It may just be a first-time reaction, not having played against him before, but my first impression of Rhan-Tegoth is that he might be the hardest GOO overall. The only chance you seem to have is if you happen to get very very lucky and don't draw any Cultists the whole game. In my recent 3p game, there were 4 Cultists drawn, so not only did that max out the doom track in a hurry, but adds another eight doom tokens for a total of 19. And then, as if that isn't bad enough, after the first round of combat there were 3 failures on the Stamina roll, so it then required 6 successes to remove just one doom token, and would have gotten worse after that if I'd bothered to continue.

Anyway, I know there are ways to beat them all, but I am really stymied about how you could expect to get either a seal win or final battle win against this guy...

Full Monster Cup. Don't draw any Cultists.

Baring that...work FAST. (Like Yig, but faster.) Rhan is one of the gods of Speed Arkham, whether you're actually playing Speed Arkham or not. Don't shop, don't heal, don't breathe...just MOVE.

Rhan-Tegoth is certainly the most unfair and frustrating AO of all of them.

Edit: I saw your post on BGG. I'll reiterate what I said there: each stamina drained amounts to one extra success you need to kill him, not to remove a doom token. Essentially you can't remove any of his doom tokens until you've first worked through the stamina he drained from you.

This is apparent when you note that his sheet says that each drained stamina is one additional success "to defeat him" and not "to remove each doom token." The ability is similar to that granted to Cthulhu by Dagon: "When Cthulhu awakens, add up the total toughness of any monsters with the plus dimensional symbol in play. The investigators must inflict that many extra successes on Cthulhu in order to defeat him." Rhan's text isn't quite as explicit, but it's the same effect.

Yeah, that makes more sense... He's still #%*& hard, though. In my case, with 19 doom tokens to start with, and a few more likely added automatically every turn from the Attack, forget it...

Rhan-Tegoth is definitely one of the mightiest Ancient Ones, but our group (which plays basic Arkham and all big box expansions) has both sealed him away and defeated him in final combat. JGT certainly has a point about the need for speed, but I wouldn't agree about never shopping; on the few occassions when we've sealed him, we've usually done so only with the help of some Elder Signs (and I believe Silas' sacrifice at least one time). Also, it helps considerably to have the Cultists mixed in with all the other monsters from the big box expansions, thus decreasing your chances of drawing one.

Final combat with him is always going to be a nightmare. The one time we did win there, we had great magical weapons and everyone was Blessed. A Blessing not only makes you more effective on the attack, but also decreases the effectiveness of the bloodsucker's assault.

Our group's nemesis is not Rhan-Tegoth, but Zhar. He remains the only Ancient One that we have NEVER defeated.

Heh, well it's no wonder I lost so badly, in terms of speed... I was delayed several times, including no less than 3 times being LITAS. As it was, I had sealed 3 gates and thought I might have a chance, but then the Cultists came out one after another (including one monster... I forget the name, but I hadn't seen him come out before... which says that it is considered a Cultist).

Once we drew three Cultists as the opening monster. Needless to say, the game was already pretty much Ruined.

I shake with fear and excitement whenever I draw Atlach-Nacha or Black Goat.

I groan with frustration whenever I draw Rhan-Tegoth or Dagon.

Or Rhan Tegoth with Father Dagon!

Donut said:

BLURRRGHLBHL

Or knowing my luck, it'd go to final combat and we'd beat him down. I always seem to get good luck with combos like Atlach-Nacha / Black Goat.

We can all pay respect to awp832 for being the first to beat Rhan/Dagon.

I forgot to put Rhan on my hard to defeat AOs roster. Yea, that ugly bloodsucking lobster is nightmarish. Although there are some sessions where I don't even draw Cultists(as mentioned above, having all the monsters from every expansion mixed in can help. On the other hand, there are even more cultists in the cup now with several Children of the Goat and the Dark Druid from the Black Goat of the Woods expansion being treated as cultists).

So far, I only played one game against Rhan Tegoth, also failing to understand initially how his attack works. I thought at first that for each point of drained Stamina the total number of successes needed to remove each doom token is increased by one. Such design would've made him truly impossible though.