I broke out AH with the Pharaoh expansion for some solo play.

I usually play two characters. I decided to choose my characters this time to see how it went. I chose Michael McGlen (gangster) for combat and Sister Mary (nun) for her blessing. And the Ancient One was... Nyarlathotep.

McGlen got some good weaponry, but Sister Mary didn't get anything. Her blessing expired before it was useful. Early encounters for both were fairly useless. I had Mary give McGlen her cross, hmm, perhaps indicative of a forbidden romance? She finally got a knife and a bullwhip which helped.

McGlen sealed one gate, and closed another. Mary helped with easier combats, but got sent to the hospital once. However the Mythos draws were against me: mostly new gates rather than monster surges. Eight gates opened and Nyar came into reality... for a few minutes! McGlen had plenty of clue tokens (7) to bleed, and laid waste with dynamite and his tommy gun. Mary even got in a few licks with her limited weaponry. Nyar was sent packing! Mary was devoured, and McGlen looked at her cross wistfully. Is that a tear in his eye.

The mental image of an elder god being sent off with a tommy gun makes me "guffaw".

I next drew Joe Diamond (PI) and Jenny Barnes (dilettante) randomly and faced off against Hastur. Both were well-armed, but Hastur's clue token ability (seal gates with 8 not 5) proved troublesome. But the most problem was the terror track--I drew three Mythos cards that increased the terror track outright.

I had sealed two gates. With the terror track high and the number of gates troublesome, I was given an interesting choice. Joe could be devoured and give skills, clues and trophies to the next investigator. In reward, a gate would be sealed. At first I was like, be devoured?, no way. But then I decided I needed to do it.

His spirit enriched Gloria Goldberg. Ah, she's good at zipping through Other Worlds and closing gates. In the Other Worlds, she started with 8 clue tokens but lost a few after I spent them trying to past a luck check to get more. She had 11 dice with no successes! Now that's failing a luck check.

So the number of monsters overran Arkham, the sky turned yellow and Hastur materialized. Neither investigator had any chance of defeating it.

I kind of forgot about Jenny. She made a great beatstick with an enchanted blade.

So I was 1-1 for the weekend, making my solo record 2-2.

Played a solo game myself last night using the base and Dunwich expansion. I used Diana and Jacqueline to take on Abhoth.

I managed to seal a gate with each character, but I just had horrible luck. I had a lot of Monster Surges at the beginning of the game causing all three Children of Abhoth to appear on the board fairly early. I had no weapons to really stand a chance so I ended up evading them the entire game. This was a pretty bad strategy since the terror track and doom levels increased with subsequent surges.

I also had a REALLY unlucky rumor where I lost an ally each turn and had to pay off sanity to remove the rumor. This wouldn't have been so much of a problem if the street in which the event was taking place didn't have two children of Abhoth and two other monsters that didn't move for a few turns as well as the fact I had both characters in Otherworld when the rumor started. Within three turns I was out of allies, failed the rumor, and then had to immediately resolve THREE Mythos cards opening more gates and causing another surge.

By the end of the game both of my characters were stuck in an area with three monsters on the streets waiting for us. In hindsight, I guess the better strategy would have been to simply take the fall so I could attempt respawn at the hospital or asylum, but at that point I was hopelessly just waiting for Abhoth to wake up.

And sure enough, two turns later he did. Didn't even stand a chance fighting it.

I guess the only lucky thing that happened was I managed to get lucky enough not to have the Dunwich Horror actually show up into play.