I've just completed my fourth game against the Syzygy and lost. Again. Four attempts. Four losses.

I was wondering which Old Ones you guys have yet to beat, whether pre or post awakening. For instance, I've never beaten Cthulhu or Ithaqua post-awakening.

Maybe we can share some hints and tips on how to finally overcome the evil that will not die!

I have found out that Resting usually is not a good idea as it takes too much time to be effective especially with being poisoned, unless you are the Combo Daisy or have 1+ Relics that begin with "When you combo perform a rest Action".

Also some nice i would say Advanced techniques are if you are poisoned, get all the Dark Pacts/Agreements that you can for the extra stuff in choice encounters, give your stuff away and bleed out.

Starting out with a fresh investigator is very much worth the Doom +1 (which in most cases can be reduced even).

Charlie Kane is the KING of support characters. Stick him into Tokyo in the first few rounds and send Japanese Battleships around the world to kill monsters, most of the checks there test Influence which is perfect and once you are there you can Buy stuff, distribute AND give the spare action to the person who needs it most. I almost think this is cheating sometimes.

Also consider playing with 4 Investigators if not, or 8. Statistics show that 8 investigators have the highest win % (might be due to insufficient data, but I think there is some truth to it) and the second best scenario is with 4 Investigators.

Although playing with 8 Investigators tends to get quite long.

Also some games are unwinnable when you lose 2 and 2 unless you Discard a bless, lose 3 Health unless you throw yourself on the ground, Impair yourself 3 times and so on, so you might just run into some Bad luck streak and nothing you can do about that.

Runko, I too try and push the investigators hard and not rest too much, but at the same time I don't want to outright sacrifice them to gain an advantage. I prefer to play the game out as the story and a sense of self-preservation would dictate. Not that investigators aren't willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, but only when the pressure is really on.

Likewise, I know I'm shooting myself in the foot a bit by mostly choosing investigators randomly, but I prefer it that way.

Agreed on Charlie Kane. If he's in play I always send him to Tokyo, but more often than not he doesn't get to spend very long there. A monster either chases him away or a gate will spawn right under his nose. Then there'll be a monster surge. It's practically guaranteed

As to the number of investigators, 4 is my default. I've seldom tried more as space is an issue and a larger table is high on my list of things to get (finding new ways to make my set-up more efficient has become a hobby in itself).

Also agreed on how some games are simply unwinnable. I've had games in which the first handful of turns has convinced me it just doesn't want me to win. Or, at some stage I get what I call a Conspiracy of Mythos cards - in other words, several Mythos cards that work so perfectly in tandem with each other that I can only conclude the game is self-aware, pure evil, and has devised a fiendish plot to humiliate me (or it's just great design by the folks at FFG. Maybe).

Runko, I too try and push the investigators hard and not rest too much, but at the same time I don't want to outright sacrifice them to gain an advantage. I prefer to play the game out as the story and a sense of self-preservation would dictate. Not that investigators aren't willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, but only when the pressure is really on.

Likewise, I know I'm shooting myself in the foot a bit by mostly choosing investigators randomly, but I prefer it that way.

Agreed on Charlie Kane. If he's in play I always send him to Tokyo, but more often than not he doesn't get to spend very long there. A monster either chases him away or a gate will spawn right under his nose. Then there'll be a monster surge. It's practically guaranteed

As to the number of investigators, 4 is my default. I've seldom tried more as space is an issue and a larger table is high on my list of things to get (finding new ways to make my set-up more efficient has become a hobby in itself).

Also agreed on how some games are simply unwinnable. I've had games in which the first handful of turns has convinced me it just doesn't want me to win. Or, at some stage I get what I call a Conspiracy of Mythos cards - in other words, several Mythos cards that work so perfectly in tandem with each other that I can only conclude the game is self-aware, pure evil, and has devised a fiendish plot to humiliate me (or it's just great design by the folks at FFG. Maybe).

Seems like you know the strategy, you just need to pass your Will check

My hardest is Yig, but that is mostly because our group does not want to deal with awakened ancient ones and we Forfeit those games usually.

Second hardest is Cthulhu.

Have to say I'm very surprised to hear your group forfeits some games after awakening, Runko. The very best games are the ones that go to the wire and that only really happens post-awakening.

I know that Yig is regarded as one of the hardest AOs, and he is, but strangely I have a winning record against him. 3 wins, 2 losses, and two of those wins came post-awakening. Lily Chen has twice taken him down.

Cthulhu is definately tough. On one occasion I had him where I wanted him, wounded (3 damage) and Agnes facing him with a grand total of 11 dice, including re-rolls. She needed 4 successes and had an effect that gave her two successes for each six rolled. I could smell Cthulhu's fear.

And what happens? Not one...single...success. I wanted to destroy the dice. I'm over it now. Kinda.

Yig and syzygy

Have to say I'm very surprised to hear your group forfeits some games after awakening, Runko. The very best games are the ones that go to the wire and that only really happens post-awakening.

It's mostly because they remember the Awakened Ancient ones from Arkham Horror which was a dice fest which they hated. Even though this game is different, the memory still triggers a Pavlov's reflex

Just a thought on a new strategy for dealing with the Syzygy. I can't try it right now, but maybe someone can, or has tried it before.

What if we ignored solving mysteries and focused purely on gaining assets, improving skills and harvesting clues as much as possible? I'm not sure, but it seems like the Syzygy Sealing the Portal deck mostly requires multiple successes and maybe spending clues.

If investigators have enough dice to roll, the lack of mystery-solving might not matter so much.

Yig and Cthulhu.

Just a thought on a new strategy for dealing with the Syzygy. I can't try it right now, but maybe someone can, or has tried it before.

What if we ignored solving mysteries and focused purely on gaining assets, improving skills and harvesting clues as much as possible? I'm not sure, but it seems like the Syzygy Sealing the Portal deck mostly requires multiple successes and maybe spending clues.

If investigators have enough dice to roll, the lack of mystery-solving might not matter so much.

I don't think that's viable, but it might be viable trying to solve only 1 mystery instead of 2. Especially if the second mystery is....

...... I need to do WHAT?....

Just a thought on a new strategy for dealing with the Syzygy. I can't try it right now, but maybe someone can, or has tried it before.

What if we ignored solving mysteries and focused purely on gaining assets, improving skills and harvesting clues as much as possible? I'm not sure, but it seems like the Syzygy Sealing the Portal deck mostly requires multiple successes and maybe spending clues.

If investigators have enough dice to roll, the lack of mystery-solving might not matter so much.

I don't think that's viable, but it might be viable trying to solve only 1 mystery instead of 2. Especially if the second mystery is....

...... I need to do WHAT?....

I think I've only ever managed to solve 1 mystery against Syzygy (in any one game that is).

I was close to two in my last game, because I was twice able to move the omen track to a space of my choosing, which brought me a few extra rounds. Still flipped before I could solve a second mystery though.