The other evening several friends and I met for a game of AH...no Expansions...just the base board. My friends, Fred played Bob Jenkins and Rob played Mike McGlen , while I played Darrell Simmons . The Random Posessions proved helpful and the initial gate at the Woods revealed only a Maniac . The first two cards, both Environments weren't too problematic, and we managed to get a few Clue Token while another two gates opened in the town.

Then it happened...the best Mythos card of them all... Noden's Blessing ! Mike had just revealed the Curiosittie Shoppe card "Jackpot" which allowed him to purchase an Elder Sign. Over the next several rounds, we raced through the Other Worlds, succeeding in sealing three gates, along with another two within the next five rounds. Now, with only a few Clue Tokens between us, we cleared the streets of some monsters, making our way to the Clues on the board.

Over those intervening turns, a Rumor, Disturbing the Dead , appeared relinuishing two Gate Trophies from Darrell before he became Cursed , whisked back into an Other World by a Nightgaunt , and finally ended-up in Lost in Time and Space . Fortunately, for our intrepid Investigators, the next few Mythos cards revealed "sealed" locations, allowing Bob and Mike to dive into the last two Gates, traverse the OW and return to Arkham. Darrell, upon leaving LiTaS, returned to the South Church, shed his Curse (rolled a '1' ~ happy day!), and turned-in his last Gate Trophy to provide Bob with a Blessing , as Mike already possessed one. Both Bob and Mike made their respective Figh t rolls, closing the last two gates...with a final score of 25 for the game!

Poor Shubby had but 6 Doom Tokens upon his Doom Track ...the poor GOO never had a chance.

Shub-NIggurath is a girl.

And this is why I don't play without expansions without heavily modifying the game ;'D

Avi, I fully agree with you. When playing this game by myself with four Investigators, I regularly play with the following assortment:

AH+CotDP(old and new)+DH+KiY+KH+BGotW+LatT+MH

I have a "Win" rate of around 60%

The Professor said:

Sounds good. In my view it's important to keep the game difficult so you have to push for a win. Nothing satisfying about having the game flop over on your feet and say, "Please kill me, I'm begging you, I'll even let you start with an elder sign and 20 clue tokens!" One enjoys a bit more conflict :')

Avi,

After having played about a dozen games with the Lurker, I've only engaged a few times with this "Guarald" (or I guess it would be a "Herdian") due to some of the very nasty Reckoning Cards. Most of my games fall between nail-biters (one opening on the Doom Track or 1 away from the maximum allowable Open Gates) and those with enough setbacks (open Rifts or blown Elder Signs) to make them verry interesting.

The Professor

Avi_dreader said:

That's the starting condition of every all-expansions-in + Wendy game... ::devil:: at the moment, my ratio for 2011 is 100% wictories for Julia when soling Arkham Horror ::laughter:: Avi, we need to start working on a *hard* mode for your League!

Julia said:

;'D You won't be laughing when you see the hard mode for scenario two.

Avi_dreader said:

Can't wait to see it. Since it's the only one I didn't pass at the first try, it'd be lovable to beat it, on the first try, in the hard mode ::laughter::

(ok, I know, after saying this I'll be slaughtered, but couldn't resist)

::slaughter::

Julia said:

Surely you don't think that I'd make sure you'll be slaughtered after saying something like that, do you? What kind of ironic monster do you take me for? ;'D

inb4 herald condition:

At the Start of the game: if the player is Julia, then Ancient One immediately awakens.

Avi_dreader said:

I wasn't implying you'll be the butcher. Just saying that as soon as you say "I'm the best at something", then usually you have the most incredible unlucky period of your life. But anyway. I just beat Scenario 18, so... still no news under the sun ::devil::

MyNeighbourTrololo said:

Better use this with Azathoth, just to be sure ::laughter::

Julia said:

MyNeighbourTrololo said:

Quite sure, yeah

Thinking of that, it would be cool if Azathoth had some sort of real final battle, most powerful of all AOs.

Like all investigators devoured when he first time attacks, so the only chance is to stack attack cancelling items and good damage dealing stuff to kill him in those few rounds you have until he first time attacks or something.

Here we go!

While I'll never use this variant, I did want to point out one mechanical difficulty with your creation. The Doom Track has a place for 14 Doom Tokens, before you place the 15th and last one. The GOO card also states that it requires 8 seals, instead of 6. You're going to have to use other chits for either Doom Tokens or Seals as you have only 20 total markers.

No one will(even me), It was just my fleet of thought

Lol, doom tokens easily replaceable, if it's all about markers then it's least of your worries.

Technically, you can use only 1 doom doom token to indicate current doom track position.

Ugh, I'd never use one doom token, because if the sheet gets bumped I could lose its position. Plus, adding more tokens really underscores the doom.

Your Azathoth is interesting, but I'd seriously remove the "8 seals to win" condition. Getting six seals is hard enough when you start adding expansions. Also, the "can't win by closing" should never be a rule, because I've often found myself close to an AO awakening and nowhere near enough time to get the remaining seals, which leaves closing as my only plausible chance at a win. Taking that away will make some games dead in the water before they even finish, and that's not fun.

What have you done with Tibs? Real Tibs would never say that.

What I tried to acomplish with those rules is compensation of enormous doom track and lack of game impact.

Julia said she finishes game in a 10~ turns or something, that's barely a 10 doom tokens(if you're unlucky with gate bursts, elder sign placement and etc.).

The thing about the 8 seals to win is that, while it does technially make the game harder, if Azathoth ends up waking when you have, say, 7 seals, final combat would be way easier than it ought to, even with his ginormous doom track. I'm indifferent as to whether to go with 8 seals rather than 6, but if you do, I wouldn't link it to both his attack and his combat rating (except possibly to make them vary directly with the number of seals, rather than inversely).

Easy: Change element of his attack which states "Each investigator discards an item if able" to "Set X to the amount seals on the board after discarding one seal this turn, substracted from 8".

Real Tibs appreciates a challenge, but at its heart, it must still be fun. A game that's over before the end isn't all that fun! That's my problem with the huge seal requirement. Eight seals, at the cost of 6 clues per seal, is a huge victory investment. The increasing difficulty to battle him is a fine correction though.

I always do like to see when combats are affected by the number of seals.