Saturday, March 23, 2013

Headline:  "Epic Adventure Begins!"

Ancient One
Abhoth

Investigators
Joe Diamond, the Private Eye - Susan
Patrice Hathaway, the Violinist - Susan
Tony Morgan, the Bounty Hunter - Rob
Luke Robinson, the Dreamer - Rob

End of Game
Our first strategy:  Complete "Personal Stories" and just have a good time.
Our second strategy:  "Oh look! We have closed almost all of the gates!"  Close all gates.
Our final strategy:  Beat up Abhoth.  Many gates opened, making our second strategy futile.

We won!  We only needed to get rid of all of our clues, a few gate and monster trophies, and very few items.  Patrice had the "Changed" card in the end, which allowed for her to gain more clues.

House Rules/Game Setup
We chose Investigators based on their anticipated balancing of abilities and skills, and based on their "Personal Stories," which we were using for the first time this game.  

Rob selected Abhoth as AO at random.  Susan's reaction:  Patrice will come in handy for the Attack ("Each investigator must discard a total of 3 Clue tokens, monster trophies, gate trophies, and/or Items or be devoured.")

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 and Guardians
Nodens
Tulzscha (but with Abhoth, there are no Cultists!  ha!)

Highlights
*  On the first turn, Patrice and Joe meet up in the Graveyard to exchange stuff, and they both have encounters that would give them Allies, but they don't qualify.
*  There was a monster surge, followed by "Manhunt in Arkham" (Mythos card), which sent all monsters 'in locations' back to the cup.
*  Not a "highlight," more like a lowlight:  Patrice constantly made bad rolls.  So much for an abundance of extra clues.
*  Luke is usually pretty lame, but even though he failed his "Personal Story," he became pretty badass in the end.
*  "The Great Ritual" rumor was dispelled, giving everyone 2 clues - very helpful in defending against Abhoth.
*  There were very few monsters out, in general, until the end, when we decided to stop trying to close gates and just get ready to fight.  There were a few monster surges then, and that brought out a few Children of Aboth, but they were always avoided by evade checks, by gates being closed with their symbol, or by encounters or Mythos cards that returned monsters in certain areas to the cup.

Continuing the Game...
If we choose to keep playing with these characters, this is what they had when they won:

Joe
Skills:  Sneak
Allies:  Ryan Dean
Injury/Madness:  Anxiety
Common Items:  Axe, Cross, Shotgun
Unique Items:  The Light of Reason, Golden Sword of Y'ha-Talla
Spells:  Dread Curse of Azathoth x2
Other:  5 toughness of monster trophies, 1 gate trophy
Clues:  none
$:  none
Stamina/Sanity:  3/3
Personal Story:  not passed or failed
Speed: 4
Fight: 5
Lore: 2
Location: River Docks

Patrice
Skills:  Bravery, Painter
Allies:  David Packard
Injury/Madness:  -
Common Items:  Flamethrower, Dark Cloak
Unique Items:  Soul Gem, Sacrifices To Make
Spells:  -
Other:  1 gate trophy, Blessing, Blessing of Noden (+1 Horror), Changed, The Great Seal
Clues:  none
$:  1
Stamina/Sanity:  5/2
Personal Story:  passed
Speed: 2
Fight: 4
Lore: 5
Location: Gardner's Place

Tony
Skills:  Expert Occultist
Allies:  -
Injury/Madness:  Jinxed
Common Items:  Axe, .45 Automatic, Athame
Unique Items:  -
Spells:  -
Other:  Blessing, Blessing of Noden (+1 Combat)
Clues:  none
$:  4
Stamina/Sanity:  2/7
Personal Story:  passed
Speed: 4
Fight: 4
Lore: 0
Location: South Church


Luke
Skills:  Run
Allies:  -
Injury/Madness:  -
Common Items:  Shotgun, Bullwhip, Understudy's Script, 
Unique Items:  Gladius of Carcosa, Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan, Gate Box
Spells:  Arcane Insight, Find Gate, Dread Curse of Azathoth
Other:  1 gate trophy
Clues:  none
$:  1
Stamina/Sanity:  5/1
Personal Story:  failed
Speed: 1
Fight: 4
Lore: 4
Location: Rivertown Streets


Rules for continuing game:
Investigators stay in the last location from previous game.
All Investigator cards remain (items, abilities, Personal Stories, injuries/madnesses).
All board changes are reset, since the AO left - including clues, gates, monsters, rifts, terror track, etc.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Headline:  "You're drunk, Cthulhu, go home."

Ancient One
Cthulhu

Investigators
Luke Robinson, the Dreamer - Susan
Patrice Hathaway, the Violinist - Rachelle

Silas Marsh, the Sailor - Rob
Rex Murphy, the Reporter - Denis

Tony Morgan, the Bounty Hunter - Justin

Dexter Drake, the Magician - Heather

Wendy Adams, the Urchin - Chris

Akachi Onyele, the Shaman - Robbi

End of Game
We sealed 6 gates, and Cthulhu's doom track was filled 9/13

House Rules/Game Setup
Chris specifically chose Cthulhu, since he is new to the game. Seeing as we'd probably lose, we each picked our own Investigator out of the whole lot.  Our strategy: close and seal gates.  Use Patrice's ability to give clues to others and Wendy's starting Elder Sign to that end.

Expansions in play
Curse of the Dark Pharaoh
Dunwich Horror
The King in Yellow (we use the new cards from this, but we never have actually had the 'play' enter play)
Kingsport Horror (we left out Heralds and Guardians)
The Black Goat of the Woods
Innsmouth Horror

Miskatonic Horror

Highlights
* During the first turn, we missed out on getting 3 allies through Arkham encounters!  (Rob, Denis, Chris)  Finally, Rachelle got an ally through an encounter a little bit later on (her first ever ally).

*  Silas had a dream that he went to the administration building and tried to sell them a photograph.  (a Kingsport encounter sent him to the Dreamlands for 1 encounter, which sent him to the Administration Building for an encounter)

*  Denis:  "Dexter doesn't suck as much as expected."  Dexter kicked some monster butt!

*  Patrice had been giving Akachi clues to avoid losing all of her stamina, and after 2 fails in a row exclaimed "Roll better!"  Immediately afterward, Akachi got a success.

*  Rob draws 5 Innsmouth Looks cards and comes out Blessed!
*  Denis tries to get Rex un-Cursed by hanging out at the church, which doesn't end up working out (Luke un-Curses him with a gate trophy).  Later on, Rex gets Blessed, but he loses the Blessing soon afterwards.
*  We voted on whether or not to let a rumor trip - "World Torn Asunder" (again?!).  We decided as a group to solve it, even though it meant that no one would become Deputy of Arkham in the end.  In hindsight, it was a good decision. (Rob says, as he reads what , "I think we would have been okay the other way, too... We would have had more trophies and more bad-ass people.")
*  Patrice gave people lots of clues - very helpful/"inspiring".
*  Silas kept Kingsport's rifts and Innsmouth's monsters under control - very important, and enabled other investigators to focus on closing and sealing gates.  He also had a few special moments with Gladys Pickman of Kingsport.
*  Dexter kicked monster booty.
*  Luke sealed 2/6 gates.
*  The street rat and magician proved helpful additions to the game.  Who knew?