Someone had to do it. Clearly, I have been playing WAY too much (which only proves to me that Innsmouth was the expansion I was waiting for).

This was harder than I thought. The new Innsmouth AOs swing a LOT wider between their slumber abilities and their Final Battle stats; some are extremely difficult to quantify, as they can vary from “completely unfelt” to “what the hell just happened?”. I think this list is somewhat amorphous as the lines between Easy, Hard, and Atrocity have blurred so much that you really can’t tell where the edges of these arbitrary groups are anymore. You can only discern the clearish center of them, i.e. Yig is Easy, Cthugha is Hard, and Atlach-Nacha is Atrocity.

(Epic Battle cards are ignored, as they are not “constant”.)

24) Azathoth – Still the tutorial AO. He gets out of the way for other things to be experienced, like Boards and Heralds. The Final Battle is still the simplest ever: you just lose.

23) Yig – I used to be able to rank Yig higher because of his extremely fast Doom Track, but his Cultists can get lost in the Cup now. I now admit his Final Battle Curse is easy to prepare for, and he’s just so easy to hit.

22) Ithaqua – I used to flip between Ith and Nyarl all the time, but Ith cancels out some really nasty Environments now. Not that hard to stay “indoors” most of the time. One of the easiest Final Battles to wage (all Fight slugfest).

21) Nyarlathotep – I really hate this, but even with all his Masks, he’s just so “slight” to gameplay. Innsmouth added a lot of “foot soldiers”, so losing Cultist trophies is even less of a big deal. Clues are still a plentiful resource to locate for the Final Battle.

20) Bokrug – With some halfway decent teamwork, the Investigators can dance all over Bokrug. The Beings of Ib make for a somewhat rough early game, but Bokrug’s biggest problem is how much easier he gets as the game progresses, and how that ease translates to the Final Battle.

19) Abhoth – As long as you’re willing to exterminate the Children when they show up, Abhoth is one of the more quiet ones. Not too hard to survive Final Battle since anything you own is acceptable fodder.

18) Nyogtha – An odd but delightful slumber ability that is too often dormant. A large doom track allows for some elbow room. A Final Battle that relies heavily on luck and a lot of weapons. (I kinda like the added toughness to his followers.)

17) Hastur – Like Bokrug, Hastur can vary wildly, but unlike Bokrug, Hastur gets harder as the game progresses. And Hastur’s “eight Clues to Seal” bugs you all game.

16) Y’Golonac – Avoiding tomes is another impossible-to-quantify task, but the potential is there for a ridiculously fast game. Few can last more than 4 rounds with him, so don’t miss.

15) Cthugha – One of the greatest Investigator commodities comes with a potentially nasty price tag, but his huge Doom Track allows you to play things slow if you’re slick enough. Wake him up, and you will BURN.

14) Chaugnar Faugn – His slumber ability is an annoying little gnat buzzing around the board, but often seems like...well, just a gnat. Tcho-Tchos become tiny slabs of solid bedrock. Chaugnar’s Final Battle is a whirlwind slaughterhouse: he will ALWAYS last to at least the fourth round...will you?

13) Eihort – If you can spread the Sealing around, Eihort’s kinda easy with his decently large Doom Track. Also suffers from Cultists-lost-in-the-Monster-Cup syndrome. With some lucky rolls, you might be able to overcome his Physical Immunity long enough to survive, but Investigators will fall like dominoes once the first one goes down.

12) Rhan-Tegoth – While Rhan’s Final Battle can be as disastrously infinite as Cthulhu’s (Physical Immunity never helpful), it is possible to never hear more than a peep from him during the regular game.

11) Shudde M’ell – Still provides an extremely frantic game (Shudde LOVES an Open Gate on Devil’s Reef!). Final Battle could be too short to matter.

10) Shub-Niggurath – Old but reliable. Shub never fails to make combat a pain, and her Physical Immunity and Sneak Attack makes for a solid Final Battle.

9) Tsathoggua – Not being able to rely on your trophies is bad enough, but shutting off Innsmouth’s Gilman House makes the town remarkably draining. Final Battle is almost impossible without Clues, but his huge Doom Track might provide enough time to stop him.

8) Cthulhu – A little farther down the Top 10 than I’d like, I must admit that while he sleeps, you can still manage to play a pretty effective game. You’ll still be walking on eggshells with a 3/7, though. Seven-round Final Battle is very tough, but even I have noticed that he has no resistances.

7) Yog-Sothoth – It’s surprising how bad that Gate Difficulty thing can suddenly make things. Gate trophies are still hard to spread around, and they don’t last long when you’re trying to balance your Fight and Will every round.

6) Ghatanothoa – One of the most unpredictable AOs ever, Ghata can break a game with a simple flip. However, with some restraint, it’s possible for the Investigators to slowly avoid him. But once he’s awake, forget it. Ghata saves himself a hit point EVERY SINGLE ATTACK, and you wouldn’t believe how quickly that adds up, especially by the fourth round.

5) Zhar – A nigh inconceivable Final Battle, and a short Doom Track to match. A wacky and erratic slumber ability may give you enough slack to dodge him...or to hang yourself.

4) Quachil Uttaus – I think Quachil will settle down lower after more plays, but for now, he’s the only one with that every-turn tension that makes a player insane (Drag Me to Hell). You better play smart and lucky even while being hunted, because you will NOT survive the Final Battle, not with double Immunities and an inescapable attack.

3) Atlach-Nacha – Still one of the worst AOs ever, but interestingly a tad less so for inadvertently cracking the DOR Track in the knee. It’s harder to manage a Closing victory with Innsmouth in play, but the old mass-Sealing strategies still work. Don’t wake him up, or you’ll feed him yourselves.

2) Yibb-Tstll – What Yibb does to Clue-gathering is brutal. What Yibb does with Clues after waking up is just monstrous. A short Doom Track, as many successes as Zhar, and a downright MEAN attack...can you even call this a Battle? Yibb even gets an amazing retro-boost to her Evasion Difficulty now that Innsmouth is so devoted to Sneak.

1) Glaaki – You just can’t keep your stuff, and a naked Investigator is a terrified Investigator. Like Yibb, Glaaki gets a HUGE retro-boost now that Innsmouth’s accelerated devourings threaten to spin the Terror Track out of control. And an out-of-control Terror Track makes for one quick Final Battle, while he STILL takes your stuff!

This list will never truly be finalized, not even with our own individual selves...but hey, something to talk about.

jgt7771 said:

His herald doesn't particularly help, either. The masks still get stuffed into the Outskirts by the monster limit, and they don't do anything to stop investigators with big physical weapons.

Though, losing Cultist trophies makes quite a few personal stories near-impossible, though still not as bad as Abhoth/Rhan-Tegoth.

jgt7771 said:

I'm not sure about this placing. They're nasty, but I'd rather go up against them than against several of the ones rated lower. I'd probably swap them with Abhoth, who can be quite nasty.

jgt7771 said:

They've won several times so far, each time by devouring an Investigator the very turn before they'd have sealed a gate, and then waking up on 5 seals. I do think they'll get easier with practice, and with more than two Investigators there probably wouldn't be the need to risk them eating the current gate sealers.

While as a whole the list is fairly well thought out, I'd rank Cthulhu much lower than 8. The lower stamina/sanity can be a pain but isn't impossible to work around. Also, his final battle is terrifying in concept due the regeneration, but you have such a long time to do so that it's actually not that big a problem in practice.

If you're starting the game he is certainly one of the toughest, but once you've got a fair number of games behind you he starts to lose a lot of impact.

Have you taken into account the difficulty vs low, medium and high number of investigators when making this list? Just asking. Also, it might be interesting to compare one's ranking, after one has made it, with the statistics of tibs for most difficult ancient one.

Victimizer said:

I have not. Most of my games are 4 Investigators, which most agree is the spot where "difficulty" is not affected either way by "number of Investigators"...a "difficulty equilibrium", if you will. I also base this on just AH/IH games, so any more-than-two-boards bonuses do not apply.

This clearly depends a lot on what your typical group strategy is. I'd rank Glaaki as one of the easiest AOs - but my regular group's playing style tends towards preppring for a final battle, rather than making a serious effort to seal. This means you have more time to sweep the streets, so you get fewer Terror level increases. If Glaaki awakens with Terror at 0,1 or 2 (as he has for us, a few times), then he's a pushover. Likewise, I think Atlach-Nacha isn't so bad, but that's because I always spend all my trophies on Allies anyway, so we usually end up with quite a few turns.

Predictability is one of the major factors in AO difficulty. Cthulhu used to look like the nastiest, but I'm starting to realize now that AOs which cause a nasty event to be triggered at random are much worse than the ones where you can predict what will happen. This is basically why Cthulhu isn't so near the top of the rankings any more: he doesn't do anything unexpected during the game, so it's easy to adjust your strategy. A fairly random effect, like (for example) the Tendril of Nyogtha, is usually worse. You can make sure everyone is prepared for it all the time, but that'll probably drain more of the group's resources than just allowing it to devour a few people.

Quachil Uttaus, on the other hand, is an absolute ******. I played against him for the first time a couple of hours ago, and although we almost got six seals down, he awoke unexpectedly (off a double-doom) and absolutely slaughtered us. At least with Tsathoggua, you can theoretically get a hell of a lot of trophies. If you want to beat Quachil, it seems like you basically need to collect every single Clue token in the game and use them all in the final battle.

jgt7771 said:

For people like, who don't prepare AND count final combat as draw, these two are up there (well, were until I got IH, still need to work out where what goes). Yig is perfectly doable in final combat even without preparing, but I prefer a win to a draw. Ithaqua eats everything useful, seriously. When you lose 10 of 11 Items to his Start of Battle while Blessed...

jgt7771 said:

Completed Personal Stories by Norman, Marie and Lily disagree with the 4 rounds (removing, what possible 8 doomers?) . But generally true.

jgt7771 said:

Never having played against Eihort, I think he wouldn't affect my style of play too much. I use every investigator as jack-of-all-trades, instead of "sweeper" or "closer" roles.

jgt7771 said:

Still my 2nd easiest GOO of all-time. Don't honestly know why, it just happens. Recent games have had 2-3 monster surges at max, so Shudde wouldn't have bugged me too much, even though things would've gone to final combat.

jgt7771 said:

Tied for the 3rd easiest. I think Cthugha might be joining them eventually, long doom-trackers tend to rank worse for me.

jgt7771 said:

GLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII! Truly my nemesis as well. Still early days with IH GOOs, will see what's what in about 43 games from now .

(Chaugnar Faugn)

Dam said:

Unless, of course, that completion counted towards your 3 for that round... I'm guessing not for Norman and Lily, since they're start of battle powers, but Marie (and Tommy) probably would count towards the limit.

Good point. CAO could also make Pinky less durable.

Thanks for posting this, I love lists

>21) Nyarlathotep – I really hate this, but even with all his Masks, he’s just so “slight” to gameplay. Innsmouth added a lot of “foot soldiers”, so >losing Cultist trophies is even less of a big deal. Clues are still a plentiful resource to locate for the Final Battle.

Post-Dunwich surely everyone uses some sort of Spawn rules for the Masks?

Although it would be nice to have some sort of "official variant".

I've been considering recently placing all of the masks face up on the AO sheet and making their placement dependent upon the dimension symbol of the gate.

E.g. gate to dreamlands, check if an available mask is on the AO sheet,

if so then that is the monster placed subject to a die roll (roll equal or less than number of investigators?)

Moon monsters would need something else, perhpas roll the die for them whenever a mythos card instructs to place a monster in the streets?

Under a set up like this I'd probably return defeated masks to the AO face down and only have each appear once per game.

Each mask on the board, or face up on AO at start of FB adds +1 doom.

... I'm in the wrong forum here arnen't I? Got carried away

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

edit: remember that if masks are treated as spawn they are not removed when their gate is closed, so there is no inadvertant assist to players in making their appearance linked to the relevant gate

Mariana the Ex-Nun Cultist said:

Been thinking along similar lines for the Masks. Infact I think each GOO should have a separate themed cup; every time a related gate opens (obvious example Ryleh for Cthulhu; of course this means some contrived links between some GOO and gates) an extra monster is drawn from the themed cup. Monsters in the themed cup would all be treated as Spawn.

my top 5 fav AO'S:

1. Glakki, love zombies, love the Campbell story it is from, cool art, nice spawn monsters.

2. Cthulhu, come on do i need to explain?

3. Gharnawhatever, so nerve wracking flipping faces!

4. Quachil, creepy, just plain creepy.

5. Hastur, but only with his herald, blights!

Eihorts rank depends a lot on #investigators. With 4+ it's much easier than with 3-.

Thanks for taking the time and effort to try to rank all twenty-four AO's. I agree with a number of your rankings, but not all. Shub-Niggurath in particular I think you place much too highly; she should be down in Bokrug's place in my opinion, while Abhoth and Y'golonac are rated too low.

There is one factual correction I feel I should make. You wrote,

jgt7771 said:

Final Battle with Tsathoggua is impossible WITH Clues too; he makes you discard all of your Clue tokens at the start of the Final Battle, remember?

Solan said:

Hmmm. I actually did know that, and was commenting directly on it. I guess my sentence suffers from poor grammar. This is better: "Because you are without Clues, the Final Battle is almost impossible."

It looks like my most obvious areas of contention are Shub and Cthulhu. And I think some of that can be attributed to (obviously) differences in play. We all do things differently--the true glory of AH's customizability--and I bet every AO is someone's arch-nemesis.

KGT, come on, how can you put Glaaki as your #1 hardest GOO???

It is one of my favourites indeed, but I consider it to be among the easiest Ancient Ones.

Not as easy as, say, Yig or Azathoth, but I'd say Cthulhu, Atlach and Quachil are waaaay harder.

I'd agree with you if your chart was just about your tastes- but I quite disagree if it just ranks them by difficulty.

Ah... Quachil Uttaus.

My favourite Ancient One ever, and they did an amazingly fine job in putting him into Arkham Horror. The dust decks are the creepiest thing I ever saw in this game. We love him so much

So, here's my top 5 in terms of difficulty- #1 is the hardest of course.

-5 Eihort: I'm not so sure it has to be among the hardest 5, but I find it to be quite unbeatable in Final Battle. Its parasites are just a lovely thing though.

-4 Quachil Uttaus: well, the dust deck is creepy and dangerous, but being devoured is often a small issue: sometimes it even helps you in getting rid of a weak investigator. Also, when you're drawing from the 3rd deck, you can just give all your items to another investigator before facing the unavoidable.

Final battle vs. Quachil is impossibile, but who cares? Azathoth is even worse since "he wins. Period."

-3: Ghatanothoa: one of my favourite GOOs ever. I love playing Russian Roulette with it, and its random way of immediatly devouring investigators is even more dangerous than Quachil's

-2 Cthulhu: oh boy, I've been playing this game for 3 years, and I never, ever won against Cthulhu. I must admit that we're so pissed off with him that we often skip to another GOO if Cthulhu is randomly drawn.

-1 Atlach-Nacha (or whatever its name is): with Cthulhu, you could seal gates, at least. This GOO is just a nightmare come true.

Gott said:

For me Glaaki is THE nemesis, that "discard 2 Clue tokens" Servant always hits at the worst time. Usually when 2 or more investigators are heading to seal gates with 5-6 Clues. Cthulhu on the other hand has never posed any problems. He was the last base game GOO I played and I dreaded him, but after the game I was like "huh, that was Cthulhu, can't believe I bought into the hype". Cthulhu has a 13 doom track, combined with a minimal game effect (yes, -1 max Sta + San seems bad, but it very easy to work around it). Cultists are only trouble if you draw them. And even then they only in a minor way. Only time I lost to him, managed to draw 2 "a gate and a monster appears" in a space of 1 or 2 turns, leading to too many gates open. Other 4 games (excluding the first meeting with him where I mistakenly bought the hype) I've known I can go about my business and don't have to worry about Cthulhu's impact, definately in the "discard 2 Clues" manner. Big C is bad in final combat, no doubt, it's just he is up against it trying to wake up (instead of the investigators trying to keep him slumbering).

Well, the Servants of Glaaki are nasty indeed, but they never appear in some 50%-70% of our games.

Unless a Mythos card says "Terror level goes up" or the "Southside Strangles" rumor appears, we usually manage to keep Terror do 0 and all Allies safe.

Talking about the Servants, the only ones I'd worry about are the skill and Clue-discarding, while the others are easily bearable, *usually*.

But tell you what: whether Glaaki is easy or hard, I just love it

Gott said:

Yeah, remains to be seen how bad Glaaki is with the IH added as well. Terror has been relatively minor for the most part. Of course, drawing Blue/Green/Yellow into Innsmouth, especially when Devil's Reef opens helps.

Urgh, just have to post, even though it follows another post of mine. Rhan-Tegoth just made Yig look as slow as molasses. 7 Mythos cards drawn and he woke from doom track filling (11) . Certainly didn't help first 3 gates all saw a Cultist up front (and assuming "treated as Cultist" = Cultist for RT). So he woke up with 17 doomers . Shockingly, did get him down to 8 before keeling over. Rhan-Tegoth is looking quite nasty from the first outing. Even without triple Cultist doomers, that final combat is very nasty.

I know nobody's wondering, but just in case, it was 6 different gates + double doomer and Cultists each added a doomer.

Case in point: Gott and Dam (erung). One thinks Glaaki is not too bad, the other calls him arch-nemesis. One thinks Cthulhu is a nightmare, the other thinks he's just a load of hype. It's the same sheet of cardstock either way, so the only difference is their experiences. So any list of horror or difficulty is always going to be shaded with "personal taste", and no one can really be "wrong". One can merely be "disagreed with".

Except about Atlach-Nacha. Anyone who thinks the Spider God is a pushover isn't playing the game right.

Dam, thanks for spotlighting the reason why Rhan-Tegoth ranks #12. Your game could have easily been with a few less open Gates and a few less Cultists...BUT IT WASN'T.

(I honestly wasn't planning to post, but a debate between Gott and Dam translates SO EASILY to "Götterdämmerung", the "Twilight of the Gods", that I couldn't resist.)

jgt7771 said:

Ah, I see. I'm sorry that I misunderstood you. Yes, differences in play and luck will clearly influence each player's perception of a given AO, especially between those players who try for six seals and those who solely prepare for final combat from the beginning. Personally, I have found Glaaki to be as formidible as ever with Innsmouth. Last game he pulled an especially cruel trick, with the first card being Lynch Mob. Boom, an ally gone and a Servant present.

Oh mamma mia ,

We just won our very first game vs. Cthulhu today!

3 players, all playing 3 SAN investigators (Gangster, Soldier and Bounty Hunter- A team chosen on purpose ): We won in some 6 game turns by closing all gates, with only one Monster Surge.

We hadn't been playing vs. Cthulhu for 2 years: our last experienca proved to be quite traumatic.

So, yes, I'd say that a GOO difficulty is actually based on players' perception A LOT.

jgt7771 said:

For the open gates, after adding IH (probably before that as well, just that those games were 6+ months ago...) surges and bounces have severely lessened. Today's 6 gates were: Y'ha (first ever, 7th game with IH in there; only 2 gate cards in 207 card Mythos deck), Esoteric Order of Dagon, Wizard's Hill, Graveyard, Witch House and Historical Society. That leaves still 3 of the 4 major hot spots available for doom token (as well as Devil's Reef, which sees plent of action).

For the Cultists, somehow I'm already anticipating that all my R-T games will see 2+ Cultist (or wannabes) drawn . BTW, when you wake the GOO during setup, before you even get to the first Mythos card, what do you call it ? William Yorick keeps on drawing Cultists, suddenly it's final combat time. Or maybe he "just" draws 6, closing General Store and Curiositie Shoppe during pre-game .

cim said:

Arkham Horror Rule 1: "If you are in doubt as to how a rule or ability functions in any given situation, choose the option that is worst for the Investigators".

Though Start of Battle is not actually defined as a phase IIRC, I'd say that Norman and Lily's abilities would be used at the same time as the GOO devours anyone who is LITAS. That being before FB round 1, they won't count.

Tommy's PS is debatable, as Chaugnar's FB text says that only three Doom tokens can be removed per round of combat, but to ignore further successes . Tommy's PS doesn't award successes, it simply removes a token. I'd apply Rule 1 and say that it counts to the limit.

Marie's power indisputably counts to the limit as it is used in a phase and phases are part of rounds. It's not all bad, though; as an Any Phase ability it can be used during GOO attack if you removed less than three tokens this turn.

I do think Chaugnar has been assessed far too weakly on that list. Nine times out of ten he's Azathoth with a 12-space Doom track and a special that can make it tough even to reach the second Gate in a given neighbourhood. An R'lyeh Gate opening in Backwoods Country after you've sealed something there can be disastrous; if the wrong monsters come out, the Dunwich Horror is sure to come play.