Returned to Arkham today (finally, after a two months and a half hiathus). Played an easy-peasy game with AH, DH, KH, LatT & MH in against Yibb. Nodens on the investigators side. Should have been a cakewalk. Somehow it was: after 21 Mythos, Yibb was stuck at 7 doomers. But 21 Mythos sounds like eternity (my games tend to last 10-12 Mythos max). So, some funny things happened:

- Finn started with Pale Mask and the Sedanette. Considering he has a free movement on Crescent, he definitely started studying for the Elusive Monster exam...

- Amanda, the Student, had problems with focus: she first got Concussion (-1 Focus) then Addiction (Focus drops to 0 unless you pay 1 dollar in the Upkeep)

- Zoey, the mad cook, entered the General Store, and the first encounter gave her Food and forced her becoming delayed; in the following turn, the owner of the store had problems with rancid Food

- During turn 4, I got five investigators out of five ending up being delayed

- Amanda drew one OW encounter that could have devoured her if Shub was the AO; he later drew one with Cthulhu devouring the one-sanity OW explorers

- During the monster surge on turn 7 I drew 3 proto-shoggoth, 1 shoggoth and 1 deep one hybrid (seriousl, a pullman just arrived from the not-in-play Innsmouth board??)

- Zoey got Mania on round 3 (you have to spend clues in pairs, hence, in a Yibb game you can't seal because you can't have more than 5 clues at once, but with Mania you need 6 to seal), Leo got Amnesia on round 4, so half of my sealing force was sealed away

The game ended up being incredibly painful, with Mad Bomber (passed thanks to 3 bank loans) and the Terrible Experiment passed by killer Zoey who blew all his clues to get rid of the last Flying Polyp; fun fact: the Skill she drew as reward was Mythos Lore, hence, had she spared the 5 clues, she would have been able to seal.

Two gates bursted, two rifts opened, three times Amanda was forced back to Arkham without any explorer marker, four times Minh had to seal before Finn cast Plumb the Void to summon back to Arkham Amanda for the last time and put the **** sixth seal on the table.

What a blast

Julia,

Whether win or lose, Arkham never fails to deliver a great ride!

Ciao,

Joe

Aye, that's very true Joe. Nice to say "finally, I'm home again"

Ok, that's another crazy one. Played Daoloth tonight, Akachi, Michael, WIlson, Harvey and Tommy. So, the best sealer, and some serious whackers. Starting equipment: 4 Elder Signs. First encounter for Akachi: Visions. Game over before it started. Ugh. On the bright side: I finally had time to roleplay and go here and there making oddly choices. Won anyway, 8 turns, 6 seals, doom track at 4.

wow, that last game... 4 elder signs? like that is just... wow.

LOL. Yeah, it was rather incredible. When the game ended, we looked at the bottom card of the UI deck, and there there was the fifth one (like if we had cut the deck after shuffling one card below...). Fun game. Still, I'd have preferred the lucky draw in a game against Rhan...

I enjoy some good Arkham anecdotes - so thanks for sharing, Julia!

The one about Zoey the cook in your original post is especially funny... my friends and I have had some similar games... I recall (poorly) one that was especially King in Yellow themed (with lots of expansions in, can't remember specific as this was years ago) and seriously, EVERYONE had either the understudy's script for the play, or the regular script for the play. People were seeing the yellow sign every where, (I'm quite sure we chose the King as our OO), and I think the game ended with the curtain falling down, on the turn of the guy who (was he playing the cultist? I can't remember...) had the real script instead of the understudy's script.

A favourite anecdote of mine was when my friend who owns nearly the whole set (just missing Innsmouth, I think?) was playing with me in a 2-player game (maybe during Arkham Horror League #2? The one with Calvin as the ally...) and he was the female character who gains $2 every upkeep. So he's in Another Dimension, and gets an encounter that says "you fall asleep, and when you wake up you learn something new about yourself"... and then he had the $2. We both cracked up, as he shuddered and went "Euhh!". I called him a "*****" the rest of the game, and that's how I think of the character ever since. (the diletante?)

Aye, Calvin's League 2, but Jenny (the dilettante) earns only 1 dollar / turn (ok, go with the jokes...)