Just finished a dramatic game. Leo, Daisy, Diana, Bob and Rex against Daoloth and Ghroth, AH, DH, KH and MH in play. By the end of the first turn, the doom track hit 5 (2 doomers because of Ghroth, an encounter at Independence Square opening a gate under Rex, the Mythos Zero gate at the Witch House and the Mythos One gate at the Graveyard). With a doom track of 12, omens were quite sinister. Rex had a lucky draw while walking through Leng, resulting in his Family Curse removed; Diana reached 6 clues thanks to a good encounter in the Inner Sanctum, and exchanged one clue with Rex thanks to another good OW encounter, granting him not to stay clueless after the first seal and thus preventing him from failing his Personal Story. Leo grabbed clues and prepared to dive into the Graveyard gate and my fave, Bob, kept on losing time while stumbling upon monsters here and there.
Everything went smooth until Daisy had this horrible "a gate and a monster appear" encounter at the Woods when she had only 4 clues (noooooo!!).
New plan: she explored the Dreamlands, hoping vainly to gather at least one clue in an encounter; Leo, after returning and sealing, went to the Curiosity Shoppe hoping in some luck, and he got it! Book of the Believer, which grants you one clue, even in case of a failed reading check. So, some team work: Leo sneaked under a Wraith to stop in the Miskatonic University streets where he was reached by Bob (who successfully sealed the Underworld gate at the Historical Society); Bob grabbed the Book, and made his way up to the Woods (Bob's speed is amazing). He gave the book to Daisy, just returned from the Dreamlands, but then he had to enter the **** gate. No probs: during the next turn, Daisy successfully used the Book of the Believer to get a clue (for a total of 5, which means seal) and a free spell, and then she passed the Lore check with the Livre d'Ivon, granting her another spell. Guess what? Plumb the Void, which she casted to change the double gate marker at Hibbs' into a Dreamlands gate, so that poor Bob (generating clues like there were no tomorrow thanks to his passed PS) could return to Arkham and put the sixth seal on the board.
During the following turn, Rex finished gathering clues for another seal and jumped into the Leng gate open at Wizard's Hill. I had a rift open, the white circle, that had just moved on white during the previous turn, so the doom track was at 11. Next Mythos: Witch House, which was sealed, so, no more doomers. Diana tried her best while investigating the rift, and Rex moved to the second area of Leng, while Bob returned to Arkham, with only 3 clues and money to generate a fourth one. Leo went shopping again, thanks to some of Daisy's money, and found an Elder Sign. Time was running short, and even if Daisy was able to whack the Wraith from the street in front of the Curiosity Shop, it could have already been too late to avoid Final Battle. Next Mythos: Wizard's Hill, which means monster surge, which means, with Daoloth in play, to remove all gate markers from the board and substitute them with some freshly drawn. I removed the Leng gate only to draw Another time. Then I removed the Dreamlands gate, and... I got the Leng one. So, Bob lost his explored marker, but in the following turn Rex was able to return to Arkham, and seal Leng, putting the sixth Elder Sign on the board.
Victory by sealing gates in 10 Mythos

Very nice.

10 Mythos cards ~ you're like the American Army's old tag line...you do more in 10 Mythos cards than most others do in a day...

:laughter: thanks for the feedback guys

Anyway, still six games to play, and then I'm done with Ghroth!

I'm down to my last 6 games with every expansion.

Wow! The End is nigh!

And then? Will you start playing the advanced League? Or take a break from Arkham?

I may try the Advanced League...I can't ever imagine a time when I'll "take a break from Arkham" my friend.

I may try the Advanced League...I can't ever imagine a time when I'll "take a break from Arkham" my friend.

That's something *awesome* that you've said, Joe

Nice one! May I ask how you choose your investigators? Pure randomness or by some other, eldritch method?

It's one of the mysterious "random with special rules" selection on Tibs' statistics.

First of all, I fix the series of expansions I'll be playing for the next 24 games (a complete rotation of all the 24 Ancient One, without Atlach - I played to death against this one, and it's really boring after a while, plus, I never lost an Atlach game, so, really, no interest - but with Daoloth in - much more fun); with the expansions I decide which Herald I'll be playing against for all the next 24 games (now the lucky one is Ghroth).

The number of investigators in play is chosen following the so called "rule of thirds": 1 investigator for each 1/3 of main board to cover. So, core game means 3 investigators, 1 expansion board (equals to 4/3 of the main board) means 4 investigators, 2 exp boards 5, and so on.

After that, I simply roll 1d100 (not considering results 97 to 100) and pick up the corresponding investigator. That investigator could not be picked up again until a complete rotation of all ivnestigators is done. So, every new game has a smaller subset of available investigators, until all of them have played a game and thus they return available in the complete pool. Same stuff for the AOs: they are randomly chosen after investigators had been chosen.

In case I lose a game, I repeat it (same AO, same Herald, same Investigators) until I beat it (usually one repetition is enough)

Now that's a very thorough method! I stick to same magic numbers when boards are considered (3-6), but the way of choosing is all about balance for me. I have a rough ranking system, 1-5 for AOs and investigators (as a team). Heralds, guardians and institutions are there for the balance, although I did find the difficulty cards of BGotW amazing. Especially the hardest one, that makes for a very intense (and quick) game! Even the Lurker can be a challenge when the Ultimate Cosmic Evil is active. And it should be. Do you use guardians and/or institutions at all?

Aye, I was on the "balanced party" front for a while (my first 150 games or so). Then, Miskatonic arrived, and I decided to start learning the game anew, from the basics, with the ultimate goal of being able to beat the game regardless of the party composition. So I decided for "all random" games.

No Guardians and no Institutions so far. When I'll be done with the "Miskatonic Series" (which is rather long; still 197 games are to be played. With an average of 50 games / year, I have the agenda booked for the next 4 years), I'm planning an "everything in" series, with all the boards, all the expansions, and one guardian, one institution and one herald chosen randomly to be played exclusively with the "revised" AOs from Arkham nights.

That's a woman after my own heart...scheduling AH for the next few years!

:blush: