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Cameron Kennedy
Canada
Red Deer
Alberta
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Welcome back! I hope everyone had a relaxing holidays. I managed to squeeze in a few games of the Lord of the Rings LCG before a nasty case of Blue Flu put a crimp on my gaming.
Before the break, I posted a game against Glaaki featuring Arkham Horror's favourite broken investigator, Patrice Hathaway. Her powerful abilities can swing a game in favour of just about any team of investigators. Throw in a few top-noth Random Possessions and she becomes an Ancient One's worst nightmare.
However, Hathaway is a truly exceptional investigator. More often than not, players will draw investigators whose abilities are much more in line with the game's power curve. And sometimes, they'll field a team of investigators that is decidedly weaker than the average. What to do then?
My first game against Eihort featured just such a team: Rita Young, Amanda Sharpe, Roland Banks, Jenny Barnes.
While Barnes is a decent investigator, neither Sharpe nor Young are particularly strong. Sharpe's Studious ability is fairly useless after setup unless the team draws into the Cabala of Saboth, finds a way to abuse the Psychic benefit from Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (Revised) expansion or has a lot of spare change to blow on Skills. I tried the latter strategy once. Several turns later, I regretted spending as much as I did on skills that had little affect on the game overall. Sharpe's Fixed Possessions - $1 and 1 Clue token - don't inspire a lot of confidence in her, either.
Young is a fast combat-oriented investigator who has pretty good Fixed and Random Possessions. However, her Resilient ability is hamstrung because I'm not playing with the Injury or Madness decks from the Dunwich Horror expansion during my current series against the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (Revised) expansion.
Finally, there is Roland Banks. Normally, Banks is among my favourite investigators to play because he is so versatile. Unfortunately in this game, he drew The Messenger as his starting Ally. While I appreciate the fact that The Messenger blunts the effect of Eihort's Bargain a fraction, imposing a -1 penalty on all of an investigator's skill checks is a huge price to pay for it.
Despite the team's weaknesses and a few early setbacks, it still managed to pull off a victory over Eihort and keep my winning streak alive. The lesson here is never give up!
A note about the game and my style of play: I play Arkham Horror solo using a module I developed for the Vassal Engine. I play four investigators drawn at random from all of the investigators that Fantasy Flight has released. I prefer to win by sealing or closing the gates, if at all possible. For this game, the gate and location cards, items, allies and monsters were drawn from the base set and the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (Revised edition). The Mythos deck contains the cards from the base game, Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (Revised Edition) and Miskatonic Horror expansions.
The Terrible Old Man (from Leng)
aka Cameron Kennedy (@CameronJKennedy on Twitter)
Ancient One: Eihort
Herald: The Dark Pharaoh
Investigators: Rita Young, Amanda Sharpe, Roland Banks, Jenny Barnes
Victory Conditions: Close the Gates
First Citizen: Rita Young (2 Gate Trophies, 4 Monster Trophies)
Score:
12 Eihort
-2 Terror Level
+0 Elder Sign
+5 Unspent Gate Trophies
+3 Unspent Monster Trophies
+4 Surviving Investigators
22 Final Score
Notable: A sudden, thrilling victory for a team of investigators that didn’t seem to have much going for it at the beginning of the game. The investigators’ random possessions included several movement enhancers (Silver Key, Motorcycle) and a few good weapons (a pair of .45 Automatics and a Shotgun), but little in the way of strong spells. I planned to spread the Eihort tokens around as much as possible to minimize the chance of investigators being devoured.
Most of the investigators met at the Curiositie Shoppe to trade equipment before setting off in search of Clues, which seemed to be scarce throughout the game. However, Sharpe did buy a Gate Box at the Curiositie Shoppe, which enabled her to reach at least two gates that were guarded by dangerous monsters.
Barnes, armed solely with magic, lost all of the Clues she had accumulated when she was ambushed by a Warlock at the Graveyard. There were five gates open on the board before the investigators began to tackle them. Banks and Sharpe sealed gates at the Witch House and the Woods, respectively, while Young knocked off a Cultist and closed the gate at Silver Twilight Lodge. Sharpe was well-positioned to seal another gate in short order. However, she tried to fish a Clue from St. Mary’s Hospital. Instead of gaining a Clue, she had to burn three or four of them to avoid going insane.
Hoping for a little luck, Sharpe and Barnes entered the final two gates, while Banks tried to collect a few Clue tokens and Young cleared away a few monsters. A gate to R’lyeh opened at the Graveyard, which Sharpe reached using the Gate Box and closed with the Blue Watcher of the Pyramid, returning two Star Spawn to the Monster Cup. Barnes closed a gate to Yuggoth at Independence Square, removing a Dhole.
There was one gate left at The Unnamable, which Young had entered earlier that turn. She drew the encounter that allows an investigator to seal a gate by passing a Will (+0) check and being devoured. She easily passed a 6D6 Will (+0) check to seal the gate to Another Dimension. And just like that, the investigators had won.
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Cameron Kennedy
Canada
Red Deer
Alberta
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Fantasy Flight Games has tried hard over the years to ensure all Arkham Horror investigators are created equal, but some are created more equal than others.
And one investigators in particular stands head and shoulders above the select few who were blessed by their designers with abilities that put them slightly ahead of their counterparts on the power curve.
Patrice Hathaway is Arkham Horror’s Hester Prynne, the most alluring of violinists from the Innsmouth Horror expansion who should have a scarlet ‘B’ for broken stamped prominently on her investigator sheet.
I don’t play Hathaway that often because I select my investigators at random. But when I do play her, she runs roughshod over the Ancient One because she breaks one of Arkham Horror’s cardinal rules: no Clue trading.
Normally, investigators may not trade Clues, and for good reason. Clues are the most important resource in the game. They are spent to seal gates, one of the game’s paths to victory; and they are spent to gain extra die rolls during skill checks. The decision whether to spend a Clue token to roll an extra die or save the token in the hope of sealing a gate down the road can be an agonizing one. Sometimes a game hinges on it.
To the best of my knowledge, there is only one card in the game, Gossip Runs Wild! from the Dunwich Horror expansion, that allows investigators to trade Clue tokens, and then only until the end of the turn. The trades are also subject to normal trading rules, that is, the investigators must be in the same location.
Hathaway’s Inspiring ability is better in every conceivable way. While her ability does not permit Clue trading in a technical sense, it does allow other investigators to spend her Clue tokens as if they were their own, even if they are not in the same location or world. As long as Hathaway is in play, every investigator, regardless of which location or Other World they may be in at the time, may spend her Clue tokens to seal gates and roll extra dice to get them out of jams. And they get to do it as many times as they like every turn. Vincent Lee and Carolyn Fern can only dream of having such power to aid their fellow investigators in times of need.
If Inspiring was Hathaway’s only ability, she would still be broken. But Hathaway likes to dream big. Speaking of dreams, Hathaway’s Ominous Dreams ability gives her one Clue token each time a gate opens, and then she gets five more when the ninth space on the Ancient One’s doom track is filled. Hathaway not only allows other investigators to spend her Clue tokens, she also replenishes those tokens almost every turn without having to lift a finger from her strings.
Rex Murphy's Investigation ability is similar to Hathaway’s in that it grants him extra Clue tokens, but he starts the game Cursed for the privilege. That Hathaway has two amazing abilities and no such downside is a gross oversight by the designers.
This week’s Game of the Week against Glaaki is a perfect example of the way in which Hathaway tilts the game in the investigators’ favour. Kate Winthrop may have been proclaimed First Citizen for acquiring three Gate trophies, but this game was all Hathaway from the start. Armed with the Sword of Glory, she cleared the streets of monsters to prevent the Terror Level from rising, collected Clues and enabled her fellow investigators to seal gates that would have been closed and pass skill checks they probably should have failed. Glaaki didn’t stand a chance.
I've included a brief summary of the game below, followed by a transcription of the game after the break for players who have the time, patience and interest in reading how it all went down.
A note about the game and my style of play: I play Arkham Horror solo using a module I developed for the Vassal Engine. I play four investigators drawn at random from all of the investigators that Fantasy Flight has released. I prefer to win by sealing or closing the gates, if at all possible. For this game, the gate and location cards, items, allies and monsters were drawn from the base set and the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (Revised edition). The Mythos deck contains the cards from the base game, Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (Revised Edition) and Miskatonic Horror expansions.
The Terrible Old Man (from Leng)
aka Cameron Kennedy (@CameronJKennedy on Twitter)
Ancient One: Glaaki
Herald: The Dark Pharaoh
Investigators: Kate Winthrop, Patrice Hathaway, Rex Murphy, Akachi Onyele
Victory Conditions: Seal the Gates
First Citizen: Kate Winthrop (3 Gate trophies)
Score:
12 Glaaki
+0 Terror Level
-1 Elder Sign
+7 Unspent Gate Trophies
+2 Unspent Monster Trophies
+4 Surviving Investigators
24 Final Score
Notable: This is the tenth game in my series focusing on the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (Revised Edition) and the first in which Patrice Hathaway makes an appearance. I was pretty confident that Hathaway would inspire the investigators to a victory, but the cards kept the game interesting at the start. A Hound of Tindalos ambushed Hathaway at the Curiositie Shoppe right out of the opening gate. Hathaway cast Dread Curse of Azathoth but failed to score a single success on the first 9D6 check. She passed the second and spent the next several turns recovering her Sanity at Arkham Asylum.
Onyele also suffered an early setback when she plunged into the gate to the Great Hall of Celeano only to get caught by a Shoggoth, which forced her to discard her Spells to hang onto her Elder Sign. Once she recovered, magic lessons at Ye Olde Magick Shoppe gave her a choice between Enchant Weapon and Premonition, neither of which are going to jumpstart a floundering investigator.
On the flip side, David Packard joined Kate Winthrop’s investigation, and Rex Murphy was blessed on the first turn at the Bank of Arkham.
Two key plays propelled the investigators to victory. The first was on Turn 6. Onyele moved to the Woods and traded her Elder Sign to Winthrop, who discarded Astral Travel to enter the first area of R’lyeh. Next turn, she cast Find Gate to return to the Witch House, discarded the Elder Sign to seal the gate and return two annoying Star Spawn that were clogging up the streets to the Monster Cup.
The second key play came a turn later. Onyele passed a tough Sneak (-3) check to slip into the temple area of Silver Twilight Lodge and find a Knife and a Cross. The Cross enabled her to take out the Ghost lurking at the Science Building and enter the gate to the Great Hall of Celeano. Two monster surges gave Onyele enough time to get through the Great Hall, cast Premonition to maximize her Lore, return to Arkham and use her special abilities - and a few of Hathaway's Clue tokens - to seal the final gate for the victory.
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Cameron Kennedy
Canada
Red Deer
Alberta
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This week I had planned to post my epic battle against Atlach-Nacha, the second game in my series exploring the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (Revised Edition) expansion.
However, that game will have to wait because I haven't finished cleaning up the transcription yet. Instead, I'm going to skip ahead a few games in the series to feature one of my all-time favourite games of Arkham Horror: Trish Scarborough, Rex Murphy, Hank Samson and Vincent Lee tackle Murphy's arch-nemesis, Ghatanothoa.
I alluded to the match-up briefly in my recent The Horror! The Horror!strategy article, which discussed some of the challenges of playing Rex Murphy, namely his Curse, and ways that players can work around it.
As I mentioned in that article, I wasn't very happy when I pulled Murphy in this game. However, I couldn't deny that Murphy's appearance was a brilliant bit of coincidence from a thematic perspective. Sending Murphy in against the Dark Pharaoh is bad enough; sending him in against Ghatanothoa, well, that's suicide. Murphy's Investigation ability (which grants him an extra clue token when he gains a clue token) coupled with Ghatanothoa's Annihilating Gaze (triggered when an Investigator gains two or more clue tokens) virtually guarantees that Murphy will be devoured by the Ancient One.
Nevertheless, I decided to keep Murphy on the team. Little did I know another thematic treat awaited me once the game began: The Great Ritual. Of all the rumours in the Mythos deck, The Great Ritual is the one that is tailor made for Ghatanothoa. Sure, it's relatively easy to pass, but doing so causes each investigator to gain two clue tokens. In that event, there is a good chance one of the investigators will trigger Ghatanothoa's Annihilating Gaze. Depending on the investigator, the team might never recover.
Fortunately, I never got to find out. I've included a brief summary of the game below, followed by a transcription of the game after the break for players who have the time, patience and interest in reading how it all went down.
A note about the game and my style of play: I play most of my Arkham Horror these days using a module I created for the Vassal Engine. The module allows me to avoid most of the game's lengthy setup and tear down, keeps my cards out the hands of my young children and enables me to transcribe my games. Transcription is a bit of a bear but ensures that I don't miss anything, an easy thing to do when playing a game with so many moving parts.
As for the games themselves, I play Akrham Horror solo, drawing four investigators at random from all of the investigators that have been released. I prefer to win by sealing or closing the gates. The gate and location cards, items, allies and monsters are drawn from the base set and the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (Revised edition). The Mythos deck contains the cards from the base game, Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (Revised Edition) and the Miskatonic Horror expansion.
The Terrible Old Man (from Leng)
aka Cameron Kennedy (@CameronJKennedy on Twitter)
Game No. 9
Ancient One: Ghatanothoa
Herald: The Dark Pharaoh
Investigators: Trish Scarborough, Rex Murphy, Hank Samson, Vincent Lee
First Citizen: Hank Samson (2 Gate Trophies)
Score: 13 Ghatanothoa
+0 Terror Level
-1 Elder Sign
+5 Unspent Gate Trophies
+0 Unspent Monster Trophies
+4 Surviving Investigators
21 Final Score
Notable: Ghatanothoa hits the table for the first time, and the investigators quickly send him packing. I played conservatively early in the game to minimize the effect of Ghatanothoa’s gaze. For the most part, the investigators contented themselves to pick up single Clues. Murphy took a huge risk accepting a ride from a geologist to the Black Cave for three Clue tokens. Fortunately, Ghatanothoa’s gaze was fixed elsewhere.
Samson continues to be a wrecking machine, ploughing through monsters with reckless abandon. He used his Elder Sign to seal a gate to the Witch House, removed Murphy’s Curse, and then plunged headlong into an Elder Thing, Hound of Tindalos and a Mi-Go guarding a gate to Another Dimension at the Woods.
At this point, Scarborough, Murphy and Lee each had enough Clue tokens to seal three gates. The goal was to have four elder signs on the board by the end of Turn 8. A couple of favourable Mythos card draws suddenly put the investigators in a position to Close the Gates for the win.
Still, the game could have very easily gone the other way. On the turn preceding the win, Murphy had to burn three Clues on the Plateau of Leng to pass a nasty Fight (-1) check that would have knocked him unconscious. That same turn, Scarborough needed a success on a single die to avoid being delayed in the Abyss.
My favourite moment of the game, however, was drawing The Great Ritual. Vincent Lee could have passed it easily the turn before he entered the Abyss, but the prospect of each investigator gaining 2 Clue tokens against Ghatanothoa made me pause. In the end, I decided it would be best to deal with The Great Ritual after sealing and closing gates. If the investigators’ trip through the Other World had ended badly, Lee still had three turns to sacrifice his spells and pass the rumour, which would have likely resulted in at least one investigator being devoured.
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Cameron Kennedy
Canada
Red Deer
Alberta
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Many Canadians know Rex Murphy as the veteran journalist and political commentator with the distinctive Newfoundland accent who hosts a weekly, national call-in show.
Arkham Horror players are more familiar with his fictional namesake – an Akham Advertiser reporter who learns the horrible truth about his cursed family lineage from a bony Lithuanian gypsy, and watches helplessly on the coast of Innsmouth as the last of his carefully collected photographs and other evidence documenting the Mythos blows out to sea.
As much as I’d like to delve deeper into the former Murphy’s acclaimed documentaries and biting political commentary, it’s the latter Murphy who has vexed me of late.
Released in the Kingsport Horror expansion, Rex Murphy is unlike most investigators in the game in that he is flawed from the opening gate. A reporter of prodigious skill, Murphy ability to uncover clues to the Ancient Ones’ evil intent for Arkham makes Darrel Simmons look like a muckraking yellow journalist by comparison. Yet he does bearing a tremendous burden, a family curse that would undermine his efforts to expose the truth at every turn.
Given a choice between the two investigators, I suspect most players would choose Simmons over Murphy, if only to avoid being hamstrung by Murphy’s debilitating flaw. Flawed he may be, but Murphy’s dogged determination of the truth in spite of the cosmic odds stacked against him make the goateed reporter one of Arkham Horror’s more interesting investigator’s to play, and a fitting subject for this week’s The Horror! The Horror!
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Cameron Kennedy
Canada
Red Deer
Alberta
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I recently bought the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh expansion. I recall playing a few games with the expansion's first edition years ago but don't remember them very well, because back then I tended to play with all the expansions I owned mixed together, which resulted in dilution.
This time around, I was determined to find out how well the expansion stood on its own, with an eye to writing a review of it down the road. I decided the best way to do that would be to mix it with the base game and play one match against each Ancient One with the Dark Pharaoh herald, and then several more against the expansion's 'featured' Ancient One, Nyarlathotep.
I'm about halfway through the Ancient Ones, and the games for the most part have been very close and entertaining. But I'll save my conclusions about the expansion for another post.
This week's feature game is the first from that series: Mark Harrigan, Amanda Sharpe, Hank Samson and Rex Murphy battle Abhoth. I've included a brief summary of the game below, followed by a (mostly) complete transcription of the game after the break for players who have the time, patience and interest in reading how it all went down.
A note about the game and my style of play: I play most of my Arkham Horror these days using a module I created for the Vassal Engine. The module allows me to avoid most of the game's lengthy setup and tear down, keeps my cards out the hands of my young children and enables me to transcribe my games. Transcription is a bit of a bear but ensures that I don't miss anything, an easy thing to do when playing a game with so many moving parts.
As for the games themselves, I play Akrham Horror solo, drawing four investigators at random from all of the investigators that have been released. The gate and location cards, items, allies and monsters are drawn from the base set and the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (revised edition). The Mythos deck contains the cards from the base game, Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (revised edition) and the Miskatonic Horror expansion.
The Terrible Old Man (from Leng)
aka Cameron Kennedy (@CameronJKennedy on Twitter)
Ancient One: Abhoth
Herald: The Dark Pharaoh
Investigators: Mark Harrigan, Amanda Sharpe, Hank Samson and Rex Murphy
Starting Equipment:
Mark Harrigan - Cultes Des Goules (losing 1 Sanity from Know, O Thief) and Marksman.
Amanda Sharpe - Dynamite, Sword of Glory (losing 1 Sanity from Know, O Thief), Mists of Releh, Speed, Lore and Bravery. She discards Bravery.
Hank Samson - .38 Revolver, Cross, Healing Stone (losing 1 Sanity from Know, O Thief) and Expert Occultist.
Rex Murphy - Tommy Gun, Nameless Cults, Powder of Ibn-Ghazi (losing 2 Sanity from Know, O Thief), Premonition, Red Sign of Shudde M'ell and Will.
Victory Conditions: Defeated
First Citizen: NA
Score: NA
Notable: Hank Samson armed with the Sword of Glory is a wrecking machine, but the investigators fell two doom tokens short of victory in the final battle. It seemed like it took the group a long time to get rolling in this game. Part of the problem was Murphy, who headed straight for South Church to remove his debilitating Curse. Fortunately for Murphy, Samson drew the Healing Stone in his starting equipment to keep him alive. Several early monster surges put a lot of pressure on the investigators. Samson was able to keep their numbers to a manageable level, but the monsters still slowed the investigators’ progress. Samson was key to passing The Terrible Experiment. Unfortunately, The Stars Are Right appeared a couple turns later. Amanda Sharpe was planning to sacrifice John Legrasse to pass it; however, it added a doom token to Abhoth’s doom track, waking the Ancient One before she could remove the rumour. The team made a valiant effort in the final battle but ran out of stuff to sacrifice. They might have been able to defeat Abhoth if Sharpe had passed The Stars Are Right, drawing eight Common Items between them. In hindsight, I probably forgot to move the Ancient Whispers Marker but neither it nor the Exhibit Items played a role in the game. My dismal record against Abhoth continues.
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