Thanks guys! You both have an almost uncanny ability to say just the most helpful and appropriate things, on an intellectual and emotional level. Your comments are interesting and appreciated. I probably shouldn't have had such an emotional reaction to that latest loss, but there was such irony in the fact that one of the few corruption cards even on the board at the time drove an investigator insane who should have been practically the most difficult to drive insane, and in a game I was so close to winning after a long drought in that department.

I do like the perspective that these games have a "training" dimension to them which should be appreciated as much as wins and losses. That's a very good point and provides a healthy perspective when the mood turns dark, as mine had.

Also, I did have a question come up in regard to Hecate's "Dreams in the Witch House" ability where Luck Checks have difficulty increased by one. I understand how that works on your garden variety luck check, where it becomes analogous to an added toughness in a combat check. I get that. But how does it work in an instance such as I ran into at Falcon Point:

"You find a footlocker washed up on the shore. Make a Luck (-1) check as you open it and consult the chart below:

Successes:

0) The aquatic horror within is still alive! With a fishy stench and a revolting aspect, it oozes into the water and vanishes. Lose 1 Sanity.

1-2) Gain a common item.

3+) Gain $5.

This was actually on the turn that preceded Carolyn being driven insane. She rolled 1 success. Since the difficulty of Luck Checks was increased by one, I presumed this wasn't enough to claim a common item. But how should that work? Do you just subtract one success to reflect the added difficulty of the check in this case? Anyway, I chose not to spend any clue tokens, and Carolyn lost one sanity, dropping her sanity down to 2. In hindsight, that was a mistake, because she had the Luck skill, where each clue spent would count for a bonus die, but I didn't see the 2 sanity loss coming on the very next turn, although perhaps I should have. Of course Jacqueline and her Precognition was lost by then as she had been devoured. But it was partly out of confusion as to how to handle this situation that I just took the sanity loss (plus I wanted to preserve as many clues as possible, even if she did have 8 as I recall).

A couple of other oddities happened, as well. Wendy set the world record for quickest Blessing lost. During Arkham Encounters, Wendy was blessed while in the Dreamlands, when Jacqueline visited the South Church. Then on the ensuing Other World encounter that immediately followed, Wendy got this one: "A powerful wind scours away your memories, good and bad. Discard all of the following: Blessing, Curse, Detriment cards and Benefit cards."

Another note of interest was Sister Mary's lack of a warm welcome in Dunwich, at Bishop's Brook Bridge in particular. On her first visit there, she was picked up and arrested by an apologetic Sheriff Engle, who was responding to "complaints". Undaunted by that after she got out of jail, she returned and found that she was now Wanted. She remained Wanted for the rest of the game.

By the way, I should add that I replaced the deck that includes Wanted, Visions etc. (whatever that deck is called) that I had been using from the revised COTDP with the one from the original COTDP expansion, so that as long as Jacqueline was alive (about a third of the game), I was using the Visions card that was intended with this scenario.. I retained the Exhibit Encounters and Exhibit items deck and the Whispers marker from the new expansion...it had a very minimal impact on the game in this case.

Sometimes after a tough loss, it's a difficult call as to whether I should just post right then, or hold off until my emotions aren't quite as jagged....although sometimes I tend to forget too much of what happened if I wait. The bottom line was this was really fun, especially for the first half or so of the game when things were really going "swimmingly", it was just tough to deal with the abrupt turn south that things took. But your encouraging words have inspired me to set this scenario up again tonight.... (I don't think I'll ever return to scenario 2, but I understand the point you make there, Avi.)

Schmiegel,

thank you for your feedback. I'm glad to hear Avi's point helped you a little to lessen the pressure of these Scenarios. Just remember the histories I told you of my chess partner :-) I still play chess with him, even if I'm 96 losses 0 victories, by now ::laughter::

As for your question, I'd play this exactly as written on the card. Let me explain: the card does not require you to PASS a check (this would have required scoring two successes, instead of one, as you properly spotted out), the card requires you to test your Luck. And some good or bad things might happen according to the successes you rolled. So, if I had scored 1 success, I'd have chosen the "gain a common item" thing. Not so sure Avi's with me on this one, but in case I think you could consider the Scenario passed (with Carolyn not insane, you'd have put the sixth one on the board, wouldn't you?)

Mary was recognized as the Future Werenun (Scenario 4) and they tried to help

Also, it's a good thing you reverted to the original CotDP. Visions has a huge impact on the game, if properly played. Clues, clues, clues. You cannot trade clues, but you can trade spells, hence you can pas all the spells to one character with no clues, toss him into an OW and use Visions to gain clues for the seal. It fasten *a lot* the pace of your adventure

And break a leg for your new try!

Fingers crossed!

Julia,

Thanks as always for the insights. Interesting question as to what would have happened if Carolyn had not been actually driven insane indirectly by that luck roll at Falcon Point, in my previous game. All I can say is she would have proceeded to Devil's Reef to go through the gate there with 8 clues. What would happen after that remains unknown. That corruption card would still have reduced her by 2 Sanity, except down to 1 instead of 0. Strange things can happen, and she was being "followed". It would be hard to take it as a win, but thanks for trying to sneak me into the win column all the same, I appreciate that.

But it won't be necessary to win by that means any longer anyway, because I did defeat the scenario, finally, last night!! It was the same team: Mary, Jacqueline, Carolyn, Wendy and Norman. I'm not going to do a full-fledged report with a lot of detail, mainly because I have an opportunity to play again tonight and get into scenario #4, and I want to go to work on that as quickly as possible without much further adieu.

The way the game started out, it didn't seem like a path to victory.. There were five doom tokens on the doom track after 3 mythos cards. And Jacqueline had used Precognition once to bypass another mythos card already. (Mythos card #2 included another gate opening at The Witch House - and a monster surge of 10 monsters in addition to a doom token....no thanks!!). But she precognitioned right into a "No gates open, but add 2 doom tokens to the doom track" mythos that followed. Whereas the previous game had featured good dice rolling and a feeling that the game would be won (except when it came to Blessing and Night Nuzzling rolls), this game was dogged by poor dice rolling at best and a feeling that it would be a loss.

Although there was one very unusual aspect to the game, in that it seemed virtually monster-free. The Witch was never killed, and corruption cards ran rampant as a result, but the game was strangely devoid of monsters. At one point well past the halfway point, "Corpses Preserved" was the mythos card drawn:

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I'm not sure if that's a working link to the card on the Wiki... (I tried.) But it's the one where monster trophies come to life. The odd thing was, at that point NOBODY had a monster trophy. There had only been one confrontation between an investigator and a monster. That was with Carolyn attacking The Witch with her rifle. She had two shots, and failed. She was knocked unconscious and as bizarre as it sounds, she spent a good 80% of the game confined to St.Mary's Hospital. She only moved out of the hospital when she was driven insane and carted to Arkham Asylum. This was all she did after the failed attack on The Witch, who then survived the entire game.

Late in the game, Carolyn had an encounter with The Black Man after a rise in the terror level. Her luck was at 2 (due to a persistent corruption card that prevented any upkeep), so she had one die to roll, no clues and was not Blessed. It appeared she would be devoured. But she rolled a success! Got three red corruption cards but stayed alive. By then Jacqueline and Zoey were already in Other Worlds with sufficient clues for sealing and four gates sealed. (By the way, if Carolyn is in delay mode at Arkham Asylum after having just been driven insane, is she still allowed an Upkeep phase? I believe so. I don't think she has to skip her entire turn including Upkeep does she? Her marker stood up on the ensuing movement phase. Anyway, she cast her Bless spell on Jackie during that Upkeep after having been denied its use on the two previous turns by that skip upkeep corruption card...That got rid of Jackie's curse, but on the roll to close the final gate, Jackie had four dice for the Lore check and did roll one "six", so curse or not, it would have been a success, just more pressure.)

Sister Mary, however, was devoured, albeit on a "calculated risk". At the Historical Society she got the encounter that allowed her to accompany a representative of the society who was visiting a historic Arkham home at the Unnameable, if she wanted to "tag along". (This was fortuitous as she was pinned indefinitely by The Witch - so should she have had to take a corruption card as she breezed past The Witch on her way to the Unnameable..? I ruled "no".) There, she was allowed to draw two encounter cards and encounter the one of her choice. She chose the one where the investigator gets to roll four dice to discern patterns in a tapestry weave and four successes allows a doom token to be removed and placed as an elder sign on an unstable location of your choice but ANY failure rolled means you're devoured. (She was blessed.) Odds were against it, but the graphic on "Rivalries of the Gods" featured Sister Mary in a strange dimension after apparently having been devoured so I figured it was thematic and worth the shot for her to either be the hero or sacrifice herself... She lost and was devoured, replaced of course by Zoey, who sealed a gate of her own (the one prior to Jackie's winning sixth seal at Wizard's Hill). There were 11/13 tokens on the doom track when the sixth gate was sealed. Wendy had procured William Bain as an ally at Ma's Boarding House and had used her Elder Sign, accounting for the buffer.

So...moving on to scenario #4. I have read it over. Brilliant. I see Sister Mary and Wendy are required (and now I get the Were-Nun remark pertaining to Sister Mary..). I see a potential for some confusion but once I get into it maybe it will all make sense. This time investigators will get to carry some things over... In that department it will be Sister Mary (nothing), Wendy (Credit Rating), Carolyn (Rifle - she also had Ritual Candles at the end which I like but you need a weapon in these times), Norman (Gate Box) and then the final investigator will have to be chosen from Zoey (Lamp of Alhazred) or Jacqueline (nothing, but she sealed the final gate in scenario 3 and has Precognition, so I have to go with her). If Zoey comes off the bench again after a devouring, can she have the Lamp of Alhazred as a carried-over starting item or does the investigator need to begin the game on the team for that honor?

Yes, playing the original version of Visions made a critical difference to that victory, especially the first sealed gate, accomplished by Mary after a gate opened at her location and she was pulled through.

This went a little longer than intended, but on to scenario 4, which looks very interesting. I presume there is no way for an investigator to get rid of a Lycanthropy token once it's acquired....(don't see any way mentioned).

Schmiegel,

first of all, my best compliments for your victory over the 3rd Scenario! It was something in the air after your last report. And there is one thing that's very interesting: you finally seemed to have controlled the board. Not too many monsters, not too many gates, not too a long game. That's the path leading to many victories!

As for your questions:

- Being delayed implies you basically skip the movement phase. Better: during Movement, you can only put your standee back up. In case some monsters are at your location, you have to deal with them. That's it. While delayed, you certainly have an Upkeep. Hence, Carolyn was able to cast Bless

- Encounters instructing to move to another place: monsters in the streets do not hinder your passage, hence you should not worry about the Witch

- Making Mary be devoured isn't a bad choice (I can imagine Avi's laughter). No, seriously, Zoey is a great character, and the shifting tapestry with a blessed character isn't that impossible (odds are 1/16)

- Carried over equipment: yeah, I'll choose Rifle over Ritual Candles, for sure. The Gate box is vital, especially when paired up with Find Gate. I'll go with Jacq (her ability is really helpful, and there are tons of good weapons in the UI deck, so it doesn't matter, really if you lose the Lamp). As for Zoey... only investigators starting the Scenario are allowed to carry over items

- And nope, IIRC Lycan token are kept forever

Happy dancing beneath a naked full moon

JULIA

A question (maybe a stupid one..) about Scenario $4...

Sister Mary begins the game with Werewolf blood, and she moves as a Werewolf in the first mythos phase (and any time the crescent symbol comes up during the mythos phase). I'm going to assume that she still moves normally on her regular turn, correct? As if her Werewolf side is something she is only partially aware of, while she continues to operate as a "normal" human as well, as far as her routine functioning.

I suppose it about has to work this way (sorry, I just started the game, it probably becomes more obvious), because as time goes by if two or three investigators become werewolves, if they didn't carry out their "normal human" duties, there is no way the investigators would be able to win the game.

I'll just play it that way and if I'm wrong I can always ignore the game result (I'll probably lose first time around anyway) and play it again.. Thanks!

Julia said:

Um... I'm not sure where I am with this. It's a bit of an unusual case. Not really covered by the rules, as far as I know... I'd play it as Julia based on the rules as written though.

"DIFFICULTY This is the number of successes an investigator must roll during a skill check to pass the check." Since this is not a pass/fail check, it is a count how many successes rolled to trigger different results, I don't think difficulty is relevant. Just my impression.

Schmiegel said:

You pick the four carried over items, and for as long as you're willing to replay the next scenario you can pick that investigator holding that item.

Congrats on the win :'D I wish you good luck (and more importantly, good playing) on scenario 4. It happens to be one of my favorites, I hope you enjoy it. My only worry is about Credit Rating on Wendy :'/ any other character and I'd go great, but Wendy's such an important investigator, that limiting her to shopping for several turns can be problematic... Anyway, I'm not saying what you should do (haven't looked at the scenario in a year), but just remember to not fixate on one strategy if you find that it's not working for you. G'luck!

Julia said:

Now I"m worried I misunderstood the second part of your answer or is it the question? Eep.

As for 1/16 odds. Those are horrible :'P However, for getting her deliberately devoured ;'D wonderful!

Avi_dreader said:

Hmmm... Credit Rating on Wendy is great, in my opinion. She's a key character because of her great movement; a Credit rating skill offers her a virtual rail pass, or the chance to move people for free from Falcon point. Or free Research materials in case she's short of clues. It'd be better with a shopper, of course, but this offers you interesting way of enchancing her movement + freezing monsters ability, don't you think?

Avi_dreader said:

In the rules for this segment, you say (emphasys mine):

"This item must be exchanged with either a random or fixed possession of the same sort during the start of the next scenario "

So, if Zoey enters later, as soon as another investigator is devoured, it seems to me she's not allowed to swap any of her starting possession for something carried over from the previous scenario, because this ain't the "start" of the new one. Am I wrong?

Schmiegel: you're right, investigators moving as Werewolves do get a normal movement phase during the regular turn, otherwise ti would be impossible for them collecting clues, exploring gates and winning the game

Julia said:

Ask me about this in private email ;')

Julia said:

No, you're correct.

It stands to reason, I probably shouldn't have brought it up. And of course it has come up, as both Sister Mary and Norman Withers have been devoured. Zoey was the first investigator to be sent for, as per usual. This game remains in progress....started out swimmingly, not so much after that. Playing with a team of cursed investigators can be a challenge. Still surviving though. But that's about it. Zoey was ambushed by six werewolves at once (the real one and five cultists) after getting stalled by a Fourth of July parade in the Merchant district. So she is now a werewolf.

Enjoy the wereteam! We are all friendly, and will have a bite of your friends as well ::chomping::

Buy Blessings as soon as you can!

Fingers crossed!

Schmiegel said:

Consider killing some of those werewolves next game ;') might make things a bit easier.

Sorry about the multiple cursing :'/ sounds like you had bad luck with that. If you use Mary and Wendy, you can ward off quite a bit of the cursings.

I forgot about Wendy's ability not to be Cursed when she has an Elder sign. Duh...how lame is that. Worse, I used her Elder sign for her first gate closing/seal just to get it used before she got devoured. Then a gate burst removed it (after I had used Precognition on the previous mythos card, of course). As for Mary, I was trying to get her from Cursed to Blessed to make use of her personal story ability, but she got devoured in the transition. On the upside, Wendy twice rolled a "6" while Cursed to avoid losing Maximum Sanity after the two devourings. Jacqueline did that once. Continuing tonight..

Don't the werewolves and cultists just go back to the Woods when killed? Maybe it's just the werewolf. I was thinking it's both....no, just the werewolf I now see. The cultists go to the Woods instead of to the Outskirts. For much of the game they were benign, then the one massive attack on Zoey. It felt kind of odd for her to survive an attack by six werewolves and only be rendered unconscious. The second of the six attacks knocked her out, the rest were ignored.

Schmiegel said:

After a protracted struggle, the investigators were finally beaten down by Death and were unable to survive the Moonlight Plague. Many interesting events occurred along the way. Early on, things went spectacularly well. Two gates were sealed within the first few turns, both via Elder Signs being played (one by Wendy and the other one that Norman Withers drew at the Curiosittie Shoppe) although unfortunately it would have been better to preserve Wendy's to make her immune to being cursed. Jacqueline even passed her personal story, the first time I've seen that happen. Her second ally was Ryan Dean. As I interpret that, she has no choice but to discard one ally at that point...as when she passes the story (If Jacqueline has 2 or more Allies, place "Vision of Hope" in play). Vision of Hope: Jacqueline discards 1 Ally of her choice. Remove one doom token from the Ancient One's doom track.

She chose to discard Ryan Dean. "Not my type," she explained with a grin. So with that and the two Elder Signs, three doom tokens were removed from the track, which stood at one about as far into a game as I've seen happen. It wasn't long after that however that things took a severe turn for the worse. Jacqueline spent two clues to block the "Plague of Insects" mythos card because it was one where "No gates open, but add 2 doom tokens to the doom track". (I needed gates to enter and didn't want 2 doom tokens added, plus the terror level increased by 1 and investigators ending movement in the street lose 1 Stamina and 1 Sanity. It seemed like a no-brainer, really, but the mythos card that followed carried a gate burst at the Unvisited Isle that Wendy had just sealed.

From that point on, about the only positive thing that happened was the successful detonation of a time bomb that Gloria Goldberg had planted at the scene of the carnage (Merchant District) where Zoey had been viciously attacked by 6 werewolves. It had turned to day again and Gloria was able to safely enter the street area that had been the scene of such savagery the night before.

Five Cultist/Werewolves and the actual Werewolf, along with a Ghoul, were all killed. A Yithian barely escaped.

At this point, I have a question... The Lycanthropic Infestation herald text stipulates that .."if the Werewolf monster token is ever taken as a trophy, place it at the Woods instead." In the case of a time bomb detonating, I presume that no monster trophies are taken. It isn't actual combat. The investigator has (hopefully) left the area and I'm under the impression that monster trophies are only taken in combat with monsters...(I could be wrong on that, of course). But if I'm right, then does the Werewolf still go back to the Woods? He's not being taken as a trophy (I don't think..). My interpretation was that the Werewolf returning to the Woods was specific to being taken as a trophy (that comes to life when the moon turns full or whatever..?). Avi, maybe you simply meant that whenever the Werewolf is killed, he goes back to the Woods, but since you didn't say that, I assume you only mean when he's taken as a trophy. But could you clarify that point?

I ended the game with only three gates sealed, after 28 mythos cards had been played. Two seals happened within the first four or five turns, so only one more gate was sealed over the last 24 turns or so... That was mainly due to the Curse effect. Of course I misplayed Wendy. Should have saved her Elder Sign for the sixth seal....to avoid her being cursed.

By the way, I didn't use William Yorick. I will next time.

Another question has to do with Werewolf movement. The Moonlight Plague scenario rules state that when a werewolf is on the same space as an investigator and its movement symbol is shown it deals 4 damage..and they also deal damage when moving out of spaces they share with investigators and move like stalkers whenever crescent monsters move on black.

But what about when a Werewolf moves INTO a space occupied by an investigator (in this case at night, when crescent monsters moved on black). In this case, a Cultist/Werewolf, moving as a stalker, moved into the Black Cave where Gloria had failed to close/seal a gate to R'lyeh in spite of having Revelation of Script and being Blessed (she had just 4 clues anyway). Since the Cultist was treated as a Werewolf, I just read the text on the back of the Werewolf monster token which states that "Werewolf moves as a fast monster. It it enters an area containing any investigators, each investigator in that area loses 2 Stamina."

This particular situation wasn't specifically covered by the scenario rules themselves, but I figured since it was on the back of the monster token itself, it still applied nonetheless, so I interpreted it that Gloria immediately suffered 4 damage and took a Lycanthropy token. Of course that knocked her unconscious, off the gate. In other words, if it is night, ANYTIME an investigator encounters a werewolf, there is going to be 4 damage, correct? (Unless there is more than one werewolf...).

Anyway, while the Werewolf idea for this scenario is brilliant and makes the game quite interesting, the real killer is Death (no pun intended). Once I got four investigators Cursed, with really no hope of getting rid of the curse other than by seeking Blessings, the investigator team was rendered pretty much useless. There were some lucky rolls that took place here and there, but in tandem with Horror checks being virtually impossible to pass without spending precious clues, being Cursed just pretty much drained the life slowly from the investigators, even though it took 28 mythos cards to get it done.

But much was learned. I will look forward to trying it again, with a far better understanding of how everything works and some better ideas about how to defuse the curses. So thank you for another very interesting scenario!!

I did make a note of which items were carried over from Scenario 3. It was Wendy (Credit Rating), Carolyn (Rifle) Norman (Gate Box) and Zoey (Lamp of Alhazred). Of course Sister Mary is a required investigator. So if I include William Yorick, one of the above has to go, and this doesn't even address the question of whether or not to retain Jacqueline and her indispensable Precognition. Decisions will have to be made. It will probably be a couple of weeks before I can get back to this.

Schmiegel,

first of all, sorry for your defeat. I'm sorry especially because the game seemed to go so well this time. But I'm glad you enjoyed the Scenario :-) It's one of the funniest of the whole League!

A first reflection: do not seal the Unvisited Isle at the beginning of any game in this League, unless you're going for a blitzkrieg (a game lasting a maximum of 10 - 11 Mythos). The Unvisited Isle is a high frequency location. This means it's very likely you see a gate burst there. Or several Mythos bumping on the seal, causing you to lose countless clues to keep the DOR under control (6 clues to empty the DOR is more or less equal what you have to pay to seal again a gate bursted sealed location). Sometimes the Mythos deck is a bastard and keeps on working on major locations. Try to do your best, but do not use an ES on these locations early in the game.

28 Mythos are a real nightmare. There is almost no way you can win a game that goes so far, unless you have absolutely control over the board and deliberately let the Mythos deck advance (in the case you're playing for a high score in a League, for example). Technically, being cursed is a problem (another good reason not to spend any ES at the beginning of the game: keep them for when you're Cursed), but it shouldn't be such a big problem: you can still collect clues and focus on gates. Anyway, the key of this Scenario is Mary. With her PS passed, you can reroll one die rolled during Upkeep. So, whenever you have to choose somebody to be cursed, you choose Wendy (and she's immune as long as you keep her ES) and another investigator. This investigator will be allowed to roll twice thanks to Mary. So basically you have 1 in 36 chance (rolling to '1' in a row) of getting an investigator cursed. In this way, you screw Death's power with ease. And this should allow you to gather some trophies to buy extra Blessings (in case somebody is unlucky enough to roll the two '1') or to cash clues.

If I might give you a suggestion on how to screw the Scenario... remember, there is a penalty for investigators devoured, but there is no penalty for investigators retired. Once an investigator is Cursed and you don't have anything to buy a Blessing for him, just send him twice in combat against monsters granting a huge Sanity loss: 2 Madnesses allows you to retire the investigator and enter a new one. Uncursed. With new equipment. And new clues.

Another personal reflection: a doom track of 13 is very, very, very long. With two ES, it's 15 doomers long. You shouldn't be worried of getting a couple of double doomer Mythos card. Sometimes the temptation of using Jacqueline's precognition could be very strong. Try to use it only when strictly necessary. In this scenario, to preserve the seals. If later in the game a double doomer arrives, then maybe. But at the beginning... accept it. And maybe try to get an Eltdown shards copy, or another Elder Sign.

As for your questions:

- The time bomb makes monsters to be returned to the cup, so, you're right, no monster trophies are taken. But. It's Avi's League. Early in this League, he left some ways to handle with special monsters (like the original Werewolf in this scenario, or the Witch in the previous one). These loopholes were then fixed in the coming Scenarios (and I think that as soon as I finish the eons for the general rules of the League, they will be fixed forever). The idea of these Scenarios is having some monsters you have constantly to deal with. So, I'd say that even your lawyery is fine, you should have put the Werewolf back in the Woods (but Avi will certainly tell you better)

- Werewolf entering investigators' locations: IIRC, the Avi-boosted werewolves' special movement apply only in the two occasions you mentioned. Hence, yeah, the werewolf entering Gloria's location should grant her a 2 stamina loss. As for the OW situation... technically, they do not enter the Investigator's location, and they are still elusive, so... I guess you can discard the token. There was a lot of confusion in general in the forums about "entering" vs "appearing". I play that "enters" means "is now in your location and before was elsewhere", so I'd take the damage, but I honestly don't remember what Avi said.

And... I'd play with Wendy, Mary, William, Norman and Carolyn. But this is just me :-)

Julia said:

Your reading of the text was correct; however, Julia is correct about intent ;') Admiral and I did not think about the possibility of Time Bomb when we designed that herald. Or cards that return monsters to the cup. I'll fix that now (at least in the scenario rules).

Schmiegel said:

A few reflections on your game:

Keeping an Elder Sign shield for Wendy is really important in this scenario; however, that doesn't mean she needs to save her ES for the 6th seal, it can be saved for the 4th or 5th, depending on how well you're doing with the other investigators (because ideally, you'll have a blessed investigator or two that Mary's passed personal story will protect, well, from losing the blessings by rolling ones anyways).

Clues are going to be a bit more sparse than usual, since you will probably want to trade for blessings rather than clues much more than you normally would. What this means is you have to be very careful about using Jaqueline's ability. Preventing a gate burst, yes (because that will cost you more clues than you would spend), but other stuff, probably not, unless you believe the card will probably end the game for you (Y'ha Nethlei, or maybe a Devil's Reef gate, although the second one's really something you need to evaluate on a case by case basis, as is the first, I suppose, if it comes out very late game, you might be better off not spending the clues).

Basically... Wendy should have her Elder Sign Shield most of the game, and if you quickly bless someone with Yorrick early game (I'd probably bless Yorrick, because he can convert monsters into clues, and you will need those extra clues), you're one blessing away from passing Mary's personal story. *Don't* pass her personal story. Wait until her blessing goes away, *then* pass her personal story. That way you'll get her re-blessed, *and* you can bless someone else. Those initial blessings should probably be enough to get through the game. Maybe adding one or two more. The truth is, if you stay on top of the game, you can win with two investigators *constantly* sealing gates. Wendy's good for that, although there's no other really great gate sealer in the first segment of the league.

I'm sure there's some redundancies and digressions here (I've been typing it for a while with lots of breaks).

I'd dump Carolyn, since you already have a Lamp as a starting weapon, it's enough to get by with if you trade it between investigators, if for whatever reason, you don't get another good weapon or two while shopping at the unique item store. I'm not really sure if I'd want to keep Gate Box though, is it really useful for that scenario, or would you be better off getting a different random unique item? I mean, it's not bad, not at all, but it's not the best item in the game, especially if Wendy has a credit rating (making passing through towns free for her). Then again, on the other hand, having a gate box can make traveling a lot easier for Yorrick, who otherwise may have difficulty moving (plus he can snipe monsters off gates going in and out of different gates to generate trophy/clues faster).

Cough. And since you didn't notice this last time, I suppose I'll point it out this time ;') Wendy makes a *fantastic* werewolf hunter. Yeah, she'll probably get infected, but, she's great at killing them. You can just crank up her fight to the max, and take the sanity damage (then get her sanity back for free with credit rating).

Oh, I forgot to make this explicit, but, by keeping the Elder Sign on Wendy, you can have Death target her *every* turn, and every turn she will be immune to the curse effect (effectively making it so only two investigators are being targeted each turn, i.e. 1 curse every three turns, statistically speaking, so, if you spent six clues worth of resources, you could effectively have 9 turns curse free, again, statistically speaking, and since Mary starts with a blessing, possibly more, and with the bonus blessing you get from Mary, well, 12 turns ;') After that you're on your own.

Avi_dreader said:

That's fascinating... did you read my previous post? It's more or less identical to your latest two... ::laughter:: at least, I have the confirmation I read the Scenario properly ::laughter::

Wendy as werewolf hunter? Sunny and clear, sorry Schmiegel, I didn't mentioned that

Julia said:

;') Stop making fun of the senile old man.

Anyway, I've been playing scenario 6 on hard mode the last few hours (The Serpent People are stalkers, and the Dark Druid has 5 toughness). Only on turn two. Absolute nightmare. First turn was dreadful. Bad common items (no weapons), bad uniques (no weapons), only consolation was an alchemy and a mythos lore on Joe, The Messenger on Tony, and a sedanette. Picked Joe, Finn, Tony, Roland, Marie, Mary. Here's where all hell broke loose. First mythos. Gate at the woods (i.e. monster surge). Then two more gates opened that turn. Fortunately two flying monsters were returned to the cup. Okay okay, horrible enough, except... An all monsters move card popped up, and the druid moved too. So monsters were scattered all over the streets. A *really* nasty environment was drawn (luck +0 checks when you end movement in streets or be devoured), but I was able to discard it with an item. I wiped out most of the monsters in the streets in the first turn by using high speed characters (all trading for Joe's revolver), except, oh joy, two monsters and the 5 toughness weapon immune -4 combat Dark Druid that boxed in Mary and Marie. Oh joy joy joy. Well... I figured I could kill both serpent people with one investigator and use that +6 boost to take down the Dark Druid (probably), especially if I got a decent spell or two from shopping with Marie. I planned to deliberately have her go unconscious, and hope that the DD didn't block her from the spell shop (only a 16% chance of that happening after all), so she'd be able to get better supplies for the team, and bump doom back another turn. Well... Everything went more or less according to plan, I managed to wipe out most of the monsters on the board, except for the dark druid and one of his defenders (I killed the tougher one, but I didn't want to get poisoned, so I suicided to the second monster instead of killing it, in retrospect, that was an error, since it raised the odds of a different monster blocking the spell shop, I should have just taken the poison hit). But still... Things were looking okay, I figured I could start getting things under control the next turn. Ha. Another gate opened at the woods. Seriously? Seriously... So now I have five open gates on the second turn. My gate limit's at seven, but the odds of me being able to get through another world and closing something are extreeeeemely slim (after all, I'd need another gate surge in the next two mythos draws to not hit the gate limit). So. I thought about forfeiting and just starting a new game, and then I remembered.

Sweet sweet final combat ;'D Heh heh heh. So now I have two turns, probably, to gear up for this buffed up Yig :'r I have one AO attack cancelling item, enchanted dagger, foresee, The Messenger, some heavy hitting characters, a Mythos Lore,, a fight skill, and still a decent number of cluesTime to go weapon shopping. Yig on the other hand now has phys/mag resistance, is poisonous, and kills when he double curses (and he curses anyone who fails a speed check). Yuch. So, I guess I better try and get some blessings next turn as well as weapons. I'm not sure what my odds are (I'm sure they're not good). But I'm hoping I can pull this off. I mean, even buffed, he's only ten doom. 60 successes :'r