Just did my first play through with BGotW as the herald and holy cow is that guy hard. not only are most of the hexagonal monsters decently difficult to beat, but it puts two monsters on the gates which kind of hoses spellcasters, especially since you need them because half the hexs have PR or PI. I honestly like the corruption cards, those things are pretty fun IMO. But with the doom token on monster surges I was running out of time and fast so it was like "**** it, stop closing gates and get those magic weapons and spells" (was playing against Eihort with his PI). ended up kicking his ass because i avoided cultists and sealing gates like the plague. got lucky because i had George and his retainer for money, had Charlie draw brazier of souls on his first stop at the curio, rex murphy started with a shriveling and a gladius of carcosa so he was set, and Daisy started with alchemy as her spell so i had her just farm the magic shop.

But so far I must say that BGotW is the hardest herald and if I was facing someone with an instagib mechanic I probably would have lost!

Yes, the BGotW Herald is the toughest around (at least, coming with official material). So tough that many decided to houserule against the +1 doom / surge.

Avi developed an incredibly good Herald that compensate the brutality but keeps the game challenging:

Also, remember that Eihort has quite a huge loophole: you can still have characters retire, hence the brood is never actually too big a problem

I used to think that BGotW was unreasonable (really, to me, the thing is defined 100% by the "doom token on a surge" ability). But now I see it as a game-accelerator and that's a bit fun. If you want a very hard herald that's not any fun, go use Father Dagon from Innsmouth Horror. And if you want an extra-crappy game, play against Rhan-Tegoth as your AO.

Officially, too, you can play with both Dagon and Hydra as a double-herald. This just makes things worse.

Dagon is actually someone against whom a certain strategy may be applied. First of all, divers must start with 6 clues instead of 5, so that one single +1 Terror is still doable. Then you need to lock down some crazy locations on the board: after all, there are three vortices in Innsmouth, but Y'han doesn't appear that much (and when it appears, it's often game over regardless of Dagon), Devil Reef is not controllable unless spending there the whole game, but the other one can be protected.

Dagon & Hydra together bent a little more my knees (mostly due to the monster-engine pumping creatures in the Outskirts triggering terror, triggering Dagon): I lost 3 out of 24 games with both dudes in (the last time I cycled them) which is more or less the 12.5% (almost twice as big as my usual loss ratio).

My latest Dagon + Hydra + Rhan game ended up in a victory by closing gates when the doom track was at 10 *shivers* There's a session report posted at BGG here , if interested (also somewhere else on this very forum, but it's more difficult to find)

Still, as Tibs said, no easy game with either the Black Goat or Dagon around.