2nd Scenario Completed!

Since I have so much to do these days, I've already taken MJ and the Ascetics (Monterey, Sister Mary [no house rule], Amanda Sharpe, and Ashcan) out for a spin in the new scenario.

It was awful.

Nyarlathotep's doom track rose to 9. The terror track rose to 6. I spent most of the game with 5 or 6 gates open on the board, 4 or 5 monsters on the board, and the outskirts nearly full. We faced and passed three rumors, ended up with a whopping score of 16, and Monterey Jack elevated uselessness to a profound, new level.

A brief summary of Monterey's game: Find an elder sign; fail to trade it; go crazy; search for more money; Find an elder sign; fail to trade it; go crazy, lose an elder sign, etc.

In the end, I found that it was more useful to have Monterey draw the elder sign, not purchase it, and have Ashcan come scrounge it up. Of course, that required Ashcan to have money. Luckily, he and Amanda "I can lose two retainers on the first roll in one game" Sharpe had will enough to make the trades.

On a positive note, Sister Mary may have found reason, since she ended the game with two Lucky Cigarette Cases and a Whiskey. I took that to mean God was not enough during this trial, and she had lost her faith. Hallelujah!

And on a final superbly horrible note, I also realized after my game that I had not subtracted any sanity for the two maniacs I drew (and killed), meaning my score wasn't even official.

So I get to do this again tomorrow, and it will be worse.

Solid.

I'm soooo looking forward to the next report

We also played the 2nd scenario last night and can attest to how wicked the experience was; at least in contrast to the 'The Tide of Serpents'.

The Arkham Avengers: Mandy Thompson, Bob Jenkins, Wilson Richards, and Darrell Simmons started off with very weak items as everybody had things like tomes and motorcycles instead of good weapons. We figured this was not a good start for a scenario so monster oriented.

We were quickly in trouble. We read our tomes right away before we lost them but still were without much fighting prowess. Thankfully Wilson Richards comes with his own shotgun and Mandy snagged an enchanted knife from the get-go.

However, sanity consistently bled away in buckets and Simmons and Richards couldn't get through an Other World to use their elder signs. Simmons, Jenkins, and Richards seemed to spend most of the game at the Arkham Asylum as later on in the game they had no money (Simmons lost his retainer very early) and couldn't max up in one turn.

The other bit of good fortune we did have was we found 3 elders signs throughout the game. Things looked particularly grim as we also failed two rumors: The Southside Strangler Strikes and the Great Ritual. A quick summary of the rhythm of our game was characters quickly lost their sanities and basically ended up with only one item, no money, and difficulty in holding on to clues. Meanwhile the outskirts filled up like an ice cube tray and the terror level was at 6.

There were many monster surges but after we used our elder signs on several hot spots Nyar's doom track was only at 4 or 5. We were much more worried about the terror track; a nice change of pace actually. Ever resourceful Mandy was able to use sneak and focus to scrape together clues and she sealed two on clues while the other three sealed one each per investigator and Arkham seemed to settle down a bit. I guess no more "spoilers" on how we did it but we ended up closing all of the gates with 5 unspent gates in front of us.

Our final score was a robust 17

We played about 26 turns in total I think and it took about 3.5 hours.

We really like the scenario and how it affected the investigators and the overall play of the game. I wonder, though, if it added a great deal of time to the game. We will certainly play this scenario again, hopefully tomorrow, but I would like to see it clock in around 2 to 2.5 hours instead of 3.5.

These stories make me eager to battle :') now is lunch time, but afterwards, I shall make an Elder God my lunch!

Heh... But I am glad I read them ;') they made me reconsider a part of my strategy (I'd thought a bit about changed game dynamics last night).

::laughter:: thinking back on it, I'm really glad I left Leo Anderson on my team, oh wait, no I didn't ;'D whoops.

Twitch. Twitch. Twitch twitch twitch.

:'\ Hmmm.... ::laughter:: this is considerably harder than I thought ;'D (six out of my eight investigators went insane last turn, two of which were in other worlds). Seriously. What're the odds of drawing THREE insanity loss in one gate surge ;.( And I've been rolling as if I had cursed dice (i.e. less than 1/6th of my rolls have been successes, the entire game). ::sigh:: It's not over yet, but it may be in a few turns.

Probably will be :'\ I'm annoyed. Usually at this point in a game I would forfeit, but it looks like I'll need to play another couple turns just so I have the game to report. [Oh wait, apparently reporting a loss is optional].

::laughter:: I forgot to mention that in this game. My first monster draw was God of the bloody tongue. The next two (which came out on the second turn with one of the release two monsters into the streets cards) were cultists ;'D ::insane laughter::

Oh yes, and it was on Unvisited Isle (where a gate opened on the first turn), you know, the place where I had planned to get the ally that would let me capture endless monsters ;'D

::hangs self::

Blarg. I could possibly win this game. With a terror track at 10 :'\ No thanks. Time for a do over.

Three high frequency gates sealed, two medium frequency gates open (with a character sitting on one), just got Legrasse with my strongest character ;') things will be going my way this game.

edit: heh heh heh... Five gates sealed, one character with 26 monster trophies. Yeah, I think this is under control. Vengeance is MINE Nyarlhotep!

Done :'D Final score, 46. I would've gotten higher, but unfortunately I failed all my south church rolls this game :'\ Seriously. (Heh... Actually I had one success on my ninth roll there). And who was the conquering hero you wonder? Heroine actually. Daisy, with 6 gates and... Drumroll please... 38 monster trophies (these kills were obtained without a blessing btw, just in case you were wondering). Beware the wrath of the Librarian! Hear that, monsters? Return your overdue books (Nyarlhotep got his library card revoked)!

Since you had such high amounts of monster trophies, were you able to catch that ally that allows you to ignore endless, or were you just getting lucky with your monster draws near the end (since if you didn't get rid of the endless monsters and killing so many others, your chances of drawing cultists and masks is increased). I'll be trying the scenario next week, and I was thinking that an ally purchase might be a good idea - 1 point trade in for the abillity to keep the masks and cultists is easily brought back in through the slaying of these aforementioned minions/faces of the outer ones.

Heh... Let me just say there's a reason Daisy had so many monster kills that game. Not that she normally doesn't when I play her, but she had 15 more this game than last game ;')

I had the best combat draw in the world, both Enchanted knives, both enchanted blades, both Fightskills & 1 Marksman, Kane with Prof Armitage, Mandy getting and keeping Sir William turn 1, some other weapons including a tommy gun purchased turn 2...

...but Nyarlathotep woke up on turn 4 and ate everyone. GG

Heh... If you had such good cards, how come you let your gates gate out of control? (This isn't meant to be accusatory, I'm just asking).

because I don't usually walk into a gate on the first turn and bad play or not I had a gate open on me during a Witch House encounter. I was greedy and going for clues fast so I could seal a few gates very quickly. One investiator in the second area of an other world had a gate box and an item that would get him enough clues to seal a "10-spot" and a second investigator in the second area of another world (both already surviving their OW encounters) with 5 clues to seal a 6-spot. In other words, if the gate hadn't opened in the encounter things would have been b-e-a-utiful. A gate opened and Jackie tried to stop it but the next Mythos card opened up the gate on the same place. Too bad.

That's why I don't visit locations that have open gate encounters unless I'm desperate ;') or if I'm sending a character who will then have enough clues to seal the gate (if a gate opens on him). But yeah. Heh. That sucks. I remember the last time that happened to me, I was pissed ;'D

wow just finished and we got 18 points!

I have to admit the first time around we only got 10, but we felt we could do better. It was only because we got the Stars Are Right (I think) rumour and he woke up really early. Also, getting given a healing stone in an encounter was excellent luck.

Bring on the next one!

Half of team PACT played last night (Darrell Simmons, Michael McGlen, Sister Mary, and Luke Robinson), and it was a bit of a painful experience. Nylarthotep woke up, devoured Michael instantly, and ate Luke a couple rounds later. Sister Mary couldn't manage to hit the beast with her one die roll per attack, so it took a few rounds for Darrell (armed with a .38 revolver and a cavalary saber) to take the monster down.

Before Naryly woke up it was just chaos. Our first monster on the pre-game draw was a Cultist, and it was all down hill from there. Michael went insane early, and Darrell followed suit a few rounds later when our third Cultist and first Maniac were drawn. We never saw any Mask monsters, but we aren't crying for that. It seemed like we had bad random equipment draws (except for Michael, who started with a Sword of Glory that he then lost when he went insane) and horrible luck with die rolls and encounters from there. Our terror level finished at 3 since we seemed to have at least three gates open at any time and numerous monster surges.

Edited to add: We ended with 18 points, having few monster trophies and used one Elder Sign.

Still, it was fun in ways that AH always is! I want to retry this one, since I know it can happen better, dammit.

Side note: Waking up at 1am to hear something running/skittering across the roof is really not a comforting thing after such a game.

Better a skittering over your head than a skittering under your bed

Btw, I was just reviewing the later games. So what do you guys think the KiY scenarios will be like? Yes Herald or no Herald? Hmm... I wonder how they'll ramp up the difficulty on them ;') regardless, I have Charlie on my team, so I'm not too worried.

yes herald, with hastur (for the second scenario)

My only complaint is that the scenarios don't modify the base game more drastically. More Heralds/Guardians. More selection of expansion items. How bout replacing the Unique deck with the exhibit item deck? Crazy stuff like that would be awesome. All in all scenarios are great fun though and this summer league has really got my green ichor a'brewin.

Eh... I thought the second scenario was a pretty drastic change. I only wish Legrasse was removed from the game. Now *that* would've been a terrifying game ;'D

I thought the whole sanity loss when one of those monsters comes out is a nightmare to deal with.

Ironically, the sanity loss is actually easier to deal with the less investigators you have (which makes the scenario easier), because you don't have to worry about 4-8 monsters popping out of a gate surge ;') Heh... Once again, playing eight characters has made Arkham harder (in a way).

I didn't even bother trying to get Allies, the rolling -3 Will Checks to keep them was too much of a risky waste of time.

I did see another way to handle the endless in the end game without Legrasse. There is a Graveyard encounter that lets you draw a monster trophy even if it has endless (there is also a OW encounter that lets you claim one). Darrel wasn't part of my team, but he could abuse that once the monster cup was getting low.

Yeah :') I know about the graveyard encounter, but it's muuuuch easier to just get Legrasse.

didn't bother with allies, just go for the gates on this one

::shrug:: if you're just going for a sealing victory then you're probably better off ignoring allies, but if you're going for a high score, you need Legrasse.