Done! And i was lucky...

I won't be brave enough to make a full report, but i'll share some of my feelings.

- During the selection of the investigators, i desperately looked for a guy with 5 in Combat... Still looking for it. And i was looking for Mandy Thompson too.

- Every monster was a nightmare. I mean, usually i go for the fight and sometimes i pass the horror check despite a weak will. But with the -2 for all monsters, no way i could succeed if i was trying to do it. And obviously having a low Combat skill...

- Zombie, Cultist, Maniac, usually are good guys which give easy trophies... But those ones were really nasty. And i don't even mention the Ghosts...

- I played with every extension, including Lurker (no Miskatonic and basic Pharaoh). I didn't not use the dark Pacts. Only the gates and the relationship. I used Tibs anti-dilution, meaning drawing up to 3 Myth cards until i reached level 4 Terror and then it was up to 4 Myth cards. I had one act, 3 gates in Insmouth and 1 gate in Dunwich.

- I was quite lucky with the Myth draw. Despite the anti-dilution, i had only Arkham gates during the first half of the game. Nothing to do in Dunwich or Insmouth. And then i started getting some gates there and monster surge, but mainly stationary monsters. Dunwich Horror Track reached lvl2 and Insmouth Deep Track reached lvl2 also. And no burst gate.

- I think i made about 10 trip to the hospital or the asylum. Did i say that fights were really difficult ?

- I had some moving gates... Those are bad stuff :/ Can't seal them.

- 3 of the 4 first turns, i had a Curse during the upkeep...

- I failed 3 personal stories, and 2 were pending.

- I reached Terror level 5 and Dracula doom track level 10.

- Janus ability about double Evade check is terribly annoying... (okay, i can't fight it so let's escape.... Or maybe should i take another path...)

So, you did a really good job for making things really hard for the investigators. I spent some upkeep phases thinking for 5-10 minutes what i should do during the turn. I had lucky dices (despite the numerous Curse), and i think that i would lose some games before winning a new one with that scenario. The weird thing is, that with the common games, i have obvious things to do, nearly have a pre-established path to go for the win, but right there, no how-to-do.

I just finished the 2nd spanish league on the french forum and on a scale from 0 to 10, i think the hardest scenario were 5 maybe 6. Yours was at least 8, maybe 9... but i don't want too put a too high note cause i'm afraid about what you did for the next scenario.

Last word and i'll go for some rest. I didn't have fun, but i had an interesting brainstorming. It's not a bad point, don't misinterpreted it, it's just that it was a kind of a new way to play Arkham Horror

:'D Sounds fun. I'd suggest you don't use anti-dilution or terror boosting variants on any of the scenarios that alter the terror track or use act cards. Because if you do, you're going to have proooooblems ;') I think it's fair that you're using relationship cards if you're going to use Lurker gates... My one concern about your using Lurker Gates is that they make it too easy to banish certain types of monsters and corruptions. If you're going to use the dual gates, I'd house rule that you can't get rid of any monsters that are specifically named in scenarios, or named by type, by closing them, also, for getting rid of corruptions, you can only use the top gate. Otherwise it's going to unbalance the corruption scenarios.

Which investigators did you end up using? What items did you cary over?

Heh... You can't get Mandy until scenario 13 I think :') You can get Joe and Michael in scenario 6 though.

How did you deal with Dracula's avatar?

Did you like the vampire horde? :'D

Scenario two is nightmarish. I was in a cold sweat playing through that one on my third time (it was one of the most unpleasant games I've ever played— but that's a good thing). I had to playtest it a first two times (to horrible losses) before modifying it to the way it is now. It still is one of the hardest scenarios though ;') Easily harder than scenario 5. I won't judge you if you don't want to use Lurker Gates on it :'D

It really leaves almost no margin for error and if you screw up a turn or two, it might be game over. I think that might've been the only scenario Julia lost at?

It's really important to think the game structure through before starting a scenario and picking your investigators, then planning a strategy do deal with it. Or you are likely to die horribly :'D

Essentially it's like regular Arkham Horror, but also a puzzle. Some of the puzzles have multiple solutions, and some solutions are better than others. If you fail to come up with one of the solutions, you might be able to shove through by brute force or come up with a solution I hadn't thought of (Julia's done that before), or you might die horribly :'D Either way, congrats on beating the first scenario, and good luck on the second!

8 or 9 difficulty huh? ;'D Hooo boy. You're going to hate me later ;'D (No, not really, playing these, if you take them seriously, will probably boost your skill levels so you can deal with more difficult scenarios later on).

Dracula Avatar is big.

He sent 3 or 4 guys to hospital/asylum. He moved very few times, but with the lurker moving gates, i had to go to the streets sometimes and each time he was waiting for my boys.

I didn't suffer from the horde. I was able to deal with it, because the monsters weren't too big. But i spent some Holy Water, Ibn Ghazi powder or Spectral Razor.

I picked up Carolyn, Diana and Norman besides the mandatory investigators. The idea was having high Lore guys because of the lack of Fight guys. But... it didn't work as expected. Norman did a good start sealing quickly a gate but then he was very unefficient. Diana made a slow start, but getting better along the game was running. Carolyn did a correct job. In fact, i think i beat the game thanks to the Card Press. The extra clues provided thanks to it save me some turns of picking clues.

I dont' know yet for the object carried over. I think the Card Press, maybe some weapons (Brazer of souls, Carbin Rifle...), but i have to think about it. And i think i'll keep the same team if possible.

If i didn't use the anti-dilution, i think i would have no problem with the game (well... at least, less ). Because, despite the anti-dilution, the first Dunwich/Insmouth gate was on turn maybe 8-9, which means 24-27 Myth cards. But i'll listen you advice For the dual gates, during the game, i don't think i get rid of both types of monsters when i closed them. And i saw no Corruption. And with Norman who can switch a symbol i can easily get rid of nasty things.

One more thing. I used SE to make specific monsters for Dracula and the Vampire/Maniac-Cultists, and it was pretty cool to see those tokens on the board. Until i had to fight them

Hugues said:

::Laughter:: I would have loved to have seen that. I'm really surprised you didn't use Wendy. She's the strongest character in the investigator pool. Not that I don't thoroughly approve of you making the game a greater challenge for yourself :'D

I have no idea why you picked Diana ;'D other than that, your team sounds fine. Although... Heh... You might want to reevaluate things when you hit the second scenario :'D

Some crucial things to keep in mind while playing scenarios (or perhaps I should really say, before beginning a scenario) are investigators starting items, equipment, cash, and abilities.

Also... While scenario two is quite difficult the way Julia and I played it... There might be an alternate path to victory that'd be easier, even though it'd be a bit more risky, perhaps.

Also, ::laughter:: did you really not have fun? ;.( That makes me sad, but the fact that you enjoyed brainstorming makes me almost happy enough to counterbalance that ;'D Was it too stressful? What made it not fun?

I didn't take Wendy because of 4+4 stats... I should have read carefully her ability about Sneak check... If i remember correctly, I took Diana because of her stats (4/6 i didn't want a 3/7) and her abilities who seemed pretty cool.

Avi_dreader said:

First of all, it was my first game with so many components. Everything was sorted by expansions, so i had to shuffle every sleeved cards. And second, the game was so difficult that i had to think about every move each turn. I mean, in a regular game, you can make some small mistakes and you could be still okay. In that game i felt that every mistake would be a big burden. So i thought a lot, trying to not forget any event or modificator. The game wasn't fluid at all, that's the part which annoyed me a little. I had some breaks during the game, because sometimes i felt locked, so i went for a little walk, thinking about something else and then back to the game with a slightly point of view.

I don't know if you get what i mean by not fun (because AH game are rarely fun ;o) ). It's really the difficulty of the scenario which is great because of the challenge, but also which is oppressing. And maybe i didn't play enough "hard" games to really enjoy that one.

And now, i'm quite frustrated because i feel that i can't express exactly my thoughts in english :/

Hugues said:

Well, as long as you enjoy a challenge, I'm happy :'D ::Laughter:: I love that you took breaks in your game for thinking. When I playtested the scenarios I wrote down the game effects in abbreviated form on a piece of paper by start of game, phase, and continuous effects. That worked for me. You can afford to make mistakes on most of the scenarios :'D I'm really surprised you did it without Wendy though. She's the strongest investigator in the first pool. 8 clues to start, slows the doom track by one, super evade ability, plus, she's uncurseable for a while :'D

Wendy : 4/4 end of analysis ... Seemed a bad choice ;o)

Maybe i'll try another game with her... Or maybe not.

Hugues said:

::Laughter:: Wendy's one of the best investigators in the game. I take it you were not at the old forums when I got up on my soap box preaching the virtues of Wendy to all who'd listen. Seriously, she's in the top five investigators, easily. You just have to understand how to play her. Turn one, get her two clue tokens. Turn two, or three, throw her into a gate she can probably close on her first turn trying. And, here's the trick... Give her maximum sneak. With sneak 6, she can reliably dodge almost any monster. With luck 5, she can pass most of her encounter checks. Two turns later you can come out and hop right back into another Other World while simultaneously sending in another investigator to another OW (or sending in the other sealer in a turn before, or even sooner if possible, which is very possible). That way when she spends her Elder sign it will at least be the third seal so she will pass her mission instead of failing it, and you'll get money, a free terror level (kind of), and not have her focus reduced. Doom track down one. Oh yeah, and she'll have two gate trophies. What will she do with them? Hmmm... Oh, I know, pick up that clue at the science building, and in two more turns be ready to place her third seal on the board. One investigator, three seals, able to pass through any monster obstacle in the streets, able to get past almost any monster guarding a gate. Is she as monstrous as Patrice? No. But she's **** good. The Gate Ninja of Death they call her :') Plus she has the ability to stall monsters... You can just plop her down on a monster (or monsters) if you don't want it or them moving, and they won't be able to move away until she leaves (unless they have elusive). One investigator being able to easily seal three gates is a **** good asset, especially since you don't have to give her any of the other characters' equipment to do so, she's self-sufficient.

Edit: nearly forgot :') she can automatically engage with elusive monsters (in the street) without having to roll. Also useful sometimes.

Hugues, as a general advice - if I might join this debate - you should not focus too much on stats, unless you have a 3 sanity character, which requires some more considerations before being picked up at the beginning of the game. A 4 Stamina character is quite a normal character (you don't lose stamina as often as you lose sanity), and 4 sanity is not that bad, especially if your character is very good at avoiding monsters. One of the most important things Avi's league taught me is that you must not focus on combat for winning the game, but on gates. If you give a look at Scenario 5, you'll notice that you're supposed to face 7-toughness monsters. A nightmare even for your strongest monster whacker. In a game where you have to focus on gates, a character starting with an Elder Sign, some clues and the ability to avoid monsters (because of her great Sneak or her special ability) IS a must.

And yes, you're right. This league can be frustrating, because it's extremely tough. But - it's a promise - it could be the best Arkham experience of your life if you start changing your game style according to the Scenarios. Three are the most important things: clues, speed and the ability - in case of need - to lengthen the doom track of the AO. It's similar to the matches between Agassi and Becker on "red earth" (a la Roland Garros, don't know the English word). Becker was almost always defeated because he wanted to beat Agassi playing behind the service line. You cannot beat Avi by harvesting his monsters. But you can play differently. And it's a lot of fun (especially when you remove the Dark Druid from the board by closing a gate ::laughter:: I know, this is not going to happen again :-P)

Consider Scenario 1 as a kind of appetizer. Scenario 2 is a nightmare. When I played it, I seriously thought about quitting the League. Fortunately I did not :-)

And... I'm glad you started it :-)

Julia said:

::Laughter:: I think I'm still suffering from PTSD from Scenario 2.

Well, i tried another game for scenario 1 with Wendy, and, yep, she's gonna be a major characters in my team. She's doing great stuff.

Hugues said:

::Laughter:: yeah, and she's essential for scenario 2 ;'D Why did you replay it though? I take it the game was much easier this time?

Avi_dreader said:

I wanted to try Wendy. And i thought, "Let's go for some turn".. And then i wanted to finish that game

Plus, i won't be able to play the second scenario quickly, and regarding the time to install, playing only one game would have been a very bad ratio. ;o)

The game was different. I had 1 gate in Innsmouth first turn and then a surge on it with a 3 Vampires... But hopefully, there were stationary monsters besides. And to prevent vortex, one of my guy used "Milk of Shub-Niggurath" to bring in Arkham all those monsters and then obviously, moving in Arkham, was really difficult. And Wendy did a great show But for the other investigators, was difficult.

Hugues said:

Ooo... You know, one very good way of using milk is to bless an investigator who is strong then use the milk on an expansion town and have the strong investigator kill everything in the monster stack on the same turn.

Yep, but this implied having a big guy

In fact, i use it with Yorrick at the Cemetary, because, there was Dracula there and Yorrick couldn't escape and even if he could win against Dracula during a fight, he would still have been there the turn after. So he lured every monsters and went to the Asylum to escape Dracula

Hugues said:

I would have used it with one character and had william (blessed) defeat everything but Dracula, I'd have him deliberately get knocked out by Dracula at the end. Well... Ideally. I don't know what your actual circumstances were in the game :') Personally I love picking up five or six monster trophies in one turn.

Scenario 15 is posted.

SCENARIO 14 - POWER PLAY

All boards in play

Investigators: Ursula, Darrell, Mandy, Monterey, Minh, Luke

Time to go on with Avi's League and try to beat Scenario 14. As it's usual praxis in every Nyarly game, having the proper timing and force the game to follow the investigators pace is the main goal for a correct game. This time it wasn't too difficult having a good start. Knowing what the first Mythos would be, allowed me to trick the board from the start: Ursula chose the Black Cave as her starting location, thus gaining her fifth clue before resolving Mythos zero. Thus, she was sucked into the Leng Plateau, but to Blated woman on the board, and the Hunter stayed in the Sky, searching for somebody in an unstable location to land on, but finding none.

Starting equipment was rather good, with Mandy having the Hand Camera and Luke having two Shrivelling and the Gladius of Carcosa, plus a +1 FIght allowing him to reroll the '1'. Mandy used immediately the Hand Camera, collecting a clue (plus an extra one for the card) and allowing Darrell to get an extra one. This was the winning move: at this point - round 1, I had an investigator able to seal in an OW, Mandy, ready to enter & seal a gate after Mythos one, Darrell with four clues (1 starting, 1 for the Camera, 1 for the encounter, 1 virtual clue granted by the possession of Research Material) able to enter and seal after Mythos 2. In the meantime, Minh and Lily were gathering some other clues to be able to enter after Mythos Four, and for Mythos three I had Luke returning to Arkham and reentering another portal immediately, to generate the needed clues. Besides, Minh also was pretty lucky because she drew during turn 1, as a result of an encounter, the Dreaded Curse of Azathoth, which was the key for dealing successfully with the two Masks in play.

At ths point, the game was more or less won. All I needed to do was

a) hoping the Mythos deck would have offered me a different gate every round. And my prayers were answered, I had in a row Hibbs Roadhouse, Unvisited Isle, Graveyard, Witch House in a row. No monster surges, no activities on extra boards, until I had a gate opening at Devil's reef. No monsters moved, and Minh could easily go there with her PS passed

b) dealing properly with the two Masks in play. Hockey tought me something about power play: I had six investigators in my team, and Nyarly's team was made of two. So it was enought using two of my investigators to deal with them, while the other could keep on sealing gates. I focused Mandy's ability to help other investigators to reroll the Evade checks, and let Minh deal with some of them. She was able to clear the path a couple of times from the Hunter of the Dark, and I generally played in order to have only one low Sneak investigator in a street area away from gates, so the Hunter planned every time on his head, leaving an empty path for the others to reach the gates

The only two difficult moments were with Darrell in R'lyeh, and an obscene obesity forcing him to lose a D6 of Sanity. At that time he had only 3 Sanity left. I rolled two, enough to exit R'lyeh and seal the gate. The other bad moment was Luke drawing as random monster in the Underworld a Dhole. But he killed him on the spot.

The rest of the game was more or less "All quiet in Arkham". 6 seals in 11 Mythos, Nyarly was at 8 Doomers when I won

As a side note, there is a couple of things that should be clarified (for when we'll create the eon):

a) as it's written, you can have both the Bloated Woman and the Hunter removed from the board by closure of an Hex / Square gate. And if the Blated woman can enter play again later (it's enough waiting for a clue to be removed), there is nothing preventing the Haunter from being thrown beck into the monster cup. The Herald specify you cannot claim his trophy, and that he returns to the Sky when killed. But closing a gate is not killing anything. I played that both of them don't leave play if a matching dimensional symbol gate is closed (I preferred a harsher variant), but maybe you want to fix this

b) drawing and ES = being cursed EVEN for starting possessions? That's a little too harsh for me, maybe even this should / could be fixed (I'd go for: discard and draw a new one)

c) Goddess of the Black Fan should also clarified: I interpreted that she appears whenever a gate opens on a location with at least one clue, but if you read it properly, if a Mythos instructs to put a clue on a location with one or more clues, you have to remove one, so technically she should appear even in this case

Ok, I think these are the major issues with the Scenario. Hope this helps!

And you were complaining about time constraints ;') What's that you said? Eight doom? Interesting Ursula strategem, I hadn't thought of that. You missed one significant aspect of the scenario though and my lips are five clue tokened!

Julia said:

a)yeah, they're almost definitely not intended to leave to the cup :') 100%, sorry, I didn't write those.

b)being cursed is actually somewhat of an asset in that scenario

c)I don't understand what you mean? If a clue is placed on a location with a clue, you don't have to remove one.

Avi_dreader said:

a) yep, I know you were not the author of the Heralds, but maybe you should specify this on the blog

b) so, no unique and curse. sigh. lucky was I it wasn't the case

c) if you look at the herald, it's clearly written: "when a Mythos card indicates that a clue token is to be placed in a location that already contains clue tokens, remove a clue token from that location instead". So, yes, if you have to place a clue on a location with one, you have to remove one. This effect is an effect triggered by a Mythos card with as consequence the removal of a clue from the board. Does this trigger the "Goddess of the Black Fan" ability or not? I intended not (the Bloated Woman enters play when a GATE removes a clue from the board), but maybe it was yes

Avi_dreader said:

Really? Sigh. A hint on what to think about? Or, at least, when I'm done with the League, would you mind telling me?

And I told you, the real problem is when I have to sacrifice three good characters for three jerks.. but anyway, we'll talk about this until I beat the next one (not so soon, I'm afraid, but hey, who knows?)