We play with a four character team and always try to win by sealing six gates, so there are a number of AO's that I figured our group would never beat in combat. Y'golonac was definitely placed among that group.

We've actually had pretty good luck against Y'golonac, defeating him through six seals in all three of his previous appearances. This time, though, a straight six gate openings at the beginning plus one "A gate and a monster appears!" encounter had us facing off against the AO on the seventh turn. I was especially disappointed, since we'd been lucky enough to draw a dream team: Mandy Thompson, Joe Diamond, Marie Lambeau and Wendy Adams. All four of them had five or more clues and were in the other worlds when Y'golonac awakend,

My initial hope was just to last long enough to see one of Y'golonac's Sinister Plots come into play. But Marie Lambeau took off three Doom tokens in one round with her Clues (and one with her Witch Blood!), enchanted knife and Shrivelling, and I started to nurture a little hope.

The real key to turned out to be the shotgun which Wendy had gotten as starting equipment. First round Mandy used it along with all of her clues and her reroll power. The second turn Joe Diamond did the same, adding his Marksman skill to get some more sixes from the initial roll before Mandy used her power. We got an interesting Sinister Plot on the second round, but it made no real difference. By the end of the third round we'd all be dead (Marie had perished at the end of round two, the price of having cast the Shrivelling twice), but Wendy had the shotgun, five clues and Mandy's reroll. We needed seven successes, and out of her six dice Wendy got two sixes and two fives! We used Mandy's reroll and both dice came up successes! Victory, in a final battle against Y'golonac!

So does anyone have any similar tales to relate?

Wendy Adams is not allowed to have a shotgun because that's bad parenting.

OK, a real response:

In a recent game, I was having a lot of trouble getting seals down against Tsathoggua, because gates kept bursting. On top of that, double-doom cards and Next Acts kept appearing early.... Tsat's doom level was getting too high. Someone was trying to take care of the open rift and someone else was blocked in by horrible monsters.

Slumbering on the brink of death to close (not seal) a gate to R'lyeh and hoping to win that way, Darrell Simmons bumped into ol' Squidface himself.

Luckily, Darrell had a Rifle and the Marksman skills, and went to it. His opening barrage, including his few clues, took out a huge chunk of Cthulhu. It was great! Since Cthulhu's attacks don't affect his current—very low—sanity and stamina, he still had a number of turns to survive it out. Unfortunately, Darrell Started rolling very hurf results. Many times Cthulhu took net 0 damage, and even once took net -1! It was looking bad. Darrell was down to 1 sanity and 1 stamina maximum—one shot left. I let the dice fly....

I had just enough! Cthulhu got burned and Darrell escaped with his R'lyeh gate—SEALED I may add! That was the sixth and final seal we required. It was a spectactularly epic way to win a game—both by seals and by final combat at the same time !

Unfortunately, Darrell himself wasn't having too good a time. 1 Sanity and 1 Stamina maximum are going to be difficult disabilities with which to live :-P

Did I mention that the turn before Wendy had downed two pints of whiskey to prevent the two Sanity damage from Y'golonac's attack? That's right, the kid was dead drunk while she was handling that shotgun. But don't worry, I'm sure Joe and Mandy will fall in love, get married, and adopt Wendy to bring her up right.

Great story! I do love the Other World AO encounter cards from CotDP and I miss having them in the deck. What expansions do you use with base Arkahm?

Ironically, we're having a pretty tough time right now against Tsathoggua. We got the dreaded Cover-Up rumor on the SECOND turn! Needless to say we couldn't pass it, but with quick action we still managed to seal two gates before it went off. While we were doing that, however, the Whatelys were accused of witchcraft, become someone had released two monsters into the Backwoods County street. One of them was one of Tsathoggua's Formless Spawn, and both monsters made it through a vortice. It obviously was Whately who released the two monsters because of what happened next.

A gate opened on Wizard's Hill, and the Wizard Whately stepped out of it. If he made it to a vortice his pride and joy, the Dunwich Horror, would awaken. We had to stop him, but he was magicallly immune and, believe it or not, we had no physical weapons! Every one of our characters started out with two or more spells, and all of our combat might was magical in nature. Luke the Dreamer shopped as Whately proceeded inexorably to first the Backwoods County and then to Village Commons. Luke found a shotgun and frantically passed it on to Kate, while Jim Culver took the money she needed for train fare from Dexter Drake. She passed through both characters, who were waiting on the same street space, and using her Ruby of Ry'leh she confronted Whately in the Village Commons. She took careful aim with the shotgun. . . and he blasted her with his sorcery. Down to one stamina, she desperately fired and killed him!

The next turn revealed a circle movement symbol, meaning Whately would have gone through the vortice. Unfortunately it also revaled that a strange statue had been destroyed, releasing two monsters into the Village Commons! Obviously Wizard Whately's last act had been to blast apart the statue, unleashing a Tcho-tcho and Mi-Go on Kate. Looking back on it, I think Kate's Flux Stabilizer should have stopped those two from appearing, but I didn't think of that at the time. She managed to kill both, just as Luke handled the Wraith and FIre Vampire that had swooped down on him and Jim.

Things were all right for a while, especially after Kate sealed the gate to Wizard's Hill with an Elder Sign. A few turns ago, however, that seal burst, putting a Dark Young on Wizard's Hill. Two recent monster surges have put a Ghoul and the Werewolf on the Wizard's Hill gate! Dexter is probably the only one with a chance of taking on the Horror (he has two Shrivellings and the Cryptical Book of Hsan), but this turn a Hunting Horror found him at the Science Building! Not to mention we have six gates open. Even with the invaluable Fire of Asshurbanipal in our possession things look grim . . .

Until pretty recently I was just using random combos of expansions, with some things in every game (dual-color OW cards, Injury/Madness, Epic Battle, Investigators/AOs/Heralds/Guardians, monsters) but have recently decided to go back to using ALL expansions. It takes too long to sort out cards that aren't in the combo I'm using, and it sucks having to thumb through the cards that aren't used just to get to those that are.

It warms me to use every expansion. That's the way I was doing it up until Black Goat, and I have not been satisfied randomizing my set since.

Next Act and Dunwich may see less action for sure, but they still see action. I almost got killed by Next Act recently, and Dunwich Horror without the DH herald still awakens for me more often (26.1%) than for everyone's games without the herald, regardless of other expansions used (17.6%)

Here's another good one. Last night, we started a bit strong towards sealing Nyarlathotep, but immediately Pete went into an OW and lost all his clues. People systematically began being blocked in by monsters, losing their clues, and being generally unable to seal. We had 3 down when Nyar awoke, but I also had two terror level increases with the King in Yellow, and I SHOULD have added doom tokens instead of drawing blights. Because:

Pete was thrust into the Abyss with no escape, and got Lost in Time and Space just in time for Nyarlathotep to awaken; he would not have been LiTaS if I'd added doom tokens during KiY's terror-ups. He also had the Grapple skill and a good Fight score, making him extremely important for Final Combat.

Luckily, Leo had the Carcosan Page and stripped Pete of his weapons (Tommygun, Alien Device) just in case he couldn't make it to final combat. And right before final combat started, a mythos card removed one clue token from those who had the most, and added one to Marie (with the least, and also the worst for Final Combat). WHEEEE

Each of my 3 participants had 2 clue tokens. Marie pulled of a Dread Curse once, but botched up the second time (a wasted attack). We gave the tommygun to Jim, because he didn't have a broken hand like Marie (she had an Injured arm too. Bad rolls I swear!)

It all happened so fast. We got Nyar down pretty low, dodging his attacks... but then he swarmed us with Masks. The God of the Bloody Tongue emerged and consumed Marie.

Then we got an event where we were devoured if we rolled no successes on our attack. Jim, with his tommygun, of course got no successes. He only had one clue left to spend, which meant he would die if he used it. Well he was about to die anyway, so he spent it and at least got one hit on Nyar.

Next round, Nyar grew a pair and attacked first. Leo was toast.