Big game last night. Tentacle and hair raising tension as the game teetered in the balance for over 30 minutes before being brutally broken...
Some background for those who dont know the vacation joys of Innsmouth - Dagon and Hydra are cumulative heralds who shorten the Deep One Rising track to 4. Permanently. This means tactically you have to send someone over to Innsmouth to lay down the groundwork for calling in the Feds, immediately, or the Ancient One will awaken. Thats 5 clues you wont be using at game start, and another one later when the track has risen. And it will rise.
Additionally, unless you get lucky and draw a monster surge in setup, you are effectively facing Cthulhu with a Doom track of 11, because two gates will be open on upkeep turn 1, 3 at end of turn 1...and you must keep the monsters down or Dagon not only swipes clues from everyone but probably adds doom every time the terror increases...Hydra isnt as bad and only makes surges slightly more painful, but this synergises with Dagons terror boost by causing terror to rise faster.
My team was a kind of dream team of co-operative investigators - all 5/5s, with good speed, and powerful collaborative potential - Patrice, Mandy, Leo and Rex. Their starting equipment was mostly totally bogus - 2 tasks for Leo, Mandy was hiding a knife and an ancient spear under her dark cloak but was dangerously low on sanity after reading too much about the cthulhu mythos, Rex had a whip, an alien statue that he couldnt risk using at all, a spell to deny the effect of the innsmouth look and one to pass a horror check, and a soul gem he wouldnt be sucking any monsters power into at all. Patrice had a Yithian rifle, and Leo was skilled in good old fisticuffs, and they had a good smattering of clues, but overall the team did not look in good shape.
But the synergy was awesome. Damage limitation on instant stamina and sanity loss for entire team? Check. On failed skill checks? Check. Clue sharing inside team? Check. Clue generation? Double Check.
I spent turn 1 gathering up clues, and sending Leo to punch out one of the 2 innsmouth lookers that had wandered into Arkham. Cthulhu opened a gate - to R'lyeh! - on Rex during his first encounter at the Unnamable and my sanity plummeted more than 20% in one go (kudos to those who spot the reference) as Cthulhu was suddenly looking finished with his deepest slumber by turn 1, the top bar almost full. I had planned to go to Innsmouth to get the feds ready before martial law, but seeing this I suddenly thought, screw Innsmouth, I need to get some seals down fast! So off went Leo and Mandy on turn 2, while Patrice stayed around to gather the remainder of the clues. It started to rain. Hard.
After a pretty unenventful trudge through the otherworlds (even R'yleh was smooth going, the only bad thing was Leo forgot about (lost) a task and had to pay to keep another which offered the team 4 future clues) which ended with everyone being returned at the second stage thanks to power fluxes (even R'yleh was resting) I had 3 seals down by the 4th turn, but Cthulhu was at Doom 6...only enough clues for 1 more seal, and no clues used in gathering evidence over at Innsmouth...pop...the Deep Ones rose to meet the half way point of their plot...but Cthulhu was Doom 6 still, so no martial law. Mandy was hampered by a local guide she picked up in Celaeno and the incessant bad weather in Arkham, but she pushed through the rain to the science building, as Rex made a slow trudge through the torrential downpour to the south church, and Leo crushed a witch, cultist and skeleton that had started terroritzing rivertown. With his bare hands. In the pouring rain.
Leo had turned up to smackdown just in time - a surge occurred, spewing out another four monsters, and the terror level started rising. Dagon hit us hard. Cthulhu went to 7 anyway, and martial law was declared. The last clue was going to be stripped from Rex just as he was approaching the church readying to lift his curse, meaning he would forever after be cursed. Patrice had to pay for him to save him from this fate, as well as herself and Leo, leaving Mandy with 3, and Patrice with 4 clues, and 3 seals to go and only 2 clues left on the Arkham board......bump...another deep one rising token was then added to Innsmouth....its now just 2 away from being filled...I was suddenly looking at facing Cthulhu at -8, with additional squeezes on the teams heart and brains and additional strikes needed to nail him thanks to the proto shoggoth and deep one in the outskirts and streets,,,and I had a yithian rifle, a whip, and a knife to defend the entire crew with...Mandy must go in again. With 2 sanity and 2 stamina...
Undaunted, but still brutally hampered by the rain falling like cats and dogs, Mandy drags her guide through the city of the great race, meets Barnabus Marsh and runs him through with the ancient spear, striking a blow that brings Cthulhu down to 6 doom (does martial law ever undeclare itself?, sorry, false alarm folks, get back to fishing...), and with Patrices help puts seal 4 down on the unvisited isle, but she gets slammed by the Lloigor thats lurking there when she returns, and is now on the edge of injury and madness, or even an instant devouring. Rex and Leo, also limited by the rain, also had to attend to their own care - Leo was almost completely doolally and booked some electro-shock therapy at the asylum, and Rex, having reached the church and been released from his curse, was now hanging out there looking for clues and a free blessing while he stayed out of the rain lashed streets. He found nothing. Patrice legged it to the newspaper on a similar clue seeking mission... and found nothing...bop...another elder sign does its work, terror rises again, clues are stripped away and Cthulhu reclaims the doom lost to Marsh, and the deep ones are clamouring for the imminent rise of their grandpappy...at this point, Rex had to choose someone to be Lost in time, so off he went, to materialise in the Esoteric Order of Dagon 2 turns later and desperately try to stem the tide...Patrice could only hop from the newspaper to the curiosity shop, because cultists (again) were blocking her exits with their pet gug. Mandy, still crippled to 2 movement by her guide and the pissing rain, could only hop from building to building at the university, looking for an angle while she supported the others with her researches. She recovered some of her composure (was now at 3 sanity, 1 stamina) but was basicaly written out of the script by this point... It was down to Leo with his 2 gate trophies to get to the science building and make his way to a gate for seal 5...but then, something happened. Mandy turned up enough clues with Patrices help to make a run to the city of the great race again, but she was on her last legs and her way was blocked by (you guessed it) cultists, with pet gug, in the french hill streets. Crud. So she hangs around nearby in the Library, looking at books with her ******* guide, watching the rain hammer down through the windows and knowing she can save the world but for this sorry state of affairs. Then it happened. Shes looking through some old book, and finds an astral projection spell. At the same moment, across town, Patrice is browsing at the curiosity shop, and behind a bookshelf (eery coinkidink...) she spots a portrait, with a pattern in it...she gets lucky, figures it out, and discovers an elder sign! Edge of seat stuff as the mythos phase dawns...and a surge happens! Mandy (and guide!) astrally projects to the city of the great race as Patrice runs through the streets (now cleared of cultists by Leos fists but still pelting down with rain), hands the sign to him in a tag, and he runs through the final gate...can I even begin to describe the tension of those two turns? Rex was madly sneaking around Innsmouth, gathering evidence the feds would respond to and praying he wasnt gonna see Cthulhu himself rising off the shoreline any second, Patrice could only watch for signs of Leos return and keep dry, it all hung on Mandy and Leo, both with hearts and minds hanging by a thread, to boost one another on the slog through the otherworlds, hoping that the next 2 turns wouldnt crack open the world.
They did.
not. Monsters surged forwards angrily again twice, but nothing could stop my team. Cthulhu was sealed out at doom 6!!
For those interested, the score was 19, the expansions were IH & BgotW (but I use all other cards from all other expansions, just none of their mythos cards), and not a single gate opened in innsmouth. I think if it had, I would have lost. But Innsmouth slept. Not even a monster, and if you can reverse martial law, it finished outside of it. The Stars Were Right, and Innsmouth was all quiet, for the very first time I have used it! This, the luck I had with drawing many weak monsters like cultists, the team synergy, the blessed surges, and Patrice (my first time playing with her, no she is not broken), were what won me the game. Just.
It was a ridiculous amount of unfeasibly good fun!
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