Playing Arkham Horror Online

A common post on the Arkham facebook forums is with people either bewailing lack of opponents or trying to see if the game runs on TTS (Tabletop simulator) and the like. This always surprises me as the game is very easy to run across international boundaries using your phone as a minimum.

So rather than report this repeatedly. I thought it might be useful to show how my current games operate. This is not to say that this is how online games 'must' be played just how my groups tend to play.

What you need

I - Players. Either FTF (face to face) or anywhere else in the world with common language being the primary differentiator.

II - Your investigators deck

III - The game - by this I mean the relevant scenario and encounter cards involved in the game

IV - A pc/phone with an internet connection

What if you don’t have these!

I - Easiest thing to do is to post on facebook or possibly on the discord/ffg/arkham db sites. Facebook worked for me though. When posting make sure you state what you are planning on playing and how frequently/when - Including timezone would help.

II & III If you have not purchased the cards then you are not supporting the game and are a leach on humanity. Or something like that.

IV Worse case you could run this over a standard phone land line. It does work best with an internet connection though

Other Problems

I - Still no cards! Buy some, support the hobby. I have no interest in answering this complaint.

II - My internet sucks!. Ahaaaaaa you live in Australia

Suggestions: Move (half the country appears to) or sell a kidney. Actually the second wont help but you will be in hospital and in such pain you maybe will not want to play.

III - Perhaps you worry that your accent/language might be incomprehensible? Well considering what you are playing I dont think that will matter (unless you do not speak the language at all).

How does it work

You build your own investigators deck. Just yours and no-one elses. You set up the scenario locations and agenda/act decks.

One of the group 'runs' the encounter deck. So this player sets up the encounter deck and has the 'official' locations. All the other players don’t have to set up the encounter deck (though I tend to get at least one of each unique card in a pile so I can read them myself).

All players then connect to a group call. This can be whatever rocks your boat so skype or google hangouts would be good.

We play using a free browser based chat group that reminds me of the Brady Bunch. With this all players can see each other and you can also point your webcam/phone at the board pieces for boasting/queries etc

My game setup with laptio up and ready

Then you play. Each player announces what they are doing for their own turns and each player moves the player markers round on their own setup. When a random location appears and the encounter deck runs then the single player just announces the card

Eg

'I have entered the General Store, which one is it?'

' it is the 4 shroud Store, card 198' (at this point the other players ensure the correct card is In play)

For encounter cards

'I am going to draw for Bill first, looks like ancient evils' (everyone adds a doom to their agenda)

'Susan you have Rotting Remains'

[Susan] 'ok I am testing. Damn, 2 under. I take 2 horror' (Susan adds 2 horror to her own card. The other players don’t have too but my group tends to track horror/damage by just adding it to the relevant player card)

And that is it. What players don’t do (well you can but it would make the system unwieldy) is to track what cards players have played.

Some of the campaigns do have cards that need working around. i.e Carcossa's Hidden Revelations. These can be addressed by house rules. Some I have seen include each player has his own revelation deck and if one is drawn just draws from his own. Ok the other players 'know' a revelation is in play but that is little different from a ftf group seeing someone take an encounter card and not say or deal with it. Basically this is only a minor issue.

Anyway , finally, here is the system in operation in my most recent scenario. Note the sound sounds a little 'wild' due to my obs settings...Saying that the upload might need fiddling with so if it doesn't play then bare with  me..

The Dunwich Legacy - Undimensioned and Unseen

Why did Armitage and Morgan come back. Seriously? would you??

This is a hard scenario and success in the previous makes this harder still. So before starting I had to decide on what to spend my next 6xp on and eventually decided on using 5. I upgraded one of the Vicious Blows to level 2 for 2 and for next card went for the permanent 'Stick to the Plan' - as a default I can put Shortcut, Dodge and Prepared for the Worst under there. The PftW allows me to get a second weapon (or starter if none found yet) with the shortcut and dodge being generally useful. It also thins my deck down to 22 (once starting hand has gone) so makes it more likely to get a good start and get to the cards I need. Perhaps this will help.

Dear Diary
Smelly, unco-operative, small minded and peverse. But lets not think about Rex and consider the townspeople of Dunwich instead. The 'arse end' of the Universe. I vaguely recollect reading that the mob had refused to set up there as it 'didn't want any trouble' and were distressed by the moral degeneracy. I've always wondered whether those tales of inter-marriage in the deep south were true and lo and behold it certainly appears that way here in New England. But they are still God's creatures. Disgusting, filthy, evil though most are. Let me see if a handy bible quote can indicate the forward...

Revelation Book 21 Chapter 8

But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

Hmmm I cannot quite organise a burning lake. Perhaps more thought is needed.

Starting map setup. Prior to all the arrows getting pushed about in the stress of the game

One of the things I particularly like about this is how clueless the Brood are. They roll about crushing everything in their path - but we are much like flies to it so essentially not even recognised most of the time.  The fact that 'normal' weaponry cannot hurt them is entirely understandable hence the need for special spells. This does provide one of the few advantages for the players in that if you are 'in' a location with a Brood you know it will wander aimlessly off rather than squish you.

The early part of this scenario went reasonably well. We avoided the lone Brood whilst Rex clued up and Zoe and William tooled up. The nastiest thing to happen was that both Zoey and William drew early 'the creatures tracks' and both took two early sanity lossed as the horror of what we were about to face dawned on us. We therefore flipped the act relatively easily but considering that cleared us of clues it left us in a more risky situation. 

The problem we now faced was that the various thralls were also popping up. So a situation arose as it usually does. At the end of the turn a Brood lumbered into Zoey and Rex's location at the Whately place. This one had Towering beasts attached. Then the agenda flipped and a second Brood spawned at exactly the same location. The encounter deck drew another Towering Beast before another 'The Creatures tracks' was drawn which drew another Brood which dropped on top of William Yorick in the Blasted heath. Lovely. From being in control we were now not.

In times like this a true hero is required and one stepped up to the plate

Actual, professional, footage of 'Saint' Yorick taken on the day.

Yorick now pulled off what would almost be the play of the game. He played the Red Gloved Man ,and chose 'will' and 'evade' to pump, then moved to the next location drawing an attack of opportunity from the Brood present that he placed on the RGM. He then moved to the Whately Place and discarded his Police Badge to gain two extra actions. With this he evaded a first brood, used his powder of Ibhn Ghazn on it twice (fast action) before damaging it.

Wow. From 'damn, cannot do anything much here except try and survive' had been changed to , 'we can kill one potentially now and next turn the other two might also move to killable locations'

So that is what we did and between us we wiped out the first Brood. Not all was good as my end of turn card was my weakness and in this deck it just draws unpleasantness. An avian thrall thus also appeared. Amongst the usual encounter cards 'Altered Beasts' was drawn (great art) which we placed on the other Brood (for a reason , I now had a Key of Ys in hand so could soak the horror damage and it would make me more effective).

Art as good as this deserves a playmat too itself. How it moves with a tail that large upsets my engineering senses...

We then spent a good few minutes discussing who to attack and where as both cards were in 'attackable' locations and eventually decided on the central brood. It was stronger than the other but had a good chance of moving to unattackable locations next turn. 

Decisions, decisions. Who to attack and where

Rex moved in first and used the fast action to attach a clue then he attacked with higher education to do a second and third damage. Zoey then attached the Key of Ys, shortuctted in and did another two damage (lucky chaos bag draws) to kill it off. Yorick was not needed so could play some cards and move down to scout Cold Spring Glen.

End of turn the Thrall moved in and attacked allowing me to power the key and to thwack it back for two damage with my survival knife. Nice..

The game was not finished trying to take us down though as Yorick drew Graveyard Ghouls. This was now cause for the arrival of a true hero. Yes indeed Yorick was back.

An artists impression of Yorick that day,

Why faff about? Yorick could do no wrong. He threw a knife at the Graveyard Ghouls doing two damage then left the location dropping the Attack of Opportunity onto his Guard Dog allowing him to kill them and pick up his knives. He then arrived at the central location and threw his knives at the avian thrall killing it too.

Epic music was needed for how Yorick was 'owning' this scenario.

This allowed Rex to move over and attach some clues to the next Brood  and hit it a couple of times before I ran over and finished it off. Three down!

We actually had a couple of turns to wait before the last Brood appeared so we variously geared up (I put a second Key of Ys in play (Rex handily healed some Sanity from me before playing 'No Stone Unturned' to allow me to go get it). With the Relic Hunter in play I am allowed two accessory slots in play so can get both out) . We then moved to various useful locations to cover the options.

The agenda flipped and the last Brood landed on top of me. I failed the evade test and promptly took another horror and more damage (I had 4 damage on me so it was a 6 test, or something like that). Both Keys now had two horror on each so I was Godlike in my powers..The encounter deck then added a whipporwhill in the same location to make it a 7-4-4 , another whipporwhill with Rex and a Lupine Thrall for Yorick - but this was not enough to stop Zoey  who fast played Taunt to get the whipporwhill to engage then fast actioned the clues from the location and then hit it three times with 11 willpower (4 from the keys, 4 base and 4 from the clues, -1 from the bird). Doing three damage. Not enough to kill  but from the dim mists came striding a figure.

The real terminator

Perhaps we need to sort out some sort of Latex costume for Yorick. Yorick killed the thrall in two actions, grabbed his Police Badge from the discard pile moved a location before discarding the Police Badge to move into the final location. Played 'Will to Survive' so he would not draw Chaos tokens. Then (with Zoey pumping with her cross) did exactly the same damage to toughness and killed it.

Conclusion

Wow, what an ending and what an epic game by Yorick. We actually considered resigning early on as the pressure looked to be too much but I am really glad we did not. The next scenario is the dreaded penultimate deadly one and now we will be starting with more time and with five more experience. PLUS due to the way we ended the last scenario we wont even start with a conglomeration of spheres in play. Sweet....

Monster of the Game

The Brood!. The Thralls were more annoying but these are almost iconic lovecraftian sub-monsters. Once again great art.

Play of the Game

Did you read what Yorick did this game? No more comment is needed

The Dunwich Legacy - Blood on the Altar

Dear Diary: 

We have finally arrived in Dunwich and, if I may use crass language, what an utter shit hole. The place looks like its forgotten its no longer in the time of the pilgrim fathers and that interior toilets are an actual thing. I don't think I have ever been quite so depressed by any place on God's earth. And I have visited Chicago...twice....  Every step so far we have been hounded by the despicable minions of the evil one.  Is this the epi-centre? or just another dump stop on the way to doom? 

Bible Reading of the Day: Isaiah Book 13 Verse 1 

And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. 

Oh yes. I will...

So Dunwich. A real estate agents nightmare.  Due to the 'House Always Wins' we will have the gangsters hunting us down but as none of those will come close to being a real threat to Zoey  I think they may turn out to be a pleasant relax from the other, nastier, encounter cards. As the famous saying goes, 'a gangster card a turn keeps the horrific other encounter cards at bay' - or something like that.

The locals, in Dunwich, were perhaps not pleasing to the eye.

I really need to get my hands on a playing mat but, to be honest, cannot really afford it. On the other hand my general game pimping has gone well. A couple of scenarios ago I passed a new success marker. Craig had just announced he had purchased several cunningly disguised card containters which looked liked books and Egoitz promtply said he also had purchased something equally useful and I did think'here we go again. No doubt a container  carved from dinosaur bones by Salvador Dali but then he held up a plastic box. Yes indeed I have also purchased plastic container boxes myself. This therefore managed to not pitch me into a horrific depression on how un-pimped my Arkham set was. Anyway back to the game.

Obligatory Setup shot. The burned ruins were actually removed (due to playing over pcs setups depend on when we all connect and can speak to the player running the locations/encounter decks)

This scenario is essentially two clocks. Your success (or otherwise) is very tied to your speed versus these clocks. This is one of the common facets of the game but elsewhere the encounter deck can be more troublesome whereas in Blood On the Altar it's primary aim is to increase time pressure which I find particular easy to cope with (no more sweating that the encounter deck you draw will break you..).

This did turn out to be an immersive scenario due to some lucky draws. For instance even though I managed to get no knives I did draw Doctor Francis Morgan first turn and Yorick got out Armitage first turn. Both highly relevant characters for this particualar location. The other immersive event occurred later.

Morgam, been in Dunwich before..done that...didn't enjoy it even slightly

The first clock is much harder the less investigators are present and is tied to the luck of hitting the correct two cards early enough. Due to the amount of 1 and 2 clue (only) locations multiple investigators can clean sites out far faster and this, essentially, is what happened in this playing. Plus we were lucky. After a standard 'kitting out' first turn I had wandered over to a one clue  4 shroud location which I cleared with 'Working a Hunch' and its encounter card turned out to be the key to the chamber!

The following turn Rex cleared the general store (Rex is particuarly good in this scenario as he decreases the clock pressure) and flipped the hidden chamber. 

Clock One down. Now things were not entirely rosy. We had included the other Necronomicon in the Museum mission and this scenario it started to bite us. We had repeated drawings of the squiggly head so the agenda flipped fast and someone was sacrificed but still that could have been worse. 

We now had to prepare for clock two but the game introduced an entirely random 'nice' touch in that all of a sudden we started drawing all the O'Bannion thugs all over the map so it 'appeared' as if they had co-ordinated a simultaneous attack. Which was wiped out but still it felt most in character...

Here they come and they are not happy. Even less happy once we eivscerate them but that's their fault for bringing guns to a Cuthulu fight.

The other amusing event that happened around now was that we had drawn a servant of many mouths and I had moved to engage with my last action placing a damage on it with my lovely cross. Yorick was now most heroic and moved into the commons to hit it with his machete. First action - auto fail. So instead of the servant he hit me (as I was engaged) for one damage then suffered the retaliate giving him two. He then tried again and drew -3 so hit me again and suffered more retaliation. Most amusing. I killed it with one thwack the next turn  (even though I was knife free at this point) mainly as I was worried Yorick would kill himself if he tried any more.

Anyway back to the clock. I used a shorcut to speedily get the hidden chamber in play so we could start the second clock. Here since Silas is so un-dangerous you essentially get a choice. Either stay in the location (and get hit 2 damage 2 mental) each turn and attack/get clues or enter carry out one action and leave. Either is possible and if a team has taken little damage then staying in the location can be fine. We had plenty of time so took the slower option of entering and leaving. Well I  say slower but as Rex had Pathfinder in play he could actually move in for free, take two investigate actions and then leave. The only stresser was the store had that encounter card that deals one horror if anyone if present at the end of turn. 

Even with this speed improvement the next agenda flipped and a further sacrifice occurred. 

When we finished Rex also had the Necronomicon out so we actually hit Resolution 2 which was a pleasant surprise and a first for all of us.

As always Rex is covered by clues. 

Conclusion

Without Rex or with a harder time finding the entrance this would have been much more time pressured. As it stood Rex practically solo'd the scenario with Zoey and Yorick running interferance on the monsters in the encounter deck. It's not all good news though as this is the scenario where if you do badly it makes the next one easier and the next one is a b**tard one to get through. Due to Yorick's signiture card we pulled in 5 xp again so we will be appoaching it with the most tooled up party I think I have ever had.

Best Monster Award

In terms of appearance perhaps Silas Marsh but this time the winner is the Servant of Many Mouths. Mainly due to him turning Yorick into a collinder whilst Yorick repeatedly hit me in the face with his machete.

Play of the Game

Goes to Yorick - See Best Monster Award.

The Dunwich Legacy - The Essex County Express

Dear Diary
Bible Reading of the Day Mathew 13:49

So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous

I shall indeed be an angel taking out the wicked and not in the disgusting dating sense! We are due to take a train to a fallen town called 'Dunwich'. I find it troubling that its nomenclature resembles 'Done Witch'. No doubt a subtle reminder that these people are wicked and their town a curse amongst the righteous? Then again perhaps they are righteous and only need the wicked removing? Without guidance I will have to rely on knife and wits.

Out of the early scenarios I had enjoyed the starter campaign and been impressed by the diversity in the initial Dunwich Scenarios but this scenario was the first to really blow me away.. It introduces a sense of dread and real time pressure alongside a linear target that you have to fight to meet. This will be my 3rd playing.. The first time I played was part of a three person group (one of the people was brand new to the game) unfortunately that person decided to spend all their actions gearing up and due to a particularly unfortunate encounter draw first turn was still in the first carriage when it was ripped into the rift. I was Rex that time and was defeated (physical trauma I think) by around two carriages before the engine car. My son was playing Pete and actually managed to get to the end and start the train -  so that was Resolution 1 but not 3.

Second time of playing I was with a different team and this went appallingly badly. I have little memory of the horror that ensued except that we were overwhelmed in one of the middle cars so went Resolution 1 then 3 (thus arriving in Arkham 'late'). 

I therefore had a lot of dread going into this then even with the elite team.

Another glorious setup shot. Note the sexy new investigator holders though I am still lacking a play mat

A lot of the problems (and skill in scenario design) is that there are a lot of ways to chip away at your  horror and forces you to go 'fast' and not neccessarily 'safe'. Early on we managed to get through the first two carriages with me 'only' on two horror. Then the scenario started bending its structure to apply pressure. We were two away from the agenda flipping and I drew my weakness and it suddenly occurred to me that should that weakness be the Wizard of the Order then he would spawn in the Engine Car and thus turn into a doom gathering machine as there was no way to get to him quickly. Considering a lot of people fail without having a guarenteed double doom each turn that was a bit of a gulptastic moment. Fortunately it was 'only' an emergent monstrosity. Moving onto the encounter deck Rex drew a passenger in the last carriage (the one which would be ripped away if the agenda flipped) which surged into a Wizard of the Order in the next carriage (which meant the agenda would now flip if he remained alive).  I then drew another passenger which surged into a test I passed. Finally Yorick drew a frozen in fear.

So to summarise, with the board situation only, if we left the passengers and did not kill the Wizard then we would all take two mental trauma, putting me on five with probably more to come. If we killed the Wizard but did not rescue the passengers then another Wizard (are there two in the deck? ) Or a more likely Ancient Evils would have the same effect. Since there were two passengers if we sent one person to get the passengers then they would spend one action moving back (thankfully in a carriage that did not demand cards to enter) two actions to parley so would then have no actions to return thus being at risk should the Wizard not die or a bad encounter card be drawn.

If we sent two people back to get a passenger each then they would have to be Rex and Zoe as Yorick was frozen in fear so he could not get a passenger and return in the same turn. But if we did that then the Wizard would not die as Yorick also could not kill the Wizard with the frozen in fear. To quote Christopher Plummer in 'Waterloo' - 

"this will require careful timing'

To be honest in a vanilla game we would take that last option. As long as we were not in the last cart the Wizard could hang around another turn even though it speeds up the agenda. As it stands this group is awesome so we used what has not been mentioned to cut this gordian knot.

I used pathfinder for a free move backwards allowing me to grab both passengers and return then Rex moved into the next car and dealt with the Wizard (Rex the mighty warrior). Now you may ask why I exhaustively ran through the options when I had the solution in hand and this is certainly a valid query but without that card we would have been pushed into a nasty place and perhaps defeated due to time pressure so the situation demanded study! Plus I think its great that the game has the capability to force you into these sort of play offs.

Loads's Emergent Monstrosities. The one at the location with us survives another turn with the Zoey weakness one hazily visible to the right in the engine car

The next sticky moment was another Emergent Monstrosity who spawned in (what became) the dining car. Zoe moved in and thus was promptly engaged by a grappling horror which was speedily dispatched with my 'reliable' machete (thank heavans the Emergant starts exhausted as otherwise my machete would not have worked). Yorick was meanwhile having fun killing some graveyard ghouls (they must have got 'on' the train to follow him. How did they buy tickets?) so Rex made a valiant attempt to kill the Emergent Monstrosity but after moving in suddenly realised he had no clues so could not play his masterful trap card and do huge amounts of damage (actually I reminded him after he moved in that the agenda had flipped so all his clues should be discarded causing a 'bugger' moment) instead he did two damage. We happily finished it off in the next turn.

Things started speeding up though as we rapidly moved to the 'two a time' carriage destruction and had to grab another passenger from certain doom. Then we came to the engine car. Yorick went in first and managed to avoid permeant trauma climbing over the coal scuttle and then engaged the Emergent Monstrosity who was waiting for him. This went badly as another Grappling Horror turned up and prevented him getting an extra damage with his machete. End result 0 damage on the Emergent with the Horror killed due mainly to a beat cop valiantly sacrificing himself.

Yorick provides the springboard for Zoey's soon to be massive attack against an Emergent Monstrosity. I don't remember Zoey stripping to her underclothes or Yorick shaving so let's say 'alternate universe'

Zoe then attached Professor Warren Rice and moved in before grabbing two clues with 'Working a Hunch' then taunting the Emergent Monstrosity onto her. Only one action left and that did two damage. I was slightly concerned at this point as I had three horror and would take another two (allowing I did not kill Rice) meaning I was one off defeat. A bad encounter card (killing a passenger or failing a test slightly) would be very bad news. As it stood Rex had it in hand and he ran in, grabbed a clue which allowed him to use 'Logical Reasoning' clearing two horror. I could then soak the damage on Rice and soak the horror on me with three in hand which should be plenty. The next turn I handily stomped on the monstrosity before Rex cleared the clues and we had won. Resolution two at last.

Here is Zoey 'heavily' tooled and dragging several scared passengers with her as she starts to fight the hideous Emergent Monstrosity that God has told her must (and does) die. Note the Relic Hunter which did absolutely nothing this scenario.

Conclusion

Well the team keeps coming through. Another five experience gathered meaning we are (hopefully) going to be even more deadly in the next scenario.  Even though I am familiar with this one I still was able to feel that sense of time pressure and urgency and the game hung together beautifully. With my xp I have decided to simply improve my existing card pool and taken the XP version of taunt. I had considered visous blow and charisma but considering the amount of scenarios remaining I need to focus on effectiveness and taunt allows me to draw more cards hopefully getting closer to the key ones I need. If we manage four xp plus next scenario then the improved vicious blow is definitely on the list.

Monster of the Game

If the Wizard has been drawn as Zoe's weakeness then he would have won this hands down by being the main reason for failure. As it stands the Emergent Monstrosity wins.. Both of them…

Play of the Game

This is awarded to the entire team for the last turn was synchronised beautifully to defeat the beastie, clear the clues and win the day! If the award goes to a card I give it to Logical Reasoning if only because it was a useful defensive play avoiding the Hail Mary approach to play!

The Dunwich Legacy - The Miskatonic Museum

Dear Diary 

So to recap. The second coming certainly looks close. I have had to dismember assorted scum all over Arkham. Is there no place in this iniquitous town that is  not filled with abominable, armed nasties and other disgusting horrors. Fortunately I have sharp steel and an equally steely heart. Our journey continues except that now the Professor wants us to find a book of evil. We even have some special words to say when we retrieve it..

The museum is our target and since they are at the forefront of disgusting Darwinian arguments I shall enjoy any righteous destruction I need to cause. The local priest also says that dinosaur bones are made out of plaster-caste so lets blow rasberries at the curator while there.

         Reading of the day

Ezekiel 3:17-18
Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. 18 When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

Another old bloke after a specific nasty book. Co-incidence?

So after a skipped week mainly caused by me prepping for the Birmingham games expo (19k plus visitors making it probably the 3rd biggest tabletop games convention in the world) our valiant trio return for a sally into the local museum.  Beyond sticking it to the forces of evil (considering I am playing Zoey perhaps 'stabbing it' would be better) my main aim is to get enough XP to allow the extra item slot from Relic Hunter ( it needs three XP and I have two remaining). I don't think it is possible to get 5 more, beyond that, for an extra key though that would be nice.  I bascically want the ability to have both the key and my cross in play turning Zoe into a high ability multi-talented investigating machine. As a quick aside I will playing the Keys of Ys with a house rule which is that whenever Zoe (or one of her cards) would receive horror then one will go on the Keys. If you can delay it resolving then I think it is slightly overpowered.

A now obligatory 'out of focus' shot for game start. I had funky new bases for the other two investigators arrive: but they wont be appearing until the next game

We got in to the museum easily enough with a Shroud of 3 proving of little difficulty to a 'Higher Education Rex' but then things started to look unexpectedly ominous.  I had another good start and was reasonably satisfied with my turn two with a Survivor Knife and machete in play and a 'First Aid' in hand. Then I drew my weakness and in 'this' scenario discarding cards from the encounter deck until you find an enemy manages to draw 'just' one enemy  the 'Hunting Horror' so gets the big nasty out early.

Japansese Dragon influences. Plus how does it fly?? surely the tail would make an enormous drag chute???

No matter we would just have a larger beastie down the line. At the same time just after Yorick had spent a turn knocking down a locked door another locked door appeared where Rex was standing leaving only a more unpleasant encounter hall. Yorick wanted a go at the horror with his own machete first as he had his signiture card in hand but he missed and received damage for his trouble. I then strode in and slapped it down easily enough releived that I was not going to get out-guardianed by both my non-guardian compatriots..

Anyway I was relieved I had one of my weaknesses out of the way as  'every cloud has a silver lining etc' but this game laughs sarcastically at silver linings so at the end of that turn my encounter card turned out to be 'slithering behind you'

So the bloody Hunting Horror came out again and on me with 3 fight, 4 health and 3 evade. Before most groups meet it for the first time we now had met it twice and larger. Again this is what Zoey does so I went for my turn first. The resulting three attacks were ' auto fail, -4, -3'…great. End result was me with 4 physical trauma,  4 mental trauma and the horror with no damage. Yorick promptly charged to the rescue moving in and engaging before hitting it for 2. This then allowed me to kill the following phase..

Even without that somewhat phyrric victory I was feeling rather battered and worried that my knives were not sharp enough as we would have at least 2-4 more visitations at average luck and if 4 then it would be at 7 fight 8 health and 7 evade. Ignoring  that which has not occurred I tried to focus on the immediate issues and used the first aid to remove most of the mental damage then a guard dog was bought into play to help protect against my weakened physical state. As a plus Rex was very,very rapidly hoovering up clues and opening Exhibit Halls so perhaps we could avoid too many more repeat appearances.

 Some point mid-game. The guard dog is indeed proving itself 'psychotic killer chef's best friend'

Without giving much time to gather breath  the agenda finally flipped and the Hunting Horror arrived again. Though in retrospect the agenda text trying to raise tension with the appearance of the big nasty was somewhat spoilt by the fact we had beaten it twice. It was also now a 4 fight 5 health 4 evade and I was only at 5 fight with the machete so game on.

Predictably perhaps my attacks at only one above did not go well but at least my guard dog soaked the physical damage up with the dog doing 3 damage back whilst I reeled under a further 3 trauma bringing me back up to 4. This did serve a purpose and that was to allow Rex to open up one of the key exhibit halls and luckily enough it was the Restricted Hall. Rex promptly moved across and the hunting horror immediately followed him. This allowed me to get the Keys of Ys in play before getting a single failed attack in. I was now not worried now though as with the Key of Ys in play I was  on 6 fight with the machete and 7 fight with the survival knife and it was the survivors knife that finished the beastie off for the third time.

Apart from the strange yellow tint the photo app seems to have applied . How is that for a combat setup even for this particularly nasty nasty.

We could have finished at this point but as we had around 6-7 turns before it turned up again and I was confident I could hold even the massive version off so we decided to leave a clue on the Restricted Hall and to start cleaning clues off of the other victory locations (including those halls we had not revealed yet). This was a lot of work for Rex but he was very good at doing it whilst I carried on steadily tooling. My end display added a replacement handy guard dog and a 'Reliable' on my machete. 

If the Horror appeared again my base attack would now be base 7 and if I took more horror base 8 then base 9.  Allowing I did not use the survival knife I could soak up any retailiates on the Key and Dog.

As it stands it was  not needed. Rex gathered most of the clues with Yorick picking off the last just as the agenda was about to pop.

Conclusion

Bit of a roller coaster ride this one. The start was hectic but it did stabalize at the end. I love the impact of the growing horror and the fact the rest of the encounter deck is all about attacking  your hand size and assets (I ended up with  the dreaded Beyond the Veil in play and only five cards in hand). 

The unexpected synergy of Zoeys signiture weakness and this one big nasty was unexpected but a hurdle we were able to surmount. Plus we managed another 6 experience! This means I can buy a second copy of Keys of Ys AND relic hunter (ooooo I just realised it is not unique I could get two copies in play and conceivably have 10, 8, 10, 8 base stats…

For the resolution Zoey argued resolutely that there was only one book of power everyone should use and that is , obviously, the bible - but Rex was to drunk on increasing power and Yorick was ambivalent on the subject.

Why would anyone want to read this book?

Card of the Game

The Hunting horror is great and an excellent 'different' big nasty. Plus the encounter deck does a good job of supporting its presence and actions. But for this game I am going to go for the amazing art of ''Passage into the veil"  - great work by the artist Owen William Weber.

I mentioned mid game that I loved the evocative art for this so promptly drew it three times in a row. The Key helped me defeat its nefarious purposes though.

Play of the Game

'Not dying' perhaps..No, play of the game goes to the highly educated Rex who managed to scoop up 5 clues with one action at one point. Here is his card at end game AFTER all locations had been revealed….

Run out of clue tokens for Rex. Alas poor Yorick is 'cursed' to only have one in comparison

Next Up

The dreaded Essex County Express. This is one of the hardest scenarios in this campaign so it will be a challenge..

Zoey studied her knife intently and tooks some test slashes before smartly dicing some onions for a tasty stew. That old testamanet beastie had certainly been a challenge. It so was not a surprise that God had told her where it was and that it needed to go. Actually, thinking about it, it looked a lot like a huge winged snake. If any monster was probably the snake from the Garden of Eden then this was it. It was a shame her compatriots were so open to corruption that they they decided to keep a book of evil. It practically had a sales team marketting it with the words 'fall into Satan' or  'read this and be corrupted' all over it. No matter her knives would do for them too if it came to that. Rex was not a surprise as the man was obviously desperate to be 'relevant'. Yorick's decsion though was. Perhaps his work in the cemetary had bought him closer to temptation than most. He would certainly regret his choice when he considered the implications. At least she hoped he would.

The Dunwich Legacy - Extracurricular Activities

Dear Diary:
Reading of the day Psalms 92:7 
When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever:
It certainly feels that evil fourishes sometimes! Being a warrior of Christ with a special mission to eviscerate evil, with sharp pointy objects, can sometimes be difficult to combine with a life as a top chef and mistress of the soufle. But I do my best. After rescuing the Professor we are now on our way to the University even though it is quite late. Yorick works at night so seems quite happy and Rex is convinced that we need to move fast. Will this be a walk in the park or will my knives get to play.

So onwards and upwards. We are visiting the University as the second scenario so, no doubt, added time pressure will be applied.

Before we move to the scenario let's discuss storage as it is something that, I know, weighs heavily on our minds. I am often out and about will bump into a stranger who will say, 'Greetings heroic blog writer. What you haven't covered is how you store your cards'

And I always respond with, "Desmond. It is true. But I will, at some point". It's always a Desmond. Even the girls. Anyway. Originally I had all my cards in binders and I found it time consuming to try and drag out each set for the scenario. I also did not fancy the shoe box with dividers approach as I absolutely would drop it on the floor. So I have come up with a cheap workaround. I purchased some coloured card. Printed off the set icons and names and then generated  a front card for each encounter set. This then is colour coded by set (i.e Forgotten Age is red, base set is an attractive pink etc etc) and wrapped with elastic bands. These are then placed in a Dunwich plastic bag or a core plastic bag in a plastic box. Now I find it much easier to get all the cards and if I drop the box? Who cares. Unless its in a pond. Wait it would float! Perhaps 'volcanic lava' should be my problem clause which might be an issue in Hawaii but certainly not Leicester, England. Finally this freed up 2 binders to allow me to store my character cards in class binders so I have a coloured binder for each class. 'Sweet'

Back to the game this scenario had a strangely inauspicious beginning starting much later than normal with me running a heavy head cold and one of the team then had serious difficulties getting any microphone to work ( windows update? Chrome bug? Extensions issue? Who knows?) though he double logged in to the chat room which also had the strange effect of showing a time delay on the two devices so the same person was doing two different things and being utterly unheard in both. Anyway that was eventually corrected and we rolled into the game where happily for me I had a nice god draw to begin. My starting hand was Survival Knife, Zoe's Cross, Taunt, Dodge and Evidence. Not bad….

Stylish startup shot before the game got going and things get messier

We started fairly slow with all players taking a setup turn then started to spread out. This  encounter deck is aimed more towards forcing discards and not to multiples of monsters so, bar a few dodgy tests you really don’t want to hit, the initial cards were reasonable. We managed to spin the act around a turn before the agenda moved and then had all the joys of finding Jazz which sounds like the name of a weak movie that no-one likes but goes to see 'just in case'.

Jazz though did not want to be found (the git) but was eventually found cowering at the fourth from bottom slot of the rather large encounter deck. This took a while but even Zoe was managing to discover clues which is quite a feat considering her low will power.

Zoe sometimes missed the obvious, but not today!

Elsewhere in the Miskatonic University the valiant gravedigger Yorick was proving most useful by continually drawing Yithian Observers and killing them (one with his signature card eventually he supplied 3 total XP on his own!). Rex did most of the hard clue lifting and it Is starting to feel disconcerting when he doesn't manage two to three keys an action.

With Jazz in play we opened up the dormitories when a couple of doom adding cards spun the agenda and as it was so late the Experiment was there fast. This led to the usual fun discussion on what we want to do/achieve and we eventually settled on Rex trying to clear the dormitories of clues (nine) - he was 'there' and it was a resolution. In the meantime Yorick would go to the dormitory ,as well, to clear an annoying Thrall off of Rex and Zoe (who had drawn a whippoorwill) would see what damage she could do to the Experiment. Then if it looked likely she (and eventually Yorick as well) could not kill the experiment then we could go for the other resolution.

Zoe though was a badass. At that point she had zero damage, four sanity left and her knife, cross and a machete. So issuing a fast taunt the whippoorwill promptly engaged and dropped dead without any further action at all by me. I then dropped an experienced beat cop and the next turn the agenda spun again and the experiment moved in and (semi (massive)) engaged. With her knife and beat cop Zoe was only one (actually two I forgot the beat cop gave plus one fight duhhhh) above the experiments fight of four. The experiment has sixteen! Health and did two of each damage type so unlike Roland last campaign with his lightning gun ripping a massive beast apart in a couple of turns Zoe had her work cut out for her (cut out - get it..sorry)

She then used her specialist fighting technique that can be adequately demonstrated here.

Though with the potential to  only really do two damage  a time the first turn she did one with the beat cop and six with the machete and then in the enemy phase used her survival knife to pump that two higher with the survival knifes free attack. The following turn the experiment moved so she only gained a further two attacks one failed (-3) and the other passed (auto-pass!) so that was another 3 damage. I dodged the attack on return as I was playing safe with the encounter deck but needn't have worried. I then finished it off the following turn.

Elsewhere Yorick had run to the dormitories to assist the team by killing the Thrall that had just engaged Rex. This would allow Rex to use his super-human clue skills to gather all the clues - and he thought he could get all nine in one turn (he had Doctor Milan and Higher Education in play). Bravely he ran in and threw a knife. Drawing auto-fail he missed and the knife went straight towards Rex. Accidentally hitting Jazz in the face killing him instantly (well knocking him out). The thrall then retaliated doing one of each back to Yorick. Ouch. Rex had to adjust his plan somewhat and killed the thrall (in one action again curse combat Rex) before collecting six clues and obviously due to the overload promptly had a drink (drew Rex's weakness). This did not affect his ability to get the tokens as being at +stupid levels the two tokens drawn could not stop him from easily scooped the last clues.

Not so stylish (almost) end shot as the cards and tokens fly everywhere
and the key additional items like 'cup of tea', 'laptop' and 'phone' present

Yorick meantime was supposed to come and help Zoe with the Experiment but drew the second Yithian Observer which was killed.

So another successful scenario with no less than seven experience. (2 locations cleared, library and dorms, 2 yithian observers down, 1 Yorick's signature card,  2 from the Experiment) which is good going for early in the campaign and should set us up nicely for the next game.

Enemy of the Game

As this slot will often become 'biggest monster time' the Experiment wins this. Zoe's attack could have gone badly wrong though as I started with a dodge and Hypnotic gaze in hand and drew a second dodge during the fight the worse situation would have been 'not' killing it until it got to the dormitories and started snacking on students.

Students, like little walking chocolate bars to the Experiment!

Play of the Game

Sorry Yorick I have to go for the valiant attempt to save Rex by throwing a knife at the thrall and hitting Jazz then getting battered in return. Sometimes these work and sometimes these fail. This didn't kill the party so can stand as a moment of amusement!

Experience

I love spending lots of experience. Since I have decided to be true to my fast fighting knife Zoey I was considering two paths. The first was to replace the first aid with two Moment of Respite which cover Zoey's biggest weakness or alternately a more risky alternative of one Key of Ys. This has the potential to push Zoe to fabulous levels. With 3 horror on it she has had 3 horror saved  from her or her allies but her base skills would be 7 brains, 5 books, 7 fight and 5 evade! This makes her far more resilient to her biggest weakness - which is tests which damage her from encounter cards. The 10 cards discarded hurts but this is not a mass draw card deck so I may take that risk. The other problem is that the accessory slot is good with her cross and this competes but I would have 2 xp left over and allowing we get one next scenario I could buy relic hunter which would allow me to have both in play….Decisions decisions…

That's a scary arsed key

Conclusion

A nicely designed scenario. I like the search for Jazz and the continual card discard threat level encounter cards. Splitting the groups attention between what they want to do (perhaps against what they should) is also great. Last time I played this it was as the first scenario and we rescued the Professor letting the experiment run wild (fight that? Bugger off).