They are bloody difficult! Honest! I find myself having to evaluate every decision carefully. Strategically, the games are enormously challenging, and that's fun. My flippant comment about warm ups was just me mentally pacing myself given that I know there are 20 odd games in front of me.

These games *really* amuse me. I am glad my weird tales amuse you back a bit. Yes I will revert to old Acts when the time comes, I had thought of that too, figuring you would definitely be using the original ones. And yeah it is harder going in blind of course, but more of a 'live' experience. I do think of things like passing items on so they follow through and passing Dexs story did cross my mind - hence the cash - but time and movement are the problems there.

Thanks for the encouragement Julia! I hope I can continue to beat things back this way a little while longer at least. This week however its time to hopefully finally fix the computer situation I mentioned, so Arkham is being moved to whenever I can next grab the time next week.

::Laughter:: I'm looking forward to hearing about your next Arkham adventure! When you don't post one, I feel like my week is incomplete!

Ok, real life mythos swallowed my life whole for a while then, but i snuck past, again...and Im looking forward to segment 2 :-) Hoping that this Friday will be the night I return to duty...

G'd to see you back And break a leg with Scenario 6! Are you planning to start Segment 2 in Elder God mode as well?

Yup :-) i plan to keep it until I fail, then cool it down. I am interested in seeing how far I can push my luck :-)

It's not only luck, you know C'mon, skin the snake!

Yup :-) i plan to keep it until I fail, then cool it down. I am interested in seeing how far I can push my luck :-)

Move that skill slider down to the max :'D

VI: The Sight of Darkness (wherein Speed is of the essence)

Seven investigators expunged entirely from reality. That is my reward for completing the first segment of the marathon from hell that is the Arkham Horror Fan League. In Wendys case it is a soul searing tragedy. In Amandas, no change in reality occurs at all. Now I find myself on the brink of falling into another world floating as spittle on the dreaming lips of Azathoth. New hopelessness awaits. Shall we dance like good little puppets?

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

The rules have changed slightly – I have a pool of 11 new investigators to pick 5 from as my team and this time there are no requirements. I have lost access to my arsenal, a pool of items built up over the last 5 games, and now I can only carry a single monster trophy over between games.

ANCIENT ONE: Yig. Its been a while and Yig has handed me a fair number of defeats, the kind that light up the investigators with glowing red curses. Yig was always a slippery customer, many games have come down to the wire with me needing one seal when the last Doom is added and being unable to fend him off thanks to the bad luck that follows him around. Poor guy, no wonder he has no friends. Now, I do not think I have yet faced Yig with the MH cards mixed in, and that could be nasty.

HERALD: Set. In different Mythos works, Set has been linked with Yig, Nyarlathotep and Hastur. He harks back to the early Hyperborean Age and had tea and battleaxes with Conan once or twice. I am hoping to ask him if the rumours are true, but I may just become poisoned by my own curiosity. Poison is transmitted to my investigators by cultists and serpent people when they inflict damage or when serpent people move into an investigators space. This poison drains away stamina at the rate of 1 per Upkeep. This seems to be 1 stamina tops, regardless of how much poison you have in your system. Poison damage cannot be prevented (including damage inflicted by a poisonous monsters attack). Cultists are also gifted with a -4 combat rating (as are serpents) and have been given orders to stalk the team. Serpents also get to move thrice. Yig is also poisonous and has gained both kinds of resistance. There is a vial of antidote in he hospital that can remove poison for 2$ instead of having an encounter, but it does not specifiy how many poison tokens it removes in the case where an investigator gets a double dose or worse.

SCENARIO RULES: The first gate opens as normal, then another opens on the Woods. If the first gate opens at the Woods, you get a surge. The monsters added to the first gate that opens on the Woods are the Dark Druid and 2 Serpent People. So basically the Druid (a Cultist and therefore a poisonous thing in a human skin) are finagling a gate open through which Yig will emerge.
At Elder God difficulty, this Gate can never be sealed.

A surge at the Woods also carries a heavy price - 2 more Mythos cards will be revealed. This effect stacks. (!)
Serpents and the Druid do not count against the limit, the Druid gains 3 extra toughness, immunity to handcuffs, weapon immunity and cannot be removed from the board except by somehow defeating all that in combat. Moving on a black path is clarified as having a hexagon on a black background drawn. Serpent People and red bordered monsters also move like stalkers if there are investigators adjacent to them during any of their movements.
During final combat Yig curses investigators who fail a Speed check against him and any investigator Cursed more than once is devoured.

MY EVALUATION: Number one is that this puts 2 Doom on Yigs track and leaves me with a minimum of 8 turns to find 6 seals before a total of 8 gates open! Ouch! I seriously consider abandoning that idea and planning for a final combat with Yig, since it will take half that time to gather clues. Unless...
Looking through the investigator pool I filter out investigators according to the highest number of clues, then the highest Speed. Looking at my options here, I calculate that I will need 30 clues minimum to win the game, and add 20% to that for tight spots and losses, bringing my target number to 36. There are probably going to be 18-19 clues on the boards at the start, 2 of which are not worth counting on, another 7 of which require traveling out of Arkham to find. So I have 9 clues within reach in the first 2 turns. The closer I can get to the magic number of 36 at the start of the game, the quicker I will be, and speed is basically of the essence in this match, not just Speed.
This is what I ended up with:

Roland Banks, The Fed: One of my personal top 5, an all round great asset to any game with an easy PS that gives him a valuable paycheck and even more valuable insider sources. He is also legendary in the Berlin annals, most especially for the time when (while wearing the Bloody Tongue around his neck as a trophy) he defeated the Dunwich Horror by dynamiting it and then next turn launched a single handed raid on Innsmouth with the patrol wagon, sending the Deep Ones and eventually Nyarlathotep itself into re-education. He comes in this time with a thrumming Cursed Sphere, Cuffs, Ammi Pierce (the excellent ally that absorbs sanity loss) and a Marksman skill. He begins with 2 clues but always tops them up and a top Speed of 4.

Joe Diamond, the P.I.: A perennial favourite and still a strong choice after 9 years doing the rounds. With a top Speed of 6 and 3 starting clues he is an obvious choice but his weak Sanity of 4 can sometimes be an issue and his PS is, well, BS and a ripoff in more ways than one. The thing to do with it is not to fail. He pulls out the Tommy Gun, Genealogy Report and even more Speed.

Tony Morgan, the Bounty Hunter: I decide Tony is actually a Debra in honour of one of the most sympathetic characters in TV history, now forever locked up with Davy Jones. She has 3 clues and a top Speed of 4, and begins the game with her Cuffs as well as Sneak, a .38 Revolver and an Ancient Tablet. His PS is one you actually want to fail, and quickly, unless you are really desperate for cash, but then Diamond is probably the place to look for it.

Marie Lambeau, the Entertainer: Marie is equipped with only 2 clues and 4 Speed, but her Witch Blood is where its at. If I pass her PS she gets to use it twice, which not only loads her up with spells but negates the 2 Doom I place on Yig at the start. The inclusion of Marie in this game is actually what makes the sealing plan a viable one. She gets herself an Enchant Weapon spell, a Vision Quest and Listen.

‘Skids’ O’Toole, the Ex Con: Skids is slow at 3 Speed and only has 2 clues, but he is loaded with cash and he starts at Mas. Watch this space. Luckily, I also find him a Press Pass (aha, could it be they are still out there..?), a Map (yes, quite possibly!), a Petrifying Solution and a Fight boost.

That makes 12 of the 36 clues I need (for comfort, 30 in a pinch), with 9 more in easy reach. If I take Dunwich I get 5 more, taking me to about 26 (some will disappear, but some will also appear in their places). So by the math I need to find about 10 extra clues via things like tomes, encounters, etc, to be comfortable in a win, and about 4 more for a win with no margin of error. And of course I need to gather all of these clues asap before they disappear or the board slams down some control, and I need to alchemise them into seals. But do your math right and Arkham does not look so mysterious. This is why the Press Pass is so significant.

Notice I have a nice thematic progression from law to criminality. My team is probably a Blue/Brown rush deck in CoC LCG terms 

THE MATCH

At the start of the game gates open at the Witch House (Dreamlands) and the Woods (Another Time) and a Colour emerges from the Dream while the Serpents move to French Hill. Doom starts at 2 with a hiss.

T1) In the pre-dawn light, Banks and Ammi break into the Unnameable and follow the clues to a drawer that they open to find within a moldy copy of the Livre d’Ivon, a French translation of a legendary book on the magic of Hyperborea. Diamond decides to catch the gossip at the Square and fool that he is, touches the Founders Rock. His mind is zapped by a torrent of images from the past, vistas of axe wielding barbarians, scantily clad dames of death and serpentine sorcerers, and while tired and a little sleepy from what he observes he draws a spell, the Spectral Razor, with which he can eviscerate anyone in a loin cloth he happens to come across in the future. Morgan begins her investigation at the Society house but is told the members are all in the Woods watching birds. A likely story – clearly the old fogeys are part of the Hyperborean cult. Morgan only has 4 of the 5 clues she would need to shut them down, so she decides to hold onto her information for a while. Lambeau flutters her eyelashes at Skids who can’t help but fall for them after jail, and, well, Brad, so she manages to finagle away the cash she needs to train her Gift and heads over to the Ye Olde Magic Shoppe. She begins her journey by learning how to draw the Red Sign. Skids, wondering where she suddenly went, heart all a flutter like her eyelashes, wanders over to the Cave with his Pass looking for leads on Brads death. Inside he hears a girl crying and chooses to roll 1 die to locate her, which comes up a 1, so he falls back on all those hard knocks and rolls two more, finding the girl alone in a spell encrusted chamber. Skids reads the sigils and learns how to Plumb the Void and Vision Quest as the girl and her grateful snot cling to his leg.
A telegraph then brings startling messages from overseas to the Newspaper as news come in that the Refinery has shut down mysteriously. A gate to Kadath cracks open beneath the factory and the Wraith of a worker killed in a horrible accident appears there. The Druid wanders into Uptown and stares through the window at Lambeau as she trains, and the Wraith decides its time to quit work and see the world, taking to the Sky. The Serpents slither to Downtown as the Colour bubbles but does not move.

T2) Hearing the news from Innsmouth Diamond makes a breathtaking 7 move dash to the Refinery, throwing himself through the gate to Kadath. In the cold waste a Byakhee appears, and he guns it down with ease. It lands at his feet a frozen smoking mess. Morgan puts her case together at the Lodge, questioning the members. She spies Stanford chanting in a room with objects levitating around his head and avoids getting hit by them to go up to 7 clues by listening in. She fails her PS realising that Stanford has set her up. Lambeau likewise breaks the bank (and Skids’), completes her training and unlocks her Gift, turning over Implant Suggestion and Find Gate and being very happy about her obvious choice, but she is still stuck with her inadequate pair of clues. Speaking of Skids, he is now moping around the Graveyard hoping to bump into Lambeau again, but instead he finally stumbles on the grave marker evidence that tells him Brad was actually already long dead…he passes his PS in a dark mausoleum being attacked by a vampire (which neatly explains why Brad burst into flames), lobbing off its cold head to be rewarded with the realization that there is nothing stopping him from Joining the Winning Team…somewhere, Nyarlathotep titters and Skids is tempted, so if fate throws some friends his way…on the other hand, he could become a priest as he draws the Bless spell. Banks and Ammi go to collect the telegraph worth 2 clues at the Arkham Advertiser, which means that he also passes his PS this turn as he slips Doyle Jeffries a 2$ bribe for the scoop on the grapevine.
A Gathering Storm appears on the horizon as roiling purple clouds roll in from Innsmouth. A foetid gate stinking of rotten fish opens onto Another Dimension at Devils Reef and the curiously aquatic looking ghost of a soul that threw itself on the rocks in despair haunts the opening. The Deep Ones begin to stir and the Doom hits 4 as the Serpents relocate to French Hill but find nothing to poison.

T3) Morgan heads to the Witch House, dodging the Colour and the Serpents, and finds herself in the Dreamlands where the lengthening shadows reveal mens thoughts. Of course, she snoops in on them but, of course, finds them full of trivia and tripe. Lambeau spits out the Curse of the Witch Blood at Yig, stinging him of a Doom and drawing Astral Travel into the deal. She slips out of her casual wear and heads over to the party in Another Dimension where she takes careful notes of all she observes. Skids, feeling further from her than ever before perhaps, goes for a drink at Hibbs. He meets a drunk loan officer from the bank and has a moral turning point when he declines the easy chance to secure some cash with an illegitimate loan. He doesn’t want to be in anyone’s debt, and besides there are bigger things on his mind with 12 clues floating around in there but nowhere to apply them. Banks and Ammi are in a similar situation so they visit the Curiosity Shop where they peruse the tome they acquired in the Unnameable, drawing out a second Find Gate. They pay 1$ for a puzzlebox which luckily opens to reveal 3$ and a further clue – a strangely coloured reptilian scale. Diamond moves on from the Byakhee corpse to meet a Maniac, who is dispatched even more swiftly.
Gathering Storm becomes a Big Storm sweeping the Sky, and the Wraith winds up in Oz as the Ghost of Zombie Dorothy. A gate to Another Time opens on the Square thanks to the machinations of a zymotic Cultist; Yig claws back to Doom 4 and sends his Serpents fruitlessly circling around to meet up with the Druid on campus.

T4) Lambeau hits Yig with Curse of the Witch Blood 2: Second Spit, bringing things back to a cooler 3 and drawing out the knowledge to Wither things. She Finds her way back from Another Dimension to Devil Reef, destroys the Ghost with her Enchanted Blade and Wither, reconstitutes her physical form and then closes down the Reef, eliminating the Colour. Then, she ponders her fate: horribly stranded, still bereft of clues, broke, dependent on Diamond for her rescue rather than Skids, and reeking of rotting fish. Skids Blesses himself at Hibbs and decides it is time to get his head sorted before dealing with this mess, so he restores a point of sanity at the Asylum. Meanwhile, Banks and Ammi head to Indie Square, cuff the Cultist (angering Yig so that Doom returns to 4) and voyage forth into Another Time to witness how miserable people are without them. Diamond returns from Kadath and brings about the first seal at the Refinery with a fight as in the Dreamlands Morgan, not content to snoop on people thoughts, is now snooping on their dreams. She gambles 2 clues to pick up 2 new ones.
An Infestation of Rats strikes, opening up a hole over Gardner’s Place - a R’lyeh gate. A Nightgaunt floats through as the Serpents circle back to French Hill again and Marshall Law is declared in Innsmouth as Doom hits 5 for the first time.

T5) Skids sees his chance and dashes to Dunwich but is knocked down on the Bridge by a couple of college bozos joyriding their model T. He is bruised but not delayed, and is still Blessed. Banks and Ammi Find the gate back to the Square and seal the gate to Another Time. Diamond goes to Falcon Point and hires a boat that rescues Lambeau from a possibly deadly encounter at sea then hands her a dollar (another ‘loan’) to get home with (after breathing through his mouth for the entire meeting). Lambeau pokes around the shoreline and sees webbed prints which clue her in a bit more, but she so needs that shower. Morgan returns to the Witch House and Fights the gate to the Dreamlands closed, then sealed for the teams 3rd seal. The Nightgaunt in Dunwich flies back to the cup.
Stanfords Lodge Ritual finally hits and spawns a Deep One and the just banished Nightgaunt in French Hill, opening a gate to Celaeno at the Black Cave and spitting out a Shambler that moves to Riverside.

T6) Banks heads over to the Science Building where he refuses to help a student dispose of dog carcasses used in a terrible experiment (you asked the wrong guy buddy!) and waits for Diamond to arrive, dashing back at top speed. He hands him the Find Gate spell, and Diamond trades in his experience in Kadath for 2 clues, taking him back up to 5. Morgan checks the situation outside the Witch House and decides to hole up and decipher the Ancient Tablet, which teaches her Enchant Weapon and yields 2 new clues. Lambeau dodges the law and breaks into the Order where she sees murals that at last bring her past 5 clues. Skids makes it to R’lyeh and meets a large dog that lopes alongside him.
Full Moon opens a gate to the Underworld on the Graveyard, driving Doom to 7. A Tcho Tcho emerges and everything holds its breath…

T7) Make or break turn – Diamond races to the Cave and into the Great Library where he finds 5$ with no explanation for its presence. Morgan guns down the Deep One in French Hill and then cuffs the Tcho Tcho, robbing it of a Motorcycle. Lambeau trains it back to the Arkham Station and waits for the chance to move on the Graveyard. Skids shreds his mind as he Plumbs the Void and returns to Dunwich so that he can seal Gardners Place and bring the team 2 seals from victory. Banks and Ammi gather a couple of clues that have accumulated on the Isle and find its centre calling to them but cannot locate anything there.
A gate attempts to open on the Witch House, but Morgans seal saves the day and forces it onto the Deep Ones. A new Miskatonic curriculum is announced, but inevitably nobody seems keen except the Druid who moves up to MU with his Serpents, but on white.

After Diamond seals the 5th gate at the Cave on the next turn using the Find Gate spell there seemed then only two chances left for Yig – striking at Lambeau with her Find Gate spell before she could use it or causing a surge on the Woods that added further Doom. I miscalculated the possibility of 2 Doom appearing at once, driving things up to a heart stopping 9, but this was just a horrible shock. He only just failed to find his path and the team successfully dealt the final blow on turn 9, with Lambeau sealing the Graveyard.

The next 3 cards were all Woods gates!!!!

Result: Narrowest possible victory by seals on turn 9.

Congrats, Dj! Very well played Some luck (the Press Pass! Avi, remove Press Pass from Elder God mode!!), good choice of characters (Marie, Roland and Joe were a must to pick up), great, as always, control of the board well done!

(and agreed... Speed is quite important in this Scenario, and in a couple of others to come)

Thank you Agreed that the Pass should probably be removed, at least from the first 5 scenarios of EG wherein it can be passed on from game to game and so only has to turn up once. It is not game breaking at all, but it is extremely powerful, worth its weight in Elder Signs (which are after all just one-shots with a far less versatile application than clues). On average I pick up at least 6 or 7 extra clues every game with it effectively meaning I need about 2 less turns to strike my final blow. Note that in this game I did not really exploit that chance as Skids only sealed one gate, and so sometimes circumstances like a lack of gates mitigate this powerful item, but not too often.

Exactly. Point is that in some Scenarios, speed means everything, so that, if you manage to press pass some clues... well, it's a big advantage. Additionally, in the first five scenarios, it's just crazy if you think that you can carry on Press Pass AND a Carcosan Page...

Exactly. Point is that in some Scenarios, speed means everything, so that, if you manage to press pass some clues... well, it's a big advantage. Additionally, in the first five scenarios, it's just crazy if you think that you can carry on Press Pass AND a Carcosan Page...

I'm fine with people not sweating blood. Items like press pass, in my opinion, are high priority objects to gain control of for passing over between scenarios.

VI: The Sight of Darkness (wherein Speed is of the essence)

Seven investigators expunged entirely from reality. That is my reward for completing the first segment of the marathon from hell that is the Arkham Horror Fan League. In Wendys case it is a soul searing tragedy. In Amandas, no change in reality occurs at all. Now I find myself on the brink of falling into another world floating as spittle on the dreaming lips of Azathoth. New hopelessness awaits. Shall we dance like good little puppets?

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

The rules have changed slightly – I have a pool of 11 new investigators to pick 5 from as my team and this time there are no requirements. I have lost access to my arsenal, a pool of items built up over the last 5 games, and now I can only carry a single monster trophy over between games.

ANCIENT ONE: Yig. Its been a while and Yig has handed me a fair number of defeats, the kind that light up the investigators with glowing red curses. Yig was always a slippery customer, many games have come down to the wire with me needing one seal when the last Doom is added and being unable to fend him off thanks to the bad luck that follows him around. Poor guy, no wonder he has no friends. Now, I do not think I have yet faced Yig with the MH cards mixed in, and that could be nasty.

HERALD: Set. In different Mythos works, Set has been linked with Yig, Nyarlathotep and Hastur. He harks back to the early Hyperborean Age and had tea and battleaxes with Conan once or twice. I am hoping to ask him if the rumours are true, but I may just become poisoned by my own curiosity. Poison is transmitted to my investigators by cultists and serpent people when they inflict damage or when serpent people move into an investigators space. This poison drains away stamina at the rate of 1 per Upkeep. This seems to be 1 stamina tops, regardless of how much poison you have in your system. Poison damage cannot be prevented (including damage inflicted by a poisonous monsters attack). Cultists are also gifted with a -4 combat rating (as are serpents) and have been given orders to stalk the team. Serpents also get to move thrice. Yig is also poisonous and has gained both kinds of resistance. There is a vial of antidote in he hospital that can remove poison for 2$ instead of having an encounter, but it does not specifiy how many poison tokens it removes in the case where an investigator gets a double dose or worse.

SCENARIO RULES: The first gate opens as normal, then another opens on the Woods. If the first gate opens at the Woods, you get a surge. The monsters added to the first gate that opens on the Woods are the Dark Druid and 2 Serpent People. So basically the Druid (a Cultist and therefore a poisonous thing in a human skin) are finagling a gate open through which Yig will emerge.

At Elder God difficulty, this Gate can never be sealed.

A surge at the Woods also carries a heavy price - 2 more Mythos cards will be revealed. This effect stacks. (!)

Serpents and the Druid do not count against the limit, the Druid gains 3 extra toughness, immunity to handcuffs, weapon immunity and cannot be removed from the board except by somehow defeating all that in combat. Moving on a black path is clarified as having a hexagon on a black background drawn. Serpent People and red bordered monsters also move like stalkers if there are investigators adjacent to them during any of their movements.

During final combat Yig curses investigators who fail a Speed check against him and any investigator Cursed more than once is devoured.

MY EVALUATION: Number one is that this puts 2 Doom on Yigs track and leaves me with a minimum of 8 turns to find 6 seals before a total of 8 gates open! Ouch! I seriously consider abandoning that idea and planning for a final combat with Yig, since it will take half that time to gather clues. Unless...

Looking through the investigator pool I filter out investigators according to the highest number of clues, then the highest Speed. Looking at my options here, I calculate that I will need 30 clues minimum to win the game, and add 20% to that for tight spots and losses, bringing my target number to 36. There are probably going to be 18-19 clues on the boards at the start, 2 of which are not worth counting on, another 7 of which require traveling out of Arkham to find. So I have 9 clues within reach in the first 2 turns. The closer I can get to the magic number of 36 at the start of the game, the quicker I will be, and speed is basically of the essence in this match, not just Speed.

This is what I ended up with:

Roland Banks, The Fed: One of my personal top 5, an all round great asset to any game with an easy PS that gives him a valuable paycheck and even more valuable insider sources. He is also legendary in the Berlin annals, most especially for the time when (while wearing the Bloody Tongue around his neck as a trophy) he defeated the Dunwich Horror by dynamiting it and then next turn launched a single handed raid on Innsmouth with the patrol wagon, sending the Deep Ones and eventually Nyarlathotep itself into re-education. He comes in this time with a thrumming Cursed Sphere, Cuffs, Ammi Pierce (the excellent ally that absorbs sanity loss) and a Marksman skill. He begins with 2 clues but always tops them up and a top Speed of 4.

Joe Diamond, the P.I.: A perennial favourite and still a strong choice after 9 years doing the rounds. With a top Speed of 6 and 3 starting clues he is an obvious choice but his weak Sanity of 4 can sometimes be an issue and his PS is, well, BS and a ripoff in more ways than one. The thing to do with it is not to fail. He pulls out the Tommy Gun, Genealogy Report and even more Speed.

Tony Morgan, the Bounty Hunter: I decide Tony is actually a Debra in honour of one of the most sympathetic characters in TV history, now forever locked up with Davy Jones. She has 3 clues and a top Speed of 4, and begins the game with her Cuffs as well as Sneak, a .38 Revolver and an Ancient Tablet. His PS is one you actually want to fail, and quickly, unless you are really desperate for cash, but then Diamond is probably the place to look for it.

Marie Lambeau, the Entertainer: Marie is equipped with only 2 clues and 4 Speed, but her Witch Blood is where its at. If I pass her PS she gets to use it twice, which not only loads her up with spells but negates the 2 Doom I place on Yig at the start. The inclusion of Marie in this game is actually what makes the sealing plan a viable one. She gets herself an Enchant Weapon spell, a Vision Quest and Listen.

‘Skids’ O’Toole, the Ex Con: Skids is slow at 3 Speed and only has 2 clues, but he is loaded with cash and he starts at Mas. Watch this space. Luckily, I also find him a Press Pass (aha, could it be they are still out there..?), a Map (yes, quite possibly!), a Petrifying Solution and a Fight boost.

That makes 12 of the 36 clues I need (for comfort, 30 in a pinch), with 9 more in easy reach. If I take Dunwich I get 5 more, taking me to about 26 (some will disappear, but some will also appear in their places). So by the math I need to find about 10 extra clues via things like tomes, encounters, etc, to be comfortable in a win, and about 4 more for a win with no margin of error. And of course I need to gather all of these clues asap before they disappear or the board slams down some control, and I need to alchemise them into seals. But do your math right and Arkham does not look so mysterious. This is why the Press Pass is so significant.

Notice I have a nice thematic progression from law to criminality. My team is probably a Blue/Brown rush deck in CoC LCG terms 

THE MATCH

At the start of the game gates open at the Witch House (Dreamlands) and the Woods (Another Time) and a Colour emerges from the Dream while the Serpents move to French Hill. Doom starts at 2 with a hiss.

T1) In the pre-dawn light, Banks and Ammi break into the Unnameable and follow the clues to a drawer that they open to find within a moldy copy of the Livre d’Ivon, a French translation of a legendary book on the magic of Hyperborea. Diamond decides to catch the gossip at the Square and fool that he is, touches the Founders Rock. His mind is zapped by a torrent of images from the past, vistas of axe wielding barbarians, scantily clad dames of death and serpentine sorcerers, and while tired and a little sleepy from what he observes he draws a spell, the Spectral Razor, with which he can eviscerate anyone in a loin cloth he happens to come across in the future. Morgan begins her investigation at the Society house but is told the members are all in the Woods watching birds. A likely story – clearly the old fogeys are part of the Hyperborean cult. Morgan only has 4 of the 5 clues she would need to shut them down, so she decides to hold onto her information for a while. Lambeau flutters her eyelashes at Skids who can’t help but fall for them after jail, and, well, Brad, so she manages to finagle away the cash she needs to train her Gift and heads over to the Ye Olde Magic Shoppe. She begins her journey by learning how to draw the Red Sign. Skids, wondering where she suddenly went, heart all a flutter like her eyelashes, wanders over to the Cave with his Pass looking for leads on Brads death. Inside he hears a girl crying and chooses to roll 1 die to locate her, which comes up a 1, so he falls back on all those hard knocks and rolls two more, finding the girl alone in a spell encrusted chamber. Skids reads the sigils and learns how to Plumb the Void and Vision Quest as the girl and her grateful snot cling to his leg.

A telegraph then brings startling messages from overseas to the Newspaper as news come in that the Refinery has shut down mysteriously. A gate to Kadath cracks open beneath the factory and the Wraith of a worker killed in a horrible accident appears there. The Druid wanders into Uptown and stares through the window at Lambeau as she trains, and the Wraith decides its time to quit work and see the world, taking to the Sky. The Serpents slither to Downtown as the Colour bubbles but does not move.

T2) Hearing the news from Innsmouth Diamond makes a breathtaking 7 move dash to the Refinery, throwing himself through the gate to Kadath. In the cold waste a Byakhee appears, and he guns it down with ease. It lands at his feet a frozen smoking mess. Morgan puts her case together at the Lodge, questioning the members. She spies Stanford chanting in a room with objects levitating around his head and avoids getting hit by them to go up to 7 clues by listening in. She fails her PS realising that Stanford has set her up. Lambeau likewise breaks the bank (and Skids’), completes her training and unlocks her Gift, turning over Implant Suggestion and Find Gate and being very happy about her obvious choice, but she is still stuck with her inadequate pair of clues. Speaking of Skids, he is now moping around the Graveyard hoping to bump into Lambeau again, but instead he finally stumbles on the grave marker evidence that tells him Brad was actually already long dead…he passes his PS in a dark mausoleum being attacked by a vampire (which neatly explains why Brad burst into flames), lobbing off its cold head to be rewarded with the realization that there is nothing stopping him from Joining the Winning Team…somewhere, Nyarlathotep titters and Skids is tempted, so if fate throws some friends his way…on the other hand, he could become a priest as he draws the Bless spell. Banks and Ammi go to collect the telegraph worth 2 clues at the Arkham Advertiser, which means that he also passes his PS this turn as he slips Doyle Jeffries a 2$ bribe for the scoop on the grapevine.

A Gathering Storm appears on the horizon as roiling purple clouds roll in from Innsmouth. A foetid gate stinking of rotten fish opens onto Another Dimension at Devils Reef and the curiously aquatic looking ghost of a soul that threw itself on the rocks in despair haunts the opening. The Deep Ones begin to stir and the Doom hits 4 as the Serpents relocate to French Hill but find nothing to poison.

T3) Morgan heads to the Witch House, dodging the Colour and the Serpents, and finds herself in the Dreamlands where the lengthening shadows reveal mens thoughts. Of course, she snoops in on them but, of course, finds them full of trivia and tripe. Lambeau spits out the Curse of the Witch Blood at Yig, stinging him of a Doom and drawing Astral Travel into the deal. She slips out of her casual wear and heads over to the party in Another Dimension where she takes careful notes of all she observes. Skids, feeling further from her than ever before perhaps, goes for a drink at Hibbs. He meets a drunk loan officer from the bank and has a moral turning point when he declines the easy chance to secure some cash with an illegitimate loan. He doesn’t want to be in anyone’s debt, and besides there are bigger things on his mind with 12 clues floating around in there but nowhere to apply them. Banks and Ammi are in a similar situation so they visit the Curiosity Shop where they peruse the tome they acquired in the Unnameable, drawing out a second Find Gate. They pay 1$ for a puzzlebox which luckily opens to reveal 3$ and a further clue – a strangely coloured reptilian scale. Diamond moves on from the Byakhee corpse to meet a Maniac, who is dispatched even more swiftly.

Gathering Storm becomes a Big Storm sweeping the Sky, and the Wraith winds up in Oz as the Ghost of Zombie Dorothy. A gate to Another Time opens on the Square thanks to the machinations of a zymotic Cultist; Yig claws back to Doom 4 and sends his Serpents fruitlessly circling around to meet up with the Druid on campus.

T4) Lambeau hits Yig with Curse of the Witch Blood 2: Second Spit, bringing things back to a cooler 3 and drawing out the knowledge to Wither things. She Finds her way back from Another Dimension to Devil Reef, destroys the Ghost with her Enchanted Blade and Wither, reconstitutes her physical form and then closes down the Reef, eliminating the Colour. Then, she ponders her fate: horribly stranded, still bereft of clues, broke, dependent on Diamond for her rescue rather than Skids, and reeking of rotting fish. Skids Blesses himself at Hibbs and decides it is time to get his head sorted before dealing with this mess, so he restores a point of sanity at the Asylum. Meanwhile, Banks and Ammi head to Indie Square, cuff the Cultist (angering Yig so that Doom returns to 4) and voyage forth into Another Time to witness how miserable people are without them. Diamond returns from Kadath and brings about the first seal at the Refinery with a fight as in the Dreamlands Morgan, not content to snoop on people thoughts, is now snooping on their dreams. She gambles 2 clues to pick up 2 new ones.

An Infestation of Rats strikes, opening up a hole over Gardner’s Place - a R’lyeh gate. A Nightgaunt floats through as the Serpents circle back to French Hill again and Marshall Law is declared in Innsmouth as Doom hits 5 for the first time.

T5) Skids sees his chance and dashes to Dunwich but is knocked down on the Bridge by a couple of college bozos joyriding their model T. He is bruised but not delayed, and is still Blessed. Banks and Ammi Find the gate back to the Square and seal the gate to Another Time. Diamond goes to Falcon Point and hires a boat that rescues Lambeau from a possibly deadly encounter at sea then hands her a dollar (another ‘loan’) to get home with (after breathing through his mouth for the entire meeting). Lambeau pokes around the shoreline and sees webbed prints which clue her in a bit more, but she so needs that shower. Morgan returns to the Witch House and Fights the gate to the Dreamlands closed, then sealed for the teams 3rd seal. The Nightgaunt in Dunwich flies back to the cup.

Stanfords Lodge Ritual finally hits and spawns a Deep One and the just banished Nightgaunt in French Hill, opening a gate to Celaeno at the Black Cave and spitting out a Shambler that moves to Riverside.

T6) Banks heads over to the Science Building where he refuses to help a student dispose of dog carcasses used in a terrible experiment (you asked the wrong guy buddy!) and waits for Diamond to arrive, dashing back at top speed. He hands him the Find Gate spell, and Diamond trades in his experience in Kadath for 2 clues, taking him back up to 5. Morgan checks the situation outside the Witch House and decides to hole up and decipher the Ancient Tablet, which teaches her Enchant Weapon and yields 2 new clues. Lambeau dodges the law and breaks into the Order where she sees murals that at last bring her past 5 clues. Skids makes it to R’lyeh and meets a large dog that lopes alongside him.

Full Moon opens a gate to the Underworld on the Graveyard, driving Doom to 7. A Tcho Tcho emerges and everything holds its breath…

T7) Make or break turn – Diamond races to the Cave and into the Great Library where he finds 5$ with no explanation for its presence. Morgan guns down the Deep One in French Hill and then cuffs the Tcho Tcho, robbing it of a Motorcycle. Lambeau trains it back to the Arkham Station and waits for the chance to move on the Graveyard. Skids shreds his mind as he Plumbs the Void and returns to Dunwich so that he can seal Gardners Place and bring the team 2 seals from victory. Banks and Ammi gather a couple of clues that have accumulated on the Isle and find its centre calling to them but cannot locate anything there.

A gate attempts to open on the Witch House, but Morgans seal saves the day and forces it onto the Deep Ones. A new Miskatonic curriculum is announced, but inevitably nobody seems keen except the Druid who moves up to MU with his Serpents, but on white.

After Diamond seals the 5th gate at the Cave on the next turn using the Find Gate spell there seemed then only two chances left for Yig – striking at Lambeau with her Find Gate spell before she could use it or causing a surge on the Woods that added further Doom. I miscalculated the possibility of 2 Doom appearing at once, driving things up to a heart stopping 9, but this was just a horrible shock. He only just failed to find his path and the team successfully dealt the final blow on turn 9, with Lambeau sealing the Graveyard.

The next 3 cards were all Woods gates!!!!

Result: Narrowest possible victory by seals on turn 9.

Very close :') well done. I'm surprised no one has tried going for an assassination victory yet. When I finally play through this, I'm thinking of going after it with a 1-2 investigator team (haven't decided if I'd rather go for just Joe, or Joe and Marie). Or possibly three, adding in Roland, and going for bank loan shenanigans to buy a common item arsenal ;'D

Good luck with scenario 7! I playtested and beat it on EG mode, but it was really gut clenching. Enjoy! :'D

Thanks Avi :-) You are planning to use your own self evisceration machine? Well, be sure to entertain us with that! I would live to hear your take on strategy, tactics etc. Scenario 7 will be faced this Saturday, and I should have my report finished by Tuesday. I really want to keep this regular but life is pretty curly at the moment. I am having a blast! This time last year I left my pet Arkham behind and could not play with her for many moons, this league is like coming back from a desert island to find a banquet has been prepared.

The pass: I hear what you are saying. There are 2 copies i think, and odds are if you draw it there will still be games where circumstances conspire against fully milking it, but consider this: if i get to choose between an elder sign and the pass, hands down i take the pass unless i really need that sign. Same goes for any other item in the common or unique decks. Only allies brighten my day more, and not all of them. That's just how i rate things in a normal match - the attractiveness of the pass in this campaign easily doubles. And as Julia pointed out its functionality with other items like the page is very powerful.

What I'm suggesting is that for normal play of the league it feels appropriate to leave these items untouched but for elder god where players are truly expected to exploit this card as much as they can it might make sense to put some kind of leash on it, especially when both turn up. EG is supposed to be an ultimate challenge - i think - and so it makes sense to put some fences around the use of what is possibly the most helpful and easy to obtain card in the game.

Having said all that, I don't think you should take it away from me :-) Do it after I finish. There. That should make the point nicely :-)

These reports of you are a very good reading. Thanks for sharing those!

I totally agree with Dj Press pass is ok in normal mode, not in EG (interesting to notice, Avi's not accepting his fellas hypermasochism...). Additionally, you considered banning Elder Signs from certain scenarios, and well, a press pass is much more deadly than an ES. (I won't say anything further not to spoil the League for Dj)

These reports of you are a very good reading. Thanks for sharing those!

Schwaig, I'm glad you're reading these! I must say, reading Arkham played at *high* level is totally awesome. And really helpful for those who want to improve their strategy

Thanks Avi :-) You are planning to use your own self evisceration machine? Well, be sure to entertain us with that!

My dating life? ::Laughter::

I'm okay with investigators lucking into the Press Pass. The point of the harder version of the scenarios is not to remove luck or make things near impossible. It's just to make things *difficult* force people to sweat for their victories ;') and sometimes not even that.

VII: City of Ice: My Little Cosmonuclear Heatdeath

All things grow cold and lifeless, the galaxies are cooling towards inevitable silence, and so Ithaqua stalks the icy blades of nothingness between the creeping wastes, trailing his bloody stumps and gnawing on the endless moaning mounds of frozen TV dinners left behind. Let’s see if we can teach him the value of pre-heated food…or wind up as a GOOs Fish Finger (with custard).

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

This is scenarios 7 of the Elder God Fan League in which I attempt to lead a ragtag band of (wait, that’s the other game) a hapless team of investigators to an uncertain fate in surviving the cold lash of the Wind Walker, Ithaqua. Not content to blast me with the usual icy winds, the sentient concept of cosmonuclear heatdeath has had to call on its mum – yes, its mum - to beat me down harder, and they have both concocted a nasty plot with Cultists.

ANCIENT ONE: Ithaqua. The Wind-Walker has been given physical immunity in Final Battle, but I rarely give those details any consideration in game until it looks like happening and so I largely and rather dangerously consider these categories of info to be irrelevant. Other than this, no direct changes have been made to the AO but his worshipers have become much nastier thanks to the other changes made below, as has his icy winds effect. Even without changes though Ithaqua can be brutal, especially if you do not come equipped with speedy and/or hardy investigators, and his Doom is slim leaving little to no room for error and probably requiring some kind of stall to delay it.

HERALD: Wendigo. His mum lays down a sanity loss on investigators caught outside at the end of the turn, which makes it desirable to have balanced investigators – 5/5 – with high speed. Completely losing your mind or body in a street will result in you waking up with frostbite and signs of cannibalism plastered like graffiti over your blue, numb body, reducing both your maximums by 1. Like any good mother she also messes with your ability to focus, shoving your sliders 1 to the left each Upkeep if you linger anywhere but a stable location. This is a real ***** that even affects Final Battle, it keeps your Luck, Sneak and Will on an ascent and everything else on a descent and only Trish is immune to this meddling and she is not in the investigator pool. If you have Focus 1, you will be able to do nothing to stop the gradual descent of all your sliders to the left, where they will stay for the remainder of the game with only one of them being able to temporarily break free one space each turn. You have heard of the Louisiana sinkhole, right? Well, this is the Arkham sinkhole. It effectively hamstrings all Focus 1 investigators by swiftly reducing their Speed, Fight and Lore to the lowest setting, therefore those with low ratings in those Skills and Focus 1 are hardest hit and are virtual cripples that will be smashed by the Icy Winds, the mind numbing horror of the Mother of Ithaqua, frostbite and cannibalism. If Final battle arrives, I wont be able to move sliders at all, so the team will be literally frozen in the face of The End, stripped not just of their weapons but most of their personality too.
It’s when we get to the Cultist boost that things start getting really disgusting though. They get to suckle on mama Wendi for immunity to handcuffs, 6 toughness and 2 combat damage. And worse, they hamper everyone’s movements by preventing investigators in adjacent spaces from continuing any of their movement. I kind of loathe these kinds of mechanics, they often result in very frustrating games where the control laid down over what players can do borders on not being fun. This mechanic means that it will take 2 full turns to deal with any Cultist, at least, and that if the Cultist is in a street there will be automatic damage incurred from Ithaqua and Wendigo. I don’t like it because there is really no strategy for dealing with it, you just have to soak up the damage and move on if you want to be rid of those Cultists, so that is what I will do, but I would prefer to have some optional tactics that did not involve crippling some of the investigators.

SCENARIO RULES: So I have to put 4 Cultists in the north half of the board, 1 at Downtown, Merchant and Riverside streets and 1 at the Train Station. This basically locks down the entire clue rich middle and top half of the board until I eliminate them – just moving through the streets to gather these clues will quickly cripple my entire team in a game where alacrity will be critical. These 4 are stationary spawn monsters that go back to the cup; Cultists in general are endless, don’t count against the limit and show up at the Woods instead of the Outskirts, choking access to the Hospital. I must choose Finn Edwards, which means he cannot pass his PS (which requires a Cultist trophy) and he begins completely hemmed in at the Bank. Additionally after the 3rd Mythos phase begins, an extra Cultist appears at every gate that opens alongside the usual monster.
Someone in the design world has rescued me from a stagnant game bogged down by pigeon steps though – evading a Cultist allows me to go the nearest gate on the main board of Arkham. Note that this doesn’t help with Dunwich or Innsmouth.

MY EVALUATION: This is really horrible for the time it takes you to clear the streets of the stationary Cultists. They simply have to go at the start of the game just so you can get on with the business of clue gathering. I decide to have a majority of investigators start north of the River to deal with that and hope to Nodens that they come equipped to deal with 6 toughness, which should not be too hard as the combat rating of Cultists is still +1 and they have no Horror check. This makes them a manageable problem but still one that inevitably freezes the first turns and leads to investigator exposure in the streets. To mitigate this I will have my remaining two start as far south as possible and prepare there. So my initial plan is to wipe out Arkhams Ithaqua Cult by the start of turn 3, utilising the lower half of the board to equip two of my investigators with as much arsenal as I can, and to then begin my game proper. Because I am not able to really start my game until turn 3, I need to stall as this covertly hands Ithaqua Doom 4 of 11 at the start of the game…and I need Focused investigators.

THE TEAM

This time in order of lawlessness –

Finn Edwards, the Bootlegger, wears a Dark Cloak concealing an Enchanted Sword (Katana boy), and has managed to pilfer the Directors Diary and an Elder Sign. He is a Marksman ad a Criminal (privileged Member of the Sheldon Gang). Since Finn is stationed at the Bank I will be employing him in the sweep of the Cult. Finnis Focus 1, which means he falls down the Focus sinkhole at the start of turn 3 and from theron in it’s a losing battle to shift his Fight from 0 (!) and his Lore from 1, while his Speed will be jammed at 3, max 4.

Skids OToole, his friend the Ex Convict, is now Clairvoyant and drives around in a swish Sedanette sizzled on Elixir. Focus 2, so he can climb out of the sinkhole. He is also a Mad Axeman with Axex2, not someone you want to mess with at all, as he will know it before you do. Skids is hardy with 7 stamina and he comes with cash he can give to …

Marie Lambeau, the Entertainer, who needs that cash for magic lessons so she can call on her Witch Blood twice when she passes her PS. In the last game Tony had to pitch in, but this game he is replaced by Finn and so Marie will have to look elsewhere to finish her tuition. Marie begins as a Library User with Wither and a Plague of Locusts. Marie also carries over the Ghost trophy from her confrontation with Yig and Set. Focus 2.

Joe Diamond, the P.I. is Stealthily skulking in the shadows armed with a Knife and clutching a Lucky Rabbit Foot. Creeper. This is not good as I was counting on Joe to field more than his .45s, but bullets and a stab in the dark will have to do, perhaps with the backup of his starting clues. Focus 3.

Roland Banks, the Fed, literally saves my day – he walks into Arkham Asylum with a Time Bomb and a Fetch Stick babbling about Mythos Lore and behind him comes Thomas Olney with a Blessing. It is unfortunate to stall his PS while killing off the cult, but a jobs a job…Focus 3.

SETUP: A gate to Leng opens its maw at the Black Cave and a Zombie staggers out. Rituals of Power are being blown in the sentient wind, empowering the damge dealth by monsters.

THE MATCH

T1) Finn heads Downtown, dodging the Cultist as the Bank immediately calls in its loan, which he characteristically shrugs off. Skids finds himself back with Marie again, and like a poor schmo he hands her his last 5$, again, and then wanders over to the Historical Society to gather evidence about Brad reading books, evidence that might have allowed him to magically move seals around the board had there been any. Marie dashes off to the Magick Shoppe and promptly plonks down the fee for her first lesson, acquiring the Arcane Insight spell. Having no tomes in sight there will not be much utility for it yet, but the game can change and it is worth having for the late game advantage it could bring. Joe leaves the Police and is stymied in Eastown, but Blessed Roland and Olney in Downtown utterly purge the first Cultist from existence using the Fetch Stick.
The howling maelstrom of ice has ironically brought more couriers into town, allowing the team to trade items freely in Upkeep. They bring terrible news of a portal to the Abyss on top of Wizards Hill and of an ophidian Serpent cursing ‘those meddling kids!’. Doom rises to 2 and Banks, Diamond and Edwards look up and go numb in body and soul at the screaming noise in the night sky.

T2) Skids makes the cross country walk to the Woods where he finds more of Brads trail in the body of a grifter; he loots the body of $2 and a frozen .45. Marie, short $1 dollar of her last lesson and none too keen on venturing outside, decides to try her luck with browsing the shop. Her luck is not only in its glowing golden as she finds Liver D’Ivon and a shot at her PS next turn while still holding onto her cash. Joe shudders as he descends on the frozen quay to tackle the Riverside Cultist and has to draw on 2 clues to finally take it down. Meanwhile, Banks (still Blessed) and Olney battle the Cultist in the Merchant District, again easily shriveling it with the Stick. That leaves just the Cultist lurking at the Train station, one that is directly in the way of the Wizards Hill phenomena. Finn is almost arrested in Upkeep but the Gang eventually come through and deliver him a Cross which he pockets and, now freed by Joe and Roland, moves to the Cave, squishes the zombie beneath a broken stone while waving the Cross, penetrates to Leng and is immediately deluged by a flood which consumes his only clue in the struggle to avoid being swept to an aquatic location.
A family are found butchered – their heads placed neatly on their chests, their brains pure lumps of ice, frozen staring eyes protruding like glassy marbles in an expression of frigid shock. Thomas F. Malone is one of the dead. A gate opens at the Graveyard, issuing forth a Crawling One from Another Dimension. Terror begins to climb at 1 and Doom hits 3 of the clock as the Serpent moves to the Backwoods of Dunwich, poised for the vengeance of terrible revenge. Roland and Joe clutch their hats and huddle in their expensive but impractical clothing as the insane winds beat them down again with what they swear is a feral snarl.

T3) Here is where I plan to start turning up the heat. My main board is cleared for operations and the team spring into action. Marie easily groks the tome she found with her Library Use and draws herself a Find Gate spell, passing her PS. I think Ithaqua quivers, especially with the Elder Sign Finn is secreting…Joe meanwhile scouts out the Unnamable where a hideous Deep One Hybrid attacks him but is blown away leaving Joes mind relatively intact. Still Blessed, Banks and Olney stagger through the streets to Northside, battered but intent on taking down the Cultist between them and Dunwich, as Finn finds a prehistoric monastery in Leng. A man in a yellow silk mask questions his Lore and clueless Finn has 1 die to impress him with the right answers. He rolls a 5 er and finds the answer that gives him a Revelation of Script. Skids hightails it to the now open for business Witch House where he finally solves the riddle of Brads death by reading someone’s arcane maths homework. He draws the Wither spell and then primes himself to use his payload of 8 clues.
Ithaqua responds to my threat and unleashes his evil plan - the flood from Leng arrives ahead of Finn, the Tidal Wave washing up a gate to Kadath on the Reef and delivering a Cultist and a Dark Young onto the rocks. Then the Cultist ad the Serpent sacrifice themselves to their master and I end up with 2 Dunwich Horror, 2 Deep Ones Rising, Terror 3 and a closed shop – look, up in the sky, is it a bird, is it a plane..? - no, its David Packard and Charles Dexter Ward being lifted up and thrown around like rag dolls!! – Roland suffers more damage and Finn flunks his PS but has no clues to lose, yet now his Speed drops to 2. His slipperiness helps here though.
It’s a nasty shock, a *really* nasty one with both boards now active, but I keep cool – it’s all you can when you are frozen out.

T4) Marie begins the excisions from Ithaquas metaphysical flesh in response to the blows of last turn. Doom retreats to 3 as Marie learns Lure Monster as an insurance against further vortex incursions. Then, Joe visits Unvisited Isle and ignores the Egyptian cult practicing in the bushes as Roland makes it to the Train station and executes the final stationary Cultist. Finn delivers he first seal at the Cave when he makes it back from Leng and Doom is sunk even lower to a mere 2; a treat for the team as they hear howls of rage from Ithaqua and his mum. Skids is busy at the Graveyard killing the Crawling One with his .45 and Wither spell, using 2 of his 8 clues to survive the horror of it but then pressing on to Another Dimension where he finds a narrow passage that leads him immediately back to Arkham having fully explored the gate. After stinging Ithaqua in Upkeep Marie travels to the Unvisited Isle and gives the Find Gate to clued up Joe, spotting a crab on the beach whose patterns are worth a major revelatory haul of 3 clues.
It is clearly a sign as the Cursed Relics rumour strikes, opening a gate to Kadath beneath both Marie and Joe and replacing them with a Cultist and a Dimensional Shambler. Doom returns to 3 and the Shambler moves to the University streets.
Cursed Relics (revised) starts with 5 Doom tokens and over 5 rounds your choice is let it eat away at Unique and Exhibit Items or allow for a rise in terror at the end of those 5 turns. If it arrives mid to late game it can be a good shield against nastier rumours, especially if you have money or items. So I am not terribly concerned as this allows me to relax, I feel less tense knowing I cannot be hot by ‘No One Can Help You Now’ or worse. Additionally, the delay of 2 investigators is a short term problem, in the long run the extra gate to Kadath lets me get at Devils Reef. Again, I feel relieved.
Ithaqua almost boils at this reaction, but those are the facts…I now have a shield against many but not all of the nastier Mythos effects.

T5) Marie strips another frozen strip of dead flesh from Ithaquas hide, reversing Doom back to a piffling 2, and draws herself Astral Travel. Roland retains his Blessing. Banks and Olney have made it finally to the 2 clues at Gardners Place, taking the total to 4. There they meet Erica Carlyle investigating stories of falling star stones and since they have only $2 and she is in the Ally deck she takes pity and joins them, adding a Retainer to Rolands resources. Finn Edwards, now stuck in the sinkhole, must make do with struggling across town, being halted by his own Speed in the streets on the way to the Curiosity Shop. Skids, though, smashes the Graveyard to pieces, placing the second seal on the board with clues and causing the Shambler in the University streets to vanish without a trace; meanwhile, Marie stares into the face of utter madness in Kadath and rolls her san to net a jaw dropping 5 clues, rolling a success on every die. Diamond is next to her fending off a Tcho Tcho to find a Map.
Strange Ornithological Sightings are then reported thanks to a Byakhee and Mi-Go in the Sky and a gate to the Underworld opens on the Unnamable, issuing a Dark Young with its Cultist and raising Doom back to 3. Skids has to have the Elixir smashed after it is found to be a Cursed Relic. Sanity withers away a little from Marie.

T6) Finn slips away to the Shop after throwing a Revelation of Script around himself and finds a second Elder Sign that gives him a clue as well. Marie Lambeau (this turn prying out precious stones worth $3 from the cave wall of Kadath area 2) has given him the freedom to move by casting Lure Monster in Upkeep on the nearby Cultist, stranding it in the first area of Kadath (and then killing it when she moves). Skids goes to the Lodge and gathers another clue when an impatient Carl Stanford berates him for being late and thrusts a Dragons Eye at him. Diamond casts Find Gate and successfully seals gate 3 at Devil Reef, but he is completely stranded there. Banks (now well named thanks to Erica), Olney and Carlyle consider using Mythos Lore to tackle Wizards Hill but decide to check out the Hopyard and so they pass his PS and amazingly drag Basil Elton from a cloud of brown smoke. It begins to look like Wizard of Oz with all these companions appearing. Unfortunately, banks now has a nasty Skin Rash.
Dreams of a Sunken City plague the night and bring about Act I. At Independence Square a Byakhee and a Cultist open a gate to Yuggoth, raising Doom back up to 4. The Cultist moves into the streets, hemming Finn into the Shop with his Elder sign. The Dragons Eye is smashed as a Cursed Relic.

T7) Skids raids the Science Building, trading his knowledge of other dimensions for a total of 3 clues gathered. Marie makes it back from Kadath and uses Lore/Library Use to clue seal the Unvisited isle, bringing the team 2 seals from victory. Joe evades the Dark Young, wanders down from the Reef and stumbles, falling to land luckily in front of the Golden Sword of Y’hatalla (who writes his scripts?!). Banks, Olney, Carlyle and Elton hit the Hill and find themselves in the Abyss where a web of light surrounds the heart of the Cursed Relics rumour, an object that hurts everyone if they take it, so they don’t. Finn leaves the Shop and bolsters himself against the winds of Northside.
A Xothian (lose a sanity point if you now what that is)appears at the Order of Dagon with its Cultist as a second gate to Another Dimension opens and brings Doom to 5. Police are offering a reward for information – clues for money, you gotta be kidding! – one Byakhee flies up while another with a Migo swoop on Finn, who sacrifices the Enchanted Blade to the rumour and is smashed by the winds, but not knocked out just yet.

8) Marie descends from the Isle and calls on her magic at last, throwing a Voice of Ra, a Plague of Locusts, a Withering and a flashing Enchanted Knife at 2 Cultists in the Merchant area. Joe returns to the Reef with the sword to crush the nightmarish Dark Young, but gazing at the strangely bigger stars there is finally too much ad he loses his last shred of sanity, waking in the Asylum with Delirium. Banks and his gang (still Blessed) make it further into the Abyss and encounter an endless forest that gives up no secrets. Edwards dodges both the Byakhee and the Migo and then the Cultist in Downtown to enter Yuggoth. On Pluto, he finds he can willfully make it back immediately (once again!) thanks to the bizarre twisting of space and his 2 clues.

This is, ultimately, the final blow against Ithaqua, who surges at the Unnameable but finishes the game next turn utterly defeated and fully cooked with a Doom of only 4 thanks to the return of Banks and crew and Finn with his Elder Sign.Skids finishes the game meeting up with Marie in the snowbound but quickly thawing Merchant District, ahhhh, and grabbing his cash back - you go boy! - as their eyes lock to the sound of Joe whimpering deliriously in the Asylum and Rolie throws a party.

I'm glad you couldn't be HOT by "No one can help you now" (I guess you meand "Good work undone", an Environment can be in play even if there is an active rumor), not so sure if it was intentional or not, but it was totally brilliant in an Ithaqua Scenario

And I'm also surprised you actually roll for Finn's Bank Loan. I never do that, and auto-score a -1 at the end of the game :laughter:

I'm quite impressed that you managed to finish this with a doom track at four! I had real problems with this, with a final rush to got the last seal before Ithaqua woke up, but I made a huge error during the setup that made everything more complex: I had the core board in Italian, and I made confusion between Downtown and Uptown, so that I got the *whole* board frozen and Marie blocked... (facepalm)

Anyway, you're good, and it's a pleasure reading your chronicles. Let's hope many people more could be attracted by such games and play (have you considered posting this chronicles over at BGG as well?)

Chuckles ... such midtakes are deliberate :-) ;-)

Yes I did mean Good Work, nice catch thank you. And with Finn yeah I'm a stickler for actually rolling that thing. You never know with Arkham and I haven't seen all the Mythos cards yet, - ! - , so I have no idea if there is a Bank Loan thing mechanic lurking. I do other probably senseless things too. In fact, that covers everything I do between breaths.

I'm a bit socially shy and have only lurked at BGG, but I do have an account. I am not sure where I would post these though as I am unfamiliar with the forums.

What a tragic mistake you made, but that's sooooo easy to do. Still sounds like you recovered nicely though! Congrats on that yourself!

:laughter: yeah, I'm a specialist in total arkhamasochism. I guess it's not the worse I did in this League, but I'll enter the details of my senectute as soon as you reach the different Scenarios

As for BGG... I think I get your point. I'll cover this better via PM later on

I'm glad you couldn't be HOT by "No one can help you now" (I guess you meand "Good work undone", an Environment can be in play even if there is an active rumor), not so sure if it was intentional or not, but it was totally brilliant in an Ithaqua Scenario

And I'm also surprised you actually roll for Finn's Bank Loan. I never do that, and auto-score a -1 at the end of the game :laughter:

I'm quite impressed that you managed to finish this with a doom track at four! I had real problems with this, with a final rush to got the last seal before Ithaqua woke up, but I made a huge error during the setup that made everything more complex: I had the core board in Italian, and I made confusion between Downtown and Uptown, so that I got the *whole* board frozen and Marie blocked... (facepalm)

Anyway, you're good, and it's a pleasure reading your chronicles. Let's hope many people more could be attracted by such games and play (have you considered posting this chronicles over at BGG as well?)

I sort of hope DJ compiles the entire story into a single file at the end. There's some really good stuff in it, as well as strategy. I laughed pretty **** hard when reading the part about Ithaqua and his mother. And yeah, I also really liked the hot typo :') Well, I presume it was a typo. But who knows?

Chuckles ... such midtakes are deliberate :-) ;-)

Yes I did mean Good Work, nice catch thank you. And with Finn yeah I'm a stickler for actually rolling that thing. You never know with Arkham and I haven't seen all the Mythos cards yet, - ! - , so I have no idea if there is a Bank Loan thing mechanic lurking. I do other probably senseless things too. In fact, that covers everything I do between breaths.

I'm a bit socially shy and have only lurked at BGG, but I do have an account. I am not sure where I would post these though as I am unfamiliar with the forums.

What a tragic mistake you made, but that's sooooo easy to do. Still sounds like you recovered nicely though! Congrats on that yourself!

When you're done with the league, I'd like your stuff compiled into a single article and linked to as a comedic walkthrough. I'm thinking of linking to other people's completed threads as well if they're interested. I wish this stuff were posted someplace more reliable than FFG though... I still don't trust them to maintain the forum perpetually.

Oh, and this goes without saying, but congrats on kicking Ithaqua's butt so hard it shattered ;'D

You understand my meaning all to well Julia. There are some gatherings I feel personally compelled to kick against, the Vivisection Society would be one, some of the exchanges on BGG would be another. Life is too complicated and painful to add that to it. I find it easier to interact with the surface of that community.

I will create a .pdf of my journey though, and share it with anyone that asks for it.

By the way Avi, i really groove on the tale you are telling here. It really sets the scene and gets me keen to begin each time.