So here's the deal. BGG and FFG frequenter MCflainez appears to have vanished from the face of the planet. I'm worried that something has happened to him, or at the least that he's lost interest.

Anyway, he had created a google spreadsheet a while back allowing Arkham players to record their sessions, in the interest of finding out which AO was truly the nastiest, and which expansions were the most deadly, etc.

The project was really cool and was going great for a time. Unfortunately, just before the release of Black Goat of the Woods , flainez stopped tending to the stats site (which has since expired) and stopped posting on any boards.

I tried writing him a number of times, to no response. So after a couple months, I felt compelled to take his awesome stats collection where he left it.

So after hours and hours of crunching data, I present to you Arkham Enthusiasts an updated Arkham Horror Statistics site where you can submit your sessions:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=paPMgoencsRppq3PEYWXmQQ&hl=en

You can view the results to date, updated every 5 minutes, on this site:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=paPMgoencsRppq3PEYWXmQQ

This site is a list of all the results so far: MCflainez's at the time of this writing, and mine, from here forward. Flainez's old stats site is not linked to this one; I highly encourage you to either submit on my form only, or on both his old one and the above one.

And just as flainez used to, I will accept comments and criticisms, and I will attempt to compile periodic reports about the AOs. This form accepts Black Goat information, and I am open to suggestions about improvements or additions to the form.

Thanks, everyone. Hope you're safe, MCflainez, and not lost in a non-euclidean spiral of your own design.

Very nice of you to do this, appreciated a lot!

Wow, that's great!

Thanks a lot, Tibs!

So very happy to hear this.

Keep up your strength.

------------------------

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." The statement refers to the persuasive power of numbers, the use of statisics to bolster weak arguments and the tendency of people to disparage statistics that do not support their positions.

" Lies, damned lies, and statistics " is part of a phrase attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and popularised in the United States by Mark Twain.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Time for my first stats report. Please be gentle, as it is going to be very, very minimal—I have no idea how to navigate Excel.

From 900 recorded sessions:

Popularity

Here are the Ancient Ones, in order of how frequently they're fought.

1. Nyarlathotep—93 games
2. Yig—86 games
3. Hastur—75 games
4. Cthulhu—73
5. Azathoth—64
6. Shub-Niggurath—63
7. Yog-Sothoth—58
8. Ithaqua—55
9. Shudde M'ell—54
10. Tsathoggua—51
11. Ahboth—50
12. Glaaki and Y'Golonac—42
13. Atlach-Nacha—37*
14. Yibb-Tstll—30
15. Eihort—27

Difficulty

Here they are, from highest "investigator defeat" percentage to lowest:

1. Atlach-Nacha—59.46%*
2. Glaaki—54.76%
3. Y'Golonac—52.38%
4. Shudde M'ell—42.59%
5. Abhoth—42.00%
6. Cthulhu—39.73%
7. Yog-Sothoth—37.93%
8. Tsathoggua—37.25%
9. Shub-Niggurath—36.51%
10. Yibb-Tstll—33.33%
11. Azathoth—32.81%
12. Eihort—29.63%
13. Hastur—25.33%
14. Nyarlathotep—23.66%
15. Ithaqua—21.82%
16. Yig—20.93%

Overall—the investigators defeated the Arkham Horror in 65.11% of games. Just barely passing (by NYS standards, anyway)!

*I should note here that back when MCFlainez ran the site, I had recorded a load of sessions back-to-back of my own attempts to defeat Atlach-Nacha by sealing. Needless to say, I lost most of them, largely because I may have forfeit my opportunity to win by closed gates, in lieu of seeking a seal victory. But even without these sessions, Atlach-Nacha would still be first place in difficulty—or at least a very close second to Glaaki.

There you have it. I will attempt to give more in-depth information in subsequent reports.

Awesome work! Neat to see how tough some of these guys can be.

Why are Shudde and Cthulhu in the top half? That makes no sense at least from my experience/POV .

Dam said:

Well, eight of them have to be in the top half. If you can name at least eight AOs that are stronger than Cthulhu and Shudde M'ell, then you have a case

I always considered Nyarlathotep to be the easiest and Yog-Sothoth to be the hardest base-game AO. What weird results!

Yoggy should definately be WAY higher than Cthulhu. Don't think that many league games with Cthulhu have been reported?

Dam said:

Small parties that take on Cthulhu have little chance of sealing or closing him. The final battle will greatly favor Cthulhu. Sometimes we forget that there are three main victory (and defeat) conditions. If Shudde awakens, he's already got 3 or 4 earthquakes under his belt and this doesn't give a lot of time to beat him in the final battle. Yig OTOH, is easy to take down no matter what.

Thanks for posting some new statistics!

For the sake of comparison here's the previous order of most popular / most dangerous GOO (resulting from 533):

Most popular GOO:

Nyarlathotep 11.07%
Yig 10.51%
Cthulhu 8.82%
Hastur 7.50%
Azathoth 7.32%
Shudde M'ell 6.19%
Yog Sothoth 6.00%
Ithaqua 6.00%
Shub-Niggurath 5.82%
Tsathoggua 5.82%
Y'Golonac 5.07%
Glaaki 4.32%
Abhoth 4.32%
Atlach-Nacha 3.94%
Yibb-Tstll 3.75%
Eihort 3.56%

Most dangerous GOO:

Atlach-Nacha 61.90%
Glaaki 60.87%
Y'Golonac 55.56%
Shudde M'ell 48.48%
Tsathoggua 48.39%
Abhoth 43.48%
Cthulhu 42.55%
Yog Sothoth 37.50%
Eihort 36.84%
Yibb-Tstll 35.00%
Azathoth 33.33%
Hastur 32.50%
Shub-Niggurath 29.03%
Ithaqua 28.13%
Yig 25.00%
Nyarlathotep 20.34%

And here's an overview over the changes in the rankings:

Most popular GOO:

= Nyarlathotep—93 games
= Yig—86 games
+ Hastur—75 games
- Cthulhu—73
= Azathoth—64
+++ Shub-Niggurath—63
= Yog-Sothoth—58
- Ithaqua—55
--- Shudde M'ell—54
- Tsathoggua—51
+ Ahboth—50
= Glaaki-42
- Y'Golonac—42
= Atlach-Nacha—37*
= Yibb-Tstll—30
= Eihort—27

Most dangerous GOO:

= Atlach-Nacha—59.46%
= Glaaki—54.76%
= Y'Golonac—52.38%
= Shudde M'ell—42.59%
+ Abhoth—42.00%
+ Cthulhu—39.73%
+ Yog-Sothoth—37.93%
--- Tsathoggua—37.25%
++++ Shub-Niggurath—36.51%
= Yibb-Tstll—33.33%
= Azathoth—32.81%
--- Eihort—29.63%
- Hastur—25.33%
++ Nyarlathotep—23.66%
- Ithaqua—21.82%
- Yig—20.93%

The most obvious change is the boost in both popularity and difficulty for Shub-Niggurath, most probably caused by the BGotW expansion.

Thanks for bringing these stats back - I think this is a great, and very informative resource. So thanks again!

Now if only someone could bring back the Descent:RtL stat page...

What's up everyone. I had a thought the other day and wanted to see how it played out.

How difficult is each Ancient One in final combat?

So I got a table together. Bear in mind that this incorporates all submitted results—and whether or not Epic Battle was used.

Here's percent of final combats lost by the investigators:

1. Azathoth (100%)*
2. Tsathoggua (94.44%)
3. Atlach-Nacha (84.62%)
4. Cthulhu (82.35%)
5. Y'Golonac / Yog-Sothoth (78.57%)
6. Yibb-Tstll (76.92%)
7. Eihort (72.73%)
8. Glaaki (68.75%)
9. Shub-Niggurath (65.71%)
10. Abhoth (59.38%)
11. Shudde M'ell (58.06%)
12. Ithaqua (46.43%)
13. Hastur (39.53%)
14. Nyarlathotep (36.36%)
15. Yig (26.76%)

* Someone submitted a game against Azathoth that resulted in "Victory by Final Combat." I went ahead and fixed that for ya!

Tibs said:

That list reflects my personal experience pretty well. Since I don't have the Kingsport expansion I've never used Final Battle cards.