I didn't see a thread on this yet after searching the forums a bit, but I was interested in particularly deadly combinations of Ancient Ones and Heralds. Edit - That is, I'm looking for some synergy between the two that doesn't necessarily exist with other potential combinations.

Here's the short list I put together:

Father Dagon & Mother Hydra + Cthulhu

Ghroth + Cthuugha (for more mystic environments)

Lurker at the Threshold + Yog-Sothoth

The Black Goat of the Woods + Shub-Niggurath

The King in Yellow + Y'Golonac (killing Cultists increases Terror)

Tulzscha + Yibb-Tstll (makes Cultists really hard to stop)

The Dark Pharaoh + Nyarlathotep

The Dunwich Horror + Yog-Sothoth

I'm sure there are deadlier combinations out there . . . what are they?

Maybe a quick look at Tibs' Statistics Reports might give you some answers!

spreadsheets.google.com/

Fecktor said:

I took a look at it, but it didn't really tell me what I wanted to know since the herald and ancient one data are separate (unless I overlooked something). I'm mainly just looking at combos of heralds and ancient ones that really emphasize the effects of the herald. For example, elusive cultists that steal elder signs are annoying, but even more so when it takes 2 success to pass an evade check thanks to Yibb.

Dagon + Hydra + Azathoth has been known to occasionaly lead to instant turn 0 losses.

Glaaki and the King. Always a bad time.

dj2.0 said:

+1. "FUBAR. Big time."

Shub/Hydra is good for monster overruns. And it doesn't have the same game-over-too-soon problems as the Black Goat, or get you sick of the same Hex monsters over and over.

Tsathoggua and either Dagon or Hydra. Really, it's just Tsathoggua + Innsmouth that makes the Aquatic Locations more sadistic, and the fishy Heralds are just icing.

Yibb/Dagon is a good Clue-muncher, but only if the Terror Track moves, so that kinda requires a good Mythos Deck brew. And some would say it's good to have your Clues munched in a Yibb game, so you can go grab more. So I could be wrong here.

Yig/Ghroth. Fifteen-minute game. But you'll probably still win.

Ghroth goes well with any very tough Ancient One with a short doom track.

Tulzscha goes well with Hastur (by allowing the annoying cultists to fly onto Elder Signs) and with Nyarlathotep (since the Cultists are endless and appear with higher frequency).

As Avi suggested, Ghroth and Zhar would be a nasty combo.

Black Goat and Rhan-Tegoth would be pretty nasty too, since the number of monsters being put on the board increases, which increases your chances of getting a Cultist. Of course, this requires that you're using the Black Goat monster tokens.

By that same vein, Hydra should be nasty with Rhan-Tegoth because of the increased number of monsters placed into play.

Rhan-Tegoth + King in Yellow would be nasty too, since Cultists trigger terror level increases.

BTW Rhan-Tegoth is my least favorite AO, specifically because of his mechanic.