Ok, I finally found some time to play an Arkham game, today.

Five investigators in (Joe, Zoey, Gloria, Tony, Trish), AH, DH, KH & MH in play, against Yig and Ghroth. Yig's a fast one, with Ghroth he's even faster. The party was good, stocked with clues since the very beginning, and Gloria had a lucky draw of common items, with Hand Camera and Magnifying Glass. By the end of turn one, 4 out of 5 investigators were able to seal, but I had a Dark Druid guarding a gate. So, kill him or not? The game was supposed to be short, so, no time to waste. I took the risk, killed the bad guy, had two investigators diving into gates (Yuggoth for Joe and the Abyss for Tony).

The game went smooth: one new gate / turn, and one investigator entering that OW during the next Encounter Phase. Gloria entered Gardner's place, evading a Lloigor, Zoey went for extra clues at Cold Spring Glenn and then entered R'lyeh gate at Wizard's hill, butchering a poor Elder Thing trying to understand what was going on. In the meantime, I had three seals out of six on the board: Woods (a perfect tag-team work: Tony blessed Trish that sealed the double R'lyeh / Abyss gate), Independence Square and Hibb's. Gloria was about to return to Gardner's Place and Zoey was in R'lyeh, delayed by an unlucky encounter. Joe dived into the Underworld gate at the Unvisited Isle, with nine doomers on the doom track. Next Mythos: monster surge at the Unvisited Isle. No new doomers added. Joe moved to the second area of the Underworld, while Zoey moved to the second area of R'lyeh, where she would have met Cthulhu (and be devoured quite easily) if Cthulhu had been the AO (fortunately he was not, phew!). New Mythos: monster surge at Wizard Hill, again no new doomers to add. Next turn: Joe returned and closed the underworld gate, Zoey returned and had only one die to close R'lyeh. One sometimes means two, if you remember to use the Collectors relationship she had with Joe, and two dice means victory by closing gates in 8 Mythos.

This means 38 Arkham games won in a row

Pizza time now!

Julia,

Great job ~ you obviously do need to make it harder. From now on, every third Mythos Phase, reveal the next Mythos card and resolve the Gate opening or trigger a Monster Surge…you know, just for fun!

Cheers, Joe

:laughter: cm'on, this was quite close! I still have to defeat the following:

- Cthulhu + Ghroth
- Nyarlathotep+ Ghroth
- Glaaki+ Ghroth
- Cthugha+ Ghroth
- Nyogtha+ Ghroth
- Rhan-Tegoth+ Ghroth
- Daoloth+ Ghroth

Daoloth, Glaaki and Rhan could be *really* tough with Ghroth in play…

Julia,

You'll laugh when you read the next thread…I give you a shout-out…

Sounds like you pretty thouroughly dominated that one.

Yes, I was always in control of the game, but, nontheless, I could have lost easily. Simply, 10 doomers doom track, with Ghroth, you risk of not having enough physical time to do the six seals. Ghroth's design is brilliant when you play only with the core board, but when you start adding expansion boards... well, it scales up horribly

The "scale-ability" issue is one of the things that I've solved for my games due in part to Julia's suggestions to a variant I posited here and over at BGG. Many fellow Arkhamites asked for the write-up and it will have its own page at BGG after the holiday weekend.

:laughter: I didn't intend that upscaling! But nevermind!

Hey, you writing down the variant! Credit me!!! (I hope I used an Avi-esque tone, with all the implications )

Julia ~ you are definitely mentioned in my e-mails with the Variant, and you will definitely be front-and-center on the page at BGG

:laughter: I wasn't serious, Joe

I figured...but I give credit where credit is due.

In this case, thanks