Ok, it was (almost) literally a life since my latest Arkham game: almost four months, which is kinda crazy if considering that until last year, I played more or less every Sunday. The nostalgia was so huge that was almost overwhelming. So, as soon as I realized today was a good day, I setup the board and restarted from where we left. Hence:

Arkham Horror, Kingsport Horror, Innsmouth Horror and Miskatonic Horror in play; Trish, Silas, Kate, Luke and Amanda against Cthugha aided by Dagon and Hydra. Setp was great: no Elder Signs, but a *load* of weapons, so that Trish started with Martial Arts, Dynamite, Carabine Rifle, Enchanted Knife and Gladius of Carcosa, and all the other investigators had a minimum of one weapon each. And Amanda had both Grapple and Library Use, so, basically a perma-blessing on two of the most important skills in the game.

As you know, Dagon is kinda tricky: if the number of monsters in play gets out of hand, terror starts popping up, clues popping under, and doom advances faster than any Nemesis Moon passing in the starry Sky. So: no monster surges please, otherwise there's a need to restructure the early game strategy (and I wanted this game to be short, tense and victorious). The two setup Mythos actually helped: Startling messages sent from overseas had Trish starting with two extra clues and a gate at Marsh Refinery, adn the Hellene sighted opened a gate at Hibbs.

The ideal situation, since Luke and Amanda were Members of the same Book Club and Amanda had a King in Yellow, was that they immediately went for the book so that Luke could have since turn 1 the clues to seal the first gate. Clearly Amanda passed, and Luke failed. Not too bad: Amanda nuked the Deep One Hybrid roaming the streets in fron of Hibbs, and all the others went clue hunting.

The game would have been hypersmooth with a different Mythos deck. In 4 turns I had: Esoteric Order of Dagon opening, then Y'han-something (and of course the Mythos was Evidence Destroyed, say goodbye to all the clues on the board) and then Devil Reef. Y'han had the Unknown Kadath: I had Luke emerging from there thanks to the gate box, and re-entering there so that the OW navigation (Plato never considered a third navigation, but still) could give him the missing clues, while Silas gathered quickly four clues and Research Materials to enter the Another Dimension Devil Reef gate (bypassing a Flying Polyp), while Kate entered the Another Dimension gate opened at the Black Cave and everything would have been *perfect* if only Luke hadn't drawn a Dimensional Shambler while in the second area of Kadath, lost his combat check and sent LiTaS. And if only in the very same turn I didn't have a surge from the Reef. Yay, a Nighgaunt and then a Gug from there, and a Yithian for Y'hanth-lei. Aye, both Gug and Yithian are triggered by the very same cards so that next Mythos, fresh fish served, +2 DOR, +3 terror, everybody please discards 2 clues or trigger doom. No clues you said Trish? Oh, lovely, this means some more help for Cthugha (as if Evidence destroyed on turn 3 weren't enough).

Kate (6 clues before that **** last Mythos) returned to Devil Reef after gettting at the beginning of her movement phase the Research Materials from Silas; Silas returned clueless to the Black Cave, just to get the gate trophy and prepare for sacrificing himself. Luke travelled into Another Dimension to return to Kadath and seal it and Amanda, after sealing Hibbs, moved to the Science Building to get some more clues.

Mythos had a lovely gate bounce on the Reef, just to have a 5th doom token to be added to the track.

Time to take difficult decision: it was not possible to clear the DOR in just one turn, so that I had to choose if to risk one turn only and clean (4 seals on the board, 8 doomers on the doom track) or to risk two and go for the win. Considering that I had all high freq on the main board still to be opened but Independence Square, I decided to go for the risky one: Amanda entered R'lyeh with just three clues while Trish and Kate organised the perfect team work to get enough Research Materials to give Amanda the last two clues.

Next Mythos opened a gate at the STL, the following one at the Witch House: doom track hit 10, but Amanda returned, rolled her two blessed dice to close the gate and spent 3 clues and 2 research materials to put one more seal on the board after Silas sacrificed himself during the Upkeep. 6 seals on the board, and Cthugha was sealed away.

Victory by sealing gates in 12 Mythos

Julia,

You're back in the saddle ~ Congrats for getting back to AH!

Ciao,

Joe

Thanks Joe I was kinda afraid I could have lost my touch, but Cthugha's light have been easily turned off. Next in line: Ithaqua (probably before the week ends)

Winter can't end until Ithaqua does. So good luck Julia.

Thanks Wolfgar

Your reports are great, Julia. Heavily detailed. I've gone back to look over some of your other session reports and they're all fantastic.

One question though. You state that you're using, for the most part, all the big box expansions. Do these sessions ever include things like KiY or Lurker as well, or are they always in and not mentioned since they're small expansions?

Hi Redripper,

I'm glad you like reading my reports I must confess that a good part of the fun of Arkham is telling the story to the friends on the forum in front of a virtual fire

As for your questions... all small cards are always mixed in, and I use a gate cup with gates both from the Lurker and the core game. As for the other mechanics (Acts being triggered by Environments and so on): nope, not in use at the moment. At the moment I'm through a series of games to test properly Miskatonic Horror, so that I want only 2 exp boards (with related Mythos & OW encounters) + MH in. I'm planning a series of 24 games with everything mixed in, but it's quite a long way up to there. For now, after the Ithaqua game I just finished playing, I still have 4 more games to play in the Dagon+Hydra series. No rush to finish them, tho

In checking some of your previous posts, I believe the ones before your small hiatus, you had mentioned your exhaustive cycle of testing to someone that had asked. This dedication is unreal for a game whose last expansion came out years ago.

Sadly, I look forward to amassing the expansions to do the same thing one day(started Arkham only months ago). The inmates are running the asylum?

:laughter: you know, there are tons of reasons why Arkham has a special place in my heart. It has a direct link to countless things, both on a personal level (in real life, I mean) and on a more general level (love for certain settings and so on) so that actually I believe it's far more than a game, it's just part of myself

And... enjoy the ride. Getting all the expansions, discovering the game bit to bit, learning what to do and how to do it properly and so on, is really an experience worth of living second by second