How many times in a single game can you pass from utter defeat to spectacular triumph, rejoyce for a moment in the light of the Gods, and then be sent back to your living nightmares? Rex, Dexter, Monterey, George and Charlie were pitted tonight against Shudde M'ell and the Black Goat of the Woods. Rex is great, but the rest of the party is terrible: one single clue token among 4 investigators, and they were going against a semi-tough Ancient One aided by the most spectacular doom accelerator existing in Arkham Horror, so that every surge would have produced both a stable building to collapse, and doom to be added to the doom track. No can do.
Forgot to say: AH, DH, KH, BGotW and MH in play, with full components.
We start seeding the initial equipment. Monterey gets Ancient Table (yummy, some clues arriving) and the Mi-go brain case (heck, yes!), Dexter gets and Elder Sign, George the Elder Sign pendant, and some good weapons scattered among the whole party. Suddently the clue problem doesn't look like a problem anymore. Also, Charlie becomes member of the Sheldon Gang (a politician involved with crime? rather thematic, if you ask me)
Opening gate at the Black Cave, Traveler lost in Fog, which catapults Monterey to the Strange High House in the Mist. The gate is Yuggoth, spawning one Rat thing and one Dark Young, which moves to the streets. Monterey uses the Mi-go brain case to swap places with the Dark Young (enjoy your vacation in Kingsport!), Dexter moves on the gate, discards one spell, rolls 8 dice to nuke the Rat Thing, and scores 0 successes. (D)rats! Second spell discarded, and this time the Rat Thing is gone. Dexter enters Yuggoth and goes LiTaS on the first encounter, bringing the situation back to square one. The other guys work on clues.
New Mythos: Black Cave (seriously? it's a medium freq opening, in a deck of some 180 cards or so...). Elder Sign pendant used to cancel the surge, new monsters spawned. And of course, one of these is another Dark Young. And of course the card is Disturbing the Dead, a rumor requiring 2 gate trophies to be discarded, but it's just the beginning of the game and no one has even 1 gate trophy, imagine having 2. Charlie rolls up his sleeves and send the Dark Young out of his county. It works, but we start losing time. A new gate opens at the Woods.
Dexter returns form LiTaS directly on the Woods, we keep collecting clues. New Mythos: Woods, again. This time no way to cancel it, so +1 doom, and 1 rubble marker entering play. Which one? Clearly the South Church, so, no way to buy a Blessing for Rex, who now seems doomed to play the whole game cursed (which actually happened)
The situation in Kingsport seems to worsen: 3 rift markers are already on the first rift track, so we need to send someone there quickly, but we got an evnironment reducing movement points by 1, so that no one can move that fast. Monterey takes the lead and uses the Mi-go to swap back in Arkham the Dark Young, and move directly to the Causeway, with the hope of reaching the Congregational hospital during the next turn. The encounter at the Causeway moves him to the Wireless Station, so, in the opposite direction.
A gate opens in Dunwhich, and then we got another surge, destroying the Library and bringing the total of monsters in Gardners Place to 3 (Dark Druid, Warlock, Formless Spawn). Dexter returns to the Woods putting the first seal on the table, and Rex follows the turn after, sealing Yuggoth at the Black Cave. Monterey swaps back in Arkham because his weapons are needed, so the Dark Young is sent back to Kingsport. Once back in Arkham, his Mi-go brain case is taken by Rex, who's ready to go for another gate: the monsters on Gardners Place don't look too scary due to his Silver Key.
New Mythos, new gate in Dunwich: R'lyeh at Wizard's Hill, 2 gates open, 2 seals on the board, doom 6. Not too bad. Monsters move, from R'lyeh a Goat Spawn dives into a vortex, and another monster previously released by Gardners dives into a second vortex. Dunwich Horror about to arrive, and always that darn card reducing movement. We painfully ache a way through monsters up to Dunwich, while Rex swaps and uses the Silver Key to enter the Underworld from Gardners. While in the Underworld, he pulls the Servitor of the Outer Gods (obviously, he's already cursed, please, bring him the nastiest monster of all times). Last clue on the Silver Key and he survives.
Unnamable opens, but Charlie answers: he nukes the Dark Young and the Mi-go guarding the gate, and enters Celeano. Dexter reaches Dunwich and he's sucked by a gate encountered at Cold Spring Glen (with nothing but two clues). Always 2 seals on the board.
In the meantime, Disturbing the Dead adds Terror to Terror, and not only the General Store but also the Curiosity Shoppe are closed. Trying to farm the UI deck to get an extra ES is no longer an option.
Rex returns to Gardners, and rolls three cursed dice to seal the gate, scoring 2 successes (the rolls to close this gate and the Yuggoth gate are the only successes scored by Rex in the whole game), and Charlie returns and seals the Unnamable. 4 seals on the board, 2 to go; but Monterey's first encounter in R'lyeh sucked big time: lose 3 San and 3 Sta, but you can mitigate the loss by spending clues on a 1 on 1 basis. Monterey takes the risk, and keeps 3 clues, and 1 San and 1 Sta only; the Ancient Tablet is still in the game, and if only Dexter returns from the Dreamlands, he could get the item and the missing clues. Dexter decides it's better spending more time in the Dreamlands, and becomes delayed three times in a row.
New Mythos, new monster movement, it's time to welcome the Dunwich Horror on the board. Charlie tries to reach Dunwich to attempt killing the Horror, but at the Station he's invested of a new role: Local Guide (shrinking his movement capacity to a mere 2). George takes the lead, and moves towards the Dreamlands gate at Cold Spring Glen. Rex uses the Mi-go brain case to swap his position with monsters and allow George some more safe movement. Monterey reaches are 2 of R'lyeh, where he encounters a boat leading home. It's a Speed -1 [2] check, and he has only 1 die, but 3 clues, and the reward is 5 clues. Considering the game was almost lost, why not attempting? His first roll is a six, the first clue is a dud, the second scores the second success, allowing his clues to bump back to 5. YAY. Mythos: the Dunwich Horror moves, +1 doom. Ouch.
Monterey returns to Arkham, and seals R'lyeh, Dexter moves to the second area of the Dreamlands, but is delayed again. George dives into the Dreamlands, resolves his encounter where he finds a spear of light and returns home (please, no comments on Dexter's performance). New Mythos opens the Unvisited Isle and makes the Dunwich Horror move again, but it's too late: doom is at 10, and George puts the 6th seal on the board.
Victory by sealing gates in 14 rounds.
Edited by Julia
BGotW ain't my favorite either: it puts just too much pressure on, and you can lose for bad luck (lower initial number of gates open that keep on surging, so, doom pumps in, but you can't work on more than the couple of gates open). I'm trying to win a complete rotation of AOs against her, but it's just because of a private challenge (wanna win all possible combos of AOs and Heralds with random investigators). But I prefer other Heralds to play with more