Last night I played my second game of Innsmouth Horror randomly drawing Agnes Baker, Hank Samson, Norman Withers, and Trish Scarborough. They were up against Ghatanothoa, who is indeed cosmic Russian roulette. Hank's starting material included the Marksman skill as well as the shotgun AND the Tommy gun in addition to the Powder of Ibn-Ghazi. During the first round he passed off his Tommy gun to Trish, who also had two containers of holy water to make two very fine monster hunters. During the fifth turn Hank traded in his trophies to become the Deputy of Arkham while Trish went to the church to get him blessed. The next round The Terrible Experiment hit the table (which also caused a monster surge - yay more fodder for Hank and Trish) but those monsters were no match for our heroic (yet dim) deputy. He got all five monsters that turn, cleaned up the monster surge on the next, and then got the remaining characters blessed.

I had to pack up the game before I could finish but it was amazingly fun, even though I felt kind of bad for the monsters. They just could not catch a break against the unstoppable marksman Hank with his shotgun. He only took one sanity hit during the 10 or so turns of the game and was just churning through the trophies. The other investigators didn't have as amazing luck and of course it took a little while longer to start sealing gates due to the aforementioned Russian roulette. But Hank was truly a thing of beauty. Just wanted to share.

placeboeffect said:

Heh... I would've left The Great Experiment in play for more easy trophies for Hank (and as a rumor shield).

This just goes to show that I have no sense of actual strategy in this game. It honestly has never once occurred to me to let a rumor ride. I see how that is quite obviously a better strategy then what I did since Hank would surely be able to handle the added monsters and it would keep a more nasty rumor from popping up for, what, 4 rounds. I think I tend to play my investigators more in the sense of roleplaying. Bad thing happening, stop it as quickly as possible. It's the same reason that I can't imagine not trying to complete Jenny's personal story, even though it is clearly not the best strategy . I can't imagine not trying to save *my* sister from harm. **shrug** That's why I really don't win too many games. But I do have a lot of fun playing.

placeboeffect said:

That's what I do as well. Okay, not the Personal Story part, as no IH for me yet (store website it comes on sale next week). A Rumor is out, go, git it! Okay, if the end is nigh (one way or the other), I've let things like Mad Bomber fail and just taken my licks and sealed the GOO the next turn. I reckon I do alright, losing less than once every five games.

placeboeffect said:

Amen! Testify!

I put myself into bad BAD places trying to save Wendy's daddy, and it hurt to let that go.

It's a difficult decision to forfeit a personal story (having experienced only 10 characters). But I tend to let Southside Strangler go, because I find those five clues are better spent trying to win by sealing.

I don't think I have ever let Terrible Experiment just go a a shield strategy, either because many of the monsters were too hard, or because I was afraid that a hard one would come out. TTE trolling works for a while, but when your monsters slowly become Dark Young, Dark Young, Flying Polyp, Servitor of the Outer Ones, Star Spawn, Star Vampire, Dark Young... then you need to crack open your nearest religious text and pray until you're hoarse.

I virtually never try to protect my allies when the Southside Strangler comes a-calling. Only if I'm trying to make things difficult, or I really need the money. I also have to control the urge to whine at my fellow players if they show an interest in stopping him. Those clues are valuable! I just played a game against Hastur and the Black Goat where my goal was to seal (It worked!). I got that rumor and laughed.

The Terrible Experiment, however, at least has a nice incentive. Skills for everybody can be very good. Or just okay. I'm also inclined to not get hard monsters on it, thus kill it as quickly as possible. We've never really had a successful time farming the rumor.

As far as the personal stories... that remains to be seen. I'm thinking I'll probably just be inclined to ignore Jenny's, though, if Innsmouth is as hard as it's supposed to be.

My group has been ignoring the only one rumor card at a time rule for several years now. It really makes the game interesting when 2 show up.

I played Hank last night and had him equipped with +1 fight, shotgun, and Enchanted Blade. It was just too easy to kill stuff. Then right before poor silas got devoured he gave me his ruby and shotgun. 10 dice shotgun with 8 move is just a little over powered. Only thing that slowed me down was the enviorment that gave everything nightmarish 1 which stayed out for about 8 turns.

flamethrower49 said:

Hmm. Except against Glaaki. That's just bad news.

Tibs said:

I tend to make one of my characters into a strong fighter (with high powered equipment and a good combat ally or two). Add a blessing on them and Terrible Experiment is a rumor I'm usually glad to draw.