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#1
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Let's Play Arkham Horror Already!
So it's the summertime. You're out of classes for a few months, or on that well-earned vacation. Where do you go? What do you do? Well, why not visit beautiful Arkham, Massachusetts?
From our beautiful river views to our scenic woods to our well-respected historical society and museums which receive the best in traveling exhibits from around the world, such as our current display of Egyptian relics, there's plenty for a visitor to our town to do! And with rustic Dunwich just a short train ride away, there always more to see! Arkham is a wonderful place to visit, but is an even better place to live and work! We have some of the best medical facilities in the area, from our world-class St. Mary's Hospital to Arkham Asylum, a place for the less fortunate among us to get top-notch psychiatric care. We're also the home of Miskatonic U, a first-class university offering a wide variety of degrees and featuring a huge library with a large special collection of occult manuscripts. Add in our fine dining establishments such as local favorite Velma's Diner and the wonderful shopping at our General Store and Curiosity Shoppe, there's little you'll be lacking in a life in Arkham. So come join us here at Arkham, Massachusetts! I think you'll be glad you did! (This Message Paid for by the Arkham Tourism Board) --- Of course, I suppose, if you all wanted, we could, say, investigate the strange occurrences happening in town instead... the crazed cultists chanting in strange tongues, those things that people keep seeing for a moment in the shadows, and are then gone, or the rumblings of a creature from beyond this world, preparing to awake. Yeah, that sounds like a bit more fun. Let's do that. Now, I'll tell you right up front, I'm not exactly an expert on Lovecraftian stuff, but I know a good board game when I see it, and me and my friends love playing Arkham Horror. Unlike a lot of board games, however, it's totally possible to play Arkham Horror by yourself by picking a small group of investigators and having at it. So I think that's what I'll do, and take a bunch of pictures along the way. Sound like fun? Well, I hope so. The general plan is for this to be part tutorial, because this game is kinda overwhelming to a new player, and part thing that's more interesting than a tutorial as we fight the forces of darkness. But this first entry has a lot of tutorial. So buckle up! Or something along those lines! Also, my picture quality sucks on these first pictures. Rest assured, I shall steal the much better camera for future episodes. This game board is HUGE. I'd normally set up on a table, but because I don't want to have to put everything away and set everything up over and over again while I do this, I've set it up in my bedroom on this tiny table, with it all sticking off the sides. Fun times, eh? There are also a million chits and cards to this game, but we'll get into those later, really. To anyone who knows the game, I'm going to be playing with both the Dunwich Horror and Curse of the Dark Pharaoh expansions, because that's how I roll. I need to buy the King in Yellow sometime, I really do. To anyone who doesn't know the game, well... the rules in this game are not exactly friendly. I'll be trying to explain them as we go along, but not in one huge blurb so as it bore you all. I mean, I love rules. I could totally do it. But nah. What's important for you to understand right now is the Investigators and Elder Gods, which you'll have to help me pick so I can get started. Now, I'm going to need a team of four investigators. I say four because that should make it hard but not too hard to win the game. This is the minimum we play with when I'm with my friends, and we rarely lose. I'm willing to take three, though, if you all would rather me have more trouble. You know, that's cool. Just let me know. But first, let's look at an investigator. I think I'll use this one from BoardGameGeek instead of the one I took, so you all can actually read it. Ah, Mandy Thompson. A favorite of my friends, because her ability is so damn useful and she shows a little cleavage. Our main stats are our Stamina and Sanity. These work sort of like HP and MP, only if you run out of MP, you also die because you're a bit too insane to investigate anymore. Mandy is nicely balanced at 5 and 5. All investigators Stamina and Sanity add up to 10, so she's as middle of the road as she can get. Below that, we see where she starts the game at on the board and what she starts the game with. $6 is a pretty nice chunk of change in this game, and she starts with four clue tokens, which are very useful. You can use 5 clue tokens to seal dimensional gates, which is one of the paths to victory in this game. You can also spend clue tokens to gain extra dice on any roll you may be failing, to give you extra chances. She also starts with two random common items, a random unique item, and a random skill. Common items are mundane things. They could be guns and knives or maps and provisions. Unique items are magical items, like enchanted blades or talismans, as well as the all-important Elder Signs, which are super useful items that let you seal gates without using all those clue tokens I mentioned earlier. It's all a luck of the draw what Mandy will get, though some investigators start with specific weapons or items, of course. The skill is also drawn at random. The majority of skills are just stat boosts, but there are also skills that let you get extra dice when spending clue tokens, for instance. There's a wide variety. It's also important to note that there's two other main item types, Spells and Allies, which investigators could start with, but Mandy does not. Allies give you stat boosts and can sometimes also have a useful ability attached. Spells are, well, spells, and range from useful, to combat-oriented, to completely useless. Across from her starting items is her special ability. Mandy's ability kicks ass, in that she can let any of her teammates, or herself, re-roll a check they mess up on. This can save lives or make sure teammates get awesome items they might have otherwise missed. Other investigators skill sets do all kinds of things, like letting them absorb the first point of stamina damage they take or have more choices when buying items at stores. Finally, below that is Mandy's Stat sliders. You put little slider things like this on top of each pair of them to mark what stat they're at. As you can see, if you want more Fight, you have to lose points in Willpower, or vice versa. Mandy's Focus is 2, meaning at the start of every turn, she can move the sliders about a total of 2 notches to adjust for what she's planning on doing this turn. What these stats govern is mostly self-explanatory, but I'll make a few quick clarifications to make sure we're on the same page. Your Speed number is how many spaces you can move a turn, and your Sneak number is how easy it is to avoid combat. Fight is how well you can kill things, and Willpower is how well you can resist going insane when seeing the horrors we'll probably be encountering. Lore lets you cast spells, and Luck is, well, how lucky you are. The numbers on Mandy are not universal. All investigators have different numbers on these sliders to reflect their character. The Magician is obviously going to be able to make his Lore go much higher than the Drifter, for example. Last edited by poetfox; 05-28-2008 at 01:29 PM. |
#2
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Now you know how to look at the good guys, so let's look at the bad guys, and I know just the guy to look at. Again, I think I'll use the readable picture from BoardGameGeek. Those guys are great.
Hey, look! It's Cthulhu! Oddly enough, there are several Elder Gods who are harder to beat than him, but here he is. That -6 is how hard it is to hit him. He removes 6 dice out of the pool of an investigator who is trying to attack him. That's double what Mandy can have without a weapon. Ouch. Beneath that, we see how he affects the normal monsters in the game. If we're fighting Cthulhu, all Cultists have a horror rating, something they don't normally have. Now they can drive an investigator insane. In the middle is the effect that taking on Cthulhu has on the game overall, which is to reduce the maximum sanity and stamina of all investigators by 1 permanently. Ouch again. Finally, the last column is how he attacks if the investigators are unfortunate enough to have him be summoned instead of sealing him away. As you can see, he attacks your sanity and stamina points, whichever would hurt you more, and adds a counter to the doom track after combat, which basically means he gets healed every round. What is the doom track, you ask? Well, it's the rest of the card there. Each time a portal opens to another dimension, we put a doom counter on this track, If it fills all the way up, Cthulhu is summoned. Some of the bigger gods take longer to summon, some take significantly less. The doom counters are also Cthulhu's hit points, so to speak. Each one represents a number of hits equal to the number of investigators. If we play with four investigators, it would take four hits to remove a doom counter. Remember that healing move? Ouch. Remember when I said this game had a lot of rules? Yeah. Well, there's the basics you need to help me choose my team of investigators and our enemy. So who will it be? Let me get you a complete list here, with nice little links to BoardGameGeek so you can look at them and choose your favorites. Or just pick things with cool names. Either way. Investigators (Remember, we're picking a team of four): Amanda Sharpe, the Student Bob Jenkins, the Salesman Carolyn Fern, the Psychologist Darrell Simmons, the Photographer Dexter Drake, the Magician Gloria Goldberg, the Author Harvey Walters, the Professor Monterey Jack, the Archaeologist Jenny Barnes, the Dilettante Joe Diamond, the Private Eye Kate Winthop, the Scientist Mandy Thompson, the Researcher Michael McGlen, the Gangster "Ashcan" Pete, the Drifter Sister Mary, the Nun Vincent Lee, the Doctor Rita Young, the Athlete Diana Stanley, the Redeemed Cultist Wilson Richards, the Handyman Leo Anderson, the Expedition Leader Jim Culver, the Musician Marie Lambeau, the Singer Jacqueline Fine, the Psychic Mark Harrigan, the Soldier Elder Gods (We're picking one to be our enemy for the game): Hastur Yig Azathoth Yog-Sothoth Nyarlathotep Shub-Niggaurath Cthulhu Ithaqua Abhoth Tsathoggua Glaaki Shudde M'ell So what'll it be? Feel free to make my game be crazy hard (making me use Amanda Sharpe is a good start) if you'd like. I'm more than willing to get screwed over in the line of duty. Last edited by poetfox; 05-28-2008 at 01:24 PM. |
#3
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go for Hastur! Although if you lose, you should probably try again with Yig. Not only does he look (relatively) easy, but his name is fun to say. Yig! Yig!
As for Adventure Pals, I can't say no to Amanda Sharpe. Girl just looks like she is begging for a quick devouring. I also can't say no to a dashing man with a gun and a mustache, so Monterey Jack is in the running. Same goes for my Friend Dexter Drake. As for my last choice, Diana Stanley has no background material, so I'm assuming she's related to the Belmonts in some capacity, and is there for hereditarily equipped to deal with such a crisis. |
#4
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I have to vote for a team of Darrell Simmons, Jacqueline Fine, Rita Young, and Mandy Thompson. I believe this team will give the game the all-important "harem anime" vibe.
I also vote Glaaki for the Elder God, because its name makes me smile. |
#5
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I'm going to say we should use Michael McGlen, Joe Diamond, Marie Lambeau, and Mandy Thompson. A gangster, a private eye, a singer, and a researcher? Sounds like a well-rounded team to me!
Cthulhu is good for mindfuckery, but for pure world-ending destruction, you just can't beat Azathoth. That said, Hastur seems like a good choice if we don't want to die. |
#6
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It has to be Azathoth.
And our investigators should be Jim Culver, Gloria Goldberg, Marie Lambeau, and (you asked for it) Amanda Sharpe. There's no way we could possibly lose. Trust me, I totally called that graveyard thing in the Lone Wolf thread. |
#7
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How can we not pick someone named "Ashcan" Pete?
For an enemy, I want the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young: Shub-Niggurat, as he is so horribly disgusting. From the d20 rule book: Quote:
Quote:
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#8
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Please please please bring Sister Mary!
Clearly a nun is essential if you're trying to defeat demons. |
#9
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I don't want to get bummed out when Duke inevitably gets torn apart by a tentacle monster.
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#10
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No love for Nyarlathotep? He's histories biggest boogyman. All folklore pertaining to Satan and false gods goes on his resume. Although Azathoth's "destroy the world" clause is rather charming.
I don't care who you take along but don't leave Joe Diamond on the shelf. He deserves a spot on the team for best genre name. |
#11
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I'm kind of partial to Azathoth, since having the end of all existence seems like a significant threat for a story. Helps prevent a lack of drama, in any case.
As for peoples, I'd go for Marie Lambeau, Bob Jenkins, Gloria Goldburg and Mandy Thompson. Because what better party for saving the world then a singer, salesmen, author and... the one you picked anyway. |
#12
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am I the only person that thinks the Trust Fund Kid has the most hardcore picture of them all?
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#13
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I think Dexter Drake should be part of the team, only because Dexter Drake will most likely play "The Final Countdown" whenever he does illusions.
Shub-Niggurath is creepy. SO creepy it must be stopped. |
#14
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HASTUR! HASTUR! HAS [[carrier lost]]
Also, fucking yeah arkham horror! good call, poetfox. |
#15
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If you're not using the King in Yellow expansion, save Hastur for later.
Easy team: Wilson Richards: Shotgun + Motorcycle + 2 Uniques for starting equipment! Darrell Simmons: 2 Uniques + income (Retainer) + an awesome ability Carolyn Fern: Sanity Restoration + 2 Uniques + money (to buy spells) Mandy Thompson: Our group jokes that her cleavage is the source of her power Hard team: Sister Mary, Jim Culver, Mark Harrigan, Monterey Jack My gaming group has played this game a lot, and I honestly tend to recommend not using Dunwich and the Dark Pharaoh expansions together. CotDP adds a lot of Arkham & Mythos events relating to exhibit items, and you can be kind screwed if you haven't gotten lucky enough to get any. Dunwich adds a lot of powerful monsters and spreads out the action so it's harder to efficiently get around where you need to go, and for your team to be able to work together. My vote: Leave out the Dunwich board and use Nyarlathotep as the Ancient One; his unique Masks are always good for making things horrifyingly more interesting. And for more Dark Pharaoh themed evilness: Good luck! |
#16
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Quote:
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That's a good point, though, about the Heralds. I've never played with those. Granted, the vote for the Great Old Ones is looking like we're not going to end up with one who has an appropriate Herald in the game, but... well, I shall leave the options open. Here's the other option for a Herald, besides The Dark Pharaoh, the Dunwich Horror. There's also a Herald for The King in Yellow, but as I said, I don't have that expansion. But yeah, let me know. Glad there's some interest in this. Heh. I'll be attempting to get the game started later in the evening, since it's my day off and all, but I want to give people enough time to throw out suggestions. |
#17
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You HAVE to take Monterey Jack. You HAVE to.
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#18
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This man speaks a fountain of delicious truth.
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#19
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I think all groups familiar with this game come to the same conclusion regarding Duke's fate.
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My copy of Dunwich Horror (original print run) didn't come with that Herald. |
#21
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It was on the official website as an extra too, just like the Dark Pharaoh. Of course, I can't find it there now. I found that image on BoardGameGeek.
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#22
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I second the Joe Diamond sentiments- when you're facing unspeakable horrors from beyond the veil, how can you not bring a hard-boiled P.I. with you?
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#23
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I've been thinking of getting this game
and here it appears on LP so Ican test run it! I'm also a big fan of the mythos so I can't wait to see how this goes! I'm not voting on a team but I'll vote for Shub-Niggurath. Shooting it out with testicles and vaginas is too funny to pass up
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#24
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I've always been a fan of Hastur, but if he isn't as good because you don't have the expansion for him, Yog Sothoth is a close second.
As for an investigating team, I like Carolyn Fern and Joe Diamond because of their horror cliches and connection to Providence. Let's round it out with young Amanda Sharp and crazy Ashcan Pete (go Duke!). |
#25
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It's a requirement when we play that I get to be Mandy Thompson. Nobody even questions it anymore. I'm a fan of cleavage, what can I say?
The last time we played this, we got so screwed by random events that we got eaten by Cthulhu within about 45 minutes. |
#26
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the sheer excitement...
caused by the creation of this thread and the picture of the board and chits drove me to order this game... thanks!
So much for that part of my stimulus check... |
#27
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There is so, so much setup to this game.
I have a rule that serves me well in this line of work: Don't take jobs from dames. They lead to nothing but trouble both in the field and in the bedroom. Whenever I make exceptions, things always go down the crapper. This job was no different.
Sure, she was pretty, but so many of them are. However, there was something about her, how she waltzed in like she owned the place, and all other places besides, wearing that strange jewelry with strange markings nestled between that heavy chest that stopped me from shooing her out the door right then and there. "Got a light?" she asked me, pulling a cigarette from her bag. "I don't take jobs from no dames," I said, pulling out my lighter and flicking it open. "Sorry to tell you you're wasting your time." I held the flame over the edge of the cigarette and she took a long drag, the kind that makes a man fixate, think about what else those lips might have been around. She sat on the edge of the desk and looked to me, smoke curling from the stick between her fingers. "I think you might change your mind on this one, Mr. Diamond." I sat back down in my chair. "Husband cheating on you? Boyfriend into some rough stuff? I've heard it all, Miss...?" "Fae. Jane Fae." "I've heard it all, Miss Fae, seen it all, and it ain't worth my time. So why don't you get back on your pretty little feet and get out of here, eh?" She took another long drag. "It's nothing complicated, Mr. Diamond. I just need a package delivered." "The post office is right down the street, darling." "This package is a bit more than your average postman can handle. It's... special." "I ain't interested." "Mm, I suppose I'm not being persuasive enough. Perhaps my good friend Andrew Jackson could help." She drops a roll of bills the size of my fist there on the table, I swear to god. "And another one of those once the package is delivered." Maybe it was the money. Maybe it was those eyes staring at me from that beautiful face. Either way, I sealed my fate right then and there. "Start talkin'." --- Well, before we can play, I guess I have to actually set all this stuff up first, huh? That means a ton of shuffling. How much shuffling? Well, let me show you how many decks of cards and tiles I need to shuffle. I've handily labeled each stack so I can show you what they are! A: This is the Mythos deck. Every turn ends by flipping another one of these over. They have a ton of effects on the game and basically reflect what's happening in Arkham as a result of the evil a-brewing. I'll show you more about them when I actually start the game. B: This is the Otherworldly Encounter Deck. We're going to be diving into other dimensions, and from this deck, we receive the random encounters our investigators must face there. C: All of these decks are the Arkham Encounter decks, one for each area of the board. These are how we determine what adventures we have when we're not in another dimension. D: This is the Skill deck, from which we draw our skills. Hope we get good stuff like Fisticuffs. E: This is the Exhibit Item deck. These are items from the Egyptian exhibit that's currently in town. If we're lucky, our adventures could let us snag one of these, but there's no way to purchase them or start with them. F: This is the Common Item deck. Hope we draw many guns from this deck. G: This is the Unique Item deck. Hope we draw many Elder Signs from this deck. H: This is the Ally deck. If we manage to recruit more people to our cause, this is where we'll get them from. I: This is the Spell deck. Hope we draw combat spells and Find Gate from here. J: This is the Injury deck. If our investigators lose all their Stamina, they get knocked out and lose turns, money, and items, not to mention having to waste time healing themselves. Instead of all that, we can take an Injury, which will be a permanent handicap for the investigator, but will let them jump right back into the action. I assume if bad things happen, you all will help me decide whether or not to take an Injury or just tough it out and die. K: This is the Madness deck. It's basically exactly the same at the Injury deck, only for going insane and Sanity loss. L: This is the stack of Gate Tokens. We'll draw from here to determine what other dimensions portals in Arkham open to. M: This is the Dunwich Horror deck. If we get unlucky enough to summon him, we have to draw one of these every round of combat to determine his stats for that round. Note that there are plenty of cards that you never draw at random, and thus aren't pictured here, but are used to represent various effects. Also, we have, of course, the Monster Cup! ...or Monster Ziplock Bag! This is where we'll randomly draw monsters out of to fight. So now we got all our pieces out. Sort of. So now let's set up the board. But first, let's look at a section of the board. Hey, it's Miskatonic U! Each circle, or location, counts as a space, as well as the box that just says "Miskatonic U." That's the streets of this area of town. Moving from the streets to a location costs a movement point, and so does moving back to the streets. The main reason I show you this, though, is those diamonds above each space. See how two are green and one is red? Green spaces are dimensionally stable spaces. Portals to other worlds won't open there. Red spaces are unstable. A gate could appear at any time! However, because of their status, each red space starts with a clue token on it, to represent the arcane secrets one could glean by investigating there. If an investigator ends their turn on a space with a clue token on it, they get it. Simple, eh? So I put all the clue tokens down, and I've shuffled all the many, many decks... all that's left is to outfit out Investigators with their gear. And here they are! Joe Diamond, Monterey Jack, Marie Lambeau, and Amanda Sharpe! They will be saving us all from a horrible fate today. Let's see what random items and equipment I get for them... Joe is looking pretty nice. Besides his trusty .45 Automatic that he comes with, he's also drawn a knife. If you look in the bottom left corner of the weapons, there is a hand symbol. An investigator can equip two "hands" worth of weapons or spells each combat. Since both of Joe's weapons take one hand, he can use both each time we have to throw down with him. He's also gotten an Ancient Tome, which is... not the best. If he spends movement points and passes a Lore check, he might be lucky enough to be able to trade this in for a random spell. However, his Lore stats are not the best. This will likely get passed off to someone like Marie, who could make better use of it. Finally, his skill is Spot Hidden, which is pretty decent. It lets us add 1 to the result of any Luck roll for free. If a dice is rolled and comes up five, for example, we treat it as if it said 6. Handy. Marie is also looking quite good, even though my photo is very blurry. She starts with an enchanted knife and the spell Voice of Ra. The knife is nice. Voice of Ra is... okay. It lets me buff my skill checks with her until the end of the turn. It probably won't get used. Her other two random spells are pretty nice, though. Cloud Memory lets her heal people's Sanity at the cost of her Stamina, and Vision Quest lets her take all clue tokens in the area she is in without having to actually be on the spaces they're on. The real lucky draw here, though, was Mythos Lore. This card is amazing. It does lower her max Sanity by one, but every turn we can tap it instead of spending a clue token. This means free extra dice in sticky situations and an easier time sealing gates. It's totally awesome. We do need to look into getting her some combat spells, though, to make use of her Third Eye ability, which gives us third "hand" in combat as long as that third hand is filled by a spell. Amanda Sharpe is not very good, but man if she didn't luck out on the draws. With her .18 Derringer and Enchanted Cane, she is ready for most combats, and those she is not ready for she can escape by casting the spell Wrack. Her +1 to Will skill is nothing to scoff at either, as that means we can keep her fight higher without driving her insane. Expert Occultist is the only eh thing here, but even it might come in handy. Monterey Jack is quite ready to kick ass and take names as well. He comes equipped with a trusty bullwhip and .38 Revolver, but he lucked out and drew an Alien Device as well. The Alien Device is a weapon that does not take a hand to use, meaning he can attack using all three items every combat. His other two cards we sort of got gypped on, though. Monterey is built to beat up monsters, and as such, his Stealth skill to let him evade better is likely to be wasted. Also, we managed to draw a Mission as his other unique item. Missions are, well, quests. Fetch quests, really. You have to go to every location listed on them and sacrifice what it says on the card in each place. If you do that, you get the quest reward listed on the card. Since we have to sacrifice three unique items to complete this Mission, we probably won't be doing it, unless you all really want to, but we're going to have to dig up some more unique items first. If we complete it, though, we do get to kill any three monsters we want, just like that. |
#28
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With all these items drawn, all that's left is to set the Investigators on the board and draw the first Mythos card.
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However, the rest of the card tells us that our first gate opens at The Witch House, and with it, a Ghost, drawn at random from the Monster Cup... err, bag. This means the first doom token is added to the Doom track. Also, our first clue appears at the Unvisited Isle. Maybe we should pay that a visit? Finally, we're ready to start the game... but wait, we don't know who we're fighting yet. Well, that's simple, we're fighting... Now you might ask yourself "Why not Hastur?" Well, I am dreaming big, and assuming that after this is a huge hit I am going to feel compelled to buy The King in Yellow and play it for you all in Traveling Mode with the appropriate Herald. I can dream, anyway. So there we have it. The game is finally ready to start. Whew. I guess I should start playing now, huh? If anyone has any particularly favorite places to investigate, tell me now! |
#29
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Whoa, hold up! You didn't use Monterey Jack's ability to draw an extra Unique item? Anything would be better than a mission (except another mission).
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#30
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I totally did and I totally drew Join the Winning Team and I totally decided that that is awesome but not the way to show people new to the game the game, so... we get Wave of Destruction.
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