jgt7771 said:

Eh... I'm not saying I *can't* play Tony, I'm just saying I don't really like him. He's not horrible. But he's nothing special either. I honestly couldn't tell you if I'd prefer to draw him or Mark Harrigan (on one hand, those terrible stats— on the other hand, starting with a flamethrower is nice)... I don't really like either much, and I don't like having to spend all my investigators' money at the beginning of the game at the common item shop just to get weapons— I prefer to shop for unique items (and hopefully get an Elder Sign or a KiY). Also, while his luck is nice (I'll conceed that point), you should also keep in mind that fighters or street sweepers don't spend much time in Other Worlds anyways ;') as they're just trying to knock out monsters (him in particular), so it's kindof a wasted stat alot of the time.

As for Lola, I like her, but I think it's embarrassing how she basically blows Amanda out of the water. I mean really, why would you play with Amanda if you had Lola (other than Random Draw)? I'm hoping that the Innsmouth story cards will fix this.

Heh... As for Luke, I think people who complain about him are people who play on autopilot. When you draw Luke, the key to making him great is *not closing* a Dreamlands gate. (Or Another Dimension, or City of the Great Race) even if it's on a high frequency location. You just keep popping him in and out of that with his gatebox and then use him to seal tougher gates and he's a little clue machine who's proably picking up some decent equipment in the meanwhile and not getting crushed by OW encounters. ::Shrug:: he's nice. You can also use him to assassinate monsters sitting on gates when you pop him out of places. Monsters that you might not otherwise confront for a while due to not having enough clue tokens to seal, or because they're on a minor gate that you don't want to spend three turns closing, but they're a pain in the ass like a Colour or a Cthonian. ::Shrug:: or they could just be a mobile smallish monster that you want to kill without losing a turn of movement.

Were you one of the anti-Wendy crowd? ::Laughter:: I remember being very peeved off by that discussion ;')

Avi_dreader said:

I...was. I freely admit I had trouble with Investigators that just didn't...or worse, basically CAN'T...play by the standard defaults. At first broadest glance, Wendy looks incapable of taking care of herself, and I totally fell into that trap. And then I abused the hell out of her in her first game, almost as if I was making a point: "You suck! Now fight that Gug!" I shoulda been brought up on charges.

I certainly remember the intensity of your "peeved", but I heard what you said...and Wendy is most definitely a "game winner".

jgt7771 said:

::Laughter:: replace peeved with another P word then ;'D I was pretty horrifed by the Wendy bashing though (because she's one of the best characters in the game and instead people were saying that she was the worst). Pretty much the only time I'm ambivalent about drawing Wendy is when Cthulhu is the AO... It's a bit hard to cope with a 3/3 character :' even if they can dodge almost every monster. Plus after you use her elder sign she'd go down to a 2/2 which is a very precarious spot to be in (I'd actually have her trade her elder sign immediately in a Cthulhu game, probably).

I would hate to see you in charge of an orphanage, "Alright, bad boys and girls have to go fight a Gug!" ;') It keeps the children in line though, I suppose.

Avi and Mageith, I clearly require instruction from the two of you in fighting Yibb if you've been able to beat him in a four player final fight without spending the whole game solely gearing up to fight him. First, the problem of his clue token modifier; how do you manage to pick up all the Clues with the five clue token limit per Investigator? You do leave Clue tokens on the board if the Investigator doesn't have room for them, correct?

Second, HOW do you manage to get eighty-eight successes when you only have nine to sixteen rounds to do so, and at most five clue tokens per Investigator to help you? Clue tokens which can't even be used to keep an Investigator from being Devoured from Yibb's attack, since Focus is NOT a skill?

Third, how do you keep your Investigators alive, considering the average Focus and inability to use Clue tokens to affect that roll?

Mageith, I agree that strain and distraction is a big part of Arkham. I propose that the strain and distraction added by hunting down Tulzscha's Cultists is an enjoyable addition to the game, especially if you don't have any good Sneakers. I must admit, though, that I don't use Tulzscha right now.

Dam, you put forth the question, "How do you play Rex in a game with Shudde M'ell when he destroys South Church on the second round?". The answer is: Badly . It happened to me in one game and so we had a big problem with Rex. I can't remember if we won that game or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is no. Now I would send Rex to the Bank if the Church was destroyed or Tsathoggua were the Ancient One.

Avi, you mentioned that Lola blows Amanda out of the water and you hope that the Personal Story Innsmouth cards for Amanda will help to remedy this. I'd say there is a pretty good chance of that, since Amanda is likely to have quite possibly the coolest Personal Story cards of any character (I see her big rival for that honor being Diana). Why wlll Amanda's Personal Story cards be so good? Because her back story makes it VERY clear that she is a hybrid who is beginning the transformation into her Deep One form.

Avi, I can't support any list of top characters in which the great Jacqueline Fine isn't at the very least number three. You write that you prefer to use her clue tokens to seal gates. With any other character I would agree with you, but not Jacqueline. Clue tokens in her hands are actually worth MORE than Clue tokens being used to seal gates! I've lost county of the number of gate bursts and Rumors she had been able to prevent. Many games which we could not have won otherwise have ended in victory thanks to Jacqueline's phenomenal power. Used right she is easily the equal of Mandy, Wendy, or Daisy.

Solan said:

One of the AH games featuring Ms. Fine, I had a nasty habit of suffering the following: Nerf a Gate Burst at sealed location X, draw as replacement Gate Burst at sealed location Y . I think I got that twice in the game. But Jacqueline is a very cool investigator.

Dam said:

Look at the bright side: if you hadn't nerfed the Mythos card, you would have had 2 gate bursts.

It's just the odds of that happening that messed with my mind. IIRC, at least one of those combos was Unvisited Isle burst, nerf that, Witch House burst, so with DH + BG bursts, 3 burst cards for each (going by memory/gut feeling on the numbers), 3/171, then 3/171 again . Then again, there was that game where Graveyard burst twice, both times the turn I sealed it...

Solan said:

Sorry, I disagree. She still isn't a top tier character. Although I'll grant that I should've put her in the second tier list if only for being able to block on average a gate burst per game— I really dislike her stats though. I don't care about rumors most of the time. They're usually not *that* difficult to solve, especially if you aren't playing for score. And the rewards are often worth it. Some of them it doesn't even matter if you just let them stick around for most of the game (which also provides you a shield against more dangerous rumors). She doesn't work very well with my playing style (make money, shop for unique items, especially elder signs and the tomes that let you remove doom tokens) and I often find her ability unuseful. Mandy on the other hand is nearly guaranteed to be used in an important way every turn (plus she starts with a bunch of clues). Darrell allows you to make major game exploits if you are familiar with location encounters. Wendy lets you start with enough resources to nearly seal two gates (which she can then trade for enough resources to nearly seal a third gate). I'm still not crazy about Joe, but I'll acknowledge that his starting item is very good (as is the chunk of cash he starts with and more importantly 3 clues) and his special ability allows you to exploit the game in a number of ways (the worst of which is stocking up the shotgun for AOs). And Daisy... Seriously. Seriously? Seriously?! Turn one. Search for alchemy. Turn 2-10. Make 24 dollars. That's a hell of alot of cash and the items you can get with it well be a hell of alot more useful than J.F.'s ability once or twice a game (at the cost of four clue tokens). With 24 cash you can shop in unique item deck probably about 5 times in which there's a good chance that you'll pick up resources that will enable you to seal 1-2 gates (not to mention useful items).

Yes. I know about Amanda's backstory :') but we've yet to see how the story cards will work (I'm very excited about them though).

As for Yibb... I didn't gear up for fighting him the whole game (only the last third— where I tried to get all my players blessed so they'd score successes faster, and be more likely to not get eaten on their focus rolls and also to pick up a few stray clues), but I was also careful to be wasteful (now there's a change!) with clue tokens (while not in other worlds seeking to seal gates). I also didn't make getting clue tokens on high frequency gates a high priority (as their disappearance could be potentially beneficial). Last time I played him he had a -2 combat modifier. And while it's true you need 88 successes, he doesn't have physical or magical immunity or even resistance (most of the time). In retrospect, I think going for a sealing victory against him is a stupid idea with a four player team, unless you have unusual circumstances (such as starting with Wendy), and it's probably best to gear up for combat against him from the beginning. Hmmm... Anyways... Lets say you have on average 4 players with fight four and combat modifiers of +7, so that's 11 -2 dice per player. Assuming they're all blessed for two turns and you have a 50% success rate, lets say you get four successes times four twice in the first two turns... That's already 32 successes. Of course, you should actually have higher fight and combat modifiers on average (in my opinion). As for keeping a focus one player alive. You want to buy a unique item that lets you cancel an ancient one attack if possible. That way you can ensure that they survive through another round of attacks. Um. Also, if you can find the Massa Di Requiem Shoggoth, that will help you begin the fight when you want it to begin (with a turn order that will be most beneficial to your team). :'D Okay. Oh yeah, and also make sure to give your weakest weapons to whichever investigator is doing the roll against Yibb each turn, just in case they fail (unless you have a really good reason not to).

P.S. Yeah, J.F.'s ability's also nice against double doom token cards. Still, she's not a top five player because her abilities are only sometimes useful, not always.

Mageith, I clearly require instruction from the two of you in fighting Yibb if you've been able to beat him in a four player final fight without spending the whole game solely gearing up to fight him. First, the problem of his clue token modifier; how do you manage to pick up all the Clues with the five clue token limit per Investigator? You do leave Clue tokens on the board if the Investigator doesn't have room for them, correct?

Second, HOW do you manage to get eighty-eight successes when you only have nine to sixteen rounds to do so, and at most five clue tokens per Investigator to help you? Clue tokens which can't even be used to keep an Investigator from being Devoured from Yibb's attack, since Focus is NOT a skill?

Third, how do you keep your Investigators alive, considering the average Focus and inability to use Clue tokens to affect that roll?

I only remember four games against Yibb. He uttterly cleaned our clocks the first time. We left too many clue tokens down. I think it was -8 combat modifier. That was similarly true in the last game against him. It was at a recent convention and the players weren't picking up enough clues.

In the second game and 3rd games, we concentrated on picking up clues. Yes, we left clues when we went beyond 5 and the players were more inclined to use them to save their measly lives than usual. In the second game we lost no investigators at all. All had high focus, as I recall, and we played with Wilson, Little Emily's favorite investigator and so he made it into about 1 in 4 games. I'm not sure why you say 9 to 16 rounds. The way I read it, the rounds are unlimited as long as the investigator survives and Wilson rolls four dice. In the 2nd victory, Wilson was also present but some (maybe all) of the other investigators probably were devoured. Anyway, whenever I see Yibb as fearsome, I am not sure why. I fear his Evade difficulty more than anything, but after I discovered Wendy's and Daisy's awesome evade ability it was easy. Now it almost feels like cheating if I use them. Wilson's also good at sneaking.

Another factor is that we play a certain campaign mode the allows us to use our best investigators over again, especially toward the end. We randomly determine investigators and GOO's. As the GOO's get sealed or closed against, they are removed from the pile of GOO's. As the Investigators get devoured, for any reason, they get removed. Usually the campaign comes down to about 7 investigtors (Wendy, Daisy and Wilson were among that group in the first two campaigns) before the last GOO is put away. Each campaign is made a little tougher. We lost the third one pretty badily. Over half the GOO's still survived.

So Yibb vs an average group with average focus and average sneak abilities will have more problems. I guess I was lucky with the mix of investigators.

Mageith, I agree that strain and distraction is a big part of Arkham. I propose that the strain and distraction added by hunting down Tulzscha's Cultists is an enjoyable addition to the game, especially if you don't have any good Sneakers. I must admit, though, that I don't use Tulzscha right now.

We don't use Tulzscha a lot, but again, some of our favorite investigators are great at passing evade checks. I think Speed and Sneak are much more important than brute strength. We pass out two investigators and choose the one we want. I always choose movement over fighting ability. I've convinced most of my group of this too.

Concern? not really. I was just telling the story of the last time we seriously tried again to use Rex.

Why do any of us get in trouble? I think he was going to church with his own gate. Our policy IS to take madness/injury cards. Sometimes we get carried away. I wasn't playing Rex that game. Someone else was.

Me either! According to Tib's stats he's at the lower end, too 58%.

Sorry for the formatting. I can't figure out how to get rid of the gray.

You have 9-16 turns because one of the red cards kills all the investigators.