Am I understanding this right?

players win as soon as there are 6 elder signs on the board? that means all they have to do is close 6 gates (any way) and no matter what they win?

if this is right it seems to be a bit strange to have rules like "if there are no gate makers then the ancient one awakens"

I play with dunwich so as far as I can tell it is impossible for this to even happen, unless i'm missing something.

there will never be more then 5 gate trophies taken by players before they win, and at most 8 on the board in a 2 player game before the ancient one awakens.

still lots of gates left over. seems like a very redunant rule unless i'm missing understanding the "6 elder signs" on the board thing.

gate bursts can change this a little bit I guess.

First of all, I highly recommend you do not use Dunwich for your first play. It will unnecessarily complicate the game and permanently alienate new players. Every new player I've introduced the game to using Dunwich has hated the game.

To address your concern, you have indeed overlooked something—the game is over and you win if there are six elder sign tokens on the board. Just closing a gate does not place an elder sign on the board. That means you not only have to close those gates—you have to seal them too, by spending 5 clues when you succeed at closing the gate (or by using the Elder Sign unique item). If you don't spend the clues, the gate is not sealed and an elder sign is not placed on the board. That said, it is often not wise to close a gate if you don't plan to seal it.

Another victory condition is that if there are no open gates on the board, and the investigators collectively have gate trophies equal to or greater than the number of investigators, you immediately win. That is, if in a 4-investigator game, the last gate is closed and the investigators collectively own at least 4 gate trophies, you win. Clearly, gate trophies that are spent do not count because they are returned to the gate trophy pile.

The one "AO awakens" condition you mentioned is that the AO awakens when a gate trophy is supposed to be placed on the board but none remain. This will rarely happen, because in the base game that means all 16 gates have to be in use or taken as trophies. With Dunwich, that means 20. Also remember that the AO awakens if there are too many gates open at the same time—this number gets smaller with more investigators.

Tibs said:

you can close gates with out sealing them?

I guess to keep from being to many open if you don't have the clue tokens?

looking over the rules again, this is where I went wrong...I took closing and sealing a gate as the same thing.

thank you for the insite.

No problem. In fact, a viable strategy is to start sealing gates, and then to be on the lookout for which gates are left, to attempt to win by a close victory. Winning by a "close all gates" victory without sealing a few first is very, very hard.