So, after a little hiatus from Arkham, I played a couple of games in the last three-four days. Of the first one, there isn't much to tell: pathetic Cthulhu and his court of jesters (Dagon & Hydra) were annihilated when the squid's doom track hit 7 o' doom.
Tonight's game was somehow tougher since the beginning: Zhar was in, with KH, IH, MH in the mix, again with Dagon and Hydra to give the twin obscenity a little extra help. On the other side of the barricade, Lily, Mandy, William, Tommy, Amanda. Quite a good start up, with Mandy drawing a double Director's Diary, Lily with an extra Dynamite charge in case her hand weren't enough explosive, and some more decent stuff around, but no defnitive weapons, or what else.
Still, with the two Director's Diary in my hand, and a good reserve of clues amongst investigators' starting possessions, I heard my voice saying "unless the first gate is Devil Reef, it's already game over for the poor tentacle guy". HA. JINXED!
First Mythos: Esoteric Order of Dagon: Plateau of Leng + a Nghtgaunt. Plus two monsters in the Factory District Streets (Deep One and Zombie). Uhm. Second set-up Mythos: Devil Reef. A Cultist.
Okay, so, we have this little problem now, that not many people are fast pacers, and you know... So: Lily started moving towards the Station, Tommy picked up his Rifle and the Map of Arkham (for this game called "Map of the Expansion Boards") and headed for Joe Sargent's Bus Shelter in Innsmouth, William moved North so that Amanda could recover the King in Yellow and read some pages while at the Black Cave and Mandy, oh, sweet Mandy, went to the Unnamable instead of going to the Unvisited Isle so that she had a lower chance to be sucked in an OW during the Mythos. JINXED. She was sucked in during the Arkham Encounter Phase and left a Vampire guarding the gate.
New Mythos: monster surge from the Unnamable. The mummy arrived, and another silly monster. From Devil reef emerged a High Priest. A Skeleton and a Witch from Dagon. The Nightgaunt in the Sky landed on Tommy. Fortunately the two monsters in DR remained still. Still, nobody having enough clues to seal but Mandy, who was actually enjoying an Underworld-ly experience.
Tommy cleaned the bus shelter, Amanda passed the King in Yellow and got her 5 clues, and started moving towards the Train Station; Lily passed by Tom, used Falcon Point to reach Devil Reef and kill the two monsters, only to jump into the gate (Leng again) with only her starting two clues. The first OW encounter granted her the chance to get 2 clues if a Lore (-1) check was passed. Spectacular failure. Thought: c'mon, let's use Mandy's ability and score this **** 2 clues, then I can get Research Materials at the Grocery, exit at Dagon's and seal. JINXED. Another catastrophic failure. Good.
Next Mythos: monster surge from the Esoteric Order of Dagon. Nay, you gotta be kidding me. Skeleton and Deep One Hybrid from Dagon, Spectral Hunter (phew) from Devil Reef, monsters moving, Tommy snowed under, Amanda arriving searching for a gate and everybody but the guys enjoying the OWs were hit by Taxes Come Due. "No girl, no job, no money, no problem", somebody wiser than me said. Well, he never went to Innsmouth with people to rescue from Falcon Point. Sigh.
Amanda grabbed Tommy's rifle and cleaned the streets in front of Dagon. Tommy recovered the rifle and killed the Zombie, secretly wishing of fumbling the Horror Check to get a Madness and leave the town (he had given the last money to Amanda). "I have only one die, I'll certainly fail the Horror check". JINXED. Passed the horror check and pulverized the zombie. Lily scraps from the ground one clue in the second area of Leng. Mandy enjoys the subterrean pleasures of the cities of ghouls in the Underworld, but somehow manages to stay alive.
Next Mythos: monster surge from the Unnamable. Seriously? What's wrong with the deck today?? Buuuuuut... the Devil Reef monster is a Warlock.
Crying for relief, Lily returned to Devil Reef and explained the Warlock why bare handed fighting is better than casting spells. The Warlock rewarded her lesson with two clues (and the she partied by smashing the
Hunting Horror
Spectral Hunter to make some extra money) and then she was able to put the first seal on the board. Mandy followed and sealed the Unnamable, and immediately the Mythos tried being nifty opening the Unnamable again, but failed because there was no bursting on the Mythos card, so +1 success on Mandy's PS, and +1 DOR.
Innsmouth was free from monsters, Tommy put two clues on green to start feeding the Fed Track, Lily went to Y'hanthlei and decided to lose the last point of Sanity instead of drawing two Innsmouth Look cards to move directly to the Asylum and solving a big problem (returning to Falcon Point with nobody being able to pay for her to return). Amanda jumped into Leng part two, and Tommy started roaming through Innsmouth like a vagabond, trying to find something useful to return home. He gathered two clues instead, and used one of them to add to the Fed Track. Then he found a monster's corpse under Joe Sargent's bus, and mysteriously one monster disappeared from the Outskirts.
William kept on wandering like a restless soul, searching for a gate to dive into, but every time he moved in a direction, a new gate popped up in the opposite, and too far away for him to reach it. Finally he thought it could have been time to use the Key of Tawil-something, and entered the Dreamlands. At the same time, Lily sneaked under a Crawling One, only to massacre a Formless Spawn (after Lily, it became a "Even More Formless Spawn") and enter the City of the Great Race, and Mandy, oh, Mandy, she went to the Unvisited Isle to gather her third clue, saying "if I got a gate at the Unnamable first, I won't be so unlucky to get another gate encounter in the same neighborhood". JINXED. Leng, again (Lily's trophy was spent earlier for 2+1 clues at the Science Building).
In the OW, Lily got the encounter before Mandy, and the encounter spelled "get a clue token for each investigator, including you, currently in an OW". So, +3 clues for Lily, and zero for Mandy.
A third rift progress marker was added to the first rift's track, and the same for the second rift track. Amanda, after sealing Dagon, dashed to Kingsport but was delayed at the Terrible Old Man's house. The DOR track was at 5, and Tommy used the last clue to clear the Fed and reset the DOR track to 2. Then had a lucky encounter at Falcon Point, offering him 5 dollars, which meant a chance to return home (in the mean time, I tried to have him being driven insane, but I kept on failing)
The guys in the OW returned home, William sealed with 4 clues & Mythos lore, was driven insane by the Crawling One and headed for the Leng gate at the Unvisited Isle Mandy had just left, to gather forces with Lily (who sealed; 5 seals on the board at the moment) to cash clues at the Science Building. "We so much need to enter a gate", I thought. JINXED. Next Mythos: The Stars are Right, rumor, Science Building (three times a gate appeared under Mandy's feet tonight!).
Followed by a lovely encounter who added a DOR, a gate bouncing on the Devil Reef seal, but it was no common Mythos Card, it was Gathering Storm!, so that in one turn I had the DOR track at 5 tokens again.
Not much to do, but raise praise to Nodens and hope, Mandy's PS had already 4 clues on it, I needed only one more to put the last seal on the board. So, clueless Tommy and Amanda worked to keep the rifts udner control, Mandy, Lily and William moved to the second area of the respective OWs and finally the last Mythos bounced at the Esoteric Orded of Dagon, forcing the DOR track to fill AND Mandy's PS to be passed: a classic case of sincronicity that must be settled down by the First Player. Clearly, the decision was for Mandy. Check mate.
Victory by sealing gates in 14 Mythos, with Zhar's doom track at 8.
Fun to say, in a game with Dagon where keeping the terror level under control is vital, I had both Director's Diary, but the Terror Level never increased. Anyway, tense, close, fun game.
Edited by Julia
