We've tried this one 3 times with out 8 investigator team. Lost every time. We don't even try to fight the AOs unless we ave enough Magic Weapons (which means never). The last time we got  together we played 2 games back to back. The first game we had investigators delayed in the OW, LiT&S and failing a close gate check. It lasted four turns/5th Mythos card. Took less than 30 minutes. The replay was almost going better --we had sealed two gates, had 7 trophies between us, but the Terror Level hit 10, we got a Rumor that auto-failed (involved the loss of an Ally each turn), and monsters had overrun the town. I took the initiative to tackle the 5 toughness Dark Druid, but we were getting beat down left and right, again failed a close gate check, and suddenly BAM 5 open gates and battle with the Dark Duo (we fed ourselves to the things). Ugly. The only bright spot was when Marie Lambeau sacrificed herself to a card to remove a doom token from a track and we brought in Bob Jenkins -- sadly much to late in the game for it to truly matter, though.

Somehow, all the magic weapons were with one guy, who had a blessing. He lost all of them when Ithaqua awoke.

I've played it 6 times now. The Great Ritual keeps screwing with me. I passed it just by the skin of my teeth, getting enough clues to lay down a ton of seals.

But we didn't. The 12th doom token was placed with seal 5 and 6 on the way, close to a victory by closed gates. Too many turns where the monsters were equal and the doom tokens were doubled.

I hate that my principal strategy is "be lucky." I'm still doing the thing where I maximize my Elder Sign chances with the starting players. No luck last two times.

Ugh.

Won on out thrid attempt yesterday,  through we almost didn't realize, because we didn;t count on winning with fighting a GOO.

We sealed Unamble and the Witchhouse (one with tokens the other with an Elder Sign), and 9 Doom Tokens, we had one only one gate open thanks to the fact that gates tried to open in those two location for three-four turns. So we manmaged to close al the gate and win without fighting.   

Fourth attempt today, but still at zero points. We'd have got over 30 with just a little more luck in the final round: Three gates sealed, two gates open with two investigators each attempting to close at the same time. That's when our luck ran out...

We'll probably skip Sc5 for now and go on with Sc6 and try it again in a few weeks time.

Finally got it. Four seals down and a win-by-close with one more doom token left. I withheld on paying 5 when closing the winning gate so that we can carry the clues over next scenario (if they appear anywhere that is).

At one point Wilson was offered a Unique Item of his choice in exchange for 3 sanity and a curse. Elder Sign, hands down. And we wouldn't have won without it.

21 points and 8 clues in posession of the investigators, by the way.

I have played this Chapter twice now with the same 3 characters: Wilson Richards, Dexter Drake and Vincent Lee.

In Both game Ithaqua has awoken. In the first all Investigators defeated without so much as the roll of a die - no magical weopons amongst them and highest fight value was a 4.

In second game managed to remove 5 tokens from Ithaqua's doom track before falling victim.  Used 'Enchant weapon' to enchant the shotgun. even though I only had 2 die to roll I managed to roll a few  6's.  The blessing also helped.

In game 2 I managed to get 6 gates closed but only one sealed. I may have managed to close all the gates if it weren't for a few bad trips to the OW.

The worst part was having to place 2 doom tokens when there were only 2 monsters on the board equal numbers.

This one is certainly a challenge. May need to look at the investigator mix again. 

Finally!

In attempt number eight (in total) and three (for today) and after crueling hours, we've finally done number five. In the end it was a case of having unbelievable luck almost throughout the game. Through a combination of just the right mythos cards, ancient journals, the rumour that gives everyone clues when passed, even a Yellow Sign tome and an Elder Sign (bought in the Uptown auction - thumbs up to the rich people for holding a big street sale while icy winds are blowing!) we managed to win a sealing victory.

Highlights of the game (apart from the ones already mentioned):

• One character holding eight corruption cards, while the "Endless Breeding" rumour is in effect. That's what I call a situation rapidly spinning out of control! It's just one little corruption at first, but then...
• Using the Milk to draw three cultists, two Dark Young, a Dhole and a Flying Polyp into the Train Station. I'd love to see the face of the station manager...
• Cultists having toughness 6 due to the Great Ritual. I wonder what the cultists look like at that time? They can take twice as much pain as a regular Dhole or Star Spawn. If they are still human, you could probably roll over them in a tank a few times and they'd come out unscratched. Another idea: if your fight is zero, you cannot kill them with a rilfe, no matter how good you aim. That's what I call resilient (for a human, anyway!)...

Still can't quite believe it but so glad we've finally put that absolute torture behind us and can move on to Dunwich!