Because thanks to us YOU HAVE A REST OF AN EVENING TO ENJOY. The apocalypse has been averted. For the second time.

Base game, Dunwich, and some Lurker cards folded in, but no Herald. Forgot to give out the relationship cards, darn it. Good teamwork, we only spent clue tokens when we felt like we had to, but let's face it, Professor Rice got drawn early (round TWO) and it was like Cthulumas out there with clue tokens.

Now I have to clean up. And eat pie.

What investigators?

Successful game here too. It was our first time using anything from the Dunwich exapansion to see if we liked the encounters, items, monsters, and investigators before diving into Dunwich itself. Investigators were Marc (eventually replaced by Michael), Harvey, Jacqueline, and Marie. we choose inevstigators rather than determine randomly. Ancient One was Nyarlathotep. Observations:

1. Marc started strong, but wound up in a terrible loop of being stuck in the Asylum for multiple turns. He would get out only to be attacked by monsters in the street and be driven insane again and again. After picking up a few too many Madnesses and a broken hand (rendering his only weapon by that point useless), he was retired in favor of Michael McGlen. McGlen put forward the same strong performance I've seen from him before, but was pretty much at a strong advanatge by having most of the board cleaned up by the time he entered play.

2. Harvey remains Harvey, a shockingly efficient character.

3. Marie did not work out well for her player, who seemed to always adjust her stats to the exact opposite of what was needed from turn to turn. An early Concussion in the Black Cave did not help on that point. Marie's player also drew few weapons and a hodgepodge of not terribly helpful spells.

4. Jacqueline's special ability was a godsend, and after tonight she was deemed one of the better characters.

We managed to win, but largely due to extremely good luck on Mythos draws, with Jacqueline strategically hedging out most in our favor. between the four of us, especially Harvey and Jacqueline, we managed an easy win. Injury and Madness cards were deemed great fun to play with.

Next week we forge on ahead into Dunwich proper and see how things go.

CrusherJoe said:

That's a great opening line, buddy! Kudos!

Thanks to you, we enjoyed ANOTHER bottle of wine ~ good going!

For Investigators, we had Wilson, Carolyn, Mandy, Leo, and Rita.

We were bleeding allies early on; a number of effects had us tossing them back in the box before even getting a chance to have them join us, and the terror track jumped from vortex activity. By the end of the game there were only a few allies left, and only two had been taken by Investigators. When we hit Prof Rice early on, there were pairs of clue tokens almost covering the board. I doubt we'll see the like again.

Also, more money was accumulated this game than ever before. I had to remind the fellows that in a few short years the Depression was coming and not to get too excited. Rita never lost her retainer, our deputy gained one, and Leo took a gig at the paper. I may have started with $10 as Carolyn, but I just felt like I couldn't get anywhere fast enough or had the cards to accomplish anything. Folks took pity on me and gave me enough items to feel productive, but personally I didn't accomplish much.

The best moment: WIlson sacrificed a unique item to free up an entire Mythos phase. And what did we do with that extra "time?" Did we push forward desperate to make headway against a game that insists that we fail? Did we make incredible gains knowing that the Mythos was slowed down, even a little? No, we were four women and one man and WE WENT SHOPPING. OMG THERE'S AN ESTATE SALE WHERE YOU CAN BUY TWO ITEMS! GIRLS, COME ON!!!!!!!!! Every female investigator headed straight there, no role playing or sexism on our part, honest. Well, we did note it later.

We had four gates sealed, with two people in Other Worlds and me sneaking to a third as backup when the Nightmare Pool was in full swing, and sanity tokens began piling up. We did a lot of discussion as to letting it ride itself out (Azathoth could stand jumping three Mythos cards if worst came to worst) or actively combatting it, sacrificing sanity. In the end, we decided to simply scrape some off the top every so often and since I could regain sanity that sort of became my job. One more round and we would've failed the rumor--the same round as two people were hopping out of gates and me pushing to make it in one in case they failed.

But we got it. My gate wasn't even necessary.

The Dunwich Horror was at two tokens, and we had one genuine gate burst to feel like it was all unraveling. Can't think of anything else remarkable.

We did peek at the top three Mythos cards that would've been put into play, one after the other, had we not won with a gate sealing victory, just to see what the Nightmare Pool Rumor fail would have wrought: two gate bursts and one genuine Doom Token. We actually could've handled it, but there was no way to know that.

And the funny part? I had chosen Yig for a short game. But all the trouble to set up and all, and I got to second guessing myself. I swapped him out for Azathoth and our win was at the 9th Doom Token. Almost four hours, and Yig wouldn't have been any faster--we would've been a the same spot on a different AO's Doom Track.

Yig is supposedly faster, so my group likes to use him for newbie players…which ironically means all of my longest games have been against Yig.

It is hard to resist the allue of shopping when you get a chance. Getting a breather is a neccissity.

I'm starting to wonder if my group is doing somethign wrong, since we hardly ever have problems witht eh terror track. It's a really rare game for the terror track to go above 3 and that doesn't seem to be the common experience here. I'm wondering if there is some rule we are forgetting or if it's a side effect of some expansion we aren't using.

I bet you're playing it right. So far, the terror track hasn't been much of a threat in our games, so much so that I have one player who wonders why the track is even there. I'm about to introduce him to the King in Yellow.

Yep, Terror is often lazy when playing only with the core set. Expansions fix this, somehow, even if it's not that common to have a completely out of control terror track

Get the King in Yellow ~ it changes…everything!