Im just biased because of some recent run-ins with the Daemon Sultan, which were some of the most desperate games I have ever played (see my sig). In one (the one where the doubledoomer popped up by its own free will just after I rolled '6' on a mystic environment that opened play), Azathoth started the game with 4 Doom, and the team with just 2 clues...Ive never had a game with Yig that even came close to that kind of suspense.

mattherobot said:

Have you whiniy guys ever played the very first edition of Arkham Horror, far back in 1987?

'Cause it worked just like Azathoth does now: if the Doom Track hit 13, Arkham was dooomed and the whole town collapsed and shredded into time and space.

Uh, and there were no GOOs: they actually were monster pawns.

I remember playing a game in 2006 where Ghatanothoa, Cthulhu, Shub-Niggurath and Yog-Sothoth spawned at the Silver Twilight Lodge after a few monster surges.

And we managed to win

To be honest, I think most people have a hard enough time believing that a few people can defeat an unfathomable alien intelligence on their own. That said monster would be strolling around the streets and susceptible to a few bursts from a tommy gun or a particularly vicious sucker punch is beyond the realm of plausibility.

In other words, no, haven't played it -- but from what I've read, it is far less advanced than the current edition.

And we don't discard Azathoth or Yig because they're hard, we discard them because they're A. easy (I don't think we've lost a game against either, maybe Yig once) and B. boring (Azathoth moreso, here).

Gott said:

Im not one of the 'whiniy guys' but yeah, I still got mine It has been played with many many times over rainy days (Im from Britain, so no shortage). The box cover is still awesome The GOOs could show up on turn 1! And yet the game would roll on...

mattherobot said:

and C) because we dont know how to play Azzie right Seriously, Azathoth can be a lot of fun. Just beef him up a bit if you are a veteran.

dj2.0 said:

Except not even the BGotW Herald could boost Azzy enough for it to wake up. Only mention BGotW Herald, because people whine and ***** about him being too powerful (most powerful?). Expansions used naturally has an effect on his usefulness, but I can't be the only all-inner who gets low to zero monster surges? Can't be all down to shuffling, can it?

Dam said:

We get surges fairly regularly, although we don't use all expansions at once. But to be honest, I don't feel that the Black Goat herald doesn't add much to the game. "Oh, so now monster surges are bad too, eh?" We tried it once and realized that aside from the hex cup (woo, tons of Dark Young) it really doesn't make things more interesting, just harder in a very linear fashion.

I'd rather boost Nyarlatothep somehow, who actually has a chance of affecting the game in an interesting way with the Mask monsters. If I were going to boost Azathoth I would probably just rather write my own AO in Strange Eons.

mattherobot said:

For me, Heralds are all about making the game more difficult. And with the BGotW Herald, you get Corruptions, which leads more often then not to Cult Membership(s).

Dam said:

I guess they are nice as a way to increase the difficulty, but I tend to prefer those which act more like different scenarios, like the Green Flame. Corruptions have never really caused us many problems, but it might just be that we haven't played with the herald enough.

Talking about Arkham Horror- 1987 Edition:

mattherobot said:

You shouldn't believe to what other people say: the 1987 edition *IS* a lor more "basic" than the current one, but that doesn't mean it is less amusing: it is easier to learn, quicker to run and still funny to play.

Furthermore, monster movement, and damages to Sanity / Stamina were better balanced.

Oh and it was even harder somehow: there only were a few Elder Signs and no clue tokens: Victories were only scored by closing all gates, so Elder signs just helped in preventing a few gates from opening, but nothing else.

Check it out. I got two copies of that game and sometimes we still play it.

dj2.0 said:

What do you mean with "Britain = no shortage"? Is the game still printed there?

I think he means no shortage of rainy days.

mattherobot said:

I don't think Corruptions were meant to be a problem as such, more of another clock for the GOO to wake up and the investigators to spiral further toward the "Dark Side" . In some combinations they can mess you up quickly, any Sanity 3 investigator in a Cthulhu game that gets the lose 2 Sanity one (Nightmarish Visions) will become very familiar with the Asylum. Corruptions are fun though, at least for me. Maybe I'll get the BGotW Herald in the upcoming games (I'm randomising the Herald by rolling the 5 dice, choosing the Herald who has most numbers; no KH, so 6 Herald, alphabetical order).

Looks like we all got "voter fatigue"; things kinda petered out at the end there. For this is how the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.

Final stat points-of-interest for those still on the phone:

Most Total Votes / Most Hurt / Most Healed (Total / -1 / +1):

Cthulhu – 40 / 25 / 15
Yog-Sothoth – 36 / 23 / 13
Quachil Uttaus – 34 / 22 / 12
Nyarlathotep – 34 / 22 / 12
Bokrug – 28 / 19 / 9
Y’Golonac – 28 / 19 / 9
Hastur – 28 / 19 / 9

Least Total Votes / Least Hurt / Least Healed (Total / -1 / +1):

Shudde M'ell – 10 / 10 / 0
Yig – 12 / 11 / 1
Yibb-Tstll – 12 / 11 / 1
Shub-Niggurath – 14 / 12 / 2
Azathoth – 16 / 13 / 3
Nyogtha – 16 / 13 / 3

Ghatanothoa is in an extremely unique position. After four contests, Ghata is the only winner to walk away with a score greater than 1 (finishing with a final score of 4). This gives him an odd final stat tally of 18 / 12 / 6, so he was one of the top 5 Least Hurt, but he was Healed more than the bottom 6. Shudde M'ell is also unique, being the only participant ever to not receive a single Heal (this contest only).

Last Ancient One to receive its first -1 Hurt: Zhar

Last Ancient Ones to hold a score of 10 of any kind: Ghatanothoa and Quachil Uttaus (both lost their last 10s during the same vote by Jedit)

Greatest Banes of Ancient Ones:

Bel-Shamharoth* – 3 eliminations (Hastur, Yibb-Tstll, Chaugnar Faugn)
dj2.0 – 3 eliminations (Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Glaaki)
jgt7771 – 3 eliminations (Atlach-Nacha, Ithaqua, Y’Golonac)
Renderfalls – 3 eliminations (Abhoth, Yog-Sothoth, Quachil Uttaus)
Dam – 2 eliminations (Cthugha, Shub-Niggurath)
Gott – 2 eliminations (Rhan-Tegoth, Cthulhu)
mageith – 2 eliminations (Nyogtha, Shudde M’ell)

* Also has the distinction of the only double elimination in this contest (Yibb-Tstll and Chaugnar Faugn in one vote).

johnwatersfan said:

correct

jgt7771 said:

Im wondering how much these results would change in about 6 months time. These guys are new and are still in their honeymoon period.

dj2.0 said:

Can't speak for others (unless authorised ), but in my mind the GOO ranking is pretty fixed already. Don't anticipate any major shifts in the future.

Dam said:

you are hearby authorised to speak for everyone, for all time

Reason I ask is because Ive only played a max of 1 game with any of the new AOs and it hardly seems fair to judge them from that, as compared to the trillintillions of matches against the others. I probably wont change my mind, but its staying open.

Ack, had my first Ghatanothoa final combat today. OMG that -1 success for each investigator's attack is sneaky. 1 hit = 0 hit. Which was bad because I had two fairly weak attackers and two heavy-hitters. Norman and Tommy's PS helped no doubt, doesn't mean I like Norman's still. 2x Map of Arkham and Inner Beast also contributed, allowing Roland to get off 8 attacks at 10+ dice a pop. Roland was the last man standing, would've kicked the bucket at the end of this turn, but managed to get the needed 6 hits (Bullwhip helped as well). That's twice now Roland has been the last man standing (against Zhar was his first). Ghatanothoa didn't devour anyone with 7 flips total (guess the next one would've gotten someone). Man, Dagon is bastard when it comes to Terror. That "must spend if able" hurts, but then I always seem to get a non-preventable Terror rise (i.e. Mythos card) when someone has 0 Clues, meaning doomer as well. Oh yeah, Ghatanothoa woke from doom track filling after 15 Mythos cards (Dagon means 2 during setup, so 13 turns), Dunwich Horror was 1 token away from waking up. Could've woken him myself, got the Earl Sawyer encounter while in Dunwich late in the game, but declined. No Elder Signs in the game.

Dam said:

First Zhar, now Ghatanothoa?!?! You have to get the Epic Battle cards, since the AO's apparently need the help against your group. Oh, and given your seven flips comment, you do reember to turn over and reshuffle all Visage tokens when you get down to four, right?

Solan said:

Maybe I need to ban Roland instead ! Seriously though, he does get +1 die each turn with his ability. Yeah, I remembered. The Visage token are easy to hand shuffle (cup them in your hands and shake), and have a distinct feel each side, so you can then place them all with the Ghatanothoa side up without peeking at them (perhaps this is helped after doing the same with the trigger tiles in LotR: Battlefields expansion, which are as distinct). I place them into 2 rows of four, for the first four, I just flipped the bottom line, nada, then shuffled, planned on picking the middle two in each row, didn't quite get to 4 flips. Ghatanothoa's face was in the lower-right corner though, checked while re-packing. There is also that Plot card that drops Ghatanothoa's attack back to 1, Roland would've gotten possibly 16 attacks (160+ dice) if that had come up.

Dam said:

It's nasty, but it's usually exactly equivalent to Cthulhu in terms of the number of extra hits you need (on the one hand, it has a greater impact on the final round; on the other hand if you get a string of unlucky rolls for a turn, you don't actually go backwards). Of course, most Investigators, unless you have a bit of luck with items, don't get as long against Ghatanothoa as against Cthulhu.

cim said:

True. Difference between them is mostly a perception one, with Ghatanothoa, you can see the doom track slowly, but surely coming down, with Cthulhu, you can actually see it going back up after a poor turn, disheartening to say the least (though fitting of course for the game). I know in my only final combat against Cthulhu so far, I wailed at him like crazy, easily went past the 52 hits needed, except I didn't get those 52 in the first round, so he'd healed 5-6 doomers by then. Wiki doesn't have Ghatanothoa's Plots up (or any IH GOO so far it seems), so can't check, but Cthulhu definately has really nasty ones. And he was no pushover to begin with. With Norman, Tommy and Marie, I suppose there might come a time when I beat Cthulhu in final combat, but not holding my breath that's for sure (and even then, Marie would most likely get used during game, going for a win).

Beating Cthulhu (or Ghatanothoa) is probably a lot easier with 2 Investigators than 4 (unlike Zhar or Quachil Uttaus, say), since you need all of your Investigators to be capable of dealing out a fair amount of damage even against a -6 modifier. With Cthulhu you get 7 attacks (usually), which means you need to take about 2 net doom tokens off a round, which means rolling enough dice to get 3 hits on average. We've beaten them once in combat - I can't remember exactly which investigators, but it was two high fight ones with good weapons. Possibly someone had a blessing for all or part of the fight.

Ghatanothoa most Investigators would be lucky to get 7 attacks, though - but if you have a couple of movement-enhancing items, they can be given to the slowest characters and then traded to the faster characters when they become insufficient, which means it can go longer. Again, we've beaten them once (Tommy Muldoon and someone one movement point slower, who was dead before the end of the fight - Tommy also failed his PS that time, so I'm guessing he goes on to be an embittered old cop, never able to get past the people he failed to save, and never able to find a danger sufficiently evil to redeem him)

Dam said:

A one in three chance, remember. I've had the pleasure of experiencing all of Ghatanothoa's Sinister Plots, and trust me, the other two are quite nasty (and very cool, especially Cat and Mouse!). The Taint of Evil would certainly have hurt you, and, depending on your Investigators' stats and equipment, other green cards could have been harmful as well. And of course if you were indeed lucky enough to get Ghatanothoa's sole beneficial Sinister Plot, you would still have been at risk from "The End of Everything", not to mention some of the other red cards. I don't think there's much question that it's a harder fight against Ghatanothoa with Epic Battle than without.