It's already in the official rules:

"The Servants of Glaaki can come into play – and their
special abilities take effect – even during the final battle,
although the Servants cannot directly participate in the
fight. At the end of the game, keep track of which
Servants of Glaaki were in play. Those Servants not in
play can still enter play as Glaaki’s attack raises the terror
level, causing Allies to be discarded. Once all of the
Servants have “entered play,” they have no further effect
on game play." (DH, p. 8)

Duh *slap* That's what you get when you think you know the rulebooks by heart =P Thanks for the help.

Julia said:

Well, that's what I meant by "stacking the game". How often is such a group and conditions going to be assembled using standard random, pre-AO drawing rules?

How does everyone rank the AOs in terms of final battle difficulty?

My top list would be something like this:

Quachil Uttaus

Zhar

Cthugha

Tsathoggua

Yibb Tstll

Nygotha

Chaugnar Faugn

Abhoth

Quachil/Zhar/Tash/Chaugnar are probably my top picks.

I'm surprised Cthuggua is so high up there on the stats page. He's not that difficult if you have a couple of spell casters. In our games he's nowhere near the league of unbeatable that Quachil belongs to.

Rhan CAN be one of the most difficult depending on how many cultists get drawn.

Julia said:

dj, you wiseass.

And I only pulled it off by being very lucky with die rolls (and I mean universe-shattering) with some very fortunate Investigators, and a lot of Blessings and other cards that happened to be helpful. By no means have I beaten any of the worst ones MORE than once.

Quachil Uttaus - beaten by having a team of fighters (Mark, Michael, Skids, and Joe), all had Fight or Combat reroll skills, all were Blessed. (Mark was a midgame replacement for Gloria, I think. She was Quachil food.) Dumped every Clue they had in the first round. If I recall correctly, everyone got (almost) two doom tokens (and Joe took up the slack) on that round, getting Quachil down to 4. Then I just nipped away at the rest. I believe Skids was the survivor. Skids' Reroll Ability helped a lot.

Zhar - I can't remember everyone I had, but I know I had Mandy (the only survivor) and Daisy (the last devoured). I had a boatload of combat Items/Spells and some Allies/Skills. It was just a matter of luckily overwhelming Zhar first, the debilitated victims passing the good two-handed weapons/Spells along down the line.

Cthugha - Spells when you can, or have a lot of magical weapons. And get really lucky when he attacks.

Tsathoggua - Since Tsathoggua forces you to hold on to your trophies, you should spread gate closures around--often >gasp< closing instead of sealing--and kill anything you can. If you can go into the battle with enough Gate Trophies to last three rounds, and some good combat boosts, you might be able to whittle him down quickly enough.

Yibb Tstll - There, uh, weren't any Clues on the board. (This can happen when you don't play with EVERY board. And this might have been one of my Kingsport games.) You know all those times you whipped Hastur's butt because you kept the Terror Track in check? Same thing, but without resistances, which really helps in getting double the successes. Beaten with Amanda, Lily (extra story boost), and William (monster trophies for Clue boost).

Nygotha - Just a lot of chipping away with some heavy weapons, and extremely fortunate attack rolls.

Chaugnar Faugn - You have to have Attack "food". If you can have enough "food" to feed him for four rounds, and some good magical weapons, it's not hard at all. Any time I've beaten him, there was a last minute trip to Ma's.

Abhoth - Same as Chaugnar...have enough Attack "food". This is when it's good to have extra crap lying around: "Throw out the motorcycle!"

GrooveChamp said:

I'd say even spell casters have issues with him. Firstly, -5 modifier means 2x Wither or 1x Shrivelling just to net a 1. With its attack, Shrivelling doesn't really tickle one's fancy for any length of time, Dread Curse even less . 13 Doom track and if you use weapons, they are one-shot. With average rolls, you probably survive 2-3 attacks against him.

Dam said:

Oh he's very difficult, but our group would much rather face him than the statistical nightmare of Quachil or Chaugnar (double shriveling is much more possible to pull off than the collection off oddities needed to take those two on).

GrooveChamp said:

Yeah, it's not that likely to happen ::nodding:: But nonetheless, I'd say any 2-investigator party with Patrice in it, can kill Quachil in final combat (no "clues per seal" limit applied).
I think the main point on this issue is the way you play your game. If you focus on the final combat and not on sealing, then you can work until certain conditions during the game are met (like not spending clues, searching for some attack cancellers and shopping for certain spells). It's always a tough work, but your chances of victory are a little higher compared to a situation when you go for a sealing victory and then *bam* the AO is here for having breakfast with you

Julia said:

Agreed. I generally try to split the difference: once we hit an AO's bottom row, I take stock of our progress. If we are less than halfway, or the next few turns look hopeless, we switch from "sealing victory" to "the end is nigh, cover our asses", and start preparing any way we can manage. Blessings are generically high priority, but AO Attack "Food" is also good if easy enough to locate. Shopping is usually low priority, due to unpredictability (or lack of cash).

This is my Final Battle list--ignoring Epic Battle--but it's all so very fluid. Sometimes you're perfectly prepared, sometimes you're a cold, wet Vincent in a thong. So everyone has a range that goes +/- 5 or so. The higher on the list they are, the less chance any preparation at all will help you: it's in someone else's hands then.

1) Azathoth (this one's for you, dj) 13) Eihort

2) Quachil Uttaus 14) Nyogtha

3) Yibb-Tstll 15) Y'Golonac

4) Zhar 16) Abhoth

5) Tsathoggua 17) Cthulhu

6) Chaugnar Faugn 18) Shub-Niggurath

7) Atlach-Nacha 19) Shudde M'ell

8) Rhan-Tegoth 20) Bokrug

9) Cthugha 21) Hastur

10) Ghatanothoa 22) Yig

11) Glaaki 23) Nyarlathotep

12) Yog-Sothoth 24) Ithaqua

You rate Nyogtha lower than Glaaki?Hmm... Nyogtha can devour an investigator in one shot. And his combat rating is very high for everyone but the first player.

Today I lost a final battle aghainst Eihort. He can be very annoying as well, come to think of it. Any devoured investigators replenish(or add extra to) his doom track with their brood tokens.

zealot12 said:

You have good points. On the other side, Nyogtha doesn't disarm you, no resistances, and his Attack gives you a shot at hurting him really bad and escaping. After a few rounds, it's possible that it will be impossible to hurt Glaaki at all.

If you spread the sealing work around, you might get 2 or 3 good rounds against Eihort before he gets a devour. That might be enough. But I admit, no magical weaponry or one devour, and Eihort's a runaway downhill snowball.

Again, fluid.

We managed to kill Tsathoggua in Epic Battle yesterday, with the Innsmouth expansion in play. Three investigators-Rita Young the Athlete, Willson Richards the Handyman and Skids O'Toole. All managed to get great weapons(Flamethrower, Elephant Gun, Shotgun, Brass Knuckles) but the Handyman got a broken hand injury, which made him swap his trusty shotgun for an enchanted knife(+ brass knuckles) We managed to seal four gates before the AO awoke, and Rita completed the Sealing the Beast's Power, which effectively lowered Tsathoggua's combat rating to -4.The handyman had three gate throphies, the others had two, and each one had 4-6 monster trophies None of the investigators was blessed during combat, but we drew good Epic battle cards( two plot cards and one red Last Ditch card that incapacitated Tsathoggua for three turns). We played the Epic battle variant that Tibs proposed in another thread, and we loved it; it's a lot less predictable.

Reading that, I think the ironic part is that you probably wouldn't have beaten Tsat in a normal final combat (sans Epic Battle). With just 2 gate trophies on two investigators, they'd get in 3 attacks, then die, Wilson would get in 4. Doable no doubt with good rolling, but lot less so than getting +3 turns from EBs.

Huh, maybe. We did kill him in something like 5 rounds, I think. Skids' special ability(of rolling two bonus dice for each result of 1 helped a lot). Still, one of the investigators was badly injured. If he had been able to use the shotgun, we might have defeated him even sooner.

jgt7771 said:

Yibb-Tstll's not *that* hard as long as you're careful to not let extra clue tokens build up over the course of the game. You should assume there's a good chance you're going to final combat vs. him and not let his combat modifier be higher than -1 or -2 at most.

The problem is that her attack has a high chance of devouring any investigator in a single roll. And a double amount of successes is required to clear her doom track. She is very hard.

But investigators with high focus and/or focus-boosting allies have a decent shot against her.

jgt7771 said:

oh, bless you with both of my hearts

jgt7771 said:

Oh god! Cthulhu 17'?! this game really sucks! :joke:

Cthulhu's overall ranking is even lower for me, but that's based on how hard it is to win against him (as in close/seal for me). Big C is right there toward the bottom, just above Azathoth and Shudde M'ell, hanging with Tsathoggua. Fightwise, he is one of the few I haven't drawn against, only he, Cthugha, Quachil Uttaus and Tsathoggua in that list (along with Azzy, but he has never woken up in my plays).

Well, Azathoth is basically the easiest AO in the game. You simply can't defeat him in final battle by design.

From the bottom of the list, Ithaqua can sometimes be a bit annoying, I remember losing to him twice because of his Start of Battle ability.

Bokrug is the easiest AO from the Innsmouth set and probably the only one against whom a draw is possible. One of his plot cards states that he simply leaves which is technically a draw.