The following is Keith's report of the Arkham Horror game played on Saturday, 3/28/09:
We had three newcomers plus Tim -- myself (Keith), Greg and Dave -- but Dave was th
e only one new to the game. He picked it up quickly though, and was a huge help in keeping up to speed on the different card effects in play with each turn. I played as Darrel Simmons the photographer, Greg was Sister Mary, Dave drew Mandy Thompson the researcher, and Tim pulled Joe Diamond the private eye. I winced when our random GOO selection turned out to be Hastur. He's not the toughest baddie, but all the extra tokens he requires for sealing gates can really put a drag on the game.
Things started out deceptively friendly, with Dave throwing Mandy (armed with a tommy gun) through the first gate and the rest of us starting the long campaign for clue tokens. I recall Darrell getting swarmed by the Hound of Tindalos and some flyers early on (resulting in a costly trip to the hospital), but other than that the first hour of the game was uneventful, with a few gate closings but no one able to seal. However, Joe Diamond got cursed within the first few rounds, and Tim had to deal with a shocking amount of blessings and re-cursings for almost the entire game. And at some point, in a confusion of bad advice from Dave and me, Sister Mary went down and had a slow mid-game recovery.
A Rumor (don't remember which one) came into play around this time, but somehow this stroke of bad luck turned into a rallying point. Greg and Tim realized they had enough clue tokens to knock out the rumor on the first turn and get all us all Unique items as rewards, and Dave and I were soon able to seal some gates. I also had a ridiculously lucky batch of rolls when I was once again swarmed by nasties (I don't remember what they were, but they were bad and I had no right to have beaten them armed with one enchanted knife).
The second half of the game was much more engaging. We'd all piled up masses of gate and monster trophies, and started cashing them in. Mandy Thompson gained Richard Upton Pickman as an ally, while Darrell was joined by Anna Kaslow after a chance encounter at Independence Square. Hastur had maintained a relatively low Doom Token count up until now, but he quickly climbed to 12 just as fast as we could close gates. I believe we had had three sealed by the time his Doom Track filled and we went into the endgame. Luckily our Terror Track hadn't climbed much, so Hastur only had a -2 modifier on our attacks.
Defending against him requires strong Luck, which we all had enough of to make it through the first few rounds unscathed. It got a little tense as his attacks grew stronger, but we swapped items until Joe Diamond could be counted on to automatically knock out one Doom Token every round, with the rest of us able to snag one or two more between us per turn. After that, Hastur was toast.
Game time: under four hours.
Labels: Arkham Horror, FFG, Hastur
