Thursday 21 November 2013

Arkham Horror: Not a dime to her name psychologist part two

After a week of Arkham Horror sitting on the table after a week break mid game (see part one here) we began where we left off. Except of course another investigator joined us and adjusted the rules accordingly for a 7 player game. I guess it is worth briefly mentioning one of the great things of this game is the ability to play with up to 8 players although this does have its issues, namely people getting off topic.

What my Psychologist looked like mid game. 

As you recall my once Axe Wielding Psychologist took a turn for the worst. But would things turn out ok for her this time round. After all I had restored her to full stamina just before finishing up. First round I decided, screw it, I am going to go explore another world, this one was called Yuggoth, great name… How could it possbibly go wrong, as my friend and co-investigator said “I can think of a lot of ways”. First stop on my way to the gate was the Library, after all I was a learned psychologist. My encounter went something like this, “As you explore the library a books start whispering dark secrets to you, loose one sanity”. Hmmp, not even a skill check to save me. I’m not going to the Library again, ever.

By this time there was only three doom tokens needed to awaken Ithaqua the alien terror we were trying to prevent from spreading evil around the world, assuming that was his motive. I bravely jumped through a portal to another dimension Yuggoth to join my college Alex, “fancy seeing you here Alex”, we exchanged greetings in Yuggoth. First encounter “You hide behind a rock panting. The scurrying which has been chasing you seemed to have gone, no encounter”. Considering my luck it could have been worse, but hiding behind a rock, pffft what a sissy. I was feeling a little ripped of as the other investigators were getting items from some of their encounters. Alas it beats being mugged like I was previously. I moved to the next section of Yuggoth (other worlds have two parts where you have to have an encounter in each). I cant remember the encounter but it was a success! Yippee not so axe wieldery psychologist finally passed a test!

However when I returned to Arkham we were only one doom token off Ithaqua awakening and destroying us all. My fellow gang of other worldly investigators said, don’t close the gate because if another gate opens in its place (rather than a monster surge which happens if you don’t close a gate) Ithaqua will be unleashed. Being the risky psychologist that I am I said, I haven’t achieved nothing, plus I don’t want a monster surge on my (the alternative to a gate opening and a doom token being placed on the monsters doom track) location perceiving that as the worst of the two options so I went ahead and closed that sucker! Take that Yuggoth.

Whats that! I actually acheived something, I closed a gate to Yuggoth.

Ithaqua vs team why does the fate of humanity rest on
a random group of people (they need a more concise name)

I knew at this point I would be sorely treated by the gang if a gate opened on my location 'The Unnameable', fortunately a gate did not open there however one opened at 'The Cave'. This caused a fracture in the very fabric of reality, unleashing the mighty Ithaqua. I thought we were toast. The battle began, he had 77 hit points and with a -3 skill check we had to roll quite a few successes. That is exactly what we did. My first roll of fight 4, no weapons, -3 thus rolling one die was a successes! We took him down about 30HP the first round. Next round Chris gave me a Dread Curse, at the cost of two sanity and passing a -3 lore skill check I succeeded getting an additional 9 dice to my roll. Nice. I gave Ithaqua a hammering that round. In the end it only took three rounds to beat him with no deaths. Arkham and quite probably the rest of the world was saved...

Ithaqua feeling the pain of my Dread Curse! 

Team photo after defeating Ithaqua,
I am 2nd from the right next to Dan (far right). 

What a victory! It was quite a fun night finishing off the game involving plenty of laughs. The final battle did seem disappointingly easy but looking through the other old ones the game provides this was probably the second easiest. The Dunwich Horror should arrive in the mail soon so hopefully we will take it for a spin in a a few weeks. Next up however Empire of the Dead and maybe even Battlestar Galactica the game. 

Uncle Thulu, coming from another dimension soon


6 comments:

  1. Love unlce Thulu peeking out there. I did enjoy this but it did seem too easy to kill Ithaqua (rhymes with Farquar apparently). Bring on Dunwich Horror, and the four bar stools that are coming my way. Really like the board games on the big table. Lots of fun.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah it is a hoot playing on the big table. The bar stools were great. I am looking forward to doing the end of year games club dinner function. I am thinking scope for pizza.

      Delete
  2. What a deeply strange game. Sounds like a blast to play! :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is quite fun Paul! Kinda like a RPG in a board game, which really appeals to me as RPGs can drag on but this kinda puts it all in a nice easy to use package. Clear as mud I presume.

      Delete
  3. Perhaps a little late comment, but here goes: Really like this game - two of the guys in our (board) gaming group together owns all the expansions and insists on playing with the two extra boards (or is it three extra?). Setup time doesn't take all that long actually. Really like the characters as well - especially after reading a bunch of mr Lovecraft's short stories. A great coop. game, in my opinion.

    If you ever come to Sweden, let me know and I'll waste one of your vacation days sitting in a cramped apartment playing this game with you;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the comment. I agree regarding set up although there seems to be a few people out there who are really anti the setup time.

      I think it works really well as a thematic coop rpg game. Although Betrayal at House on the Hill certainly gives it a run for its money as a horror rpg game.

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...