SESSION 2 REPORT (From Crawling to Stumbling)

Our second game went much, much faster than the first but was plagued with a few serious errors. Overall, we probably made less errors than in our first game, and we're getting the turn order and execution of operations down pretty smooth. The only things we seem to be making mistakes on are the special case scenarios, like forgetting an environmental effect is in play or neglecting a special ability on a cultist or whatnot. We just need to remember to keep an eye out for those kind of things, and remember that most cultists are going to have a special ability based on the GOO we're facing.

We decided to remove Nyarlathotep from our Ancient One selection as to not have a repeat of our first game. Yig was drawn at random by my wife (who requested we play again before I even suggested it). I still wanted a selection of investigators but we removed Ashcan Pete and Monterey Jack from our selection pool for the same reasons. I selected Dr. Vincent Lee from my (3) options, my wife picked Mandy "Jugs" Thompson from her pool. I liked the way Lee felt compared to Monterey, and his 5/5 balanced stats were a lot easier to deal with than 3/7. I still like Monterey but I think he would play better in a bigger 4+ player / investigator game. I would play him again in our smaller games but having a bit more experience with things I would use his special talents a bit more and try to stay out of combat. Mandy is obviously, amazing...her ability is definately a contender for my favorite of what I've seen so far. My wife liked the ability to help me out with things and she used her power on my rolls more than her own most of the time (she's so sweet).

At first I was excited to face Yig as I've heard he is easier and a quicker game due to the shorter doom track. We were playing through turns a lot faster and before I knew it 3 gates were open and 3 doom tokens were on his track. I quickly realized that with just the two of us, a closing victory or 6 seals were pretty unrealistic victory conditions. Not to mention the turn before "good deeds undone" rumor hit the board...so we went about the business of trying to prepare for the inevitable awakening. I took a closer look at Yig and came to the conclusion that we should try to get blessed and snag some weapons. Mandy ended up with the +2 speed ally for the second game in a row (through the encounter no less) and scored a blessing through an encounter. We fought only the monsters we had to (terror level be damned) and closed only a few gates to get enough trophies for my wife to bless Dr. Lee through the Southchurch special. I spent some time in Arkham Asylum during the final turns regaining my sanity and patching myself up. Mandy had full sanity, and spent her final few turns being treated in St. Mary's. When Yig awoke due to having 8 open gates we were about as prepared as we could be 5/5 sanity / stamina on both of us and Mandy having a modified 6 speed to combat Yig's attacks.

Here is where we made our major error. We spent all game trying to prepare for Yig by getting ourselves blessed, but in our noobie fury to defeat Yig, nobody rememberd that his curse start of battle ability should have removed our blessings. Obviously we made short work of Yig while blessed, he didnt stand a chance...took about 3 rounds. Another major error that we made was allowing Mandy to use her re-roll when she rolled a '1' on upkeep to discard her blessing. I thought her ability was usable to reroll any 1 roll and not for just 'skill' checks.

We went to bed and it didnt dawn on me that we had made a mistake until I logged into the forums and started thinking about the game for my report. I decided to go back and refight the Yig battle with both of our blessings off, and again with Mandy cursed and Lee normal. As it turns out we would have won on both of those scenarios as well, it was just a little closer. The wife having the +2 speed ally really made Yig struggle to even land a hit on her most of the fights.

All in all it was a good game even with the errors. The original 2nd session took us less than 3 hours. We are getting better every game and I don't think we'll be making those kinds of huge errors anymore. Scored the victory at +6, the same as our first game...not very good but winning is winning right?

Next time you play against Yig, try to seal him out. It's hard, but so worth it when it happens. (Just watch out for cultists!) As long as you're comfortable playing the game towards the final battle, go right ahead. I always prefer a seal/close victory, so I push for that. Honestly, I usually just don't play against Yig, though we've never lost to him.

What was your experience playing the good doctor? You seem to have a knack for picking out the weak ones, as Jack and Vincent are some of the most difficult investigators to handle. With Jack, his Sanity and Will scores are simply crippling, though unique item selection is nice. With Vincent, the main problem is his speed, combined with an slow start and an ability that doesn't do much for you. Our team has won the fewest games with these two, as well as one other investigator, who I will not name, because you will probably use that person next.

::laughter::: Vincent and Mandy vs. Yig... ::Sigh:: are you just trying to get easy wins, or what? ;') you need to try playing against some of the AOs that can actually kill you in combat (without epic battle cards). Try a game against Shub Niggurath, Hastur, Yog-Sothoth, or Cthulhu :'D Playing against someone like Yig and going for a combat victory ;') yeee. It's like playing on easy mode.

Avi_dreader said:

Bah I know...I could have made it harder on us and tried for a seal / close but I just didnt see it happening and as it was only our second game I wanted a GOO to wake up for the final combat anyway. I was kind of disappointed too after the Yig win and then re-win minus errors as the game just didnt seem as hard as people were making it out to be. I've actually played two more games without my wife and game 3 I drew Cthuhlu who gave me a proper trouncing (I just havent had time to write up the report yet).

@Avid_Reader

I actually rather liked Dr. Lee (especially compared to The Cheese Monterey) his balanced 5/5 Sanity / Stamina and the ability to restore stamina a point a turn was rather useful. I just kept his speed cranked to 4 and just took paths around / through monsters I could beat. With only 2 investigators playing, the monster limit in Arkham is only 5 so most of the time you don't really even need to make use of evade checks to still be able to move around. He doesnt really have any strengths, but conversly he doesnt really have any glaring weaknesses either...I guess you could describe him as mediocre. It does kind of seem that my wife is picking the better characters and I'm picking the chaff, maybe I should let her select my game 5 investigator

I will try to find the time to write up a game 3 report but against Cthuhlu I bet you guys can fill in most of the blanks already.

? Vincent's speed is three :')

I actually don't dislike Vincent (I tend to like characters with money because I like being able to buy starting equipment), but I'd much rather have Monterey. It's true his sanity is a major liability, but being able to double draw unique items (especially in the base game where the unique item deck is so small) :'D elder signs ahoy! You know his ability also works with his starting items, right?

Still ::shrug:: he's not much of a fighter against tougher sanity damage monsters. Not a good newbie character (especially since his starting items just tempt you to rush into battles that you're not capable of winning). Darrell on the other hand...