Greetings - Long time lurker, first time poster.

My gaming group and I have a clarification request-slash-concern on Eihort. I'd read on previous discussions that we're to roll for possible devourment by brood tokens even outside of the final battle against Eihort. In my estimation, while getting devoured brings about Eihort's awakening much sooner, doesn't it also make his final battle much much easier, in that most players likely won't be starting the final battle with a dreadfully high number of brood tokens (having either avoided getting them or being on a fresh second character)?

In a way, causing the player to roll for devouring outside of the final battle goes against the grain of how Ancient Ones generally operate, which is to make the final battle more difficult so that players treat it as a last resort. Fighting Eihort would be a lot more scary if brood tokens didn't devour until the final. As it stands now, with only the first player required to make the devour check, Eihort's almost laughable... assuming the players were able to pick up magical weaponry and spells.

Thoughts or comments?

Eihort starts the battle with all players receiving 1 brood token. And if you awaken him too soon I doubt you'll have a good gear against him. And note that if he devours someone during the final battle - he regains a load of doom tokens from his victim. So don't laugh at Eihort.

Also, if he awoken as a result of someone being devoured by his ability - this someone is not getting a replacement and you starting the battle outnumbered.

Trololo made some good points on Eihort. He is not incredibly nasty (Quachil-like), buuuut can be very dangerous nonetheless, simply because he can regenerate doomers in the most unpredictable ways. And his Epic Battle cards are quite tough (if you use them, clearly). Besides, it's very unlikely that your investigators don't have any brood before FB begins, you gain one every time you kill a cultist or seal a gate.

Some personal stories require you to have Cultist monster trophy. And sometimes Cultists just assault you, and their evade rating is -3.

And Sealing is vital if you're want to win. And you can't trade Clue tokens in most of cases to just stream all brood tokens to the single investigator.

Eihort in final combat is like a nuclear meltdown. If you don't contain him very quickly, he will explode. That said, I almost unerringly manage to roll a 1 when I receive my second brood token.

Yes... You can kill him relatively easily if you gear up... But you need to make that your sole strategy (because if you go in with sealed gates, he's likely to eat one of your characters, and then another— regenerating all the while). And of course... With a bit of bad luck, he'll eat them all. He can be deceptively difficult because he has an insta-devour attack that can't be avoided with clue tokens, and he regenerates. Cthulhu kills people starting turn eight. Eihort kills people starting turn one.

Well, we play with 3-4 people usually. With a 6 or 7 monster limit cap, cultists aren't too hard to avoid. That moon symbol moves them off of open gates pretty quickly. We HATE having to avoid cultists - bashing them is almost as fun as slaughtering Mi-Gos - but it's doable. If we happen to draw a bunch, someone can cough up their $ and equipment to another player and go bite the bullet for us.

Sealing gates is normally a great idea. Atlach is a rare exception. Nyarlathotep (sp) might make the players think twice. However, I would argue that if the group decided to play for 6 sealed gates against Eihort, we're also risking bringing about Eihort's awakening sooner with 1) Brood tokens accumulating, and 2) Seals can and may very well lead to Deep One Rising tokens in Innsmouth (we've been on an Innsmouth kick for a while now). It might be smarter just to play for gate closures.

I like the nuclear meltdown comparison.