I’ve often heard Yig considered the push over GOO. I’ve played about 10 games now, and think Nar or Az are the easiest. I think Yig is among the hardest (perhaps a 3 way tie with Cthulhu, and Hastur). Here is the problem I have had with Yig three times (I kept trying till I won). He has a very short doom track and killing cultists advances that track (as I’m sure you all know) Cultists are pretty darn perceptive too and hard to sneak past. In every game I played with him, The cultists end up sweeping the streets in large numbers pinning down my guys and cutting off most movement. I guess the cop car is a good work around, but only one of them to be had. Any suggestions for dealing with the Yig cultists that are best left alive?

Negalith said:

First off, Cthulhu is one of the EASIEST ! Loooooooooooong doom track and minimal altering to the game after set-up.

For Cultists, I feel ya. One of my recent Yig games featured Cultists as the first 5 of 6 monsters drawn , needless to say, Yig woke up. Hope that they are all on the street and draw "Feds Raid Arkham" ? If you want to use broken, over-powered investigators, KH expansion + Wendy (auto-evade on the streets) is an option. If you're using just base game, you should be able to close/seal Yig, just don't draw so many Cultists, train your mind's eye to "see" into the monster cup . Also, I'm guessing you're counting victory by final combat as draw (or something else)?

I've never had a lot of problem with Yig. He does awaken faster than most GOOs, but not impossibly so. I'm not sure how your board is getting swarmed with Cultists- there are only six in total out of 60 monsters. If you're really unlucky they might prove problematic, I suppose. And other than awakening faster, he doesn't affect the board much, unlike, say Yog-Sothoth, or Cthulhu.

Yig is fairly easy to beat in final combat, certainly without Kingsport's Epic Battle cards (which I haven't used), Ideally you get Blessed before the battle (when he becomes a total pushover), but even if his curse takes effect he's eminently possible.

Dam said:

First off, Cthulhu is one of the EASIEST ! Loooooooooooong doom track and minimal altering to the game after set-up.

Looking over my personal statistics, I've not had a loss against Cthulhu yet, but the games were still difficult.

Now, Yig isn't really difficult - cultists have never been a problem for me yet. It only gets difficult if for some reason Yig awakens unexpectedly and you didn't get the chance to bless at least some of the investigators. With a bit of bad luck with rolling to get rid of the curses you may end up getting defeated. But it's really rare. I've had a single loss against Yig so far, probably due to some nasty rumor or a pair of double-doom events...

jhaelen said:

Doesn't really matter if the games were hard or not, if you've not lost against Cthulhu, that even more validates his easiness. If coming through hard games and still not losing doesn't make the GOO easy, don't know what does.

jhaelen said:

Only way I ever have a Blessing going into a Yig fight is if Mary is in the game ('cos she usually keeps it through the game) or someone drew the Spell Bless late in the game. And still I've only lost once, when an investigator got LiTaS, waking Yig and getting devoured, leaving 2 people to try and claw 30 successes. Got to 25 before they perished.

If you are having trouble with Yig, you can try making a dash for South Church right before you think he'll wake up. You can have any investigator blessed, so choose the one most likely to survive multiple rounds and do big damage, and get them all blessed if able.

You can also completely humiliate Yig with Charlie Kane and a couple followers if you've got the time to do it. Good fun.

Any tips for dealing with the cultitsts in the basic set. Killing them is bad for the doom counter and evading them is tough for most characters becasue of the -3. Are there other options?

Dam said:

You're just baiting me, aren't you? ;')

Cthulhu isn't that bad during the game. It's when he wakes up that he's near on impossible to beat. His heal ability is the real killer. I remember he was the last GOO for us to beat in a head on fight.

Negalith said:

The only thing you can do is to beef up the Evade options of the investigators. From the base game Dark Cloak (common item) gives +1 to it, Pallid Mask (unique item) gives +2 to it. Or get the Silver Key (unique item) which makes you automatically pass 3 evade checks. The Sneak skill gives you +1 and you can roll 2 dice for each clue token on Sneak checks instead of one.

An alternative might be to get and use the Mist of Releh spell which effectively makes you roll a Spell check in place of the Sneak check for Evasion. But than you need to beef up your Spell checks of course (increasing Lore and such). However the 'smart' investigators are usually not too sneaky, so it can work much better for them. The other (even bigger) benefit is that you can push up your speed, still remaining sneaky as you are not rolling Sneak on Evasion.

The base game doesn't offer much more than that, except the monster cleaning Mythos cards which might help you out or not. Or kill the Cultist than try to get the encounter in South Church which reduce the doom track by 1 to make up for it. And of course don't discard the Cultist monster trophy for anything.

Dam said:

The games against Cthulhu were hard because of Cthulhu and not because of some unrelated circumstances. Many of the games I lost were difficult because of circumstances completely unrelated to the GOO's abilities, e.g. because of rumours, environments, a string of double gate openings, doom markers or monster surges.

I have a perfect win score against several other GOO, e.g. Nyarlathotep, Abhoth and Ithaqua. Nonetheless, I'd say there's a difference in the difficulty of games against these three. I'd say Abhoth is somewhat difficult, Nyarlathotep a piece of cake and Ithaqua mostly harmless (unless you have to face him in final combat (which I did once and still managed to win...)).

Looking only at your win/loss score won't tell you how difficult a GOO is. It could just as well indicate lucky/unlucky games.

jhaelen said:

But it is an indicator. Also, GOOs that affect the game more during the game tend to be harder. Cthulhu is pretty minimal, compared to say Yog Sothoth, or even Yig.

Maybe I'm missing something since I'm fairly new to the game. But with Yig, we just close a couple of portal, wait for around 8 doom token, go to get everyone bless, then you can kill the cultist and go in an easy fight against Yig.

TRINDEL said:

Yeah, sort of. But a lot of people discourage the early "gearing up for final battle" tactic. They feel like victory during final combat isn't as good as by sealing or closing gates. Some people play that it is a draw, not a win.

This is what I do: when the AO wakes up, fill its doom track and give it six more doom tokens. Then take off 2 for each seal on the board.

See how far you can push a "wait around" strategy with that.

Tibs said:

Hum? The time we geared up for Yig we always had at least 3 gates sealed by the time he came, so he would just be easier this way. The draw solution could be one, since a lot of the city is destroyed in the final battle. But I think the best solution for us will be to play against another one than Yig. At least until we've beaten them all. Some of them really feels like a victory to beat.

TRINDEL said:

Actually with 3 seals you'd break even. +6 doom tokens, -2 for each seal.

If you have fewer than 3 the fight would be harder. If you manage to get more, easier.

Really this mod does two things. First, it doesn't make your sealing efforts seem like a complete waste of time when the AO awakens. Second, it pushes back the "gear up" tactic by as much as possible, since it's greatly in the interest of the investigators to try sealing gates down to the last couple of turns, as it could do more damage than fruitlessly searching for a better weapon or gaining only a couple clues. Spending trophies to get blessed is a good last minute move though, and particularly against Yig it will have the most effect.

The mod, of course, will always make Atlach-Nacha significantly harder during final combat... but he wasn't meant to be easy by any means
And I don't want to give away anything, but A-N does have an Sinister Plot that is more severe if you have fewer seals, so the investigators should be sealing gates if they've got the clues anyway :-D