Ark-Con 2010
Yesterday we all got together to play lots and lots of Arkham Horror. This whole thing started rather small as I was trying to fill in the eight potential slots for a game or two. Then suddenly I heard about the new expansion that was supposed to come out in May (but didn't until about a week ago) about the same time I had more than eight friends asking to play with me.
I really think I want to make this a usual occurrence; either annually or semi-annually. Stevo and I kept joking about it being "Arkham-Con" or "Ark-Con" and I really liked that one. Next time we should make hats or shirts. I think I could make things smoother if we do this again, but that said everything really went quite well considering my lack of attention to detail. So yeah, no complaints here.
So there were two teams playing simultaneously. My team ran against Quachil Uttaus, which was new for me.
Quachil Uttaus
Combat rating: -3
Defenses: Physical Immunity, Magical Immunity
Worshippers: Quachil Uttaus is worshipped by wizards who call upon him for immortality. Warlocks gain +2 toughness and Endless. Investigators do not collect clue tokens from defeating a Warlock unless they can ignore the Endless ability.
Power: Footprints in the Dust - While Quachil Uttaus stirs in his slumber, shuffle the three dust decks at the start of the game and place them facedown on this sheet.
At the start of each turn, the first player must either spend 2 clue tokens or draw a card from the lowest-numbered dust deck that still has undrawn cards in it.
Start of Battle: All Allies are returned to the box.
Attack: Quachil Uttaus touches the first player, who ages to dust and blows away in the wind. The first player is devoured.
Doom Track: 12
Investigators:
Rex Murphy - Reporter
Hank Samson - Farmhand
Leo Anderson - Expedition Leader
Norman Withers - Astronomer
Daisy Walker - Librarian
Akachi Onyele - Shaman
Kate Winthrop Scientist
This game we should have won. Yes, I'm telling you right off the bat that we lost this game. That's ok though because I rarely lose games, and it is nice to be reminded that sometimes the odds are completely against you.
We had Norman who comes with a Find Gate spell and that means he can get out of gates twice as fast as normal mortals. We also drew the other two Find Gate spells, but we could only pocket one of them. Rex drew an Elder Sign and so things should have been going well.
What went wrong? Too many gates opened up, too many strong monsters were guarding those gates, and our gate jumpers kept running into some serious bad luck. With 7 investigators you can only have five gates, and that sucks balls!
Rex drew the death knell when his Arkham Encounter made a new gate appear and that hit our limit. So the group went into combat against our Great Old One. What does his attack do again? Scroll back up. That motherfucker drops the first player dead upon touching him, and then passes the first player around. Combat against such lethal odds, especially a GOO that is both physically and magically immune, seemed insurmountable. So the few survivors promptly slit their throats and let the world fall the ruin . . . these things happen.
The second team had much better luck against Yog-Sothoth. These did loose one investigator, but the team still won out the day. Jim Culver the Musician gets a special mention for passing his story, which allowed him to collect a metric-ass-ton of monsters that made him deputy.
The second game we faced against the one and only Cthulhu. Let's review him, shall we?
GOO: Cthulhu
Combat rating: -6
Defenses: Special (See Attack)
Worshippers: Cthulhu's worshippers often have the Innsmouth Look, a sign of monstrous ancestors. Cultists have a horror rating of -2 and a horror damage of 2 Sanity.
Power: Dreams of Madness - While Cthulhu stirs in his slumber, investigators have their maximum Sanity and maximum Stamina reduced by 1.
Attack: Each investigator lowers either his maximum Sanity or Maximum Stamina by 1 (his choice). After Cthulhu attacks 1 doom token is placed back on Cthulhu's doom track if it isn't already full.
Doom Track: 13
This game was a giant cluster-fuck, and it was quite possibly the quickest game I've ever played. The very first Mythos card we drew made two gate, but no doom tokens, appear on the board. So we instantly had two gates out of five with four monsters roaming around. With another gate appearing on an Arkham Encounter and two more during two more rounds of Mythos, and we were suddenly faced with fighting gorram Cthulhu!
This battle was fruitless, useless and just bothersome. My first thought was that Cthulhu doesn't really kill anyone fast, and therefore we stood a good chance. However, you will note that during Cthulhu's attack he regains 1 doom token if he is not already full. Balls! We weren't hitting him nearly as hard as we needed to, and he just kept coming back with the same fury as he did the last round. So yeah, we lost that one too.
We did end up playing a third game that we did win, but the group was pretty pooped at the point of victory, and many of us were touching on our pumpkin times. At that point victory ust wasn't as sweet as our investigators were becoming very tired.
Thoughts:
Well, I have been complaining that the game of Arkham Horror has been getting too easy, and the new expansion I got suddenly made it hard once again. I made the comment to Dawn, later that night, that I've realized with all the expansions I have many of the new elements get watered down. Hence when Matt became corrupted, and a very mild corruption at that, we didn't think much of that. However, with the new expansion replacing the gates (thus making the game ever harder) as well as some other nasty effects, any Lurker card like this one was automatically potent enough to ratchet up the difficulty ever more.
I think if we do this again, I'd like it to be a multi-day thing over the weekend. There can be a number of ways to do that, but I think that will give us the flexibility to do more, play more, and even have some nice relaxing social time between the episodes of doom.
Until next time . . . .
I really think I want to make this a usual occurrence; either annually or semi-annually. Stevo and I kept joking about it being "Arkham-Con" or "Ark-Con" and I really liked that one. Next time we should make hats or shirts. I think I could make things smoother if we do this again, but that said everything really went quite well considering my lack of attention to detail. So yeah, no complaints here.
So there were two teams playing simultaneously. My team ran against Quachil Uttaus, which was new for me.
Quachil Uttaus
Combat rating: -3
Defenses: Physical Immunity, Magical Immunity
Worshippers: Quachil Uttaus is worshipped by wizards who call upon him for immortality. Warlocks gain +2 toughness and Endless. Investigators do not collect clue tokens from defeating a Warlock unless they can ignore the Endless ability.
Power: Footprints in the Dust - While Quachil Uttaus stirs in his slumber, shuffle the three dust decks at the start of the game and place them facedown on this sheet.
At the start of each turn, the first player must either spend 2 clue tokens or draw a card from the lowest-numbered dust deck that still has undrawn cards in it.
Start of Battle: All Allies are returned to the box.
Attack: Quachil Uttaus touches the first player, who ages to dust and blows away in the wind. The first player is devoured.
Doom Track: 12
Investigators:
Rex Murphy - Reporter
Hank Samson - Farmhand
Leo Anderson - Expedition Leader
Norman Withers - Astronomer
Daisy Walker - Librarian
Akachi Onyele - Shaman
Kate Winthrop Scientist
This game we should have won. Yes, I'm telling you right off the bat that we lost this game. That's ok though because I rarely lose games, and it is nice to be reminded that sometimes the odds are completely against you.
We had Norman who comes with a Find Gate spell and that means he can get out of gates twice as fast as normal mortals. We also drew the other two Find Gate spells, but we could only pocket one of them. Rex drew an Elder Sign and so things should have been going well.
What went wrong? Too many gates opened up, too many strong monsters were guarding those gates, and our gate jumpers kept running into some serious bad luck. With 7 investigators you can only have five gates, and that sucks balls!
Rex drew the death knell when his Arkham Encounter made a new gate appear and that hit our limit. So the group went into combat against our Great Old One. What does his attack do again? Scroll back up. That motherfucker drops the first player dead upon touching him, and then passes the first player around. Combat against such lethal odds, especially a GOO that is both physically and magically immune, seemed insurmountable. So the few survivors promptly slit their throats and let the world fall the ruin . . . these things happen.
The second team had much better luck against Yog-Sothoth. These did loose one investigator, but the team still won out the day. Jim Culver the Musician gets a special mention for passing his story, which allowed him to collect a metric-ass-ton of monsters that made him deputy.
The second game we faced against the one and only Cthulhu. Let's review him, shall we?
GOO: Cthulhu
Combat rating: -6
Defenses: Special (See Attack)
Worshippers: Cthulhu's worshippers often have the Innsmouth Look, a sign of monstrous ancestors. Cultists have a horror rating of -2 and a horror damage of 2 Sanity.
Power: Dreams of Madness - While Cthulhu stirs in his slumber, investigators have their maximum Sanity and maximum Stamina reduced by 1.
Attack: Each investigator lowers either his maximum Sanity or Maximum Stamina by 1 (his choice). After Cthulhu attacks 1 doom token is placed back on Cthulhu's doom track if it isn't already full.
Doom Track: 13
This game was a giant cluster-fuck, and it was quite possibly the quickest game I've ever played. The very first Mythos card we drew made two gate, but no doom tokens, appear on the board. So we instantly had two gates out of five with four monsters roaming around. With another gate appearing on an Arkham Encounter and two more during two more rounds of Mythos, and we were suddenly faced with fighting gorram Cthulhu!
This battle was fruitless, useless and just bothersome. My first thought was that Cthulhu doesn't really kill anyone fast, and therefore we stood a good chance. However, you will note that during Cthulhu's attack he regains 1 doom token if he is not already full. Balls! We weren't hitting him nearly as hard as we needed to, and he just kept coming back with the same fury as he did the last round. So yeah, we lost that one too.
We did end up playing a third game that we did win, but the group was pretty pooped at the point of victory, and many of us were touching on our pumpkin times. At that point victory ust wasn't as sweet as our investigators were becoming very tired.
Thoughts:
Well, I have been complaining that the game of Arkham Horror has been getting too easy, and the new expansion I got suddenly made it hard once again. I made the comment to Dawn, later that night, that I've realized with all the expansions I have many of the new elements get watered down. Hence when Matt became corrupted, and a very mild corruption at that, we didn't think much of that. However, with the new expansion replacing the gates (thus making the game ever harder) as well as some other nasty effects, any Lurker card like this one was automatically potent enough to ratchet up the difficulty ever more.
I think if we do this again, I'd like it to be a multi-day thing over the weekend. There can be a number of ways to do that, but I think that will give us the flexibility to do more, play more, and even have some nice relaxing social time between the episodes of doom.
Until next time . . . .