1st player ends up having to draw Innsmouth Look cards.  When it's Rob's turn, he has to draw THREE of them.
*  Rachelle's and Robbi's relationship comes in really handy - they end up getting a lot of Allies. It's pretty cool to be Socially Connected.  Rachelle had 3 allies in the end:  Anna, Ruby, and some other dude.
*  Rob exclaims "I'm just a sexy student, all I have is a professor!" in reference to how much money someone had during a play. All he has is professor Morgan.
*  For an extended period of time, we had the Environment (Mystic) Mythos card "Noden's Favor," which made it cost 2 fewer clue tokens to seal gates.  Woohoo!
*  Robbi wins the game as she rolls to close and seal the final gate.  Patrice gave Mandy a few clues to help out at the end.  Also of note, Robbi allowed Greta to sit on her lap for the final roll.  :)
*  While waiting around for the last few investigators to return to Arkham and close and seal the final gates, Luke and Gloria blessed a few other investigators.
*  Susan actually went insane from her bad luck, consistently missing horror check rolls.
*  "It was a wonderful experience," notes James.
*  "I'm sleepy," notes Rob.

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Headline:  "Eihort Sealing Gates, Part Deux <3"

Ancient One
Eihort

Investigators
Gloria Goldberg, the Author - Susan
Akachi Onyele, the Shaman - Susan  (she chose women for Women's History Month)
Patrice Hathaway, the Violinist - Rob
Jim Culver, the Musician - Rob  (he chose both musicians :))
Dexter Drake, the Magician - Justin
Hank Samson, the Farmhand - Justin  (one magical investigator, one physical investigator, first time with Hank)

End of Game
Sealed gates.  No bursts.

House Rules/Game Setup
We chose Investigators based on their anticipated balancing of abilities and skills, and based on their "Personal Stories."  We're using both the Personal Stories and the "Relationship" cards this time. 

Justin selected Eihort as AO at random.

Expansions in play
Curse of the Dark Pharaoh
Dunwich Horror
The King in Yellow
Kingsport Horror
The Black Goat of the Woods
Innsmouth Horror

Heralds, Guardians, and Institutions
Dunwich Horror
Nodens
Organized Crime

Highlights
*  We started off with the "Clothing Drive" Environment, which had caused us to lose in a previous game, so it was not a good sign.  However, since we had Organized Crime going on, we were still able to buy Unique Items no matter where we were.
*  Gloria, the author, continually draws tomes (while hoping to draw weapons).
*  Gloria also pulled an Ayn Rand and refused to donate money to a needy family in front of the bank.
*  There were many retainers due to the organized crime, and near the end there were also many blessings.
*  It was a relatively short and straight-forward game.  We did not have to change strategies.
*  No one used their relationships.
*  Only half of the investigators passed their Personal Stories.  None failed.
*  Dexter's skill was "Criminal," which combined nicely with the Organized Crime institution...