Has anyone ever completed Joining The Winning Team? Anyone? .... Hello?

*raises hand

brief synopsis:

"Having just completed Join the Winning Team, I object to it being classified as a "defeat". I mean, come on, read the effing card "You WIN the game". Okay, so the others lose, but a win's a win, no? Oh, I agree thematically it's weird as hell, especially since I did against Azathoth, but from a gameplay POV, and given its difficulty, it's definately up there in the challenge it presents. If 3 of 4 investigators get killed in the Final Combat but the GOO is defeated, I'm sure the survivor will posthumously honor the fallen. Why should it be any different here?

Lowdown on how it all went down:

Solo game, random chars (as always), drew Leo Anderson as the first one (4 investigators), started with Zebulon Whateley AND a Task that had an Ally as one of the reward. Granted, wasn't thinking about JtWT at this point. But the pre-game Mythos card had dropped a 2nd Clue Token on STL and Leo went to grab the tokens, also getting Ruby Standish while at it. Now I was thinking maybe. Would you know it, Bob Jenkins was next, shopping at the Curiositie Shoppe, drew 2 weapons and JtWT. Though about it for a bit, then said what the hell, I'll go for it. Next turn, Kate Winthrop went shopping drew Holy Water, something and Dhol Chants. As they said in South Park just yesterday: "It's ON!" By turn 6, Leo had 4 allies and JtWT. Yes, I had all four investigators working as a team to get Leo to JtWT! First 3 drop-offs went without a hitch, but seemed like the fates were trying to prevent it, as Leo had gotten Blessed by an encounter at the Science Building and failing rolls in the OW gets you LiTaS'd. Anyway, Leo dove into the Abyss, 1st encounter was beneficial only. 2nd one however was monster appears. I'd shifted Leo's Will to max (to prevent insanity and the chance of getting the Ally remover Madness) and that only left him with 1 Fight and no Weapons. Monster turned out to be Color Out of Space, which luckily in this case, will beat you up if your fight is at 1!

I'm so totally counting the game as a win!"

I just played a game with five friends of mine. Game was long and good.

One of my friends got "Join the Winning Team" -unique item right at the setup. So, he decided that he is clearly an evil character fightning against the other investigators. At first he played and looked who is going to win and after Glaaki got a little advantage he decided to stop helping us. Finally, he did almost everything to stop us (closed gates without sealing them and spent trophies to get allies to sacrifice etc.).

Suprise, we lost the game after Glaaki woke up and destroyed the city of Arkham. The evil investigator died by the game rules, of course, but we all knew that he was now more like a high priest of Glaaki than actually a loser. We all had fun and it was a great game with some roleplaying elements in it.

After he laughed at us in the end, we all knew that HE won and WE lost...

Dam said:

This is a good illustration of why JtWT is somewhat broken in solitaire mode. It's bound to be a much different and easier experience than if the other investigators are working against you.

avec said:

I've said it before, but guess it bares repeating, I wouldn't mind helping another person complete JtWT, if they were similarly equipped as Leo in my game. 1 winner > 0 winners in my book (which has few words and big pics I'll grant you ). Sadly, my max for AH is 2-player, but if my friend had a shot at JtWT, I'd try to help him do it. You shouldn't view the investigator/person going for JtWT the "enemy", more like he's got the inside track to the evil goodies that he'll dole out once you complete the mission. Same way as say 4-investigator team puts the GOO back to sleep after a final combat, but 3 of the investigators are devoured during it. The survivor will probably see that those who sacrificed themselves get their posthumous kudos (statue, etc.). Same with JtWT, just different kind of kudos (resurrection to zombiehood, etc.).

So is the only way it's ever been successfully completed with help from three other Investigators?

What's the closest anyone has ever gotten while trying it solo against a team of Investigators who don't want to help and would actually prefer to stop you?

That's the only victory by Join the Winning Team I've heard of. Fact is, it's really hard. One of my friends said he would help somebody attempting it, if he thought they could do it - more power to them. We went ahead and removed it from the deck, because it's practically impossible. Obtaining four allies, barring happy coincidences like above, is a task for a whole game, much less turning them in on opposite corners of the board and getting lost in time and space. Under normal circumstances, a team interested in stopping you could probably just win the game normally while you're screwing around trying to pick up allies. Needless to say, they won't trade with you or help you in any regular capacity. And with a regular gaming group, they'd probably be pretty annoyed with you if they were against you.

Dam said:

The way I understand it, if any investigator survives the final battle, every player wins (Nyarlathotep's sinister plot notwithstanding). This is in contrast with JtWT, in which every player loses except the one who completes the mission. Granted, the text on JtWT says "Any other investigators lose the game," but I think that pretty clearly refers to the players. After all, the players are playing a game, but the investigators aren't (they're fighting for their lives).

Well according to the stats site, Kormith was the first to complete the mission, against Cthulhu.

Then an anonymous submitter did it against Nyarlathotep / The King in Yellow.

Then was Dam's completion, against Azathoth / Dark Pharaoh.

Here's my only notable JtWT story:
Pete (my GF insisted playing as him) started with it, drawing it from the bottom of the Unique deck. He already had a leg up with Duke, so tried his best.

Well, everyone BUT Pete got encounters to gain allies. After a gate trip, Pete waltzed over to buy an ally at Ma's. I told her that she only has one gate, and needs two. "Oops! Then I'm going here... " to the Hospital, to start completing the mission. Suuure.

Well then she kind of non-chalantly went to kill some monsters to afford another ally. Well her first encounter drove her insane, giving her Paranoia. HAHAHAHA.

That's what you get, you traitor.

Dam:
It's only a defeat thematically for the stats site. I've highlighted it with a different color so you can still show the world. But for the purposes of how easy it is to stop the AO from invading the world on my stats page (a normal investigator victory), Joining the Winning Team is a loss, for the stats. You can tell anyone anything else and I'm not going to correct you

JtWT + Bain = AO sleeping pills