So, I may have discovered the most lethal combination of cards in the game. I'd set up against Yig, drew two preludes and picked one. I figured I'd try the Child of Abhoth prelude, simply because I'd never used it before (each investigator gains an illness condition and 1 clue).

First round, and I fail to shake any of the illnesses. Then the first Mythos card - Food for Worms (ongoing, each investigator gains an illness condition, then on the next reckoning, investigators loses 3 health for each illness condition they have).

In short, the next Mythos card (Wanderlust) has a reckoning. One investigator is already defeated, the rest are left so crippled that over the next three rounds they could do nothing but watch as gates popped up everywhere, while trying to avoid a proto-shoggoth. Doom hits 6 and I have accomplished nothing and the Child of Abhoth epic monster, which I now have no chance of taking down, keeps churning out more illnesses, preventing healing.

Now I'm as much of a masochist as any of us who love this game, but that was ridiculous . It's not often I quit a game so early, but it was effectively over after the first round. I called it in the fifth Mythos phase.

Brutal.

We played against Ithaqua with the Doomsayer from Antarctica prelude. Got a lot of snow on the east coast so it made sense.

I can't believe that my BIL's Charlie Kane got the Heart of Winter 1/4 the way into the game, so lucky.

All in all things went pretty well, here is the state of the game at the end:

http://i.imgur.com/TYkjlsC.jpg

Doom track was already removed before I took the picture but it was around 8 or 9 so again, things were well in hand this time.

Got 2/3rds of the way through the prelude adventure which culminated with that shoggoth you see in at the City of Elder Things. We left it alone to push hard to finish the final mystery which was just a research encounter put a clue on the card one.

I really need to remember to do the Mystery staging variant. That's where you look at the possible mysteries and put the ones that seem more thematically early game vs late game into 2 different piles.

Thus that gathering information one could of been in the early mystery pile, and the special Hyperborea encounter could of been in the late game pile perhaps (it was first).

Once again thanks to those who create on BGG the victory text for adding flavor. Would be nice for FFG to officially add that in.

Definitely.

My last handful of games have been:

Elder Things - lost largely due to a killer mythos deck. I was 4-0 against these a while back, but now it's 4-2. The once dominant species is making a comeback!

Shub-Niggurath - Lola Hayes + Lightning Gun + Blessing = Pre-awakening victory.

Yog-Sothoth - Brutal mythos deck left me no chance. Not one easy-rated card in the deck and a run of six consecutive hard-rated cards really did the damage.

Azazoth - Doom was on 10 when I drew the third, Green Flame, mystery. Ignored gates to focus on the epic monster which started out horrendously (Lily Chen with five dice and five re-rolls, and not one success). In comes a Blessed Daisy Walker with a mere three dice and three successes, followed by a Blessed Sister Mary having recovered Tommy's Carbine rifle. Nun with a gun for the win, though Doom had dropped to 2 by then and would've hit zero the next round. Great game.

Abhoth - two for two! Although this was a bloodbath, coming at the cost of four investigators. Ursula was the sole survivor of the original group. Not quite sure how she managed to pull through, but then Ursula has always been awesome for me.

Three wins out of the last four then. That doesn't happen often.

Now I want a re-match with Yig...

Resounding loss to Ithaqua, with random investigators.

I was playing by myself, planning to do a 1 investigator game to see how quickly I could finish. Then I drew the Dark Blessings prelude. Soooo...I decided on a 3 investigator game to make it feel like less of a terrible idea to use the prelude.

I mean really...am I overly fearful of Dark Pacts [and Agreements]? I took it because I was playing casually and wanted to see how a game actually using the prelude would play out. But from a strategic point of view, I pretty much never take Dark Pacts when they're optional, it certainly doesn't seem worth a Blessing that might go away in the first turn...I kind of feel like they just could have printed a blank prelude card and it would be about the same.

That said, I guess it worked out okay. I used a "Wireless Report" asset to get rid of the Agreement in the first few turns. And a "Sealing the Old Ones" Task actually discarded the Dark Pact before it triggered. Of course, none of the Blessings did much before disappearing...so...yeah...kind of could have been a blank Prelude, but at least not a disaster...

I think Ithaqua is a good Ancient One to use this Prelude on, because of the relative scarcity of Reckonings in the first two phases of his Mythos deck. This means Blessings are more likely to stick around for awhile, and Dark Pacts get less chances to ruin your day. I can't imagine using it versus my old Nemesis Cthulhu and his constant flood of yellow...ugh!

As for the rest of the game...I didn't get a single clue onto my second mystery..."The Gnoph-Keh Attack!" Tommy just sat around with his +5 Carbine rifle...failing to scratch his Gnoph-Keh ambushers turn after turn after turn. And none of my other (randomly chosen investigators) were really up to combat tasks, so they just putzed around the board, getting murdered by Cultists guarding gates and mythos cards. I think they might have been double agents, secretly working to advance doom and summon their dark lord.

I got what a I thought was a rather nasty combination of Rumors: Devourer of Stars (which likes gates being open) and Mysterious Lights (which prevents you from closing gates), but it didn't seem to matter that much. Again, I attribute this to all the green cards front loaded in Ithaqua's deck, which really slowed the pace of the rumors. I managed to solve Mysterious Lights in just a few turns, which my (alleged) gate closer Akachi happily spent increasing Lore in Shanghai.

That said, I did eventually fail Devourer of Stars (which sets Doom to 0 and discards all gates from the board) and...I love it. I haven't played against the Awakened Ancient Ones that much...(I guess I have a defensive playing style, because I usually win before Doom reaches 0 or run out of Mythos cards). It's neat that the Rumor let me get the full Ithaqua experience, but also removed gates, so that the Doom progression of the Ancient One wasn't immediately overwhelming and I got a few rounds to try to (somehow) eke out a victory...or at least a less humiliating defeat...I definitely felt that Ithaqua's "march to victory" mechanic" was appropriately terrifying. At one point, several of my investigators had to abandon their goals and flee Rome because there was no way they could stand up to the dread Ithaqua.

Then a Mythos card killed a couple of my Investigators, Ithaqua marched into Africa and the world was utterly destroyed...until next time.

And...that was how my last game went...

Hi Acanthus. My last game against Ithaqua was a stomping too. There's such great potential in his awakening mechanic, but I've yet to be in a position to stop him once he's on the march. It'll be one of the great games when it happens though.

My last game was against Abhoth and here's how it breaks down:

Outcome: Pre-awakening victory.

Investigators (random): Charlie Kane, Finn Edwards, Mandy Thompson, Skids O'Toole.

Defeated Investigators: 1 (Skids in the third round thanks to a backstabbing ally - that Mythos card always pops up for me!).

Reinforcements: Joe Diamond.

Final Doom Position: 4

Gates Closed: 4 (possibly the lowest number I've ever closed and still won).

Gates Open at Game End: 6

Monsters Defeated: 5 (plus 4-5 Cultists).

Rumors Solved: Stars Aligned & Far Corners of the Globe.

Mysteries Solved: Child of Abhoth, Sealing the Caverns, Spawn of Uncleanliness.

Mythos Card Rating: Easy - 4, Medium - 6, Hard - 3 (definitely not a hard-hitting deck).

Mythos Cards Remaining: 3

Most Valuable Investigator: Mandy Thompson (knowledge is power!).

Summary: With too many monsters guarding the gates and a poor reserve in terms of weapons, I was committed to a pre-awakening victory and this was actually a very tense game. It included 5 doom retreats (2 from Mandy's task), so it was definitely close. That makes it 4 wins out of 4 games against Abhoth. If the game has become easier over time (and I think it's fair to say it has), I still think it only needs a subtle tweaking. As I've said before, its so fundamentally well balanced that even small changes can have a big effect, but at the same time there's so many factors involved and a massive variety in the scope of each game's ease or difficulty. Hopefully the game designers will find those necessary tweaks over the next couple of expansions. Until then, I'm exacting my revenge for all the humiliating defeats!

Even if I still can't beat Cthulhu or the Syzygy...

Two friends and I beat Syzygy during the final mystery, with prelude Under the Pyramids last night.

The prelude adventure failed 3/5's through due to Eric (?) running away to avoid some infection...

First time for us with these 2 new expansions, was great fun.

Investigators: the archealogist, the crazy chef and the cursed journalist. The chef was backstabbed because Rex had made some poorly choosen deals in his past.

I had rigged the mysteries so they would be varied and made sense thematicly.

Was quite an easy game acctually.

The one before that was Ithaqua, 2 mysteries were "kill Epic monster" so we hade the ex-con heavily equiped and just teleported him to kill the monster. Easy win. I had a good time playing (with 3 noobs), but the "story" was lame. Will rigg the mystery decks more after that.

My last game was also my first. Just the base game and Strange Remnants (I can't find Forsaken Lore for sale). Three players (all of us newbs) versus Azathoth. We won with just four Mythos cards left. The first mystery kicked our butts but the last two were ridiculously easy; solve clues and place them directly on the card, and go to a spot and spend two clues (without any rolls). We went through 9 investigators. Had a couple Agreements out when the "Resolve Reconing with all dice as 1s" Mythos card came out resulting in one devoured and one insta-dead Investigator.

One thing I liked was the Adventure cards. Remind me of the LotR game. I wish there was an expansion that just had a bunch of these to pick from. From what I can gather, there are only three of them out right now.

Now that I think about it, I'd much rather that the "mysteries" of the main bad guys worked similarly to Adventures where they would be arranged logically. But, I guess that would reduce replayability and, in any case, it's too late.

[EDIT] I just realized that we forgot to advance the Doom track once for each Investigator that died. We ended with 6 Doom and had at least 6 deaths. Probably would have triggered the reverse side of the card (which would have been fun). Oh well. Just something I expect with new games.

Just had a loss in 7 turns...probably could have safely conceded after 6...or 4.

First Mythos card was Gaze of Ghatanothoa. Naturally, I didn't have 2 clues at the end of turn one, so my lead investigator was insta-killed. Oh well, not too big a loss I guess, as he didn't have a lot of time invested into him.

Then the next two draws turns were Madness from the Sea and Far Corners of the Globe. Turn 4 was Unimaginable Horror, so two reckonings. So 3 Sanity lost to Madness from the Sea (and yet with only 2 Sanity counters I still needed an Investigator with 2 clues to move to space 3 by the next turn). Well, that didn't happen, so turn 5 TPK.

(Oh, and of course those 3 reckonings put Far Corners of the Globe half way to ending the game 1 turn after it entered play...and it also need clues to try to stop it).

So far I would say Nephren-Ka is my least favorite Ancient One--by a pretty wide margin. His reckoning seems interesting and flavorful, but it turns out to be just too punishing. I think the real problem is his Mythos deck. Ithaqua has a similar reckoning that looms over the investigators in a threatening and flavorful way, but his Mythos deck means its not happening almost constantly. In Stage II (where you're most likely dealing with Rumor reckonings as well) Ithaqua only has a 33% chance of reckoning vs. Nephren-Ka's 75%.

And then there's the fact that prepping for Ithaqua's reckoning is all-upside: no reckoning? Congratulations, you have a focus. Dealing with Nephren-Ka's is all damage control: have fun using half your turn moving back to where you wanted to be--and already were.

What does anyone else think?

Acanthus, overall I find Ithaqua's reckoning ability a whole lot more demanding than Nephren-Ka's. Like I said somewhere before, Nephren-Ka's reckoning seems to help as much as hinder in a lot of situations. And you can always spend a sanity if you really want to resist the effect.

In other news, after beating Yog-Sothoth (generally one of the harder AO's for me) too easily in a 4 investigator game, I decided to try Shub-Niggurath with 3 investigators. I won, but Doom had fallen to 1 and on the whole the game felt much more aligned with its original difficulty.

Then I tried Cthulhu with 3 investigators. 10th attempt at him and not even close. He stomped me but good.

Yig up next, and I'm going to try 5 investigators...

So, how did your Yig game go? I just played it for the first time and had the closest game I've ever played (ultimately a tragic loss...do I report anything else here?)

Mythos deck is running low (~5 cards), Yig is awake, and I've just drawn Crown of the Serpent as the third Mystery. Hmm, I think, that looks rather tough, I doubt I'll be able to solve that and beat Yig before the deck runs out. But...Leo has 3 clues (out of 4 needed), a whole mess of allies and is on the expedition space (Antarctica) so, pretty good position for it.

So, Antartica yields no artifact, expedition moves to Pyramids. Leo and Trish begin to converge on it. Leo is one turn behind Trish, but much better equipped, so Trish chickens out and waits in Istanbul. Leo gets the crown from the Expedition! But in the meantime a Driven to Madness has popped up, and since a Growing Madness Rumor had just been failed, Leo was at 1 Sanity. So he had to discard all his allies.

But Leo's ability let's him gain an ally from the discard, the crown let's him gain one from the deck. So he can solve the mystery the next turn...if he succeeds on 3 rolls, 2 of which have a -1 penalty. Definitely something I want to minimize chance on. So Charlie hires a Delivery Service to take the various trinkets he'd previously given to Akachi to Leo (Lucky Cigarette Case and Lantern). He also delivers some Holy Water to Trish so she can anoint Leo, the chosen one, and a Witch Doctor out of the reserve so the crown has something to eat in case of Reckoning. He gives his second action to Trish so she can move, trade her clue to Leo and use the Holy Water on him.

So Leo is Blessed and has extra dice and rerolls (he's also in the wilderness for his bonus die). He uses his Investigator ability first, succeeds and gets the Vatican Missionary out of the discard (which had actually been on Akachi). Since the next two tests he has to make are Will based, the extra Will and reroll are very helpful. He succeeds with the Crown. With 3 Allies, 4 Clues and the Crown, not to mention Will bonuses and rerolls, Leo is ready to solve the third Mystery at the end of the turn.

Now, you may ask, "Acanthus, you have 1 card left in the Mythos Deck, how do you plan to kill Yig in one turn with half your Investigators in Egypt?". And I'm glad you asked that. I had been thinking the same thing myself for some time. Fortunately, I'd been leaving an Agency Quarantine in the reserve for just such a situation. And Charlie had acquired some Dynamite for Akachi, who, after closing a portal In Shanghai, had teleported over to a clue in the Deep South to await Yig's arrival. So when Yig appeared I could dispatch him with 1 (very easy) test and no combat whatsoever.

Of course, what was that last Mythos card? Tied to a Dark Purpose. And my Investigators have LOTS of conditions. Charlie becomes lost in Time and Space, so no acquiring Agency Quarantine for him. Akachi is driven insane (that advance in Doom, incidentally, leaves 1 Eldritch token on Yig, to give you another metric for how close the game was), so no Dynamite delivery from her. Still, I figure I better have a go.

I take Diana to replace Akachi, hoping Trish can get the Agency Quarantine and a very lucky Diana can finish off Yig in Combat. Trish gets 3 successes on her Acquire roll, takes a debt to get the Agency Quarantine and uses the extra success to Wireless Report her 1 clue over to Diana. Diana reduces Yig's Horror to 1, but has only 1 Will...she fails...spends her clue...fails...becomes Cursed...rolls no successes for Damage...I have no Mythos cards...the end...

I just thought to look at the next Tokyo card that would have come up...submerged pyramids...become delayed to deal 3 damage to a monster...so if I'd taken Lola instead of Diana, I would have won.

Definitely a game where just a bit of cheating is tempting too...if Akachi had had 1 more Sanity she would have survived and I would have won in a manner I would have considered very exciting and stylish...and who knows, maybe I forgot to give her 1 from resting at some point...

Acanthus, awesome stuff. That's what EH is all about right there. The plans, the twists and turns, the what ifs and if onlys!

I remember a hilarious incident against Yig when I had Lily Chen armed to the teeth and ready to tackle him, only she was in Tokyo along with Jim Culver and I had just one or two Mythos cards left. But Jim had Plumb the Void (which he'd luckily recovered from a fallen Diana Stanley), so he cast the ritual with intent to send Lily straight to Yig and it was all very tense... except he completely fluffs the spell and Lily ends up lost in space and time! I couldn't believe it. I also couldn't believe it when Lily passed an unlikely test to then come screaming out of the void straight at Yig to royally whoop him in the very last turn (I believe with a little help from the Japanese navy sent from Tokyo, courtesy of a redeemed Jim Culver).

That said, my last game against Yig, with 5 investigators, was a total washout. And, after a few games with 5 investigators, I realised that using 5 was hard .

I also tried 5 against the Elder Things, which was a disaster largely due to a doozy of a sequence of Mythos cards. I draw Evil Never Sleeps (draw and resolve another Mythos card). That other Mythos card is Unimaginable Horror (draw and resolve another Mythos card - without advancing the Omen). Third Mythos card is Ravages of Time (each investigator impairs his highest skill, three times over). By the end of that one Mythos phase, there were ten gates on the board and all my investigators were severely impaired. Next Mythos phase and I draw Overwhelming Swarm (spawn a monster on each gate). I decided then that the Elder Things and their Dark God could have the planet if they wanted it so badly.

Then I continued cycling through the AOs, now using either 3 or 6 investigators. 6 definitely helped bring things back in line in terms of difficulty, except that I went on to lose to Ithaqua, Nephren-Ka, Abhoth, Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth. Bizarrely, my only victory was against the Syzygy! My very first victory against it, and the first time I managed to solve 2 mysteries before the eclipse.

My latest game, 3 investigators against Shub-Niggurath, has been interesting. It's as good as over, with Shub-Niggurath having just awakened and only Daisy Walker left standing (it's been a real bloodbath - I think I've lost 6 or 7 investigators). What's interesting though, is that she's in a position to solve the third mystery and that'll be the first time in a long while that I've solved three mysteries and had the AO wake up, which suggests 3 investigator games may be the way to go now for the best game balance.

I'm on a roll, I've just won two in a row ... After 8 defeats....Nephren Ka (custom mythos deck) and Cthulhu (All in mythos deck). Chuffed with the Cthulhu win as I was 0-4. Had luck with the Mysteries though. The Stars are right, The Deep Ones Attack and Queen of the Deep Ones...in that order, probably the most straight forward of the six. and no Tick Tock Men (i seem to attract this card). Doom finished on 2.

Cthulhu Investigators : Lily Chen, Hank Samson, Rex Murphy(who despite his perma..cursed had die rolls from another world) and Monterey...Murphy and Monterey bit the dust and were replaced by Tommy and Norman right at the end

Played it last night at a new game shop that opened up nearby. It began as a 3 player game between me and two other friends but I wound up "dealing in" 4 other players within a couple of rounds by other people in the shop who seemed really interested in playing! Unfortunately the game didn't finish because I had to leave, but we all made plans to come back early next Tuesday and play until we either win or lose. The game wasn't really that hard to teach to new people and the action really took off when there are 5+ players on the board!

I learned my lesson a couple of nights ago, in regards to randomly picking Prelude and Great Old One... and the lesson was "it's awesome". A situation arose that I hadn't even considered to be possible. Having shuffled the GOOs behind my back I drew "Rise of the Elder Things", okay... I grabbed the sideboard. Then Caity shuffled the Prelude deck and drew the top card, "Under the Pyramids". Erm!!

We lost. Not because Doom ran out, and not because we died. Having both sideboards out gave us plenty of options, and we were ticking the Mysteries along pretty nicely, but even with the increased Mythos deck (20 cards for ROTET) we ran out.

Playing with both sideboards was a LOT of fun though

Congrats to Bern1106 on beating Cthulhu - on behalf of humanity I thank you

My last game (solo) was against Cthulhu and it was yet another hiding for me on an epic scale. I just can't seem to get close to him right now.

But me and a friend recently played against the Syzygy and it turned into a classic. We were plodding along, not being very effective and watching the odd investigator end up lying in a pool of their own drool as their minds collapsed. It felt like the mythos deck was evaporating fast and that doom was going to hit 0 before we solved two mysteries (hadn't even solved one) or three tokens appeared on the red omen space.

With doom on 2 I suggested that we could forfeit as there was no way we were going to accomplish anything (this being his first time against Syzygy). But we decided to play out a couple more turns and see what happens. And boy am I glad we did. Suddenly, everything turned around. The investigators were on fire and passing tests all over the place. We retreated doom, we closed gates, we solved not just one but two mysteries in rapid succession (only made possible thanks to the mystery requiring relics to be discarded, of which we had plenty at that stage).

So we flip the Syzygy and my friend passes his first series of tests with the special encounter deck, placing a third clue token on the AO. One to go. But, he also has Zoey equipped with four clues and a task that will let her sacrifice herself in all her fervent religious glory, which she does, solving the active mystery and adding the fourth clue. An amazing turnaround and highly dramatic finale. Great game.

That's two wins out of the last two against Syzygy. Chuffed

Hi all! I just got back into board games a month ago and decided to buy Eldritch Horror due to it's epic theme, solitaire capabilites, and great reviews everywhere.

I played my first solo game last night against Azathoth with 4 investigators. The dice were hot for me as I was rolling successes all night! My investigators all had great items and things were looking good! Unfortunately, I had a lot of problems getting through Omen of Devastation mystery...I kept accidentally closing gates with investigators who didn't have any clues!

I eventually finished the Omen of Devastation but by that time, a rumor had taken away half the assets from the asset deck and I only had 5 mythos cards left...sooo bye bye to humanity!

I definitely had a great time and I learned a lot...I need to not focus on monsters so much as getting clues and solving those dang mysteries!! I'm a little worried about teaching all these rules to my friends though. I can already imagine their eyes glazing over as I talk about the intricacies of assets and different action types...

Hi all! I just got back into board games a month ago and decided to buy Eldritch Horror due to it's epic theme, solitaire capabilites, and great reviews everywhere.

I played my first solo game last night against Azathoth with 4 investigators. The dice were hot for me as I was rolling successes all night! My investigators all had great items and things were looking good! Unfortunately, I had a lot of problems getting through Omen of Devastation mystery...I kept accidentally closing gates with investigators who didn't have any clues!

I eventually finished the Omen of Devastation but by that time, a rumor had taken away half the assets from the asset deck and I only had 5 mythos cards left...sooo bye bye to humanity!

I definitely had a great time and I learned a lot...I need to not focus on monsters so much as getting clues and solving those dang mysteries!! I'm a little worried about teaching all these rules to my friends though. I can already imagine their eyes glazing over as I talk about the intricacies of assets and different action types...

I've introduced a half dozen people to EH and have to say not one of them had the slightest difficulty in picking up the game. Plus, they're usually already too invested (and shocked at the abuse being thrown at their investigator) to worry about the smaller details, most of which are intuitive and easily picked up as you play.

Welcome to Eldritch Horror! In the words of Ash (re: Alien) "I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies".

Hi all! I just got back into board games a month ago and decided to buy Eldritch Horror due to it's epic theme, solitaire capabilites, and great reviews everywhere.

I played my first solo game last night against Azathoth with 4 investigators. The dice were hot for me as I was rolling successes all night! My investigators all had great items and things were looking good! Unfortunately, I had a lot of problems getting through Omen of Devastation mystery...I kept accidentally closing gates with investigators who didn't have any clues!

I eventually finished the Omen of Devastation but by that time, a rumor had taken away half the assets from the asset deck and I only had 5 mythos cards left...sooo bye bye to humanity!

I definitely had a great time and I learned a lot...I need to not focus on monsters so much as getting clues and solving those dang mysteries!! I'm a little worried about teaching all these rules to my friends though. I can already imagine their eyes glazing over as I talk about the intricacies of assets and different action types...

i was apprehensive at first to introduce people into board games, as you're typically met with snide comments and the like, especially around certain people, but i stopped giving a $*%& what people think long ago. Sure, you might miss with some games and hit with others, but if people don't like Eldritch Horror... well.. what the hell is wrong with them. haha

I got a group of 4 people together and we ended up CRUSHING Azathoth! Doom was still at 8 when we solved all 3 mysteries! We had a pretty solid spread of investigators with Trish Scarborough, Silas Marsh, Jim Culver, and Norman Withers. This victory was very unexpected after losing miserably my first two solo games...

I took some advise from a thread on here that recommended having the player's neighbor read the encounter card to them. It kept the everyone engaged and we began to even add some of our own favor to the encounters...at one point, Jim Culver was doing brain surgery while playing some Louis Armstrong! My friends ended up enjoying it a lot and are already pressuring me to buy an expansion (but I don't see their wallets flying out to help out ). Forsaken Lore is sitting in my Amazon cart waiting for me to pull the trigger...

I just played my first game ever. I went in not knowing what to expect and I must say I enjoyed it immensely. What a brilliant game! I played solo with Diana and Norman. I solved 2 mysteries but the third required a specific relic and I didn't know how to get it so ran out of mythos cards which means I lose I think.

You probably mean a specific ARTIFACT was required to solve the mystery. Is my assumption correct?

If you encounter expeditions you often get artifacts or you may retreat doom (if the dice like you ;P)

Welcome to Eldritch Horror, let the fun/horror begin^^

I'm now officially on a huge losing streak, even while using four investigators.

After getting pounded by Yig, things weren't looking much better against the Elder Things, with one of those Mythos decks that conspires to undermine your every plan with each card. Things looked pretty grim when the Shadow Beneath Chicago rumor triggered and twice impaired every stat of every investigator, which I figured would make things impossible. Strangely, I still managed to solve four mysteries (even an impaired Ursula is a godsend) but only after doom had hit zero.

Ursula and Minh were in Antarctica (having been chased all around it by a werewolf and a dhole) so I sent them to the City of the Elder Things for the final mystery and that oh-so exciting special encounter deck. Trouble is, Ursula had to take a dark pact condition a few rounds earlier to prevent doom from hitting zero - not too much of a problem I thought at that late stage. Of course, the first card against the Dark God tells me that if the active investigator (Ursula) has a dark pact condition, then they're devoured. That was pretty much the end of that.

I need a win!

I just had a fairly interesting game. Very back and forth between being a cakewalk and seeming impossible. I feel I should appreciate this game as exciting and engaging but really it felt a little sanity blasting...

So, I've solved the first Mystery by the end of turn 2. Tulzcha shows up for the second Mystery and I think "Oh good, three of my Investigators are combat Machines (I randomly picked from among the MoM Investigators and have Tommy and Wilson, plus Finn with a Double Barreled Shotgun that his Cat Burglar was kind enough to steal for him)...this may be the fastest game I've ever played.

Now Tulzcha did show up some distance away (in generic Eastern European city, when all my Investigators were in North America) and the Wind Walker Rumor has plopped another Epic Monster right next to me. This is where a combination of poor tactical decisions and bad luck really started to send things off the rails. I figure Wilson can take care of the Wind Walker with his mighty blunderbuss and send Finn and Tommy into the Russian wilderness. The only problem is, Wilson definitely cannot stand up to the Wind Walker...he has no Clues, so there goes 1 of 4 Sanity immediately. Long story short, Wilson has to end up retreating the next turn, lest he go utterly mad (despite spending 2 Focus for 4 re-rolls on the Sanity test...). And that means Tommy and Finn waste their turns coming back towards the Wind Walker.

So, with most of my team focus firing him, the Wind Walker does go down, but between the battle and Mythos cards, all of my fighters are pretty thoroughly wrecked, and Tulzcha is still sitting on the other side of the world, happily adding Eldritch tokens to the Omen track. Finn is using his ability to shuttle Tommy and himself back towards Tulzcha, allowing them to rest along the way, and Tommy to Focus, but, of course, that is SLOW. And slow has become deadly at this point...

So what has my fourth Investigator been up to? Daisy was my only plausible Gate closer. And despite the fact that she would be utterly useless at clearing out guards, there were enough unguarded and poorly guarded gates popping up for her to go after. Of course, that hasn't stopped her from failing to close a single one. So, yeah...there's about 7 gates on the board and 4 Eldritch tokens on the green space. It's still looking like one of my faster games, but now in the other direction...

Tommy and Finn finally arrive at Tulzscha. Tommy blasts away with his Lighting Gun, confident it will scour the blasphemous deity from the earth, but finds its flame is barely dimmed. Finn steps in and his double barreled shotgun roars. The thing disperses into wisps of foul smoke. "The key," Finn tells Tommy, "was to aim for the worshipers that brought it here." [i don't know how else to explain that an Magical Artifact that surpasses all human weaponry could barely scratch the thing, but a shotgun annihilated a pillar of flame.]

In the meantime, Wilson has had the courtesy to be defeated and made way for Patrice to step in and try to solve the whole "reality disintegrating" problem. Not only that, but Daisy finally closes the Gate she's been sitting on for half the game, and, with a whopping 1 Gate on it, flips her Walking the Lay Lines task. Well, it advances the Mystery (Tulzcha is already dead at this point, so thanks for that) but it also retreats Doom by 1, which turns out to be pretty darn important. Patrice closes her gate. With 2 Gates and Tulzcha all gone in one turn a tiny glimmer of hope enters the world.

Then the relentless advance of the Dhole drives poor Finn mad. The Investigators take stock and realize there are still enough Gates open in the world to end it all the very next turn. The last Mystery comes out--the Investigators must get 4 Clues from research encounters. Not impossible, but even if they do it, Azathoth will awaken before it makes a difference. Desperate, Tommy decides to make the ultimate sacrifice and activate his For the Greater Good ritual.

Did I not mention that Tommy had been sitting on 4 Clues and a For the Greater Good Task for nearly the whole game? I guess that's kind of important.

So this is pretty much what I've been saving it for, and my one hope is that a "Solve the Active Mystery" will appear on the other side and steal a victory for me. Or at least, I thought that was my one hope...as it turns out something much cooler happened. Tommy's sacrifice closed all the gates across the world and took all the loathsome monsters they had spewed forth with them.

This completely changed the math of the situation. The green Omen was still filled with enough Eldritch tokens to end the game, but that was 2 turns away. The blue omen, instead of advancing Doom to 0 as it was going to, would now advance it not at all. Meaning if each of my investigators could get a Clue from research encounters, I would get a win as legitimate as it was implausible. And indeed, everyone was able to reach a clue the next turn, some of them even able to focus as well. (It helped that two of these Investigators had just popped into the world, after what happened to poor Finn and noble Tommy).

So now its all down to my old enemy, the dice. Well, Ursula gets a clue without even having to re-roll. So does George. So does Daisy, even though she was testing Strength and really should have failed. Now its all up to Patrice, who has 2 Clues, 2 Focuses and a couple mildly useful Assets. So naturally I'm expecting to roll 7 ones and lose the game in a totally unjust and obnoxious way. And instead...I draw a Research card that doesn't reward Clues. That was my second guess for what was going to happen. But wait! It does retreat Doom by 1. Still not enough to stop the World from going down in flames next turn. But Wait! I have the defeated investigators Finn and Wilson hanging around still. If I can have a successful encounter with just 1 of them, that leave me at 1 Doom next Omen. But wait! The one gate that's spawned is, of course, Green...so i need to successfully encounter both defeated Investigators and get 1 Clue and that will let me eke out a victory at 1 Doom.

Well, George followed the clues left by the hopelessly paranoid Finn, Patrice dug Wilson out of a wall before he asphyxiated and Daisy, redeeming herself for all her previous failures at closing gates, managed to listen to a poem. And thus the world was saved from the Shan and veiled from the gaze of Azathoth. The end.

Fantastic stuff as usual Acanthus. Reading about those sorts of game just makes me want get right back to it.

I did get my much-needed victory (against Ithaqua, which is pleasing), and while it was quite a turnaround I didn't feel that it was a particularly great game - more of a desperate and disorganised scramble over a battlefield littered with fallen investigators. Zoey Samaras had a terrific game though. Never underestimate the power of faith. Especially when it's wielding knives.

First game against Hastur (four investigators) and a win!

Both drawn mysteries tied into the special encounter decks so there was no lack of theme and flavour. I also know I got lucky with gate-spawn locations and various other things - for instance, both rumors weren't especially damaging (I really liked the Moved to Boston rumor mechanic), plus I'd only solved half the first mystery when Dexter's Promise of Power triggered, solving the rest. I then spammed London with Dexter, Jenny, and Wendy attending the King in Yellow performance while Michael roamed around killing anything that moved. Toward the end there it seemed like I couldn't fail a roll. Even Jenny, who had a Dark pact trigger, got off lightly. Final doom was on 4 and considering I only had to solve half a mystery, it's safe to say I won't be so lucky next time.

Love the new Talent conditions. They really add an extra dimension to each character.