Highlights of an interesting game. Roland, Mary, Silas, and Yorrick vs. Father Dagon and Yig. IH only.

First part of the game went relatively according to plan, some luck with starting equipment yeilded 2 Elder Signs. Yorrick went ahead and spent his trophies on turn 1 to bless himself (mission complete) and put a clue token on Mary's mission. Next couple of turns yeilded horrible dice rolls by my investigators, landing mary in the hospital (unable to take down a shoggoth while blessed with her holy water), and Silas there too, (silly bastard thought he could take on a Cthonian that spawned on an Aquatic street, huurk).

The Stars are Right came up on the 3rd turn, Roland pitched Anna Kaslow to end it immidiately, she had done her job, her two bonus clues at the start of the game allowed Roland to easily complete his mission. The Gate in the Science Building was to R'lyeh, so I send Mary in with an Elder sign to deal with it.

Game progressed fairly well, Mary sealed with her Elder Sign, Roland sealed a gate at the Unnameable as well. Unfortunately a gate had opened at Devil's reef and started to annoy me with Uprising tokens. With Silas unable to get to his boat due to a lack of magic weapons and a formless spawn blocking the way to the docks, it seemed I was just going to have to grin and bear it for a few turns.

Environments strike at the worst times, Roland was in another gate to seal (having the clue tokens), Yorrick and Mary were ready to seal as well, Mary had gotten some clues via an old journal given to her after defeating The Stars are Right, and Yorrick had a couple of clues and enough monster trophies to make a seal between them. It was at that time that the game decided it would be fun to have No One Can Help You Now . But that was okay, I looked at the board. 2 seals, Roland, Mary, and Yorrick all with sealing clues. That's 5, if I could get Silas to rush through a gate, close it, and sacrifice himself for the mission that would put the last seal on the board. I hoped the environment would change and sent my invesitgators in anyway, Silas sailing to the Devil's Reef gate that had been causing so many problems.

In gates nothing too intimidating happened in general, some investigators got hurt, but overall nothing major. Unfortunately the environment didn't change, and a gate block brought the DOR track up to 5. Due to Yorrick getting delayed, he and mary didn't come out on the same turn. Roland sat on his gate waiting for the environment, Mary did likewise, Silas closed the gate on Devil's Reef and Yorrick scooted over.

Allright ... I thought to myself as I prepared the mythos card for the turn. If this is an environment card that isn't on one of my two seals (one of those on the Science building) , I'm going to win, as no monsters are threatening Vorticies. Draw. It's an environment! What luck!... The gate is at Devil's Reef, the one that Silas just closed the previous turn. Allright. Well, that's grim, but okay. Hopefully the monster doesn't move. Anxious to see what it is, I draw a monster. A Mi-Goh! Score!!!!!! At this point I'm sure I'm safe. Just for kicks I draw the gate to see where Silas gets carted off to.

It's the other R'lyeh gate. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Silas is drawn through the gate and devourered. Silas has the Innsmouth Look, draw a deep one and place it on his location, also add a DOR token to the track. Could there possibly be a more obscure and unlikely way to wake up the AO? Defeat via personal story! Curse you, Silas Marsh! Curse you and Dagon both!!!!!!!

Well, that's the end of the fun part of the game, although I was left with a connumdrum. Do I replace the unfortunate Silas Marsh with another investigator? Upon checking the rules I discovered that you replace the devourered investigator "immidiately", also the ancient one awakens "immidiately". Since the answer to this question depends entirely on whether or not we're in final combat, I was left scratching my head. Ultimately I went with the ruling, that the first player decides when two things happen simultaneously, and replaced Silas with Norman Withers. Ended up winning the game via final combat (mary and Yorrick having retained their blessings helped) and I doubt the absence of Norman would have made much difference, as he was cursed the whole time and got only a few successes.

This isnt hate. This is how Arkham shows love.

dj2.0 said:

You always hurt the ones you love.

I think AH is just punishing you for beating Zhar in final combat. BTW, how did you pull that off? The team you listed doesn't really pack that much combat-prowess.

This game was against Yig. I did however, beat Zhar in final combat once.

I think the team was Norman, Harvey, Trish, and Tommy. Norman had completed his personal mission and was blessed, beyond that a lucky roll let him remove the maximum of 4 doom tokens from the AO, When Tommy eventually died he removed another. I had another blessed investigator as well, I think it was Harvey. Anyway, Trish and Tommy got killed first, which was in many respects optimal, and that helped take down the Maj Immune Zhar. Phys immune zhar was pointed by dread curses for a bit while sanity and free hands permitted, eventually sword of glory, then enchanted knife and whither. Victory came when Norman had 1 hand remaining, everyone else was dead. Moral of the story, unless you're sitting at nearly optimal conditions, don't fight Zhar.

awp832 said:

Well, faced Zhar today myself. Shockingly, managed to beat him in final combat . Team of Agnes, Wilson, Patrice and Roland (Aggy replaced Diane, who drew an OW encounter that read, roll a die, if it's a 1, devoured). Mythos was partly to thank, partly to blame. Blame part was that I needed just 1 more turn to slap down that 6th seal. Early "Stars Are Right" certainly didn't help, even though I messed things up a bit myself, Roland got reduced to 1 Sanity in his first Lost Carcosa encounter, so I used Duke to re-sanitize him. Thanking part was "All Quiet in Arkham" that was drawn the turn before Zhar woke up and everyone passed they checks. Turn order also was nearly optimal when Zhar woke up. Still went to the last attack, Roland left, stabbing with an Enchanted Blade, just getting the needed hits.

Of course would've chosen a different Ally to feed to the Rumor if Yibb-Tsll had been the GOO, but chose Prof. Rice. First time I've run out of Clues. At the end of the game, there were 29 Clues on the boards . During the game, Patrice was surprised by God of the Bloody Tongue in the OWs, but *****-slapped him to dust.