I just finished the most epic game of Arkham Horror I've ever played. We setup the Arkham and Innsmouth boards. The Ancient One drawn was Hastur, the King in Yellow himself. Fortunately, we wound up with Mandy Thompson for her lovely re-roll, and Roland Banks, to keep clue tokens flowing in Innsmouth. We also drew Ashcan Pete, Vincent Lee, and Minh Thi Phan (my investigator). I lucked out on the item distribution; my asian secretary wound up packing some serious heat, with a .45 automatic, some dynamite, and a healing stone to back her up! Combine that with the two clues and the king in yellow book she starts with, I was almost ready to seal a gate off the bat. To add to our luck, Roland drew double elder signs to start!

Before long, Roland and I both jumped through portals to Another Dimension, where he handed off one elder sign. We threw down two before the fifth turn, setting Hastur back quite a bit. We had a third gate sealed through clue tokens, and it was smooth sailing for the start! Vincent scrounged up an enchanted blade, and so the good doctor became quite the warrior himself. Ashcan was having a tough time of it, with no weapons to speak of and expert occultist for his skill. And Mandy, despite having no weapons, managed to get to and close a gate herself.

But as seems to happen with Hastur, clue tokens dried up. Other than Roland, who began to patrol Innsmouth, nobody had anywhere near the eight clue tokens required to seal a gate. We had four sealed, but we were at a loss for getting enough clues. Slowly, we kept closing gates, but they kept popping up. The doom track began to fill. To make things worse, the Southside Strangler rumor reared its ugly head, stealing five clue tokens from Mandy to dispatch it. Ashcan was slowly accumulating clues, but he still didn't have the eight required.

The Terrible Experiment rumor came and went, stacking to eight and overflowing. The terror level rose to ten. The doom track crept to eleven. We closed two more gates, and realized that we had to make a last ditch attempt to seal gates before the last two spaces were filled.

Ashcan Pete had been sucked into R'lyeh, with seven clue tokens. But he had a tome, Cultes de Goules, which would give him a clue token. The plan was simple; get him through the other world, max his lore to three, park him on the gate for a turn and pray for a success on one die the turn after he popped out. Meanwhile, Minh had six clue tokens, and there were two sitting on Independence Square. She'd make a run for those, then jump through another portal to seal it.

The next mythos card revealed a new portal. The doom track hit twelve.

Tension was king as Minh jumped through her portal, bound for the City of the Great Race. Ashcan returned safely from R'lyeh and waived his attempt to close the gate. The mythos card was turned, and it revealed a monster surge. There was a sigh of relief.

Minh crept across the City. Ashcan, blessed by the doctor, lost his blessing before he could use it. He had a single die on Cultes De Goules. The die rolled, and revealed a five, bringing his clue token total to eight! He could seal! He rolled the two dice to seal his gate, and they came up double twos. But Mandy had her re-roll! The dice rolled again, and a six was rolled! R'lyeh was closed and sealed, bringing the total to five!

The mythos card was turned. It came up on a sealed location. The deep one rising track crept up, but it didn't matter. The game was about to be won.

Minh returned from the City of the Great Race. With ten clue tokens and six dice to roll for the close, not to mention the doctor's blessing on her, she was in good shape. She handily closed and sealed the gate. Six gates sealed. A victory!

Hastur rolled over, and went back to sleep.

I've only played Arkham for a year now, but this was by far the closest the game ever went. It came right down to the wire, hovering on the final doom track spot for three turns. Absolutely epic.

For the curious, our score was 19. 13 on the doom track, -10 for the terror level, -2 for elder signs used, +5 surviving investigators, no bank loans, +5 for fifteen monster trophies, and +8 for gate trophies we were too frantic to spend.

That sounded like one of the best played games. I never get feeling because i many play solo, nothing wrong with it just I am rolling everyone's dice and can't blame bad rolls on anyone else. Your tale is the reason I bought AH.

Why did you let The Great Experiment fail? Cool picture by the way.

Avi_dreader said:

It failed because we ignored it... lol. We had to keep running around, trying to collect clue tokens to seal a gate. We kept putting off going to Miskatonic U and fighting them, and then we noticed it was already at eight monsters on the card. As per the fail condition, when you have eight on there, the card's gone, the terror level hits ten, and the monsters are released into the streets.

With the 8 monsters added from TTE, was Hassy close to waking from too many monsters afterwards?

MortalPlague said:

Heh... For future reference, The Great Experiment is a wonderful rumor. It allows you to rapidly collect monster trophies with a blessed investigator with good weapons (then to trade those for clues at the science building). In the meanwhile it provides a shield against other rumors appearing.

Avi_dreader said:

Usually we keep it down to a manageable level. This time, we were all scrambling for gates and trying to collect clue tokens; nobody had the time to deal with it. Still, it all worked out in the end.

cool pic yeah, when I play against hastur, he sleeps like a baby all the time. and in my opinion, he is a baby anyhow, that is definitely a sweat-breaking game. i wish I had some epic games like that. nice job in defeating hastur, i really must applaud you plus, imagine! i couldn't stand being beaten by hastur, I could just imagine him laughing at me with his short stunty figure. he is short and stunty right?

Nice one, seemed like a close call. We also played a game like that against Hastur some time ago. We were all running around, gathering clues to seal gates and everything, but it didn't help. In the end he awoke. Bad for him that the Terror Track was still at 1 and we were heavily armed, so when he awoke, we ripped him to shreds in 2 1/2 combat-rounds. Imagine his face when he wakes up, going something like "Harr harr, the end of the world has come" and then just a moment afterwards seeing four heavily armed investigators coming towards him, throwing petrifying soultions and stabbing him with magic blades. Poor guy.

Awesome game. I dealt with that little guy before. All I did was wait for too many gates to open, then slice him to death with magical weapons and fry him with spells. I never really bother to seal gates with him; I only collect clue tokens to crush him in final combat.

Avi_dreader said:

Though there are some who say it's terrible.

Awsome session report!

Its a rare gem when the game creates that level of tension for the last few rounds. My closest was a solo game where I was praying for the "you can not seal gates" enviroment to go away before the last doom counter filled up (with investigators in place for a possible win).

I do agree that having other players add´s to the tension level compared to in a solo game. Its great fun when everyone is pilling pressure on an unfortunate player that has to accomplish something that the group is desperate for. Expecially if the player is reluctant and low on sanity and stamina.