Julia said:

You don't draw the exhibit item instead of an item. You get it free at the beginning of a scenario, no strings attached ;') Reread the manual! Ach ;') what have I done?!

Julia said:

Well... The thing is, my gaming style varies based on circumstance. I don't play that way if there's an AO with a short doom track (or a potentially accelerating doom track).

Avi, first of all thanks for accepting the dialogue ::smiling:: I got your e-mail, and reply in the same way.

Combat: I always try to avoid combat, when playing these kind of Scenarios. But let me stress a significant point: there are elements in this series of Scenarios I'm not very friendly with. Two, to be specific: the Masks, and the Exhibit items. For many and different reasons: I started playing Arkham consistently when Kingsport was released. So all what happened before Kingsport had to be played quite quickly in order to keep the pace with the game and the friends in the forum. So I think I played something like 4 Nyarlathotep games before this segment of the League. And in only four games, I didn't have much time to get accustomed to Masks. Curse of the Dark Pharaoh is the expansion I used the less, and I never felt the urge of gaining Exhibit because I was still learning how to use Unique Items. And then... old habits are difficult to dismiss.

So, not knowing exactly what I was going to meet, it was more logical trying to avoid the unknown.

And basically this is why I see these games in a way different from yours. I hope you could get the point.

As for the White Ship... please, don't do that. I'm not metagaming here. It's simple so struggle the idea of getting that Ship that it'd be a pity not allowing this. Besides, obtaining it isn't such an easy thing, even for Luke, and it'd be sad to sunken the Ship before she could glide somewhere else. And it wouldn't certainly be a game breaking strategy :-)

But I'm glad of thinking strategies you didn't think about ;-)

Avi_dreader said:

Ma porc... that's your fault! I'm so paranoid about your way of designing Scenarios I'll never get you can have them FOR FREE!!!! ::sgrunting::

Julia said:

;'D I have no idea what "Ma porc" means, but it sounds funny. I feel like I told you, "You can have a free mattress, or your mattress is FREE!" Understandable why that might be confusing. Plus you probably don't have that commercial all over the place in Italy. Whoops.

I think I more or less replied to everything else in the letter :') so, I'm going to leave the spoilers off this thread ;'D Except, for anyone out there who thinks these scenarios are impossible, please watch this motivational video. Yes. I am the kid in the video.

Oh, but I'm *definitely* banning the White Ship. Or at least requesting that it not be used. ;') I think it's too exploitable in this context. It'll let you get to two or three gates for easy sealings, maybe even four if the game drags on long enough (although I doubt more than three unless you also have a find gate). Perhaps I'll just ban it in the hard mode.

Re: ma porc is a kind of shortened imprecation in Italian (just like saying "holy crap" but instead of saying "crap" you say "holy c"). It came from my heart, and I left there since it was quite coreographic. Not so sure about the commercial, I rarely watch the tv. No time, and no interest, so no commercials ::laighter::

I love that video! I'm only impressed that such a little kid is able to play Arkham so well. What? You mean a couple of years did pass from that? Yeah, possibly, but nonetheless.

Ok, the White Ship sunk on Scenario 16 cliffs. What a sad end, for such a brilliant strategy.

And yeah, you gave me tons of things to think about in your letter. I'll answer that later on today. For now, merry Thanksgiving to you and everyone else in the forum (or, at least, reading this thread :-P)

I made attempt number two at the second scenario last night, unsuccessfully. Sister Mary carried over Alchemical Process, Jacqueline retained Livre D' Ivon and Wendy kept Dynamite (it took out a Cultist). They were joined by Carolyn Fern and William Yorick. It ended in Final Battle, with Glaaki at seven doom tokens.

Things were going splendidly until the Arkham Encounters phase of turn one. I was in the process of splitting up items, and had eliminated one Servant of Glaaki, when Sister Mary had an encounter at Ma's Boarding House, where she discovered a corpse lying in her bed.. With Will set at 1, she auto-failed the subsequent Will -1 check to keep her cool, and the terror level increased by one. Yes, on turn one. That brought out a Servant of Glaaki, and it was the one that robs unique items, on a one out of three chance...exactly the one I didn't want to see. Though Wendy, Jacqueline and Carolyn were all hanging out together at the Curiosity Shoppe, I had neglected to have Wendy give her Elder Sign to Carolyn, who had two other unique items including Milk of Shiggoroth, for safekeeping. I was actually planning to, but forgot. So the Elder Sign was lost that quickly, and put Wendy's "Lost Hope" in play. She was literally never the same, easily her worst performance in these scenarios (appropriately, she drew "Jinxed" late in the game). It was bad enough that I'm questioning using her again in the next attempt at the scenario, but probably will for the Elder Sign.

That kind of set the tone, way early. Even so, there was a sense that the game could be managed. Jacqueline did use the Livre D' Ivon on her first turn and selected Arcane Insight. That allowed for both the doom track and number of open gates to be kept under control. The doom track was only at six when Glaaki awoke (when a fifth Servant of Glaaki came on the board), in something like 12-13 game turns. The down side was that it was necessary to "arrange" a high number of monster surges. Not one ever led to the terror track rising, but the board became awash in monsters, many of them invincible Cultists benefitting from the terror track combat modifier bonus and undead toughness bonus. After a few game turns, those simply had to be avoided. The game turned into an 8-hour treading water sort of experience. It was fun, but at the end, with the terror track at 8, the stark reality was that 0 Elder Sign tokens ever made it to the board.

It seemed like Willliam was poised from the outset to take his monster trophy/clue tokens and go seal a gate, as he even had Research Materials. Somehow he never made it to an Other World, ever. It started with him defusing a Profane Relics Seized rumor when he spent two (actual) clue tokens and Research Materials at the South Church to reward every investigator with a unique item, which seemed like a worthy goal. After that it became his job to contain monsters in his area, and open gates always seemed just a little too far away. In the latter part of the game, he spent time at St. Mary's Hospital and Arkham Asylum, once following an ill advised attempt to rescue Wendy in Dunwich when a persistent mystic environment card made it impossible to evade Undead monsters (both ended up knocked unconscious by a ridiculously powerful Skeleton poised next to a vortex). Two gates remained open in Innsmouth nearly the whole game, there were 10-15 monsters coming and going, and no investigator ever set foot up there. The entire game was essentially played in a defensive mode. Eventually the investigators seemed to lose heart as the terror level continued upward and no gates were ever sealed, allies were lynched and Carolyn had to discard poor Asenath Waite when she drew a "Paranoid" madness card.

(Speaking of allies, I now have 34 of them in the deck from all the expansions. Rather than trim the deck to 11, I leave all in play and remove three each time that the game calls for one ally to leave. Is this appropriate for these scenarios, or should I be trimming the deck to 11? It's nice to have the variety, and also satisfying to actually have the correct one available on those rare occasions when an investigator is joined by an ally as a result of an encounter.)

Back to the drawing board in a few days. Carolyn Fern was a superstar and she will be back, and it's hard to pass on William's three protected "clues" and Wendy's Elder Sign. But it could be nice to have Zoey simply getting prepared to go after Glaaki in the Final Battle, especially if the terror track could possibly be restrained...

Schmiegel said:

Hey, if you keep the allies in, I don't mind if you don't mind (as long as you don't exploit the deck to get Professor Rice by encounters, he's really the only potentially game breaking Ally).

Honestly, if I had the terror rise on me during turn one in that game, I would have forfeited instantly and just restarted the game with the same items (to save the time necessary to set everything up again— I would have just reshuffled the decks). A turn one terror increase is basically death in that scenario.

I will say this though, dynamiting the cultist is not necessary. The trick to dealing with the cultist and servant in Dunwich is sending Wendy to their spot immediately so they're not able to move, and just don't encounter them (send another investigator over, ideally the next turn or the turn after to kill both of them and free up Wendy for moving again). I don't really like items like dynamite, holy water, and powder of ibn gazi. I'll use them if I can get them, and sometimes they're necessary (because you don't have anything better), but, killing just one of the pair with Wendy won't solve anything (because you really can't let the terror rise in this scenario, especially in the early game— it's safer after you get a few items as a buffer against the unique item thief and the common item thief, for your characters carrying your most important items, but, you're better off taking the chance to get something that makes clues or that is a permanent weapon for Wendy than you are with a dynamite (after all, if on the off chance you draw a good gun or a flamethrower, you might be able to take out the cultist and still have something to keep, or you might get something worth a clue or who knows what). Generally I dislike disposeable weapons, because it's fairly easy to find weapons in the decks (that you can actually keep), so, in my mind, they're usually not a good use of money or a draw.

Arcane insight is an okay spell, but it's not as powerful as Alchemic Process. In my mind, that is by far the best spell in the game (assuming you get it early game), because it allows you to obtain so many other resources.

Just reading about your game got me nervous ;') but keep it up, you'll beat it (and once you do, you'll be glad to know that it'll be a while before you play another scenario that's nearly as brutal as this one, this one's basically the training level).

Also, Wendy's an awful fighter. She's much better at just evading monsters in the street, or cranking up her sneak to maximum level anywhere else and just running past monsters guarding gates or appearing in other worlds.

Schmiegel,

first of all sorry for the bad luck you had. I'd have done the same thing Avi suggested, a +1 Terror on turn 1 means game over, especially if the Unique Item Servant enters play.

As for the Ally issues, may I suggest you to use the Ally and Citizen deck custom rule most of us use regularly in their games? At the start of the game, you shuffle the Ally deck, then you draw randomply 11 cards. These form the "Ally deck" and represent the Ally you can recruit at Ma's. The others form the Citizen deck: these Allies can be obtained only through encounters. When the terror level rises, you discard one Ally from the Ally deck, and two Allies from the Citizen deck. In this way, the balance of the game is preserved, and it's easier to avoid abusing of some allies (just like Professor Rice: you can't buy him unless he is in the proper deck)

As for the initial strategy, in case you think it could be helpful for you, if you go to page 6 of this thread and read Reply 81, you'll find the report of my (won) game against this Scenario.

Just a point of your epic chronicle I didn't get: it seems like Glaaki awakened when you put the fifth Servant on the board. Actually, he wakes up when you're asked to put a Servant of Glaaki in play and you didn't have any on the AO's sheet. I think.

Anyway, keep on trying! The next time it'll go better! And many compliments for your endurance, an 8 hour game is *long*

Hey guys...thank you once again for the extremely helpful comments which are right on, as per usual. I'm already applying a lot of what you mentioned, Avi. It was kind of ironic when Wendy had that Skeleton snagged in the Blasted Heath, as per the strategy you mentioned, and the mythos card came up that prohibits investigators from evading Undead monsters. That was when both Wendy and Yorick ended up getting knocked unconscious. I do agree about the dynamite or other one-shot weapons being inferior to some of the other items you can acquire. At worst, a cheap semi-useless common item (lantern) could come in handy for protecting a superior item when the Servant of Glaaki that steals common items comes up.

I may consider going with Alchemical Process x 2, instead of Arcane Insight. Jacqueline didn't use Precognition even once in that last game. But she rarely had 2 clues.

Julia, I checked out Glaaki's Undead Servants special ability and, lo and behold, you're right. It's only after all five servants are already on the board and a sixth one is being sought to place that Glaaki awakens. I must not have read that very effectively.. It wouldn't have saved me in that last game, but it will be very good for future reference.

Also, I appreciate the info about the Allies and Citizens decks. I wasn't aware of that idea...I hadn't been reading the Arkham forums for quite a while until seeing these scenarios posted. That's a perfect solution to that issue, though. I'll check out your report from when you beat scenario two. I think I may be trying this again on Monday night, with the same team. I'll let you know what happens....no doubt another epic chronicle style report, maybe even with better news.

Schmiegel said:

That's the common hope! ::smiling:: Let us know!

Julia said:

Indeed :') good luck.

Attempt #3 at the second scenario is in the books and it's another defeat for the good guys. This one went somewhat better than the first two. Two gates ended up sealed, both by Wendy. When the 8th gate opened to awaken Glaaki, the doom track was at 11 and the terror track at 9...so there were multiple directions that a loss was approaching from... With the terror track at 9, I didn't bother with the Final Battle. It's a fascinating challenge, and I'll try it again, at least once more.

William Yorick had finally made it to an Other World with five monster/clue tokens on the final turn (only to be launched into time and space from the first area), Jacqueline had 3 clue tokens (after spending 2 to deflect a mythos card, in vain, at the end) and so did Carolyn and Mary. So there was light at the end of the tunnel, but it turned out to be Glaaki.

There was one development I felt somewhat conflicted about, and Avi, I would be interested to hear your thoughts.. (And your thoughts as well, Julia, but this is a scenario designer ruling sort of question.) Around a third of the way into the game, Sister Mary acquired a spell, probably in some encounter. She drew "Plague of Locusts". When the revised edition of Curse of the Dark Pharaoh came out, that was one of several spells that was updated. So as I always do when I purchase new game expansions from FFG, I swapped the new items in and removed the obsoleted ones. The wording of the updated version of "Plague of Locusts" is as follows.. Casting Modifier: +0, Sanity Cost: 2, Magical Spell - Movement: Cast and exhaust to choose 1 monster in a street area. Return it to the cup and remove all clue tokens in the same neighborhood. (Maybe you already know this. But I'm thinking that the revised edition of this expansion came out even later than Lurker on the Threshold....however I've been playing with the new version all along in these scenarios.)

Anyway, shortly after acquiring the spell, Mary took up semi-permanent residence in the Arkham Asylum. She already had carried over Alchemical Process from Scenario One. For nearly every turn for at least the next third of the game, she generated money (at a cost of one sanity) and cast the Plague of Locusts spell on monsters in street areas, at a cost of two sanity. (The text doesn't say she has to be in the same street area as the monster herself). Then she stayed at the asylum, paid to have sanity restored to full, and repeated the process.

For a time I thought this synergy might win me the game, as it kept the servants somewhat at bay, although in the end it didn't of course. The conflict I had was that I suspected it's a spell that could be considered an exploit or game-breaker. It was used on several occasions to remove the over-powered Cultists or the Servants of Glaaki when they would wander unsuspecting into the street. While it's not a no-strings-attached combat victory like Handcuffs (which Cultists are immune to in scenario 2), it does bring that particular weapon to mind. On the downside, for "Plague of Locusts", it requires the removal of all clue tokens in the same neighborhood (which wound up being a fairly significant number), there were three or four occasions when the spell simply didn't work (Mary had lost her blessing) but still cost 2 sanity and that specific strategy required Mary to do nothing else but just remain in the asylum. In short, there were multiple tradeoffs involved to make it work, it wasn't just a freebie like Handcuffs. Eventually it was passed to Carolyn Fern.

Since I didn't design the scenarios and it's not my decision, I would be interested in a "ruling" on this issue. If acceptable, I would strongly consider making that the spell Jacqueline chooses when she uses her Livre D' Ivon to select a spell of her choice, instead of Alchemical Process. It was obviously handy for controlling monster traffic, but did come at a price. In my opinion, that's not much different than any number of synergies that came be utilized within the game. But since this particular spell came in after the scenario had already been designed, I was curious as to whether it might have been de-fanged, like Handcuffs, to assure that Scenario 2 remains virtually impossible.

In either event, I'll give it another try. Wendy was much more productive this time around, although for the second straight time, Bill Yorick scarcely breathed the air of another world. I'm not sure how that happens, but it does. It's hard to pass up Carolyn Fern. Julia, I didn't get a chance to read the report on how you defeated the scenario. I'll be sure to do that this time. If it's not Wednesday night, it will probably have to wait for a week and a half.

Schmiegel said:

Okay, there are several problems with what you're doing :') First of all, you can't do return to the cup effects on spawn monsters. They don't work. That's actually all the problems ;')

I didn't even realize how strong the new Swarm of Locusts is. Buuuut... Tactically what you're doing is a *very* bad idea. Think of it this way, it takes an *entire* turn of investigators turns for a clue to generate (maybe, assuming it doesn't appear on a gate), but it only takes one investigator's turn to kill a monster. See how this is going to lead you to mathematical problems when it comes to clue collecting?

I'm telling you, go for double alchemical process and shop the hell out of the unique item store while collecting clues and monster trophies to turn into clues with the other players. You'll win :') you'll see. You'll probably come across at least one more Elder Sign and/or King in Yellow while unique item shopping, which well help out with everything (not to mention improving your weapons capacity).

Generally speaking, keeping the streets clear from monsters isn't the most important thing. You don't win by killing monsters, you win by sealing (and sometimes closing) gates. In other words, if it's necessary to kill a monster to clear a path to a gate, do it, if not, you may be better off ignoring it. If it's necessary to kill monsters to keep them from going into vortexes and screwing up the terror level, do it (especially on this level).

It's also important to clear as much of the board as you can early game just so you don't get overwhelmed by the Servant/Cultist pairs, buuut... If you don't have a good starting weapon, you do have two sets of alchemical processes, right? I'd say send everyone over to the common item shop on turn one (there are more weapons there, plus lots of cheap items, so you won't spend as much money while looking for weapons that don't just disappear after use).

Scenario 2 is not virtually impossible, it's just difficult. It requires a good sense of fundamental tactics to win (and it's still difficult even then). You really need to understand time and resource management well to beat it.

Avi_dreader said:

There is a couple of good images in the kendo practice that actually can be used even for Arkham. When you hit your opponent, you have to move like there is another one behind the first one, and you need to reach the second one. The first one is nothing but an obstacle on the path of your life. Or, if you prefer "when cutting your enemy's head, look at the pale hills on the horizon, it's the place you're moving to".

This reflects what Avi said. Do not focus on monsters. They are nothing, but a waste of time. The biggest, greatest, most difficult part in improving the way we play (and I'm in, since the way I played Scenario 16 showed me I have a long path to walk to really get this point) is this one: do not consider monsters unless is necessary for you to kill them. Or you do have time and resources free and the rythm of the game won't change if you slash a couple of elder skulls (sounds like a Warhammer thing ::laughter: . This is very important as it is a fundamental part of the strategy (if misplayed, it'd make Scenario 5 impossible to win - please Avi, don't say "it's not impossible". I know it's not). By leaving Mary at the Asylum, you basically played one investigator less. And four investigators for six seals is difficult, especially with such a Scenario where you have to lose a couple of turns dealing with the Servants in play and the Clue Servant at the beginning of the game screws everything. Clues are vital, I'd rather prefer getting two injuries than losing three clues.

There is something wrong with the way you deal with the gates (not take this as personal, Schmiegel! I'm trying to understand where the problem is, and figure out how to help). Were they scattered in bad places on expansion boards? I can't realize why you had so few seals on the board. If time is a major issue, use the Livre d'Ivon to gather a Find Gate spell, you could quicken the pace of your investigators. And try to have all of them working on gathering clues as quickly as possible. Spend the first gate trophies on Blessings, so that Mary can pass her PS. After this, she's a *great* character, especially because her reroll ability can be applied to other characters as well, and with a bit of luck you can have two investigators blessed for the rest of the game.

William starts with 3 monster trophies, which means by turn 3 he must be inside a gate. Wendy can enter a gate immediately. This means you could have in the very first turns two seals on the board, and a -1 doomer to Glaaki, extending virtually his doom track to 12. Even if you gain only one clue / turn, you should be able to seal all gates with no much trouble as soon as you get rid of the initial bad situation. Kill those Servants! And farm some good UI!

And let us know how it goes!

Thanks guys for the continuing feedback! It sounds like I do need to change my attitude as far as dealing with monsters, in general. Avi, one point I'm not clear on as far as spawn monsters.. I wasn't actually literally returning them to the cup, I was returning them to Glaaki's ancient one sheet for recycling. (Same with Cultists, except returning to the Dr. West herald card pool.) Are you saying that they are completely immune to any cards that state "return to the cup", by virtue of being spawn monsters, and can't even be touched by a card such as "Swarm of Locusts"? I understand the point about it being a bad tactical decision....but are you also saying that it's essentially an "illegal move", apart from being possibly broken within the scenario context?

Actually, I do largely ignore them except in a couple of cases.. (1) If their numbers need to be trimmed to avoid exceeding the monster limit in Arkham + Outskirts, and thereby raising the terror level by exceeding the number allowed. (2) If a monster is on the verge of going through a vortex and raising the terror level. Or when they have to be cleared out of the way just to give investigators a lane in which to move.

This gets me to a related question... When a monster is still present at a location where a gate is being closed or sealed, does that monster stay on the board or is it removed along with the monsters of the same dimensional sign as the gate? I have been leaving them on the board.

Also, isn't the General Store closed at the start of Scenario 2? You mentioned the "common item shop". I presume that's the General Store. With the terror level starting at 3 in this scenario at the beginning of the game, the General Store would be closed, right?

Julia said:

A few things :') I wasn't going to say "it's not impossible" because you said "if misplayed" ;')

Effective doom track to 13, not 12 :')

I wouldn't get the Find Gate. It's too big an opportunity cost. If you really need a Find Gate, just pick Norman Withers. I'm telling you, double cash is the way to go. More money, less problems. In Arkham anyhow.

UI=Unique Items, I think.

Everything else I agree with, I think. My brain is a little jumbled right now.

Schmiegel said:

Yes, it's an illegal move. Same reason why you can't remove spawn monsters from the board with cards like Feds Raid Arkham.

Eep. Sorry, I guess the common item store's closed (yeah, I call the General Store and Curiositie Shoppe the unique item store). It's been about a year since I've looked at scenario two, I completely forgot about that detail. Mortifying ;') Well, unique items it is then!

The only monsters that are removed from the board when a gate is closed are monsters sharing the gate's dimensional symbol. It doesn't matter if a monster's on a space with a gate or not when it closes.

Impossible vs possible: not so sure you'd have been seduced by the dark side ::laughter::

Doom track: sorry, yeah, 13, Glaaki's normal doom track is 12

Find gate: Norman + Find gate & another Find gate would accelerate a lot the game. I agree that a double Alchemical process can be a blast (practically, every three rounds you can buy two skills, which is not bad, or you can buy a Unique Item / round (more or less, and yeah UI = Unique Item, sorry if it wasn't clear), but it seems to me that the main problem in Schmiegel games is that he's not very quick at sealing, so maybe sparing some turns in OWs could help him in doing this more efficiently

Spawn Monsters: Schmiegel, it was said (some time ago, when FAQ were about to be reworked for the final - maybe - time) that you cannot have card effects returning Spawn Monsters to the cup (or the sheet, or whatelse) (the FAQ have not been published yet, so this might create some confusion and your legitimate mistake. I hope this makes the rules clear now ;-)). So, it's ok removing them from the board if you close a matching dimensional symbol, but you cannot use *any* spell or card or other tricks to have this effect. Besides, you'll notice that practically *all* official Spawn monsters have the Crescent Moon symbol, so no way you can remove them by gate closing (this will be relevant when you'll be playing against some other Spawn designed in further scenarios. Unless Avi changes his mind on this point)

Monsters: Schmiegel, if you deal with monsters in the way you said, then you're doing it properly! Basically the key for surviving this Scenario (the additional strategy boost required) is to avoid the Terror rising, so anything preventing this is strategically correct ;-)

Go for it, you can beat it!

Julia, thanks for the explanation about spawn monsters. (And Avi for the various and sundry rulings and remarks.) I hadn't seen an official reference to such a thing and in searching for something in the rules about it last night, came up empty. But, intuitively it does seem proper that spawn monsters not be so easily dismissed, and I'm certainly not arguing that. I just wondered if it was in the official rules, was in a FAQ I missed, was part of the scenario rules I didn't know about or just a house rule of some sort.... So thanks for specifying that. As for your question about Yorick never making it to other worlds, it involved a mix of the gates being too far away and a convoluted series of unfortunate events. Lack of speed doesn't help. I tried in last night's game to have him focus on sealing a gate ASAP..

Speaking of that..

In attempt number four at Scenario 2, I think I set a world record for swiftest advance of the terror track. Why stop at WORLD record, actually? I must have the record or at least a tie throughout the history of the UNIVERSE in this category. Sister Mary was the first player and on the first card pulled on the initial startup mythos phase (the one before upkeep etc. even happens), she got "The Siren Call!" "A strange feeling pulls the first player towards the sea, forcing him (her?) to draw two Innsmouth Look cards." And it turned out she did have the Innsmouth Look... Who knew? The townspeople were shocked. But not for long. Because I simply pulled the plug on that game and started over. If having the terror track go up ONE on the first turn is "death", what about FOUR..? A fate worse than death, I suppose, by definition. (Assuming I'm interpreting things correctly....when an investigator is devoured, Dr. Herbert West's "Serum of Life" ability and Glaaki's special ability combine for a terror rise of FOUR.) So after one card, on the game's initial move, the terror track advanced to SEVEN! That, I submit, is the new record.

What was officially attempt #5 then, was a spectacular game, one of the most fun Arkham Horror sessions I have ever had...relentlessly entertaining. I can't cover it all here, you had to "be there".. But if the point of the game is to have fun, it was "Mission Accomplished". Was it a win for the investigators? No.

At the end of the game when the 12th doom token was placed on Glaaki's doom track, I had four gates sealed, with Carolyn Fern and Sister Mary in the first areas of R'lyeh and Plateau of Leng armed with six and four clues, respectively (I know, one clue short, that was another story..). Carolyn had acquired the "Arcane Insight" spell a couple of turns earlier via the "Police Helpless to Displace Vagrants" urban environment card allowing investigators to spend $5 in the Downtown streets to draw the top 3 cards of the Spell deck and choose 1 to keep.. That fended off the end for an additional turn and she even had found a Tome on the Plateau's first area, of all things, which facilitated Arcane Insight being enabled a second time but there was no salvation to be found anywhere in the next three mythos cards, sadly. None of them featured a gate opening anywhere which would have led to a monster surge or where an elder sign was placed.. But the investigators had made quite a run at it this time at least.

Three gate seals came all during the same turn, accomplished by Mary, Wendy and William. The fourth one required Wendy to be voluntarily devoured for the greater good. (Confession: her handlers had failed to note when she entered The Abyss that she was sitting at one stamina and one sanity and there was really no choice at the time other than to use her Elder Sign - she had done the first seal via 5 clue tokens. That seemed like a mistake but in hindsight there wouldn't have been time to rectify it anyway..). She was replaced by Norman Withers, but there was a bit too much awkwardness in getting to the last two gates and time simply ran out. It had looked promising for a time.

What doomed the effort? There were two separate mythos cards that had the "No gates open, but add 2 doom tokens to the doom track" feature. One arrived early, when the first gate had just opened and a gate was needed for exploration. By the time a second gate opened in Dunwich, valuable time had slipped away. The other problem was Jacqueline Fine. She wound up getting cut off from the world at St. Mary's Hospital by a lone servant and a cultist/servant team. Three or four times she tried in desperation to evade the +1 awareness servant and was knocked unconscious each time. (There were no clue tokens anywhere in the area and she spent the last two thirds or so of the game with no clue tokens. She was useless.) The other investigators were too far away or otherwise engaged and unable to help her out and she had nothing for weapons. Finally she was freed by the "Charity Case" mythos headline card allowing the investigator with the lowest Sanity to move to Arkham Asylum. But then she was immediately cut off again by a cultist/servant team that moved directly in front of the asylum shortly after Wendy was devoured.

I'll try it again, at least once more, but not until the weekend after this one. I'm considering inviting Norman Withers, but don't know who would be dropped in that case. Not Carolyn. And not Wendy. That leaves good old Bill Yorick, but he has the three monster trophy/clues that are protected at the outset... I don't know, it's a tough call. Again Mary will carry over Alchemical Process and Jacqueline will carry over Livre d' Ivon. With "Swarm of Locusts" not quite so strong when played legally, it won't be that spell that Jacqueline chooses. It'll be between a second Alchemical Process, Find Gate and Arcane Insight. (Interestingly, at one point of the game, both Sister Mary and Carolyn Fern had Alchemical Process and Swarm of Locust spells (played legally this time) - the latter had been drawn from the deck at random in both cases. Those were the only spells any investigator possessed.

It was a terribly interesting game, would've been a good one to win.. So if I give up if attempt #6 fails, what are the official scenario rules? I can go on, with the same team even, but they give up all carried over items..? Otherwise just move on..? We'll see what happens of course. Thanks for listening!

Ahhhh... It's been so long since I played this scenario, I forgot what makes it truly terrifying. It's not just the bad start and the ability for things to get worse rapidly like a normal Glaaki game. It's that if you get anyone devoured, you're basically dead. Now I remember why I tried to beat it as fast as possible and felt tense until the very end (because one piece of semi-bad luck could turn a "certain" victory into a certain defeat).

Hmmm... Well, it sounds like you're making progress. Four seals is almost there. Plus you were just a few turns away from pulling it off... I think a little better time and resource management skills and you can do it. By the way, clearing the streets is to some extent a time management skill, because if the streets get too crowded, you will have to spend too much time having weaker investigators moving around monsters to get to their destinations (ultimately wasting more time than it would take to just kill them, and on the other hand, you could get your investigators trapped).

Also, you can skip the scenario and just go to the next one if you want (but if you can stomach more of it, I'd really advise trying to beat it first— it will make all the other scenarios relatively easier if you can). I'd say if you do that, you should be penalized by not being allowed to carry over any items ;') (it'll still be way easier than scenario 2— I really did forget why it was so unpleasant, but not that it was so unpleasant).

I was pretty amused (and horrified) by the terror being at seven on turn one ;') you might be amused to know that you are playing the *easy* version of the scenario (the first two times I playtested it I allowed gates to appear at Devil's Reef and Y'ha Nethlei, guess how I lost both of the first two times I played it?) That was really the only scenario that caused major problems in the playtesting. Ah well.

Yorrick is quite excellent in this scenario... But find gate will save you a lot of time... If I were you, I'd bump in Norman *without* taking out Yorrick. Yeah, you'll have more monsters to deal with, but, that's not necessarily a bad thing (in fact, from Yorrick's perspective, that might be a good thing).

Wendy, William, Norman, Carolyn, Jaqueline, Mary. Six investigators can take the board. It'd be tough, but, just blitz it (you really do want to play through this scenario as fast as you possibly can, it's a nuclear meltdown just waiting to happen).

Schmiegel,

you're a constant player, and a man of great spirit (in all senses). I was rofling on the floor when reading the way you introduced the "Terror Seven" issue. Thanks for sharing :-)

The most important thing is that you had (finally) a great time playing this Scenario. This means that the Mythos deck was a little more gentle with you (I say "little more" because of the two double doomers), giving you the chance to play. But this means also that you have improved a lot, and you're almost there! 4 seals + two investigators in OWs is not so distant from a victory! Very well done ;-)

You can beat this!

As for the investigators... the Scenario requires you to play Jacqueline and Mary. So, yeah, the six Avi told you. May I suggest you to introduce the Kingsport board too, for this Scenario at least? This should allow you to play six investigators as they were four (so only one monster / gate) and to blitzkrieg the Scenario (6 investigators for 6 seals, only one seal / investigator, you can do this in 8 turns and freeze Glaaki in an abyss of self despair)

Let us know (as usual)!

So after losing all my notes about my previous victory on the first scenario, I decided to do it again, in order to have some potential item to keep.

I had that game were I closed all gates, having 5 gates for 6 investigators, made a pause to check if it was a victory, assuming it wasn't, so I tried and failed to finish that game (very frustrating by the way). I was so close from victory, I couldn't lose right ? The game explained to me who's the master.

So I had try again, it went okay and I decided to keep only a Unique Item (I would have keep "find gate", but it was in Wendy possession and she has no Spell as starting equipment) which is the Tome which gives you 1 Skill and discard or 1 Clue and keep.

And then I tried Glaaki. I was really glad to keep that Tome. Because it's a really nice way to get some clues.

William got a Motorcycle and the first gate opened in Independance Square. So I though about him going halfway taking a clue and then going to the Square, fighting the Rampant and then having its 5th clue to sealed. I had like a problem when I got a monster surge, and two of the monsters going to the Streets. I thought, okay, no problem, I go there, fight the monsters (good equipment thanks to Mary) and next turn, I go to the Square (I know fighting is not really good but, it was the only gate...). So I fought well and next Mythos, one monster moves from the Square to the Streets... Okay fight again, and again a monster move to the streets... The turn after I went to another gate with a clean path. But I'm quite sure I lost so much time in those fights.

On the other hand, I was quite lucky because the couple of Servant/Cultist didn't move before turn 8 or so. And I got some openings in Arkham, no monster surge or nasty things. But despite that I wasn't very well cause I missed a lot of clues.

And then things went bad. First the "couples" started moving, so Wendy went to Dunwich to keep that one to go to the Vortex. I had Glaaki common Item coming into play and then a Rumor, one with 5 tokens on it. You remove one every turn raising the terror except if exhausting an Exhibit Item or Discarding a Unique. With only my precious Tome and Wendy's Elder Sign, it went very nasty.

But I had fun ! I had opportunities to do things, the game was quite cool with me, you know, like a cat playing with a mouse before crushing and eating it

Have to reset the boards and everything, but I'd like confirmation that I can't keep "Find Gate" which is in Wendy possession, or if I can give it to another investigator to be carried over.

Hugues said:

Well ;') you're not *supposed* to keep Find Gate, but since scenario 2 is so difficult, I wouldn't mind suggesting you pretend you traded it to another investigator ;') unofficially, of course.

Yeah... A clue generating item is an excellent thing to have on scenario two (I had one also). Scenario one was really intended for players to get their feet into the game, and to allow them to stockpile some very nice equipment. Unfortunately, most people seem to just want to rush through it without stocking their characters well to scenario 2... Which is... Um... Perhaps somewhat counterproductive in the long run? Timewise?

If you don't want to replay scenario 1 to item hunt, the least you could do to kind of balance the difficulty boost you're going to have to suffer through as a result, is allow investigators who didn't carry over items (i.e. let's say you only carry over 2 items, let 2 investigators do this) to draw (and discard) 2 extra cards of one of their random item types (so basically, giving them a +1 Monterey/Dexter/Bob like ability during the start of the game, although I suppose if you pick Dexter you'll be able to select two out of five spells).

I don't understand why you guys keep leaving the Cultist/Servants on the board. When I played this scenario, the first thing I did was kill all of them. I think I wiped out all three squads by the third or fourth turn. If the terror goes up, you *reeeeeally* don't want any more Cultists on the board than are absolutely necessary, they will be a nightmare.

Hugues said:

Hugues, I'll cover this for Avi, since he's quite busy with work these days and often AFK. Basically, part of the strategy of the League consists in handling items to be carried over with logic: thus, the last turn(s) should / could be spent by passing items to investigators able to carry them over (I know, it's hard and tough, especially if games are narrow victories).

So, I'm afraid you cannot give Wendy's spell to someone else.

I'm glad you had fun with this Scenario ;-) it's the toughest one of the first part, with a very difficult start and some dramatic rules (like the devastating effect a devouring could bring). It's a good thing you have a clue generating tome. Keep it safe from the evil (Avi ::wink: and you'll have a great help in the days to come.

As a side note, a reflection on your chronicle: yeah, sometimes it's better lowering speed and max Sneak, especially when you're near a gate you want to enter (I won my rematch of Scenario 13 because I was able to have a Sneak of 7 with Minh)

As for the rest... you'll have mail, later on, today (Scenario 10 is about to be posted)

Let us know how the rematch goes! If you beat it (and you could), you'll find the other Scenarios of this part of the League very funny and not too much difficult (I really love the one with the werenun)