TURN 12

The Time Bomb goes off, killing all 5 deadly monsters in the Historical Society! Did I mention that was a sexy move by Vincent? Sure was. All go back to cup.

JACK goes to Church to bless Vincent via monster trophies.

VINCENT moves to the 2nd area of AD; he gains 2 clues but loses 1 SAN.

JIM sneaks to French Hill and stays there.

GEORGE cast Yellow Mist and failed. Too bad, it's a full outskirts. George, you're back to being a tough customer for me.

SKIDS risks offing the Proto Shoggoth in the Streets with his Holy Water, and does. This is the one time his "reroll 1s" ability came in handy all game, for the Horror Check.

MYTHOS phase 12: gate at Witch House, meaning a monster surge since a gate's already there. A Maniac, Mi-Go, Spectral Hunter, Gnoph-Keh and Colour appear at the 2 gates. 2 other monsters appear, a Leng Spider in Northside and another goes to Outskirts 'cos board is full, again! Outskirts are overflowing too, so Terror finally goes up by 1. Brinton leaves town, which is good because he would have been strangled. Instead Ryan Dean (why don't I like that guy) gets nailed by the strangler. Only one more Ally remaining - I'm not gonna make it!

We're already at 8 doom and only 3 seals, so I decide to pull a BLIGHT card. It's DR. MINTZ, meaning any time a full Asylum restore happens, you lose 1 STA. Fantastic. I can see the blood flowing already.

TURN 13

VINCENT appears back in Arkham - he exercises player's option at offs the Mi-Go on his way back with spell and knife. He gains a Petrifying Solution.

JIM has the only chance to solve the Rumour, and he has to do it this turn. But he needs to sneak by the Maniac in the streets. Of course, he doesn't make it. One spot away from solving that Rumour. Gah. Jim takes out his frustration on the Maniac; he casts Flesh Ward to avoid the damage from a failed Sneak, and then butchers him.

GEORGE moves to the French Hill Streets, taking the Azure Flame spell from SKIDS. With max 2 SAN, there's no way SKIDS will use it!

I can't trade in gates 'cos we may try to win by closing. so what the heck is Skids gonna do. He goes to the General Store since it may close soon, and chooses a Cavalry Sabre.

JACK takes $2 from JIM and goes to the Store for an encounter where he can sell items, but he declines.

MYTHOS phase 13: Unvisited Isle - gate burst (no gate or seal there, so a gate appears, as does ANOTHER Mi-Go - they're breeding - and a Crawling One). Doom track to 9. Polyp flies down to JIM. Investigators lose half their money. Well done.

The strangler kills Tom Murphy and that's it! RUMOUR FAILED.

This means everyone has to lose 1 max SAN or STA. JACK goes to max 6 STA, VINCENT max 4 STA, JIM max 3 STA, GEORGE max 6 SAN, and SKIDS max 6 STA. Not a deal breaker, but I'm feeling a bit tender:)

TURN 14

​VINCENT heals a point of Jim's STA, but loses his Blessing.

JIM avoids the Polyp and heads to French Hill.

GEORGE runs to the hospital for a restore after taking a buck from JIM.

SKIDS goes to Cave for 2 clues, and fails to get an item there.

​JACK takes money from SKIDS and goes to the Asylum for a restore (so he'll also lose 1 STA there).

back to our man VINCENT - he uses clues to pass the Horror Check, then uses the Petrifying Solution on the Polyp. Reduced to 1 STA but he does it! What a guy...

MYTHOS phase 14: Gate at Black Cave - a Skeleton and Star Spawn appear. Doom at 10. SKIDS gets sucked into Celano and is delayed. But the card condition - all monsters in streets are returned to cup! That's everything now but the Mi-Go in the sky!

Overall, I'm still pretty dang lucky here...

TURN 15

a healthy GEORGE books it to the Isle, and gets sucked through to the Abyss. There, he loses 1 SAN again. Hm.

SKIDS stands up in his OW and has the option to switch Investigators. Nope. Probably should have though. But I was getting tired and committed to this band of losers! So far they're looking like winners to me...

VINCENT heals a STA and runs to the Asylum for a full recover of SAN (losing a STA again).

JIM runs to the Witch House and the first area of Celeano with SKIDS - JIM has clues and can seal...but we're synching up for a win by closing, I hope...JIM loses 2 SAN in the first area.

MYTHOS turn 15: gate would have appeared at Unnamable but it's sealed! Finally...

a clue appears at the Woods.

TURN 16 (we're getting close to the end, thank heavens)

All OW investigators move to 2nd area.

with the streets clear, VINCENT heals a STA and joins JACK at the Newspaper. Jacko gives the Revolver and Voice of Ra to Vinnie.

JACK gains $5 and is delayed. Vinnie gains a Retainer. Excellent.

in the OWs, SKIDS is delayed after failing rolls and spending his 3 clue tokens. Crap. there were 3 gates on board, 2 to Celano and one to the Abyss that George is in. JIM was in the other Celeano gate. Win by closing will have to wait...

but that's ok because JIM is also delayed but gains 2 tokens.

GEORGE loses 2 SAN and 1 STA, as usual, and is hanging on.

MYTHOS turn 16: "The Next Act Begins". No gates, but Terror up by 1. General Store closes. Again I don't want to touch the Doom Track, so I pull another BLIGHT and cross my fingers. It's NURSE SHARON, meaning full heals at the Hospital cost 1 SAN. Hilarious but not a dealkiller.

TURN 17

VINCENT heals delayed JACK in the Newspaper, and goes to the Science Building for a clue. He gets Blessed again in an encounter there.

JACK gains another $5. Not too shabby.

GEORGE comes back, seals his gate and his max SAN drops to 5.

JIM and SKIDS stand up in their 2nd area; nothing happens for JIM but SKIDS is delayed again! Man...

MYTHOS turn 17: "Intermission" - no gates, but Terror up by 2. Man, we could have won by closing without those delays! At this point I'm sticking to BLIGHTS. I pull FOREMAN (1 less gate to wake the GOO), and THE SHOPKEEPER (good news, the Store is closed anyway!). How lucky. I always get crappy blights in my usual KiY game.

ALMOST THERE...

TURN 18

VINCENT heals himself and runs to the Curiositie Shoppe to meet JACK - they'll split money and shop for Signs before the store closes. No monsters on street for some time so they can afford the time...

Vinnie buys a Carcosan Page from his options, meaning he can give an item to someone anywhere else on the board.

JACK lucks out and buys an Elder Sign! Boo-yeah!

GEORGE runs to the Science Building to trade monsters for 2 clues.

JIM returns to Arkham and seals his gate, going to max 4 SAN. That's 5 seals, with 1 gate left on board and delayed SKIDS is in it...and Vincent and Jack with the Elder Sign and a way to give it to Skids (with the Carcosan Page) when he returns...

in the OW, SKIDS makes it interesting by losing 1 SAN and STA, despite rerolling with a clue token. Now he's at 1 STA. Very dramatic....

MYTHOS turn 18 - this is a critical one: Gate appears at the Woods. Doom goes to 11/13, but it's ok; we're at 5 seals so we are going for a win by sealing. A Ghast and a Dark Young appear. Environment: purchases cost $1 more than normal. Good thing I bought last turn!

Speaking of "last turn"...is this the last one coming up??

TURN 19

JIM runs to the Church to Bless Skids, because he can.

GEORGE goes to the hospital for a free heal point, so he's now at 2/3.

SKIDS returns to Arkham at the Black Cave, gaining an Explorer token..

JACK takes $3 from Vincent and gives Vinnie the Elder Sign, and VINCENT exhausts the Carcosan Page and ships the Elder Sign to SKIDS! Then Vinnie runs to the Hospital to free-heal George next turn...as if that's needed:)

In a move that brings him to madness, SKIDS uses the Elder Sign and seals the 6th gate! His max SAN goes to 1 (!) and his current SAN to zero. He'd go for a madness card but it's too late...disaster averted and...

THE BAND OF LOSERS WIN THE GAME!

I don't know how to do scores, but here was the final tally -

Doom Track at 10/13 with last move

Terror Track at 5/10

2 Elder Signs used

8 gates held by 5 players, with 1 open gate at end of game

lots of monster trophies on hand

4/5 personal stories passed (George was only failure)

****

In short, I was danged lucky with the items I gained at Setup, and lucky in general with items and rolls at critical times.

If I do this again I might place the KiY mythos cards on top and not mix them in with the Base and MH mythos cards. I got lucky there too. Same with blights.

Well, that's it for this time! Hope it was an ok read.

Wow, those were some sweet moves by Vincent with the time bomb! Nice work, and congrats on the win!

Thanks for taking the time to write everything up -- it's a lot of work! You found a lot of great ways to use your items and get them into the right hands. Nice coordination all around, and good to see even the hard-luck investigators having some good success. Those initial draws can make all the difference, but you were playing smart too.

Hey, that's a great victory (especially considering the party you were playing )! The longer the game, the more difficult scoring a victory; winning in 19 Mythos is a great victory, congrats!

As for scoring: +1 / investigator alive at the end of the game; +1 / gate trophy collected; +1 / 3 monster trophies collected (you count the number of chits, not their cumulative toughness); + 1 / doom token space on the doom track (hence, Azathoth means always 14 points, and Yig always 10); -1 / point of terror above 0; -1 / Elder Sign used; +1 / mission or task passed; -1 / investigator retired; -1 / bank loan defaulted

I'd suggest adding the following houserules: +1 / personal story passed; -1 / personal story failed; +2 / rumor passed; -5 / rumor failed.

Thanks gang - I threw out the monsters before I counted them all, but I'm sure I had about 12. So I'll call it that and come up with the score as you laid out J, and it comes out at 21 points.

I'm going on a big trip away from my AH boxes soon, but thinking of who else I can collect for the next match.

Who would be worst against the BGotW, I wonder? I'll do same combo of GOO and matching Herald.

GOO: Shub-Niggurath. Herald: Black Goat of the Woods.

Using any investigator, but unless they demand a specific item from another box during Startup, I'll only use the items and spells from the Base Game and BGotW expansion.

Will use Mythos/Gate cards from Base, BGotW and MH.

Will use skills from Base and the special BGotW skill card must be used by one random investigator.

Using all non-Mask monsters, with hexes in distinct cup.

Will probably use the MU Institution again even though I won't use any of it's advantages I'm sure!

Using Personal Stories.

Here are my first thoughts for the next Band of Losers...team of 5. Gonna focus on bad fighters with low sneak and/or will.

Tempted to pick...

Charlie Kane, then some of the same as last time: Monterey Jack, George Barnaby, Jim Culver, and one of Vincent or Skids.

By the way, I just recently heard about this thread on BGG, and there's a nice spreadsheet compilation Tibs did that shows how various investigators fare. May help you with your picks of the worst.

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/366121/arkham-horror-statistics-returns

Yep, Tibs did a hell of a work! The statistics thread is also pinned on the first page of this very forum (in case you didn't notice it).

As for the Black Goat game... indeed, Shubbie is certainly the best pairing. I'd suggest you go with my Church of the Black Goat custom institution if you want to add some theme to the game:

In addition to the House Rules added by Julia, I would offer at least this one for the base game...add 1 point per 5 Toughness (on the Monsters) to make it worth your while.

Cheers,

Joe

thanks all - and whoa Julia, that's one tough Institution. I thought Institutions were meant to help people!! That looks more like a herald.

But of course I'll use it:)

Uhm, not so sure if Institutions were meant to help people. I've always considered them as a sort of "additional theme" to the game, that can be benefical at times, or bring you ruin at others.

This institution was designed with the idea of spicing up a little the game: once you start playing with BGotW, it's clear that there is no actual reason to join the cult, and even less reasons to draw and resolve Cult Encounters. In this way... well, you have to. Plus, I thought of proselitisms some confessions try to make, and I thought Shubbie's cult could have some similar adepts trying to sell you their sacred books, and asking money to help their church becoming bigger.

Anyhoo, good luck with that!

I dunno Julia, the other Institutions all help the players overall; they may not be useful all the time, but there are no penalties on any of the ones found in MH. In fact, whoever wrote the wiki description of Institutions said they "Help the Investigators"!

Your creation was fun and definitely added to the theme, but it felt more like another Herald. Needless to say, I used it happily.

Investigators: Monterey, Vincent, Jim, Charlie, and George. As mentioned only used items and spells from Base and BGotW. One random investigator got the BGotW skill from MH, and others had Base skills. Your creation gave another investigator a cult membership too, so it was a job to make sure one monster hunter was free to bless people.

(EDIT: also used Shub as GOO and BGotW as Herald, with PSs for all Invs.).

Attempt number 1 ended on turn 8, when the GOO woke up due to too many gates. That's what I got for rejoicing that my PSs were all pretty much done by turn 3.

Attempt number 2 resulted in success, in no small part thanks to many PSs being passed, no fails, and a lot of weapons gained midway through the game. Also 3 Elder Signs and a mythos card that cleared the streets of all monsters - where all of them happened to be at the time!

cheers

K.

LoL. Okay, okay, I trust wiki Sorry for that

Happy you managed to beat the horror! BGotW Herald is no fun at all, congrats!

Haha, well aside from the wiki (I get your point), the MH rules say that Institutions "can provide help for Investigators in exchange for resources that are acquired over the course of the game". So for example, MU can give you the free ride between boards if you spend monster toughness or gate trophies, and Organized Crime (the best one IMO) gives you the ability to pay $3 and avoid being arrested anywhere. Old news to you I'm sure, but this is for context.

I'm looking at The Cult of the Thousand, and trying to find out where turning in a resource will give you any help! The only one is maybe the ability to go into the Woods/Isle/Cave, but then you can't go into the Church and get blessed. And after playing that game, I quickly realized I had to make sure at least one monster hunter was not a cult member so he could get rid of other Investigators' curses!

So for that reason I'd classify the Cult of the Thousand as a Herald. A fun one to be sure!

Maybe I should have posted this in the Custom Heralds and Guardians thread...

cheers and thanks

K.

LOL

I get your point here. I never played with any Institution coming with MH yet. I've some games planned with them, but at my actual pace, they shouldn't hit my table before 2022 or something like that (my ratio of AH games / year has dropped consistently in the last year)

Thematically, I consider Heralds as some sort of "entities", while institutions, are, well, institutions. That can be good or bad (yes, I'm aware of your above post. Not talking about rules, just saying in my imagination how they are), Still, now you're making me wonder what to do with next installments in the series (had I a day free to finish my Esoteric Order of Dagon Institution... )

Julia,

2022? Now, that's planning!

Ciao,

Joe

The Cult of a Thousand brought out the theme nicely for the BGotW expansion. It seemed as if the Cult was never really engaged before, but the Institution makes the expansion feel more dire (and interesting). One of the things I wish overall would be improved in the AH expansions are mechanics that force you to deal with the entity. The Lurker herald seemed easy to avoid without the Aforgomon addition as well, so anything that pulls us in a bit more makes for a fun game.

Agreed. Some time ago, in the fan section of the forum, we brainstormed a little about this. Dj2.0 came with some extremely brilliant ideas about charcterizing the game via Heralds that modified somehow the structure of the game. I helped him developing a little the idea via mail, but then the project stopped. Wish he'll return to this one soon!

Anyhoo, if you're interested, I developed a serious of Heralds that actually gives gate some of the monsters' movement abilities (hence, I have a Herald for aquatic gates, another one with flying gates and a third one that gives gates a sort of "special movement" proper of green border monsters)

I'd love to see them. The idea of having either the location affecting some special abilities on the gate or the AO/herald producing a gate spawn effect sounds very intriguing.

Ok, here we go. Just keep in mind they are destined for insanely difficult games (i.e., you need to preselect characters, and still you have a 50% of failure, especially playing against the first two).

Aquatic gates were implemented in the Herald R'lyeh awakens. This Herald is thought to designed incredibly heavy on monsters games:

If you want the *total Cthulhu experience* play this one, plus Avi's The Galaxy of R'lyeh, and Veet's Basatan (and good luck with that. I played it once, won the game and thought "never more")

The second one implements the concept of flying gates. I do like the ideas in it a lot, but the more I think about it, the more I believe it need a revision: it should be an Ithaqua Herald, Shub (and Dark Young) are bound to Earth, not to Air.

The last one is probably the Herald I like the most in the series. It pairs up very well with Avi's Kerathimel, in case you want an insane Yog-Sothoth experience:

(good luck with these. Really)

Julia,

Aside from the great write-up as Heralds, I absolutely love the pictures!

Ciao,

Joe

A good picture is 50% of a good Herald Glad you liked them

I wanted to go back and check my printed heralds, and I was glad that these 3 were included in the set I had done! I have been going through the stack slowly, but had not read them all through in detail yet.

I really love these ideas for aquatic and flying gates. I'll really need to study these hard before being ready to play just to make sure we've captured everything and understanding the interaction -- often it's not the individual rule that trips us up, but how each rule plays out together.

I think I might agree that Ithaqua might make for a better herald for the Flying Gates, though I love what you did for Shub (dang, does Shub Niggurath actually need the help of a herald???) Though I am thinking now about the most frequent flyers -- Byakhee and Mi-Go and how closely tied they are to Hastur. I don't particularly think of Hastur as an air entity though, even though his cultists are flyers. Icy winds and Flying gates just seem right for Ithaqua, and I can just picture this playing in nicely with the outdoor penalties. More use of Wraiths or Shans?

I really want to play R'lyeh Awakens with Innsmouth, that would be just so wicked with lots of Deep Ones skulking about, though Innsmouth by itself has been killing us recently. We've been wanting a more Deep Ones focused game though, and this would practically guarantee it.

Oh my gosh Umr at-Tawil looks crazy! How good do you have to be at taking out Yog-Sothoth before you are ready for his heralds? That said, that would be a whirlwind of a game -- no sleeping possible.

These are excellent Julia -- thank you -- are you planning to do more with these, or are you developing new ones as well?