A weekend of fun, horror, and sanity? What an amazing weekend it was.

Friday, Oct. 14th:

A friend and I started the weekend late in the evening, managing to only finish a total of 2 games, the first being with 4 investigators and the second with 3. The first match was a grueling defeat against Shub, as we ended up without a heavy fighter to deal with the monsters spawning on the board. We ended up waking him up via a Spell, but weren't as well prepared as we had hoped. For the second game, we tried out the new Hastur KIY the event gave each guest. We ended up losing in the final fight with only 2 Doom Tokens remaining (6 successes left). For each of these games, we only played with Vanilla AH, but still ended up 0-2 after the first night. Overall, the start of the weekend was turning out pretty poorly.

Saturday, Oct. 15th:

Our luck still started the same on Saturday. We began with a loss with 4 investigators which wasn't much a contest, and quickly started another game after. Finally, in our second game, we won with a low score of 12 points and 4 investigators. Although not the best, at least it was a victory. In game 3, we tried out the "To the Barricades" scenario, a game with 20 investigators and all expansions in play, which after turn 3 we lost. Although impossible to win, it was quite amusing to watch how much the game could destroy you. With a total of 1-4 for the weekend so far, we knew we went into the final 2 games of the night quite unenthusiastically. However, with 6 investigators we manged to eliminate Shub with another go. Final fight ended up netting us 18 points, which we weren't to happy about.

And finally in the final game of the night, our luck changed. We played with 5 investigators (3 players from the previous game joined us) and once again decided to try our luck against the new KIY. In the end, it was no challenge. We finished strong with a grand total of 32 points (much of those points from at least 7 gates and 18+ monster trophies). We didn't raise the terror track at all, and won by closing the final gate on the board while at the same time placing the 6th seal. A double victory in our eyes, it was a good way to end the day.

Sunday, Oct. 16th:

With the score at 3-4, I played 2 more final games for the weekend, and ended up with victories on both. Which ended me at a 5-4 win overall. It was quite enjoyable in the end.

Thank you for your memory of the event :-) Do you think it's possible to have / know what the Scenario was about? I noticed it's played over the years, and I'd like to recreate it on my own. I suppose there are some special rules (and I can't imagine a game lost by round 3. Unless you have Devil Reef surging and moving, but I don't think the Scenario is about this. Should be something unusual, even because of the great use of investigators)

Yes, you're correct, doesn't seem likely to lost that early, but when you end up drawing 3 Mythos each turn and Monster surges send the Terror level to 10 instantly, it gets hectic fast.

But, THB is a variant for 9-20 investigators with all expansions to date in play. Start by getting at least 2 copies of vanilla AH, and 1 copy of each expansion. Setup the game normally with all boards, cards and expansions in play, replacing older versions of elements (such as old Act Cards with new ones, new Gate Markers with old ones, etc.) in addition to the following:

1. Take the skill sliders, money, sanity, stamina, and clue tokens from the 2nd copy of AH as well as all the Investigator Cards (Common, Unique, Spell, and Skills..but not repeat Allies). Also take Bank Loans, Blessings/Curses, STM, etc. from the base game as well.

2. Setup as follows:

AO: Azathoth

Herald: King in Yellow

Guardian: Hypnos

Institution: Miskatonic U.

3. Draw 11 allies, as normal, to make a deck.

4. Choose investigators how ever you feel fit (random, etc.) and double up on some if not enough players.

And that's it. After the entire game is setup, play starts as normal. Conditions in game are as follows:

- 8 seals wins the game

- Outskirts limit is 0

- Gate opening = 2 monsters spawn

- 9-16 players: Draw 2 Mythos end of each round with the last Environment drawn remaining in play; game is lost if Aza wakes up or 7 gates are open at once

- 17+ players: Draw 3 Mythos end of each round with the last Environment drawn remaining in play; game is lost if Aza wakes up or 8 gates are open at once

Best of luck!

Thanks for sharing, I'll love this :-) I should borrow from a friend his copy of AH to have the two vanilla sets, but I think I should be able to give this a try in not so a distant future (maybe before Christmas). It's a challenging task, but since you're allowed to choose the investigators, the trick is having some of them able to generate clues quickly in order to counterbalance the increased number of Mythos cards. And move quickly. So Patrice, Wendy, Roland and probably Mark are compulsory. Azzy doesn't impact the game at all, and Hypnos should grant an extra boot. Not impossible. I'll beat it :-) (even if maybe not on the first try) and then post a comment in the forum.

A simple (last) question: the double / triple Mythos resolution is from Mythos one, right? During set-up, you read and resolve only one Mythos card, am I correct?

Thanks again for sharing :-)

Julia said:

Jacqueline is a must. I'd say Wendy (a must, A for all the usual reasons, but also to get past the monsters blocking the gates early game), Patrice (a must), Mandy, Jacqueline (a must, she should let you avoid potential catastrophic events), Ashcan (a must, with so many investigators you're very likely to be able to get Eltdown shards rapidly, that'll allow you to slow down the doom track), Minh Thi Phan to use with Ashcan (lots of clues quickly), Daisy (I'd probably use Eltdown Shards to search for a Voice of Ra, remember, Ashcan can also fetch this back, so she can have +3 to all stats every turn), Marie (for her remove a doom token, and her voice of ra which will immediately amplify Daisy, then again, out of all the picks, she might be the most expendable), Norman Withers for Find Gate, Joe (for being able to burst through monsters blocking gates, especially if he uses the first King in Yellow), Kate Winthrop (to block at least one of the three gates with arcane insight foresight, sure, you'll have the DOR track to worry about, but the doom track is more of a threat this game), Luke Robinson (with Patrice, he'll be able to seal a gate as soon as he comes through, plus gate box will come in handy and he's a good investigator in general). Hank would be a good idea for busting through heavily guarded gates, William, Rex, and Roland for extra clue generation. And I'd seriously consider getting Monterey and Dexter for improved shopping abilities. Silas for the ability to snipe/seal a gate.

Wendy, Patrice, Mandy, Jacqueline, Ashcan, Minh Thi Phan, Daisy, Norman Withers, Joe Diamond, Kate Winthrop, Luke, Hank, William, Rex, Roland, Monterey, Dexter (17, but I might cut monterey for Marie instead, for a challenge, to just crush the game I would cut them both and just draw two mythos cards). 17+ is a flawed design however, because the game can, and probably will auto-win just by a bit of bad luck with the initial cards (gate limit will wake azathoth before you even have a chance to seal or close anything, and even if you have multiple gate surges, 17 monsters per surge, second one immediately wakes up Azathoth). As I said, the second design is flawed and the first design is too easy (I could beat it with nine). Ashcan, Wendy, Patrice, Mandy, Daisy, Jacqueline, Minh Thi Phan, Marie, Joe [in this set up, I might have daisy go for Find Gate instead of a second voice of ra with her first draw]. With Wendy and Marie, you effectively have a doom track of 17, minimum. Plenty of time to get the seals. Game over.

Julia said:

Yes setup is initially only 1 Mythos card.

Also I forgot to mention, do NOT add the extra elder signs from the original 2nd base game.

Avi_dreader said:

Actually with 18 people we almost won in another game. We got dealt 3 find gates, 3 gate boxes and 3 elder signs right off the bat. We used Arcane insight to determine where the gates would pop, gave any items we had that ignored delay effects and used Mark Har. to stand on gate locations and during movement seal them all on the same turn with elder signs/combination of violinist. By turn 2 we had 4 seals on the board..Innsmouth eventually got us in the end since we were blocking too many gate openings on the board and only got up to 6 seals, and we didn't have whomever stops Deep One's tokens.

Tomoka said:

Ok then! thanks for clarifying :-)

Tomoka said:

Oh, one mythos first turn ;') Okay, that's doable.