Cairo Horror Beta-Test: Fan Expansion for Arkham Horror

Craving a good and engaging game, UB and BT sat down to have a go at the new AH expansion by UB based on the Egyptian capital of Cairo. We are planning using this expansion as part of a campaign, along with new characters and several other players, so we decided that this particular game would be a test drive.
   The last time we played Cairo Horror, indeed the only other time we have played it, UB, BT and JT spent hours combing through the minutiae of rules and conflicts with existing rules. Despite de-powering the Djinn, the town of Arkham remained so busy, that only one of us got to even visit Cairo. This time would be different.
   OBJECTIVE: Play through as many Cairo elements as possible. Agreed to bend and twist the through-line of the game if it was hampering access to Cairo. Rather than try and figure out the complex solutions to every problem, we'd simply note them down and play through them, or create a quick make-do suggestions to keep the game flowing.

We played a 'double hander', of four investigators between two players. 

OBSERVATIONS:
1) Arkham needs to be down-powered. 
The simple act of sending one investigator over to Cairo put pressure on defending Arkham. We were rapidly overwhelmed. Admittedly, we started the game with only only Dexter having one weapon (Shrivelling) and sent Jenny off to Cairo with all the money to buy gun.
   Nevertheless, the Cairo Horror expansion is so big, and so engaging, the time spent jumping into Other Worlds, and fending off the monsters with a reduced team is too much. The issue is that Unlike other expansions, Cairo Horror assails the Arkham town directly and immediately (whereas the Rift tokens only appear later in Kingsport, or the Dunwich Horror only arrives later...)
   It was realised that, rather than down-power the expansion, perhaps Arkham itself could be down powered so that all investigators could go to Cairo,
   Solution: Rather than the first gate opening being used as the vortex to Cairo, it remains only the principle gate. Following that, ALL other gates also lead to the Cairo Vortex.
   In effect, and unlike the other expansions which are accessed by conventional travel, Cairo serves the same role as an Other World, only it take an entire game rather than 3 turns to resolve. Because it is in part Nyarlathotep as the Dark Pharoah, incarnating and attacking the world from Cairo, he is dominating the influx of mythos related forces, and is particularly assailing Arkham because his agents are trying to secure artifacts from the Exhibit.
   This way, all roads lead to Cairo, and no gates can be closed/sealed without completing the Cairo Horror expansion. Completing the Cairo board means sealing any open gates, and potentially winning the game.

2) Cairo Horror is much bigger than other board expansions. We feel it might be worth treating the Cairo Horror expansion as if two expansion boards were being played, in regards to adjusted Monster Limits etc
   Solution: Treat the game as if it were two board expansions.

NOTABLE MOMENTS IN THE GAME
The game began with a Valentines theme. We picked two characters, and potential partners. UB ended up with Dexter Drake and Jenny Barnes, and BT had Hank Samson the Farmhand and Sister Mary the Nun. The former were immediately envisioned to both be part of the upper echelons of society, while the latter, were low level humble 'givers'. This was confirmed by them becoming Mystical Knights, while Dexter and Ms Barnes were collectors. On this latter point, it was considered that Jenny was basically a rich, bored groupie, who would furnish him with whatever trinkets he desired. As I have said before, adding these character themes and backstories help the players invest in the character, adding to the drama, such as this: 

By 4 on the Doom Track, because we had not been able to kill ANYTHING, and because of the influx of monsters from the Cairo Vortex arriving in Arkham (not counting against the monster limit) the whole town became gridlocked. It was terribly terribly hard. Unrelentingly grim. Every single of the Arkham monsters were really hard 'big fights' like Dholes and Star Spawn, and Shoggoths (we play 'big games' with a Monster Cup of all monsters, except Masks played as usual - just because it is way too tiresome to figure out what monster went where) .
   Extremely hard if the best weapon you have is a Shrivelling and a Holy Water followed by a cross in your party of four.

Hank wades in: Wraith, Leng Spider, Shoggoth, Shoggoth, Proto-Shoggoth.

Then there was the rumor. The Terrible Experiment: The one about fighting a bunch of monsters, which are added to every subsequent Mythos. And we had no weapons. And they were all horrid monsters. Not a maniac, child of the goat or cultist among them. Just utter horror. But we knew if had to be resolved, or we would, very soon face a Terror Track raised from 1 to 10, and no monster limit. 
   Hank dived in and was supported by Dexter in the adjacent Science Building, granting a plus from their Best of Friends relationship. Planning on taking as many as possible, Hank launched into his frenzied attack against the first opponent: a Wraith. 
   The unique ability is to delay the Horror check until he has failed his combat. Given this, Hank had entered the fray with the confidence of a man not planning on losing the combat, had his fight bumped up to its max of 5. 
   His combat was 12 dice (14 -2) for three toughness of hits. 
   He got a single hit out of all 12 dice. Shocked at losing the combat, Hank had to pass his  Horror Check. With a roll of zero, he took all of the damage on the chin and settled for a rematch. 
   12 dice again, but this time Hank threw in all 7 of his clues (being saved for a gate seal), his Best of Friends bonus, and some other stuff I can't recall, and finally nailed all three successes he needed. 
  The fight had not gone to plan.
  The next fight came along: a Leng Spider. A short but risky fight, resolved before he had to retire.
   In the next turn, Hank retreated and Dexter stepped up, armed with his now delightful brass knuckles, his +1Fight skill, Voice of Ra for +1s, and his newest bestest buddy Tom Murphy (+2Fight). His base fight had been maxed to ensure the highest Will for his Horror Check, leaving him with +1 on that, for a total Combat figure of 5, minus whatever the monsters had. He had five clues. 
   Only, Hank had not merely run off in shame, but had run to his only place of refuge, the Southside Church, and there, with all of his Monster Trophies, he prayed for Dexter to be Blessed. 
   A now pumped up and divinely inspired Dexter wadded in. Ripping off his Shrivelling killed the first monster before it was exhausted. From then on his fists happened, as he scraped through fight after fight, until the gory entrails of all the remaining monsters began to congeal about the hemline of his fine trousers. Somewhere in the viscera the players could make out the remains of 2 Shoggoths, a Proto-Shoggoth, devouring Shan and a Leng Spider.
   Dexter Drake almost always the unbidden 'man of the match' out did himself yet again. 
   If only the rest of the game was so pleasant...
   We were playing for almost 11hours, and it was late in the morning by the time we finished, our sanity in tatters.

The Best of Friends pose for a quick team photo after clearing the rumour in two turns, killing 6 monsters for a total of 15 blood points.

When the final fight against the Ancient One Nyarlethotep arrived, as we by now chewed our way through the Doom Tokens we decided to pimp Dexter as much as possible. At his side stood Tom Mountain Murphy, with Professor Armitage delivering his +2Lore AND his Ignores Magical Resistance. His Shrivelling (+6) was aided by his Brass Knuckles (+1), an Alien Device (+2), Tom (+2), and his base Fight maxed (+4). Also he was blessed.
   There was clearly a bunch of other stuff, because he did 16points of damage with his first hit. The rest was a formality, with now Battle Conditions, and us surviving two Sinister Plot cards... epic all the way. 

Of Allies and Maniacs in Arkham Horror: an add-on

Having just finished a four investigator / two player game against Azathoth, I want to present an exciting little development we would encourage players to consider occasionally using. 
   First up, Azathoth is a much neglected Ancient One (with our group of players at least) because it does not have a final battle, and barely modifies the basic game. This initially means that as an Ancient One, it serves as the 'baseline' from which others are created, as indeed, the spinning babbling vortex of insanity at the centre of the Mythos pantheon, it really should be. However, by not having a final battle, an enormous emphasis shifts. The game must be 'won' in Arkham, and the Investigators are never building themselves up for an as-yet unfought final battle. That makes everything a little more immediate in regards to game play.
   With this particular game we broke it in the first two turns with some extremely lucky gate closings and seals instantly knee-capping the board and preventing many monsters from coming out. The fact that we won the game with gate closures, three Elder Signs, and only 6 of a possible 14 doom tokens on the track seemingly proves the value of the tactic: close and seal gates immediately to cripple the board and win. 
   This tactic, while successful can lead to a rather boring game so we decided on this little variation (which we introduced arbitrarily, but a modified version is presented here):

1) When the Terror Track goes up the first time (or when you are around half way through the Doom Track) draw at random an ally to discard (as standard).

The moment we hatched this scheme...

2) However, add the ally to a Maniac (drawn from the cup), and place on the location which features that ally (eg, Prof. Armitage at the Historical Society, Duke in the Woods). The ally has basically flipped out and 'gone dark'.

3) Treat this rogue ally as a Maniac for the purposes of movement, and using the base (advanced) stats of the Maniac. If the ally-maniac moves from their starting location (ie into the streets) then move the Terror Track onwards, and draw another ally.

4) Each ally modifies the stats of the Maniac, to create a variant character. These modifications are based on the bonuses the ally provides. For example, Lore +2 becomes a count of -2 against spells cast that ally. The modifiers are suggested to follow these lines:
    Fight = adjust basic combat modifier
    Will = horror check penalty
   Speed = moves like fast monster
   Sneak = makes Maniac, evasive.
   Lore = adjusts spell casting modifier
   Luck = hmn... not sure about that one. Equivalent to being cursed for the purposes of combat against this enemy?
   Max Stamina = Extra toughness (blood points)
   Max Sanity = Extra Horror damage.

5) If the ally normally grants the investigator any items upon joining them, those items are claimed after the combat is won. However, in order to claim them, the player must pass a luck check or be cursed by the item.

6) If the ally-maniac is unable to enter play due to the Monster Limit, they do not move to the Outskirts or the Box, but are added to the Ancient One's card, where they will play against the investigators serving either as simple Bound Allies, or for more excitement, they will modify the Ancient One with their own modifiers, if it is obvious how to do so.

   We had great fun playing this little mechanic, especially because when it is only UB and BT playing, we invariably amp-up the role-playing aspect, and having named foes adds to the personal nature.
   It is worth considering how this dynamic will thematically stack with the Blight cards from the King in Yellow herald pack. 

Be creative and have fun.

Silver Twilight Concept Trilogy

Having played a great many standard games over the years, we have found ourselves increasingly customising games and adding themes and loose narratives. In one previous Trilogy style game with the Sheldon Gang our Investigators took on solid characters as we discussed what and how they acted. As all members were part of the Sheldon Gang, we realised they had a reputation to uphold, and as a result they would ALWAYS take the gamble in any decision showing they were more daring than anyone else. They would always go for the money above anything else, and they would always be as mean to the people of Arkham as events would allow. These types of self-imposed restrictions were developed through the game as thematic aids and added a really unique angle to the entire adventure, often leading the gang-member investigators to make what we could see were tactically bad decisions, but became really what we thought the arrogant crims might do. No matter how dapper he might seem, give that there Dexter Drake an identity in such unpleasant company, and he will forever be regarded as one of the greatest and most ruthless gang members it is possible to play. 
   And so, it is on the back of (more or less, because UB and BT have still had a good handful of small games since) the Sheldon Gang Trilogy in October, we decided to put forward a new Investigator grouping that we might play as part of another short series.
   To combine an intimate knowledge of the rules with narrative themes makes for intensely epics games, and this game would be extremely different to all that we had undertaken over the past four or five years. This time, it is the often much neglected Silver Twilight Lodges time to shine!   

INITIAL CONCEPT:
Draw 8 investigators from the existing complete investigator set, that might each be connected to the Silver Twilight Lodge. A restriction in selection meant that we avoided investigators that have recently featured within other large scale concept games (Feds, Sheldon Gang, Miskatonic etc). They ended up being (and in no particular order): Norman Withers (Astronomer), Wendy Adams (Urchin), Luke Robinson (Dreamer), Jim Culver (Musician), Patrice Hathaway (Violinist), Diana Stanley (Redeemed Cultist), Jacqueline Fine ('Phychic' [sic]) and Gloria Goldberg (Author).
   The Silver Twilight Lodge is a pseudo-masonic religio-magical fraternity headed by Carl Sandford, and appears loosely based on the historical Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (Golden Dawn = Silver Twilight... get it?), and as was the G.D., we figured the S.T.L. would itself likely be populated with those of a creative bent, although to be sure, we would have included the politician and the lawyer, if we had not just played a stand-alone game with them in response to the Sheldon Gang Trilogy, which is a story for another time.
   Because the Lodge is trying to gain power for itself, it has fallen prey to the privations of those denizens of beyond, and has entered into all manner of infernal and diabolical machinations. The result is that the Lurker on the Threshold is a must expansion to play because it is thematically tied to investigators negotiating various 'deals with the devil' much as the Lodge operates normally. We would also be including the Innsmouth Horror board (and track mechanism), along with the artifact rich CoTDP. On occasion the Dark Pharaoh would also appear as a herald, along with Hypnos and Nodens. It has become a staple of Trilogy themed games that we use the same expansions and boards in every game to provide thematic consistency, while allowing the Ancient One to change, and as a result introducing often extremely potent shifts in game dynamics. 
   Having become disaffected, our Lodge members would be trying to bring down the Lodge from within, by destroying the Ancient One.
   As with the thematic Sheldon Gang Trilogy game, one location - this time the Silver Twilight Lodge - would be a focal point. Visiting this location would always offer an investigator either "double-events" as we colloquially call it (draw two encounters and select one) or +1 to all skill checks made during a single encounter; to be declared before drawing the first encounter card. In addition as part of the theme, each player would start with a Silver Twilight Lodge Membership meaning they would access the Inner Sanctum encounters until such a point that they lost the Membership. This operated the same way as giving each Sheldon Gang Investigator a membership at the start of the game. In the case of Diana Stanley, who starts the game with the Membership as part of her character base set up, we elected to allow her to draw the first $5 worth of Unique Items as compensation.
   In response to the boons of membership with the concept came the additional burden that should a gate ever open at the Silver Twilight Lodge, all investigators must seek to close and seal it as the top priority no matter what other game dynamics were at play excepting perhaps either directly winning or losing the game. 

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PART ONE: The 'A' Team

The set up of the first game included Innsmouth, Lurker and CoTDP with both Heralds, and with Nodens as a Guardian.
   Each player (UB, BT, JT, CD) chose a starting Investigator from the short list of eight.  
UB chose Diana Stanley. He began his turn with her, running straight into the Exhibit and having an encounter in which she ended up both Cursed and Tainted. Over the next few turns she would also become Harried. This pattern of behavior was to repeat itself almost step for step in the final game of this trilogy.  
   Right off the bat we began repeatedly drawing 'no gates but add two doom tokens' cards during Mythos which meant very few gates were ever open to generate game play, while the doom track advanced very rapidly. I think we had three of them in the game which amounts to three additional doom tokens, and further means that unstable locations do not get sealed because no gates have opened, and as a result there are few monsters and gates to claim as trophies for our investigators to buy the second tier advancements.
   Given the degree to which we know and understand the intricacies of the game we made some appalling decisions. Chief of all was to neglect the small print on the Ancient One. We had elected to fight Yibb Tstll, being one of the less frequent Ancients Ones we wage battle with. It clearly states that it takes twice as many hits to remove a doom token, and given there were four Investigators would mean 8 hits per doom token, resulting in a total of 88 hits to overcome and banish the Ancient One. This we had overlooked until the final fight was upon us. But wait, there's more. Diana, in a character driven frenzy ended up making a deal with the Lurker on the Threshold for a Bound Ally meaning that, come the final battle, each bound ally adds a further hit required to remove each doom token. That bound ally was worth a further 11 hits bringing the total needed to 99. 
   What makes this so savage is that, despite us using deft skill to hoover up clues from the board, when the game came to a crashing end, bringing the final battle into play very quickly we had a total of 10 clues left on the board, all of which combine to provide the -X figure for the combat check. In this case we ended up squaring off against an Ancient One with -10 on its combat check (minusing that many dice from the total accumulated dice each investigator uses in a combat round) and a necessary 99 hits to defeat it. 

Yibb Tstll, still gets the better of us... by miles.

Sometimes, some games are lost heroically. In this case, there were still four doom tokens left on the doom track. It was a great game, meaning that it was a real challenge, fun to play and filled with high and low points. To have died barely halfway through the final battle, having already lost to the board was not galling - we played well and enjoyed our ultimate demise...
   Also, and entirely unbidden,  it naturally gave us the premise for the subsequent game in the set. And, perhaps a repetition of the Sheldon Gang concept was preordained...

PART TWO: The Clean Up Squad

It was quite apparent that given the demise of the entire team, this second team, being the Investigators from the initial 8 that we had not used, would now have to come to the rescue of the first four - trapped in some horrendous dimension utterly insane. This obviously bends the definition of 'devouring', but we are trying to create a narrative of progression, vengeance and ultimately redemption, so c'mon, let that one slide...
   What would make this second game interesting is that our group would be comprised of the rejects from the initial game. This invariably means playing a character that one is less familiar with (although, did i mention we have played this game relentlessly for years, so have played everyone over and over again). It would turn out to be an incredible game, although it was insanely long. 
   Expansions played: Innsmouth Horror (not heralds), CoTDP, and Lurker, Nodens and Hypnos and Tulzscha. Note in this game only the items provided by those expansions were added (having recently split up all of the packs, where we might normally just have all the items from all expansions available).   
   The Theme rules: The four surviving Investigators, alongside the usual attempt to beat the Ancient One, were also tasked with spending 1 Gate Trophy in another world to 'buy back' one of the Investigators lost in the previous game. The intention for the final game would be play a game set up for 8 Investigators, but we would only with the total investigators rescued and survived this game. This really amounts to little more than a possible 4 Gate Trophy penalty in the game, as none of the rescued Investigators would feature within this installment.
   As it turned out, right before the end of the game, Luke Robinson, the Dreamer, returned to another world and bought back three of the four missing investigators from the previous game, and Jim Culver, the Musician, returned Diana Stanley, the final one.
   The Ancient One was Abhoth, who introduces into the Arkham stage of the game, the three 'Child of Abhoth' which are horrendously villainous. We were lucky to have only had two come into play, and i cannot recall if we managed to kill any or all of them. 
   It was about 3am when the final battle rolled along and, our minds a little addled, we yet again overlooked one crucial part of the Ancient One. We had managed to win without any devourings, and by getting sufficient seals down on the board. This in turn allowed us the 'turns grace' we grant winning parties before they deliberately 'go after the ancient one' (it obviously distorts the nature of the threat, but we always like to have a final battle whether we win the board or not). What we overlooked was the option to get rid of up to three items per investigator each round of combat against Abhoth. This meant we blew our clues where old items might have been discarded. 

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PART THREE: The Silver Twilight Rides Out

   SET UP: Arkham, Innsmouth, CoTDP, Lurker, All expansion items available, Hypnos Nodens, also included for extra pazazz was the Herald Tulzchsa, who among other things makes Cultists elusive and Elder seal destroyers.
   Because eight investigators, an expansion board and two smaller sets is quite cumbersome we divide game management duties into various groups. These generally follow the same pattern. The Mythos and Other World Encounters cards are grouped together - but the different expansion stacks are NOT shuffled in and are arranged in a line within the Mythos off-board area. This means that each time an investigator draws either a Mythos or Other World Encounter they roll a d6, with results indicating which deck to draw from 1-3 = Original Arkham, 4 = Expansion board (Innsmouth) 5 = Small Expansion 1 (CoTDP) 6 = Small Expansion 2 (Lurker). The advantage of this is dividing the cards up again after the game is much less awkward. This becomes particularly important when you are playing a couple of times a week, and engaging in multiple thematic games. 

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The astute observer will note the presence of Father Dagon near the Ancient One. This was brought into play as a card to cover over the doom track as Wendy rolled her winning roll, that we might avoid pre-emptively calculating the win...

THE INVESTIGATORS:
All eight members, having survived and been saved during the second installment, have been reshuffled and shared out between the four players so that each player is playing two investigators they did not play in the previous games. This would be the first time that two of the players had multiple investigators (JT & CD), which proved to be a struggle at times, as they would draw clues from the wrong piles, or deliver items to the wrong character. It was interesting to see this because myself UB and colleague BT both play multiple Investigators so frequently that such muddles no longer occur, and neither of us are ever confused about the allocations and abilities of each investigator (indeed, i would say playing two Investigators per player is pretty standard in our games). I make this remark because it is presumably exactly the same degree of confusion that arose when we began the third installment of the Sheldon Gang Trilogy - with two players playing eight Investigators. That really was rather mind melting.
   It is really interesting to be playing what amounts to other peoples investigators from the previous games in the same campaign. This means that, within the last two games, all of the players have only been playing the same collection of characters, being able to share immediate individual insight, rule clarification/exploitation and reminders of the investigators previous escapades.
UB: Norman Withers (the Astronomer) & Jacqueline Fine (the 'Phychic' [sic])
BT: Diane Stanley (Redeemed Cultist) & Gloria Goldberg (Author)
JT: Patrice Hathaway (Violinist) & Jim Culver (Musician)
CD: Luke Robinson (Dreamer) & Wendy Adams (Urchin)

THE ANCIENT ONE: Quachil Uttaus
This shriveled alien looking Ancient One looks far less harrowing than his powers seem to indicate. His principle in-game dynamic is that the first player must either spend 2 Clues or draw from the Dust Deck, in which all manner of horrible things happen, ultimately leading to devouring. At least I think that is what happens. Having the Violinist in ones team meant that in every turn of the game, we paid the price in clues, and never drew a single card from this deck. This ended up costing us at least 16 clues between us. (In adding the link to the Quachil Uttaus above, I note a rule clarification that we missed: that the first player token does not move on if the 2Clue fee is paid. In this case we would have never moved the first player marker, which in turn would affected some of the precision movement we were undertaking - notably that one house rule we play is that Monsters are always fought as soon as they are encountered, unless they are being evaded, this allows for expanding the role of first player sequences, by enabling earlier investigators to step in and clear Monsters for someone attempting a complex gate dash.)
   However, despite this relative triviality, this is probably our most feared and least played Ancient One , purely because, when it comes to the final battle it combines both Magical and Physical Immunity, a devouring every turn, and no allies. That's right. It basically has weapon immunity, and kills an investigator every turn. 
   Our plan to deal with this? Stack up on skills, items and spells that affect investigators base fight including Voice of Ra, Summon the Beast Within, Marksman, Grapple etc. These would all add to and affect the Investigators themselves rather than directly assailing (and failing against) the Ancient One. It would seem, and indeed is, really quite the challenge to rack up sufficient hits against this god, given that he is devouring a different Investigator every turn. But with 8 Investigators we felt we would at least be able to get some of them through a few rounds.

THE GAME: Reclaiming Arkham
Within our initial set up between all 8 of these investigators we drew three Elder Signs (Adams' starting one, Diane as her free $5 unique items, and another somewhere) and also various of the three 'Fragments of an Elder Seal'. Our path was set: The gate sealers - Dreamer & Astronomer would start getting seals down, then we'd stall on the seals after three, allowing the Urchin to pass her personal story and before the Dreamer failed his (the fail being on four Elder Seals down without first having acquired 3 Gate Trophies, as task similarly put by the Astronomer's personal story). (As it would happen, the opportunity came for Patrice Hathaway to search the Unique Items deck for the card of her choice, and given that we had ended up following the Elder Sign route it was decided that we pursue it with gusto, and another Elder Sign was chosen).
   It all happened very quickly. We talked through our initial strategy and drew the opening Mythos card. The strategy, was born both out of excessive familiarity with the game, and based on the character developments that arose during the previous three games, and personal story cards. Very loosely our plan - which of course we entirely expected to be scrapped during the first few turns - was as follows:
   Make Wendy Adams a light-footed item bank. Her abilities means she can pass unimpeded most places. All players would always unload all but essential items and cash to her, and she would run around delivering what was needed, where.  This is much the same role as was given to the Bootlegger during the Sheldon Gang Trilogy, and is a highly recommended tactic. 
   Patrice, as the omnipresent clue bank, would as usual, hoover up as many clues as possible, and be fed any and all items that generate clues (Tomes etc).
   Jacqueline the Psychic would take a support or combat role, depending on the development of her weaponry, with her special ability being very much an overseer level game player. 
   Luke and Norman would both be on 'Gate Duty', while Gloria and Jim would be free to address issues arising as and when. Namely death-killin's.

Diana: Depressed, Sprained Ankle, Harried & Tainted. Still a stand out Investigator in the whole trilogy with her repeated character traits emerging...

A gate opened and we began to move. Diana visited the Exhibit, where it would all go very wrong (see below), and the Astronomer made his way towards the first open gate, anticipating the Dreamer (who starts in an Other World, and is armed with a Gate Box) to return via the next gate should it open, or the first if not. The next Mythos card involved two gates opening BUT NO DOOM TOKENS ADDED to the track. If you can address gates with the bravery it deserves at the very beginning of a game, this type of Mythos card is excellent. As we busied ourselves with getting either the first tranche of gates closed and sealed, or the necessary equipment brought to the correct locations to allow such a thing to happen, we managed to get an Elder Sign and and Elder Seal fragment down, removing BOTH doom tokens that were now on the track. There came, very quickly, a point at which we were effectively starting the game over, but with two Elder Signs already down preventing gates from opening. This formed an odd reflection of the very first game in which no gates had opened and extra doom tokens were frequently being added. This time, when the gates did open, we were decimating the doom tokens. It was much less an actual play on our behalf and seemed increasingly like the game, or the Investigators within Arkham, had recalled the first failed game, and had modified to manage it. The luck of the cards, the draw and the dice had conspired not so much to make it easy, but to make it... effortless, if you can distinguish between such things. But the parallels did not end there. 
   Supposedly 'redeemed' cultist Diana, had gained the Egyptologist skill in set up, and, despite the repeated warnings of UB who had done exactly the same thing with her during the first game, made a bee-line straight to the Exhibit which promptly Tainted then Harried her. Before many turns had passed, poor Diana, a persistently heroic Investigater, managed to acquire an injury, a madness, harried, tainted, and briefly the local guide. And yet her player (BT) was loving it. Despite repeated warnings from her player during the first game (UB) constantly warning that "exactly what had happened to her before would happen again" she was stubborn enough to repeat her previous mistakes in the most uncanny manner. While it seemed she really had not found any kind of redemption just yet, she was most certainly keeping the players entertained with her outstanding hubris. Of course, it might be argued that things had slipped too far for Diana when she took a Soul Pact with the Lurker. The notion of her as a 'redeemed cultist' seemed a little lost for most of the game, as she was, if anything, just a regular badass cultist.
   There was that one incident, when Diana stood in the Miskatonic Streets and played her Harried detriment to stunning effect, luring to her an elusive Elder Sign destroying Cultist away from an open gate the battered and bruised Astronomer was about to return through and seal. What made the powerplay of this move by BT so good was how it complimented the short narrative that arose as UB asked BT to share with the players quite how Diana acted when she summoned to herself the cultist - now known as Bernard, a family man, mostly involved with the Lodge as a social and business thing, and otherwise utterly unaware of the implications of the Ancient Ones - before proceeding to cut him to ribbons in the street. This action suddenly recalled a similar event that had slipped our minds from the very first game in which Diana had already brutally murdered the wife of Carl Sanford. Not all of our characterisations are this gruesome, and yet that is exactly what Diana presented, taking all of the players rather by surprise. That said, including such graphic narrative descriptions between poignant moments certainly helps to spice things up a bit. (On the gruesome theme, I recall a different game in which Skids O'Toole, the ex-convict, only killed one person in the entire game. It was a 'child of the goat' a paltry human, scantily clad and nubile. By taking her trophy we watched the story unfold of him using the Shotgun to rather embarrassingly overkill the poor wretch with an unexpectedly devastating role, before stuffing her into the boot of the Sedanette, and proceeding to drive around with her body in the boot for the rest of the game, him being otherwise unable to 'cash in' her shot-ridden corpse).
   The game rumbled on. We pounced on monsters as they turned up and we closed gates. Other powerplays that proved invaluable came in the intricate timings of arriving back from gates, sealing and banishing, with the Dreamer and Astronomer working as some kind of inter-dimensional double-act, with unrelenting use of the spells 'find gate' and 'control gate' in combination with Norman Withers special ability to select the dimensional symbol of monsters to vanquish when he closes gates.
   Find Gate - the spell that Norman starts with - is invaluable at speeding up the whole Other World process, which can sometimes leave an individual player seemingly burdened with what can be a very limiting task. (This point can be made to argue the case for playing with double Investigators, because sometimes, it just becomes your duty to be a Gate-Gopher, while everyone else is cavorting with Dholes, dealing with the Black Man or simply enjoying a delicious cannibal dinner at the old Witch House. This spell, Find Gate, is made even more potent when, by fluke, you start the game with two of them among your gate closers. 
   Control Gate enabled us to keep switching out gates for those that carried the dimensional symbol of whichever monsters were not being vanquished by Norman, on behalf of the Dreamer whose Gate Box allows him to return via any gate. While of equal use were the times when by switching out the gate through which Norman had entered an Other World, for one of the Lurker's 'split gates' enabled him to select two different monster dimensional symbols on his return and subsequent closing of the gate. We had a monster limit of 11, but given the dearth of gates, rarely had more than 4 monsters on the board. Even with an Outskirts limit of '0', the terror track never got a look in. (A quick check of one of the photos from the end of the game clearly shows the terror marker still on 0. One might even say that the people of Arkham never even new what was going on. Except maybe for poor old cultist-Bernard's now grief stricken family.)
   But the stats for this game became seriously weird: At NO POINT in this entire game were there more than 2 tokens on the doom track. 
   When we finally won, after almost 8hrs game play, it was Norman Withers (UB) sealing for the win, closing his 3rd gate, to complete his personal story, playing the last Elder Sign in the game, and removing the ONLY doom token left on the doom track. We won not only by having sufficient Elder Seals on the board, but also by restoring the Doom Track to 0 (!!!).
   It was a truly epic win, and one we had never thought actually possible to do, let alone ever play. But, throughout the game we checked back again and again to make sure there was not some stupidly obvious, or even dastardly cunning game mechanic we had overlooked but it seems there was not (except those few highlighted in this blog, but they might have not altered the game overly).

The 8 Investigators gather around the Ancient One. Before them a pile of discarded allies will soon be joined with every last clue and item spent in overcoming Quachil Uttaus.

DEFEATING THE ANCIENT ONE
We knew we did not have long. The game had developed so slowly because we had 'been all over it' from the start, that despite having won the game through seals, and by removing all of the doom tokens from the doom track, we found our investigators still ultimately under-powered for the final fight, particularly with all of our weapons and allies being ineffective. We elected to hit the Ancient One hard and fast. Given that the Arkham side of the game had finished and been won by Norman Withers placing the final seal and completing his personal story, he claimed his boon - rolling a D6 and scoring 5-6-6 -removing three doom tokens for a total of 24 hits. By anyones standing that is a seriously huge first blow. Then the battle began in earnest. The first epic battle card and Investigators attacked first. Having had the opportunity to choose the first player (see House Rules blog) Jim started the battle, knowing full well, as did ALL the other players, that we would only get one hit in before our killing blow came to smite that beast from beyond the stars. Jim was followed by Patrice, holding her clue bank at bay and using only her dark pact power tokens. Then came Diana, then Gloria, moving to Jacqueline and Norman. These latter two played by me (UB), both 'heavy hitters' in the Arkham phase of the game, were making combat checks of two or three dice. A travesty of a pittance... which only served to lull that diabolical fiend into a false sense of security, as one by one, each of these upstanding, and above all, responsible adults stepped aside to unleash our ultimate weapon: a small child. The killing blow would be down to the urchin, little Wendy Adams, where her modest stack of clues, her Blessing, Grapple skill, Fight+1, (... ? ...). And no, the Dreamer never even got a chance. 

Wendy and Patrice take a moment to sit upon the clue pile with which the Violinist is about to empower the Urchin, as she utterly dominates the Ancient One

The eventual skills and abilities and blessing of Little Miss Sneaky had granted a success to her combat check on 3-6. Her fight+1 had meant that every clue she spent on her fight base would add two dice. Thanks to the clue-strategy of Patrice, our dishevilled Urchin managed to rack up an impressive 51 hits on the Ancient One amply destroying in a single sweep the last doom tokens. 
   We had won the follow up after our rather epic victory in Arkham, and were left with the following observations.
   1) The Ancient One is certainly very scary and forces you to play a different strategy rather than stocking up on various fire-power. Not that we weren't dripping with items by that stage.
   2) if we had not had several strokes of uncannily good fortune the game might have been unimaginably harder.
   3) Our initial plan worked, and still seems like the only viable option.

Our win was ultimately because of the following conditions:
   1) Exceptionally lucky draws on the starting items.
   2) Really rigorous strategising
   3) Absolute team-play with specific roles within the group, altruistic behaviour and constantly redistributing items via the urchin who was our carcosian page carrying, high speed stealthy item bank. 
   4) Patrice Hathaway. Its almost impossible to lose a game with this investigator playing for the team.