Sunday, August 23, 2015

Headline:  "Gates or Death?"

Ancient One

Tsathoggua

Investigators

Wendy Adams, the Urchin - Susan
Patrice Hathaway, the Violinist - Rachelle
Luke Robinson, the Dreamer - Rob
Diana Stanley, the Reformed Occultist - Justin ("Or so she claims!")

End of Game

6 gates sealed, 9/13 doom tokens

House Rules/Game Setup
Rachelle selected Nyogtha because we had never played him before.We randomly selected the AO and decided to keep it.

Each player chose his/her own character.

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 Hound of Tindolos is ridiculous!  Don't mess with that.
  *  Patrice had a lot of friends riding on the motorcycle with her.
  *  Diana had 9 monster trophies (monsters, not toughness) by the end of game.
  *  Wendy had 4 gate trophies by the end of game.
  *  We discarded a second rumor, and the first never was activated.
  *  There's a really sucky card that gets rid of all of the clue tokens on the board.
  *  There's a really cool card that would let you summon the AO and lower the number of doom tokens on its track.

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Headline:  "Ellie's First Arkham Horror Game"

Ancient One

Nyogtha, Tendrils from Below

Investigators

Akachi Onyele, the Shaman - Susan
Darrell Simmons, the Photographer - Robbi (left after several turns)
Patrice Hathaway, the Violinist - Rachelle (did you have to ask? ;) )
Ursula Downs, the Explorer - Young James (started on 3rd turn)
Wendy Adams, the Urchin - Rob
Silas Marsh, the Sailor - Justin (started on 4th turn)

End of Game

1.  Silas Marsh passes his personal story, seals the last gate, and is devoured.
If we kept playing...
2.  Ursula comes back from The Underworld and closes and seals the gate.

House Rules/Game Setup
Rachelle selected Nyogtha because we had never played him before.

Each player was given 4 investigators to choose from.

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

  *  Susan was the first player on the first turn.  She encountered a Leng Spider, used all of her skills and cards, and couldn't beat it (needed 2 successes, had many dice, used Patrice's clues, ultimately did not succeed).  Got injured.  An auspicious beginning...
  *  Rob, to Robbi:  "Injuries are fun!  Just ask Susan..."
     Susan:  "What?  I can't hear you."  (Hearing Loss Injury)
  *  Silas Marsh, monster curbstomper extraordinaire, made a very lovely fingerpainting while recovering at the Asylum. It inspires children to this day.
  *  Ursula learned from being lost in Atlantic City of the Great Race and found Find Gate!
  *  Wendy Adams hung out in the Woods a lot and finally achieved their goal of becoming a bona fide gang member
  *  Committing an act of benevolent terrorism, Wendy Adams' bomb spectacularly failed to explode. At all. Due to the other investigators totally stealing the glory
  *  Wendy placed her time bomb, called a cultist to get killed by it, and gave Ursula the Elder Sign on her way into The Underworld (Ursula was on her way out).  They had a touching interaction, discussing female badassery, and Wendy stole a bunch of Ursula's shit (derringer and kerosene).
  *  4 hour game

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.

Friday-Saturday, October 4-5, 2013

Headline:  "The Lurker at Susan’s Birthday”

Ancient One

Cthugha

Investigators

Mandy Thompson, the Researcher – Rob

Minh Thi Phan, the Secretary – Rob

Lily Chen, the Martial Artist – Susan

Rita Young, the Athlete - Susan

End of Game

We closed and sealed 6 gates.  The next Mythos card would have burst open a sealed gate and added the final doom token.  We sealed them just in the nick of time!

House Rules/Game Setup
Susan received The Lurker at the Threshold from Rachelle and Justin for a birthday present and we took it out for a spin.  We each chose two characters from eight drawn at random and then drew one relationship card each for the characters that we played.

Mandy and Minh Thi – Friendly Rivals

Lily and Rita – Fellow Travelers

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

Nodens
Organized Crime
Lurker at the Threshold (not too bad, as long as you don't accept Power)

Highlights

·        Minh Thi took Foolish the Cat as a Bound Ally due to the first Reckoning card.

·        Rita defeated the Dunwich Horror with the Flute of the Outer Gods.  Cool!

·        On the establishing Mythos card, 2 rumors were initially drawn and discarded.  Thanks, rules!

·        We dispelled a rumor:  Virulent Disease.  No one fell victim to the illness.

·        Minh Thi completed her Personal Story and chose Young Zoog, the Otter, which got rid of Foolish, the Bound Ally.  [Cheating?]

·        Lily Chen, famous for lots of sanity and stamina, as well as restoring both to herself during upkeep, has two Allies:  Sir William Brinton and Duke, each of whom extend her maximum sanity and stamina.  Since the Allies were not really of any use, she ended up discarding them both to get her maximum sanity and stamina restored.

·        Minh Thi used the new card, Key Of Something-Or-Other, to enter a gate.  Neat card!

·        Lily Chen used the new spell Plumb of Something to get Mandy back from an Other World.  Neat card!

·        Rita ended up as Deputy with Necrophobia, Cracked Ribs, and was Despondent.  BUT she had 2 kerosene weapons and 2 Molitov cocktails.  Don’t mess with crazy!  She’ll burn your house down.

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...

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?

Friday and Saturday, July 8-9, 2011

Headline: "Eihort Sealing Gates ♥"

Ancient One
Eihort

Investigators
Zoey Samaras, the Chef - Susan
Marie Lambeau, the Entertainer, then Lola Hayes, the Actress - Rob
Patrice Hathaway, the Violinist - Rachelle
Finn Edwards, the Bootlegger - Justin
Wilson Richards, the Handyman - Robbilee

End of Game
We closed and sealed 6 gates. We had one or two spots left on the doom track. Patrice's generous clues were again very helpful, and Lola's "Find Gate" spell sped things up.

House Rules/Game Setup
Robbi narrowed the choice of Ancient Ones, and Rachelle made the final choice of Eihort. Justin laid out 8-10 investigators from which we each chose our characters. No Herald, no Guardian, no King in Yellow. We all got very tired, having started the game late Friday (9ish), and we put the game on hold at about 1am. Luie and Greta left it alone, so we finished Saturday night.

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 - although there were no Heralds/Guardians
The Black Goat of the Woods
Innsmouth Horror

Highlights
* On the first turn, Rob was the first player. He summoned a Shan and got devoured. Poor Marie!
* On Rob's second turn, he jumped into a gate, looking forward to using "Find Gate" and beating Susan's character back to Arkham to get Blessed due to a Mythos card. However, he got lost in time & space, due to an other world encounter.
* Finn's ability to move when a moon monster moves was pretty cool.
* Lola became deputy. :)
* Justin's character again quells the rifts by spending quality time in Kingsport.
* Patrice had many admirers: Eric Colt, Anna Kaslow, etc.
* Just as she was about to get out of jail, Patrice got lost in time & space. That was a busy spot on the board this game.
* Patrice also got banned from Miskatonic U, just like when Robbi played Patrice in our last game.
* A lot of people got injuries and madnesses: Finn suffered hearing loss, Zoey had double vision (put the knife down!!), Patrice was delirious (too much practicing?), and Wilson had necrophobia.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Headline: "An unlikely bunch of investigators narrowly escape Cthulhu's awakening"

Ancient One
Cthulhu

Investigators
Norman Withers, the Astronomer - Susan
Lola Hayes, the Actress - Rob
Akachi Onyele, the Shaman - Denis
Patrice Hathaway, the Violinist - Robbilee
Wilson Richards, the Handyman - Justin
Jim Culver, the Musician - Boston

End of Game
We closed and sealed 6 gates. There were 12 doom tokens out of 13 on on Cthulhu's doom track.

House Rules/Game Setup
It's been a while since we've fought Cthulhu, and we've won several of the last games we've played. We were looking for a tough game. So we specifically chose Cthulhu as the Ancient One, and then we discussed winning tactics and chose investigators from all possible cards. (Hence all of the lore-heavy, mystic-types.)

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 this time, since it was Boston's 'first time.'
The Black Goat of the Woods
Innsmouth Horror

Highlights
* There were several expressions of doubt in Boston's ability to win a particular skill check. He had one die to roll. He says, "I only roll 6's" and then proceeds to roll a 6.
* Norman became deputy in 5 turns - he started with Find Gate, Wither, Golden Sword of Y'ha-Talla, Tommy Gun, and Strong Will. flippin' sweet.
* Denis suddenly loses all of his character's stamina, and Rob turns to him and says, in a spirited manner, "Injuries are fun!" But Akachi suffers a concussion and loses all focus.
* Everyone chooses spiritual investigators, to get through Other Worlds more easily and to help close and seal gates. However, Justin says, "I'm Wilson Richards, bitch." Someone's got to stay home and clean up the streets.
* There is a mysterious rash of thefts... and Jim is implicated. He then falls into a coma and stays at the hospital for the remainder of the game.
* Patrice made a lot of allies through encounters - 3 total.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Headline:  "World Saved by Daring and Affluent Adventurers!"

Ancient One
Yibb-Tstll [specifically chosen, never played before]

Investigators
Wendy Adams, the Urchin - Susan [chosen for Elder Sign]
Monterey Jack, the Archaeologist - Rob [chosen for "archaeology"]
Jim Culver, the Musician - Justin [chosen for "strange luck"]
Darrell Simmons, the Photographer - Robbilee

End of Game
6 gates were sealed
Doom Track only reached 7

House Rules/Game Setup
Ancient One chosen specifically, because we hadn't played it before.
Investigators chosen from all possible investigators, after finding out the Ancient One's abilities and discussing winning tactics.
Expansions in play:
Dunwich Horror
Kingsport Horror
Curse of the Dark Pharaoh
The King in Yellow
Black Goat of the Woods

Highlights
*  Darrell's retainer lasted almost to the end of game.
*  Wendy, the Urchin, became Deputy.
*  "The Great Ritual" Rumor was easily dispelled.
*  Another Rumor passed while "The Great Ritual" was still out.