I figured I would write this one up since it will be very, very short and I don't think I've posted many reports of losses. It is Saturday, the wife is working all day at her Salon and I'm bored. No real household projects to work on, so I decide to play a few games of Arkham Horror (shocking I know). Pull out a medium difficulty seal win against Azathoth for my first game (just base set) and take a bit of a break.

Second game I mix in CoTDP in visiting exhibit mode, draw Yog-Sothoth for the GOO...and I immediately sigh, my most serious beat downs always come from Cthuhlu, Yog, or Hastur. I draw freaking Monterey Jack and Joe Diamond for my investigators, if you've read the report on my first AH game ever you know why Monterey and I don't get along. I figured I would be making many trips to the Asylum with Monterey but I did get a bit excited when he drew the Sword of Glory for one of his Uniques, I had yet to see this item in play so far so it was kind of fun.

Five open gates or so into the game things are not going exactly terrible, and I've got a fair number of clue tokens on Joe when he gets sucked into a Ry'leh gate during Mythos. It was on unvisited isle and he had about 8-9 clue tokens so I figure what the heck might as well make a seal run, and make the best of it. During the next otherworld encounters phase he draws The Stars are Right the white shuffle and redraw card. I have house ruled that when you draw The Stars are Right you draw the next available otherworld specific encounter (ie. a Ry'leh card while in Ry'leh) and then shuffle. Joe of course draws the dual color battle Cthuhlu encounter, and despite a fighting chance with his stock .45 auto and aquired Enchanted Sword, Cthuhlu proved to be too much for Joe and he was devoured.

(Quick rules interpretation question, Cthuhlu's while he slumbers reduction of stats...is that supossed to go away when he awakens and the investigators return to max stamina and sanity? I have been keeping the penalty even after he awakes, and I applied it to joe during his otherworld Cthuhlu fight.)

Regardless, it wouldnt have mattered much either way I played it...Joe was not going to win that one despite using many clue tokens to squeeze out some extra hits using his special ability and he was devoured. I play that when you're devoured you're done, and you don't redraw a new investigator. I let Joe pass his clue tokens to Monterey because Monty had the Book of Anubis that specifically allows for such a transfer upon being devoured.

So now I'm down to Monterey with about 10 clues and some pretty decent equipment and I figure with about 5 gates open (about 3 were in low frequency locales like Hibb's, Science Building, etc) that I better get to closing / sealing or Yog was going to wake up with me having no trophies. I plunge into the nearby Yuggoth and draw an encounter to the effect of make a fight -1 check or be lost in time and space. I had my fight set on 2, used every clue token I had remaining and still couldnt pull 1 freaking success out of my ass. Monty was lost in time and space and per Yog's sleeping ability he was devoured.

Game over, such a brutal loss to the Tag Team Combo of Cthuhlu and Yog. He didnt even have to wake up to slaughter me

Yog-Sothoth is my GOO Arch-Enemy, have yet to win a game against him.

"In his slumber" is always used as artistic license. When Cthulhu awakens you do not gain back your maximums.

Also, if you run into Cthulhu and do one-on-one battle with him in the Other World (via the dual-color card), you don't have to immediately drop your maximums by 1. However, the maximums you lose are permanent, even if you win

Kinda like Ithy. Even if you win win your items are still soggy, lost in snow drifts, or whatever it is he does with them.

I always imagined that a strong wind blew the items away, or that the fierce cold cracked or shattered them.

Vaxsythrakul said:

Wow, you were in a very good situation and still lost? Fight 5 + 4 from .45 and +4 (?) from Sword and -6 from Cthulhu = 7 dice. 8-9 Clues = 16-18 extra dice. Each hit removing 1 doom token, so you're looking for 13 hits on the first turn (with basically 23-25 dice, okay odds aren't that great, but should've done some serious damage). After that you have 7 (or is it 8, since Big C wasn't the GOO in the game) rounds where you need 2 hits to remove doomers (which is statistically right in line with 7 dice). If you win, you automatically seal the gate.

::Laughter:: you don't replace devoured investigators? That's a really bad idea for a number of reasons (even though I've been tempted to make that rule). It's not good for team games (especially in a game that can go for 3-5 hours). Also, umm, you won't have a freaking chance when you get Innsmouth. SERIOUSLY. ::Laughter:: I almost never get characters devoured. In my last game I had *four* FOUR! And in the previous game I also had one devoured. ::Sigh:: and in the one before that, two, I think. ;'D You won't have a chance in Hell.

If you feel that being devoured (and losing a turn and potentially useful items and clues and time) isn't enough of a penalty, consider also having it add a doom token to the doom track (it will be more like a normal game for when you need to get rid of this rule— Innsmouth).

Dam said:

Yeah I thought going into the battle that I would have things pretty well sewn up with a free Ry'leh seal but it didnt work out that way heh. Sword is only +3 and the first round I only rolled about 4 clue tokens worth of extra dice, I did score quite a few successes...enough to bring him down around half in the first turn. He regens doom tokens every round though and the following rounds I didnt get so lucky removing one here and one there. I probably should have spent his last 4 or so clue tokens but I honestly think I would have still lost, I wanted to pass them to Monterey versus using them in what was probably going to be a losing battle.

@ Avi -- Yeah as I start to add more expansions I'll probably need to replace devoured investigators, but with just the base set or base set +COTDP I am winning 50% of the time or so, so no need to make things any easier.

@ Tibs -- Yeah I was wondering about the maximums thing if I had won, I figured they would be permanent which would have made Joe pretty weak sauce anyway, would probably needed to have retired him after his bout with Cthuhlu.

Vaxsythrakul said:

Maybe it's time for you to add in Dunwich. Have you learnt how to beat all the AO's on the base game? If you can do that without a problem, add in Dunwich. If you can't, concentrate your games against the ones that you can't beat (that way you'll sharpen your skills— you'll need to).

Yeah to tell you the truth I'm not too impressed with CoTDP, it is fun and very thematic but it does not do much to change things only make things harder. I have been gazing longingly at my Dunwich box, but I think I'm going to hold out and give CoTDP some more time first before I break into Dunwich.

We've beat Cthuhlu by closing gates with only my wife and I, I was pretty impressed with that victory since it is the only victory by closing we've been able to pull off and it was against Cthuhlu no less I still have probs with Cthuhlu, Hastur, Yog, sometimes Shub...only played Nyarlathotep once.

We're still not winning all that many games especially with the introduction of CoTDP maybe 50% win, probably less now with CoTDP. Going to do a few more with just CoTDP, maybe 3 or so with some tougher GOOs, I keep drawing Yig and I've never lost to him so I might take him out of the pile for awhile as far as selection goes.

Dunwhich soon...maybe I go peek inside the box this afternoon muhahahahah.

Vaxsythrakul said:

Dunwich is arguably the best expansion Arkham Horror has to offer, but it brings with it an exponential increase in difficulty. I would strongly advise you NOT to add it until you've not only beaten all of the basic set AO's, but also have at least a 75% win percentage. You really have to master the base game before you bring in Dunwich. Also, do you intend to remove CoTDP when you add Dunwich, or leave it in?

I would remove CoTDP at first, just to get a feel for what Dunwich brings to the table.

Eventually I am going to roll one big box with one small box as my max expansion limit.

Solan said:

Agreed. If you're not getting over 70% wins you don't know what you're doing and Dunwich will eat you alive ;'D which has its own special charm too (far more charm than being eaten dead).