Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn! — Let's All Play Cthulhu Wars!

I'd certainly be interested in playing a game with the neutral monsters and GOOs, but I guess that depends on how many players from this game want to volunteer for a second round.

I blame myself for the anticlimactic ending, since for most of the game, I totally forgot that I needed all six spellbooks in order to win. By the time I remembered, it was Round 4 and I was pretty much just concentrating on staying alive.

Devolve seems like one of those powers that's really effective, but also kind of dangerous to use. Still, with the King in Yellow zooming around the map turning people's cultists into zombies, devolving your cultists everywhere he came calling was probably the right move. One issue I ran into was keeping track of everybody's spellbooks and abilities. Early in the game, for example, I treated the Star Spawn as though they were pretty much unkillable, even before the Regeneration spellbook was active. And at one point I almost launched a premature attack on Rhan-Tegoth because I momentarily thought his Eternal ability was a spellbook, rather than an innate ability that's always active. That would have been embarrassing!

One other insidious thing about this game is that there are a lot of ways to derail other players' plans early on, whether it's killing Star Spawn before Cthulhu has Regeneration, murdering the King in Yellow before he descerates too many territories, or knocking off some of Windwalker's Gnoph-Keh while they're still expensive; the only problem with this is that this requires spending at least a couple points of power to hinder another player instead of using that power to score points for yourself. I always found it tempting to spend my power trying to get more gates for myself, rather than trying to disrupt anyone else's plans; it's possible I'd have tried playing more aggressively if I'd had a better handle on each faction's capabilities, or realized just how risky and expensive it is attack an opponent once they've concentrated their forces.

Player list for next game:

1. Sarcasmorator
2. MrChris
3. periodical
4. Gerad
5. New player

I had a plan in my head that game, which was to get my spellbooks fast by spreading but after early losses without any combat I was pretty lost as to what to do. I feel like the Black Goat spellbooks are sort of a trap, but then that stems from me not spending enough time learning other section abilities. Maybe there were safer ways to expand, by only leaving cultists at home? I'm down for the 2nd game if you don't get enough newbies.

Yeah, with Black Goat you can't move around the board so much (though Shub can go anywhere with Avatar), instead spreading out from your initial area over time. Here's a good strategy article by the designer (there's a whole series of them). I think if I'd been playing BG I'd have gone for Thousand Young first and then Red Sign ASAP; cheap monsters, then extra power.

I think I want to play as Yog-Sothoth next time, myself.

I think I made a mistake traipsing around the world as early as I did. I should have focused on getting Hastur first so my desecrations would be cheaper and give me Elder Signs.

I was hoping people would start getting rid of all those cultists in Europe so I could start summoning them elsewhere, but no one ever did. Frustrating.

I also think I spent too much time messing up other factions' plans. I think Cthulu probably wins if I don't mess with him that much in Round 2, but I wasn't advancing my own plans to do so. It kind of felt like I had to keep everyone else down by myself until my Doom engine finally got going, and that took way too long. Not sure if that's just how Yellow Sign works.

I'd play again if you need another, but feel free to bump me for a new player.

I've started a list, with the last two spots for any new players who want to try, but no one has weighed in yet. I'll give it until Tuesday, and then we'll go with what we've got.

Oh, and here's the neutral lineup for the next game, four each of GOOs and monsters:

GOOs:
Atlach-Nacha
Father Dagon
Cthuga
Azathoth

Monsters:
Star Vampire
Servitor of the Outer Gods
Leng Spider
Moonbeast

Details at the spreadsheet linked from the first page. This one could get pretty nuts. Atlach-Nacha, for example, introduces a new win condition; Servitors have a -1 combat rating, are inflicted on another player, and prevent them from summoning anything else until they're all on the board; Moonbeasts lock a spellbook until the Doom Phase; etc.

Last call for new players! Or for aturtledoesbite, if he wants to play another match! Sound off by 5 p.m. tomorrow if you want to play. I have to lock in the lineup before I set up the map.

Nah, sorry. Maybe when I don't have so much going on.

No problem. Thanks for playing this one!

I do have one question about the map: how many Windwalker glyphs are there supposed to be? The map we used for the last game had one in each faction's starting location, but the Windwalker rulebook and Windwalker's spellbook requirements kind of make it sound as though there's supposed to be only two glyphs, one in the Arctic Sea and one in Antarctica. I think the latter case makes more sense, since the faction's abilities and fluff are strongly linked to the arctic regions. Is it possible that the glyphs on the map we were using were "generic" glyphs meant to denote the different factions' starting locations, and weren't specifically Windwalker glyphs? I ask because it seems entirely logical that Windwalker's GOOs should be able to awaken in either of the two arctic territories regardless of who controls the gates there, but it makes less sense for them to be able to just show up in any of the other factions' starting territories (plus, that kind of overlaps with Opener of the Way's shtick.)

>_>

<_<

As above!

All right, we've got our group:

1. Sarcasmorator
2. MrChris
3. periodical
4. Gerad

It'll probably be a few days before I have time to put the map together again.

OK, who does everyone want to play as? I call Opener.

Yellow Sign is my first choice this time around.

I'd like to try Sleeper.

I guess I'll take Black Goat. Kind of wanted to be Yellow Sign again but I'm happy to cede it to MrChris since he wasn't it last time.

Randomized player order and first:

1. Yellow Sign
2. Opener
3. Sleeper — FIRST PLAYER
4. Black Goat

I do have one more question for Sarcasmorator before the first turn gets underway. Since Azathoth will be in this game, will we also be using the neutral spellbooks from the Daemon Sultan rulebook? Or are we just using the neutral GOOs and monsters you listed?

Neutral spellbooks too, yes. With those, you can take one instead of one of your normal spellbooks whenever you gain a spellbook.

Sorry for the delay, y'all. Been a busy week/end.

It should be said that I love you for running this, don't worry about it.

All right, we're ready to go! I'll start a new thread for the new game. Everyone starts with 8 power, Sleeper goes first and chooses direction of play (I put the right-facing Lovecraft down, just change it if you want).

Neutral monsters: Pay 2 Doom points to summon the first one as described in the spreadsheet, then power afterward for the rest. If I recall correctly, you lose control of a summoned monster type if none of them are on the board, allowing other players to summon them later on.

Neutral GOOs: Summoned as described in the spreadsheet. Same deal as above if you lose one.

Abandoned

This one's just finished. The other one stalled out.

There was another one? Huh! I guess I better go through the forum and find the link!