Ok, time for Scenario 8 to be fought! As usual, all boards in play, and Joe, Jenny, Roland, Marie, Finn and Michael ready to roast rat-thing on their knives. The game started in a very bizarre way, with the Rat thing from Unnamable moving South after a gate opening in Innsmouth (Esoteric order of Dagon). None with enough clues to seal, so everyone but Jenny and Finn decided to go clue-hunting. Marie went buying some spells. The other two investigators tried to compensate the poor starting equipment with some shopping in the nearby Curiosity Shoppe. Jenny was twice corrupted, and one of her corruptions hindered her to give money to others. So no probs, let's go shopping and then pass the others some items. Hahaha. Second Mythos, a gate at the Graveyard with a Cultist emerging from it. Jenny - first player - became a Jelous guardian.
The first rounds were a pain, with a gate at the Esoteric order AND a gate at Devil reef plus some extra activity on the main board. Joe was able to put the first seal on the board thanks to a hit and go journey through the Graveyard's R'lyeh gate, but was a fortunate case: the AO ability to screw investigators in unstable locations was kinda tough to deal with, especially during these first steps. Investigators went for gathering clues had to wait some extra time in order to recover a high enough number of brains (ehm, Sanity) to be able to enter gates. Michael was arrested (thematically great, strategically not so great). By that time, the bloody Rat thing had already moved to the Northside streets, trapping Jenny inside the Curiosity Shoppe and making very low the chance for others to reach other boards. In the mean time, Roland had a lucky encounter at the Silver twilight lodge; he passed his PS and was also allowed to take the Visions card. This encounter made the tide change.
Jenny was able to leave the Curiosity shoppe thanks to a Hound of Tindalos, able to reach her and send her to the Hospital (sometimes losing a fight check is better than passing it)
Michael was surprised by a gate while at the Witch house and forced to enter Yuggoth but didn't have enough clues for sealing, so when he was given the chance between LiTaS or losing his Fetch stick, he preferred being LiTaS. Finn entered the gate to Yuggoth, with enough clues for a seal.
Marie started using her Witch blood ability, and since she had passed her PS during the very first turns of the game, she was able to draw spells, taking the ones with the higher Sanity costs. Then, every Upkkep, she started discarding spells in order to gain extra clues. Roland was perfect as clue-generator, especially because his starting ability was Mythos Lore. So I had three investigators in OWs, and everyone was able to seal. Finn unfortunately had a horrible encounter: he had to pass a check to gain a unique item, otherwise he had to lose a common item, a unique item, a spell and two clues or be devoured. Considering the fact the didn't have all this stuff to give away and that he did already fail the check, I was forced to spend almost all his clues in order to pass the check. In the meantime, another Underworld gate opening in Dunwich (and a nasty Mythos card made two monsters appear in the Blaste Heath streets). Marie chose to return there. One monster entered the vortex, the other ones were removed via gate closures and the last one (a poor zombie) was knived to death in the following round. Roland sealed his gate too.
Things started going again out of control, since Innsmouth was invaded. At that point I had something like 9 monsters in Innsmouth, with 2 gates still open there and the DOR track at 3. Not the *ideal* situation, indeed. But Finn returned from Yuggoth, with a marvellous, marvellous little item that was vital for beating the game: the Milk of Shub-Niggurath. During the first movement phase where he was allowed to use it, he drank it, moving all monsters to the Witch house. The terror level popped up *a lot* (by the end of the game, the terror would have hit 6) but finally streets were clear. So Joe was able to go to Dunwich to give Marie some bucks to return to Arkham and enter the other Underworld gate. By that time, Jenny returned from Celano and sealed a gate at the Woods and Roland made his way through Another time.
5 seals on the board, 2 rifts open and free to roam through Arkham, a ton of Rat things swarming the streets (3 cultist rat-thing, 1 child of the goat - rat thing - I imagined that even monsters treated as cultists would become rat-things as well - 2 "normal" rat things). Marie entered the Underworld and returned to Arkham immidiately thanks to a lucky encounter. The next Mythos was a monster surge, but Arkham was already at her limit, and all monsters went to the Outskirts. During the following Upkeep, Marie discarded the Dreaded Curse of Azathoth and reached the interesting amount of 9 clues. Michael, able have his encounters before her, cleared the Terrible experiment card for some extra points. Then the 6th seal closed the game. Victory in 12 Mythos.
Some general considerations: the Scenario wasn't as difficult as the previous one; I found it very well balanced. During the first Mythos, there are few Rat-things on the board, so the main problem for investigators was gaining clues quick enough to avoid losing too much sanity. During the latter part of the game, Rat-things are a problem, but having some locations sealed was extremely helpful in order to have a shelter from Rlim Shaikorth Sanity drain. I was good enough to avoid any player to enter combat with "normal" rat-things. In a couple of cases, I had to fight against cultists rat-thing, but fortunately fights were won. The theme of the Scenario is strong, and I had a great time playing.
A couple of recomandations after the game: rat things are allowed to enter stable locations if an investigator is there. No probs with this. But you probably should make them not able to enter the Asylum, otherwise there will be a loop (investigator enters combat with a Rat thing at the Asylum; he's defeated, so he's moved to the Asylum; the Rat thing won't move since can abandon the space containing an investigator, so during the next movement they had to fight again and so on, there is a certain chance that that investigator will be stuck there for the whole game).
Second question: what if I run off of green corruptions and I score a success on the roll after a cultist rat thing enters game? Shall I draw the first 2 top red corruptions? It seems like scoring a success is by far worse than failing. What about making the first player rolling a die, on a 1 he draws the first top red corruption, otherwise the first two corruption of the deck (without specifying the colour)?
And a couple of curiosity: it was one of my games with the greatest number of corruptions a single investigator had (Jenny had 8 at the end of the game), but I was able to win it even thanks to them. Jenny was the only one corrupted when one of her corruption activated, making all corrupted investigators being cursed and the others blessed. So I had 5 investigators blessed in a single round, and considering the fact it was near the end of the game, well.. it helped. Really. Another curiosity: after the 2 rifts opened, I had Joe in Kingsport visiting Gladys Pickman. The elderly lady started complaining with Joe about a curious "rat infestation in the neighborhood" ::laughter::
but both Lloigors and Cthonians are very easy to evade, so basically I had Cthonians appearing at the Train station ("sorry folks, the train is a little late since we had to remove some tentacles from the railway" ::laughter), in every bloody area of almost every OW and in some other curious places too, but none was able to harm anyone. You should probably change the Dark Worm's ability in order to make Cthonians / Lloigors surprise the investigators or add a line in the Scenario saying they have an Awareness of -3. Otherwise it's very easy to get rid of them (I spent almost the entire game trying to keep all character's Sneak to 2 at least, and it worked).