Ancient Ones fighting dirty

[Solan 14]

Today we had an excellent team consisting of Agnes Baker, Roland Banks, Ashcan Pete and Bob Jenkins.  We also started with the Old Journal, an Elder Sign, and the King in Yellow was at the bottom of the Unique Item deck, plus Agnes had True Magic.  It was a good situation, and Rhan apparently agreed since his first move of the game was to open a gate at Y'ha-nthlei and wipe every clue token off the board.

He followed this up by surging a couple turns later and dumping two monsters through the Y'ha-Nthlei vortex.  When Bob arrived at Devil Reef another surge brought the Spectral Hunter out to guard the Y'ha-Nthlei gate!  Bob used his "sacrifice two Clue tokens to pass a Sneak check" to get by it.  By the time he returned and sealed the gate, however, a Color had joined the Spectral Hunter there.  The very next Mythos phase a gate opened at Devil Reef and the infamous Star Vampire emerged and scuttled straight down to Y'ha-Nthlei!  Bob spent six Clue tokens escaping this group (he was able to do this because he had not only passed his Personal Story, but had gained six Clue tokens from a City of the Great Race-only encounter).  

Rhan drained two Cultists during the course of the game, but Bob used his Elder Sign and completed the Sacrifices to Make Mission to removed those two Doom tokens.  A Rift added the tenth Doom token and would have added the eleventh, if Roland hadn't used a spectacular Other World encounter to seal the Rift-from the other side!  Rhan's final card to play was "No One Can Help You Now" on the turn Roland and Anges emerged ready to seal the sixth and seventh gates.  I thought we were finished, but remarkably we were able to get a new Environment one turn before Rhan would have gotten his last doom token.  So it was a skin of our teeth victory, but there was no doubt that Rhan-Tegoth was fighting  hard and dirty this game-which only made our victory all the sweeter .

Such behavior is hardly unusual on the part of our AO's.  Anyone else have some good stories of especially nasty tricks the game has played on you?      

[Tibs 183]

None I can think of, but I'm glad you slapped around Rhan. He's already unfair and unfun. Glaaki and Atlach used to be my nemeses because they were hard but FUN. Now, Rhan is my personal nemesis, because he's so unfun.

[MyNeighbourTrololo 689]

Well, It wasn't that tense actually, and I don't remember the details.

All I can remember - it was our second fight against the Cthulhu(first time we lost), and we were 1 doom token short from his awakening. There were 3 players, I was a Norman Withers, the second one was Roland banks, and the third one I can't remember of.

It was pretty tense, and I thought we're going to lose again, but near the end I got this Arcane Insight spell. What I did is camped at the Asylum, getting free sanity treatment and casting Arcane Insight every turn, sorting mythos deck that way so the next card will cause surge or elder sign block instead of gate opening. I held it long enough, and the last one was Nodens Blessing(or something) environment card, that allowed gate sealing for 3 clues, which brought us immediate sealing vicotory. But, holy crap, that was close. 

[Solan 14]

Tibs said:

None I can think of, but I'm glad you slapped around Rhan. He's already unfair and unfun. Glaaki and Atlach used to be my nemeses because they were hard but FUN. Now, Rhan is my personal nemesis, because he's so unfun.

It interests me that you should say that, since I personally find Rhan-Tegoth to be fun and very challenging.  The tension  and suspense in monster draws (what JGT refers to as "the Ghatanathoa effect") is nice and I think he fights in a very cool way.  Best of all, unlike many of the AO's, he CAN be killed in final combat (Granted, we've only done it once, but still!). 

The AO I find to be just stupidly hard and unfun is Yibb-Tstll.  Requiring two successes to pass an Evade check AND each Investigator only being able to have five Clues at a time?  One or the the other is fine, but both are ridiculous!  And I can deal with automatically losing all Clues before the final battle, but his negative combat modifer is the numbe of Clues left on the the board AND it costs double the normal number of successes to remove a Doom token?!?  Again, pick one, not both!  

In terms of sheer number of losses it should actually be Zhar I hate, since we've only beaten him twice and he's just as impossible to defeat in final combat as Yibb-Tstall.  On the other hand Zhar doesn't have a ridculous number of powers and he also boasts "the Ghatanathoa effect" in his rolling two dice every time a new gate opens and drawing another Mythos card to resolve on doubles.  Funnily enough we faced Zhar in the game before Rhan-Tegoth, but whereas we won by one Mythos card agaisnt Rhan-Tegoth, we lost by one Mythos card against Zhar.   

[Tbla2 0]

Well my girlfriend has some grudges against "No one can help you now", she keeps asking me to tear it apart. Some times I almost listen to her.

I remember one time, it appeared one turn before we were to seal our sixth gate and it remained in play for eight turns (we lost that one).

Otherwise the game always knows how to cause the biggest amount of trouble with the least amount of effort by doing something seemingly insignificant in just the wrong moment.

[Saldre 44]

I just have to comment to that last one because it was actually very funny- Just yesterday, were playing a game using mainly the King In Yellow expansion with the base game (as Mythos Cards) alongside Y'golon*c, but because I like cards, we kept all of the encounter cards from the other expansions. 

So, one player heads off into Another World and gets a Dream Location from the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh- Nephren-Ka himself finds him wanting and judges his life on the scales of Toth… Luckily, the player passes the encounter and draws an Exhibit Item- Lo and Behold: he draws the scales themselves!

Much, much later in the game- with four gates sealed but completely out of clue tokens and only a single Doom Token away from being mauled apart by the big man, That same player heads off to pick up one of the few clue tokens left on the map at the (safe and sealed)  Unnamable… 

As expected, and because it was THAT particular player… He runs into the most unexpected person… in the entire world…. Doctor Ali Kafour, who decides to Join us because my friend, yes, had an exhibit item.

Kafour's Ability was, of course, to hand over the first tome from the Unique Item Deck… If it would have been the Revelations of Glaaki, then that would have been perfect! But it was just the Livre D'Ivon, which was more then enough to tip fill up the Ancient One's track and trigger the final fight- and an unfortunate defeat!  

Ridiculous that the game wasn't even about the Exhibit Item- but IT ended up being the thing that screwed over! Dozens (and I mean DOZENS) of turns after receiving it  

[MyNeighbourTrololo 689]

We beat Yib-Tstll in final battle recently(sealed her, but decided to final battle her anyway). Just get good gear and make sure no clues stays on the board when she awakenes. 

[Solan 14]

Saldre said:

I just have to comment to that last one because it was actually very funny- Just yesterday, were playing a game using mainly the King In Yellow expansion with the base game (as Mythos Cards) alongside Y'golon*c, but because I like cards, we kept all of the encounter cards from the other expansions. 

So, one player heads off into Another World and gets a Dream Location from the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh- Nephren-Ka himself finds him wanting and judges his life on the scales of Toth… Luckily, the player passes the encounter and draws an Exhibit Item- Lo and Behold: he draws the scales themselves!

Much, much later in the game- with four gates sealed but completely out of clue tokens and only a single Doom Token away from being mauled apart by the big man, That same player heads off to pick up one of the few clue tokens left on the map at the (safe and sealed)  Unnamable… 

As expected, and because it was THAT particular player… He runs into the most unexpected person… in the entire world…. Doctor Ali Kafour, who decides to Join us because my friend, yes, had an exhibit item.

Kafour's Ability was, of course, to hand over the first tome from the Unique Item Deck… If it would have been the Revelations of Glaaki, then that would have been perfect! But it was just the Livre D'Ivon, which was more then enough to tip fill up the Ancient One's track and trigger the final fight- and an unfortunate defeat!  

Ridiculous that the game wasn't even about the Exhibit Item- but IT ended up being the thing that screwed over! Dozens (and I mean DOZENS) of turns after receiving it  

Thank you for sharing that tale!  It's a wonderfully thematic account, since Nyaralathotep among all the AO's is famous for his delight in manipulating and toying with humanity.  The Great Meddler giving you the gift of those Scales, only for that gift to ultimately trigger your defeat in a completely unexpected way is almost too good to be true!  Storywise I mean, not for you, obviously.

Trololo, did you use the Epic Battle cards in your fight with Yibb-Tstll?

[MyNeighbourTrololo 689]

Yes, I did.

Battle started with 4 people.

I was the only one remaining in the end. 

[Tibs 183]

Yeah I've managed to kill her in battle once… but you pretty much do need to make sure there are no clues left. Also, we got really lucky with the focus rolls.

Jaws dropped that day.

[JBouthietteJr 42]

 Two nights ago against Yig. Everyone's scrambling to get Blessings since he has seven or eight doom tokens.

Team of investigators collectively decides Blights are better than doom token-adding for Yellow Signs.

Father Michaels is drawn.

We ended up winning by closing all gates, but man, I'm reconsidering Blights now.
 

[Solan 14]

Thanks for reviving this thread, JBouthietteJr, as I have a particularly cruel trick that Nyogtha played yesterday to add. 

Ursula Downs was First player, and she started off with an Elephant Gun and an Elder Sign!  Due to her lack of money I had her start at the Newspaper with Rex Murphy, in the hope that she could get a Retainer to pay for her ammo.  The first Mythos card drawn was Siren Call and just like that Ursula was a Deep One.  No Elephant Gun, no Elder Sign, and poor Rex having to deal with a monster while Cursed.  We still ended up pulling it out, and by a surprising margin, but that has to be one of the worst starts I've ever had to an Arkham game. 

[Tbla2 0]

Solan said:

Thanks for reviving this thread, JBouthietteJr, as I have a particularly cruel trick that Nyogtha played yesterday to add. 

Ursula Downs was First player, and she started off with an Elephant Gun and an Elder Sign!  Due to her lack of money I had her start at the Newspaper with Rex Murphy, in the hope that she could get a Retainer to pay for her ammo.  The first Mythos card drawn was Siren Call and just like that Ursula was a Deep One.  No Elephant Gun, no Elder Sign, and poor Rex having to deal with a monster while Cursed.  We still ended up pulling it out, and by a surprising margin, but that has to be one of the worst starts I've ever had to an Arkham game. 

Oh that's harsh!

The worst start I've ever had was to get "a gate and a monster appears" on the first two encounters. Lost that one.

[arkhamresident 1]

Second turn loss due to the Deep Ones Rising track filling after a few monster surges.  I really wish whoever invented that mechanic had thought of a different penalty.

[Tox 47]

arkhamresident said:

Second turn loss due to the Deep Ones Rising track filling after a few monster surges.  I really wish whoever invented that mechanic had thought of a different penalty.

 

Monster surges? Because the monsters went through the vortexes? Did it surge at Devil's Reef and were you using Dagon or Hydra?

[florrat 0]

 I've also had a game where the Ancient One awakened at turn 2. It was an eight player game and in turn 2 there were 2 investigators with the encounter "A gate and a monster appears". He awakened during the third mythos phase (in turn 2) when there were 5 gates open (during each mythos phase there was also a gate opening).