As the title suggests, I fought Ithaqua. It wasn't the first time, but I always seem to be stripped of all my useful items, even if an investigator is blessed. That one ability made Ith my arch-nemesis, I now consider him even worse than Glaaki (he who feeds on investigators' tears). Seriously, I had way easier and much more fair combat against some of the hardest ancient ones. I tore Atlach-Nacha, Y'Golonac and even Rhan-Tegoth apart (their material vessel at least). Ith however, seems to elude me.
So why is he so low on the charts, I wonder. Do people get extremely lucky, or mistakenly add dices to the item roll with clue tokens (we did that actually when we were beginners)?

This might be why he's so hard on Elder Sign: Omens, for my Kindle. He is a terror to every player in that game, though at least then, you can fall back on the excuse of the computer literally cheating and adjusting the percentages.

In the case of a live game, it may be you, it may be your rolling--it may be your confidence level in facing him? If you go into it with like, absolute confidence that you'll beat him, it might help!

My real question is, are you consecutively having him awaken on you? Or are you allowing it? Because letting him awaken once or twice is bad luck.

Letting the Eskimo monster-god of Wendigos awaken a third time to wreak frozen vengeance on the world? That's just carelessness!

Actually, the last time I had Finn in the group, so I was planning on exploiting his holdout ability to keep my stuff. But the mythos wouldn't give me time to do so (too many gates open, a single round away from sealing 2 gates). The group was well-equipped, Minh in particular was brutal - fight at 6, shrivelling+wither combo and a blessing. And she lost it all, imagine the frustration. Since then I had my revenge, same setup, different draw, different mindset. I did not want to seal at all, plus I was extremely careful. He ran back screaming into the frozen Plateau of Leng after 2 rounds. Minh just became one of my favourite investigators!

Not so sure of what's the problem with Ithaqua. I'm leading 8-0 against him. He's nasty, but not impossible. Do you play with Epic Battle cards? Clue-per-seal suggested houserule?

Epic battle: yes Cps: no
His problem is most likely my problem. I (and we, when multiple people are considered) tend to end up (I can recount at least 4 separate games where it happened) without weapons and combat spells with raw combat rating. Seriously, I can't recall a single fight where he did not take all of my weapons. It's pure luck,which is not fair at all. He could be harder, for all I care, but that ability is one of the most frustrating thing in the game. He's either a pushover (he was for me on the revenge-game, but Holdout is kind of like Charlie against Hastur/Glaaki), or nigh-impossible. When you can seal, it's a different story ofc.

I like a hard, challenging game, but not the russian-rulette style crap this AO makes me put up with. At least AOs like Q. Uttaus are up-front: 'Okey, I'm gonna kill you now. This fight is only a courtesy.'

Aye, I see what you mean, and I totally agree. When you lose because of really bad luck, the game is less enjoyable (and I guess Freezing Winds EBC makes things even worse). Use a substitute ability for Ithaqua start of the battle: each investigator is allowed to choose one item to keep, and discard all the rest (or you roll dice for any other item in your backpack). This should implement some more strategy in the game (be sure that everyone has at least one decent weapon) and give you a decent chance of being able to harm the guy

That, or a more harder substitute, in the same spirit as the KW rule: the group is allowed to keep as many items as the number of elder signs on board. Nasty, but eliminates careless play. Or your solution, but double resistance/harder combat modifier/both. Anyway, I'll stay away from him for the time being and test fun-looking custom heralds. :-)

I like the item-per-seal rule

I like the item-per-seal rule

I wish all base-game AOs got the Arkham Nights treatment. Is it too much to hope for next year? The item-per-seal is a pretty nifty rule, but what if you play with 6 investigators? Does one of them get to hold nothing at all? Maybe a Fight -2 check for each of your items, instead of a not-a-skill-check roll.

You should grant an item / seal to autopass the Start of Battle check. Others can roll. Larger teams will of course be penalized, but they can prevent this by buying Blessings and stuff. And in case, it's always better to have 5 weapons granted rather than none and roll for each of them.

As for the AOs re-release... I guess they will go on by publishing 1 or 2 revised AO / year... so... patience...