So, tonight was Arkham Night: Yog & Ghroth against Darrell, Mandy, William, Mark and Michael, AH, DH, KH & MH in play.

The very beginning of the game was super-thematic: Mythos zero was R'lyeh rising, and the opening gate was a R'lyeh gate in the Woods, with a Warlock guarding the entrance. Mark started at South Church with 3 clues, so the thematically coherent choice was to send Mark directly to the Woods to kill the Warlock for 2 extra clues and enter R'lyeh. William stayed at the South Church to bless him, with the hope that the nefarious environment could be wiped off by some new environment card. Everything was perfect until Mark drew in the first area of R'lyeh the OW card forcing him to lose 3 Sanity and 3 Stamina, losses that can be reduced by discarding clues. ARGH. First card of the OW deck, first problem. Going LiTaS spelled Devouring, so he discarded two clues and moved on.

Michael went to the STL hoping in a Membership and was Cursed instead. Then he moved to the Black Cave, and a gate appeared beneath him (Lost Carcosa). As soon as he moved to the second area of Lost Carcosa, he rolled a 1 during Upkeep, got rid of the curse, only to find the OW encounter cursing him *again*

Plus, several monster surges plagued the city. Mandy had enough clues for one seal and a half, but was always delayed by some reasons. So, William drank the Milk of Shub to clear the streets and allow someone to enter some gates, but it was kinda worthless because more or less everyone was delayed.

The game was a pain. Nobody went LiTaS, but as the doom track hit 7 I had no seals on the board and a rumor running (Good Work Undone). A very bad moment. Mark and Mandy cleared the rumor and, for the very first time in my whole Arkham life, I had to retire some investigators: both William and Mark had two Madnesses, so they were substituted by Ursula and Wendy.

The game changed drastically: by the time the new forces entered in play, I had two seals on the board. Plus, Wendy gave her ES to Michael, who had also the Key of Tawil-something; after that she tried to use her Safety Deposit Key (after maximizing Lore of course :devil: ), she failed and her starting 3 clues became 5. She rushed to Dunwich to dive into the Wizard Hill gate after transforming a Witch in some meatloaf.

Mandy headed North as well, entering Dunwich and startng collecting clues from Gardner's place and Devil's hopyard. Ursula sealed the Unvisited Isle, and immediately after Michael sealed via ES the Black Cave. 4 on the board.

Wendy returned to Arkham and spend her 5 clues to put the fifth ES on the board. Then… I had only gates with nightmarish modifiers, so I tried to farm the Unique Item deck for an ES. And I found it. So Darrell dived into the gate at Independence Square with the brand new ES, and put the sixth seal on the ground.

Phew. It has been really a close one, this time (Yog had 11 doomers out of 12 before I used the last ES to win the game).

Interesting to notice that I never had so many investigators cursed during the same game: pooi Michael was cursed 3 times in 16 turns, and Ursula was cursed as well, and also William.

So much cursing in what's usually a family friendly game…

Sometimes i think there are too many encounters that result in delayed. I think almost every game I've played someone gets trapped in a continual loop of delays.

Wolfgar said:

:rofling:

of c(o)urse, it's odd…

Wolfgar said:

Some locations / OW are more inclined to have you be delayed (Black Cave, Yuggoth, the Abyss), but still, sometimes the board keeps on delaying you just for pure pleasure..

I once had the reverse problem. We were playing Vermont, Lovecraft Country and the Dreamlands together and I was Father Ryan ( http://s1113.photobucket.com/albums/k506/jabie1/Investigators/?action=view&current=Father-Ryan-Front-Face.png ) I've never seen so many investigators get blessed through encounters in one game… and all I won out of it was 2 Sanity.

We still lost the game though.

Julia,

It's amazing that the Doom Track had so many Doom Tokens on it and no seals. That's a tough game. I, too, have never retired anyone, but I know as I'm playing these games with all of the expansions, it's merely a matter of time.

Joe

The Professor said:

Indeed, it was tough. Just remember that with Ghroth as Herald, you start with extra two doomers on the doom track. So, Doom 7 is like a Doom 5 in a normal game, which means 4 full turns, considering that you resolve a Mythos card during the setup. With some bad luck, it could happen that you don't have any seal on the board after 4 full turns. But still, winning was really difficult this time. I still have to play 8 Ghroth games: Glaaki, Rhan & Yig appear to be viscious ones. Let's see what happens :-)