I Swear I'm Not Wearing a Mic

 Also, a game of Arkham Horror 3rd edition with four players.

Scenario: Shots in the Dark, where Nyarlathotep threatens Arkham.

Investigators: 

Minh Thi Phan, Secretary. 
Tommy Muldoon, Rookie Cop
Marie Lambeau, Entertainer
Patrice Hathaway, Violinist

Starting display window revealed Thompson tommy gun, and since every investigator started at police station, well, three of us stayed there to get it. Patricia did get it, and it was given to Minh, who had to act as the team's discount gangster thug. She was appointed for "cleaning duty" by the O'Bannion's. 

Investigators went along with O'Bannions, angering the Sheldon gang. 

If it hadn't been for Marie's busted ability to give extra actions, the investigators' hilarious rolls would have spelled doom for the scenario rather quickly. They were kind of passing their checks, but only barely. Mostly they warded off just one Doom token from board, researched just one clue, did only a single success on Newspapers, etc. This trend was especially harsh for Patrice, who could have researched clues if she managed to roll at least two successes. I mean, technically it could've been done with just one success, but whenever she did, the re-roll just made the whole thing fail. 

However, investigators managed to ward off just enough that no doom tokens really went to the scenario sheet. It wasn't until unstable location in the Sheldon stronghold exploded... twice. Three doom tokens went onto the sheet instantly. 

Investigators tried to speed up their game, eventually finding out the culprit behind the waves of violence. While there weren't that many doom tokens on scenario sheet, the inept (if plentiful) warding caused too many locations to threaten exploding in doom. There was hurry. Sheldon and O'Bannion's both had to be snapped out of their madness, and who better to talk some sanity to possessed gangsters than the Rookie Cop? He talked at least six out of the required eight clue tokens to both gang strongholds.

All in all the game seemed to go fine, but there was a possibility that our attempt to broker peace would have been swept under the rug with the sixth doom token on scenario sheet.

Victory for Investigators.

Local Eldritchlife Preservation Act

 During my Kuhmo visit, we had a 4 player Arkham Horror, 3rd edition.

Scenario was the main guy itself, Cthulhu and the Echoes of the Deep.

Investigators chosen were:

Diana Stanley, Redeemed Cultist

Mark Harrigan, Soldier

Zoey Samaras (sp?) Chef

Stella Clark, Letter Carrier 

I played Diana. I wanted the lightning skill in favor of the extra action point, but at least in this scenario that seemed like a mistake. Throughout the game I was able to land a couple of solid lightnings, yes, but most of the time when there was a juicy target, there was already two Doom tokens on the space. Blasting that would have meant spawning an anomaly.

However, fairly early Diana was able to grab Blessed from the observatory. This made her quite the warder. And Stella had one automatic success most of the time, and even Zoey had enough lore for the trio to keep anomalies on the board to the minimum.

Mark Harrigan was... delayed. Sure, his contributions were valuable - him delayed usually meant a monster or a cultist carcass (or two) somewhere, before listening to an exciting football match from the radio with an old man in the park.

Because investigators were so efficient at removing monsters and doom tokens, Cthulhu kept sleeping without a slightest care in the world. It wasn't until newspapers ran out when game picked up pace.

However, by then my investigator - the redeemed cultist - had reached an absolute monster of a build. Her character ability gave her a +1 for as many dice as there were doom on her space. She was blessed, which meant 3+ successes if there was Doom. She also had Rabbit Foot for a single re-roll, plus Lucky Charm for an option to re-roll multiple dice. She had Lucky Cigarette Case to give +1 to a roll, so a success with 2+ if there was doom in her space.

That was impressive and all, but she went completely bonkers when she received True Magic (+3 lore for spell actions) and Astral Projection. She was able to, for example, observe all her clues to the scenario sheet and then astral project herself to observatory to advance scenario. She only had to do that once, though, because when it was relevant, Zoey was camping at the observatory, until she went to kill some elite monster that spawned from three doom tokens on scenario sheet. She became blessed. Mark Harrigan became blessed, too. Stella Clark, well, she wasn't blessed, but she was the letter carrier, and had one guaranteed success most of the time.

However, as the newspapers ran out, investigators didn't have THAT many turns to stall around, unless they picked up pace.

And they did. Stella got the pocket watch, which made her super efficient at the scenario. And if Diana had already been bonkers with her kit, she absolutely broke the game when she picked up Leo de Luca as an ally. She had become a proper octopus with at least eight tentacle remnants, so spamming Astral Projection wasn't a problem. Astral Projecting a warding action wherever needed, then moving and warding another space with Leo was silly strong. In the last turns she also picked up Token of Faith so that in case remnants ran out, she'd stay net sanity neutral for a long time if she removed at least two doom tokens even if she used two astral projections.

Despite all this, investigators were racing against the time. There were seven doom tokens on scenario sheet, when mythos phase decided to spam the board with monsters and anomalies. However, the monsters that investigators had become, were able to stabilize the situation and go seal Cthulhu's gate when there was eight doom tokens on scenario sheet. 

My best guess is the gate was sealed to protect Cthulhu from Diana, Mark, Stella and Zoey, according to Local Eldritchlife Preservation Act.

Kill-stealing the kill-stealer

 Visited some friends in Vaasa, which meant a round of Arkham Horror, 3rd edition.

Scenario was Silence of Tsathoggua.

Investigators we had were Jenny Barnes the dilettante, Wendy Adams the urchin, Mark Harrigan the soldier and Stella Clark, letter carrier.

Investigators had a smashing success in their first few turns. In fact, two clues were found in the very first round. Stella bought shotgun with money from Jenny, and deliverer Mark to fight some monsters. As expected, he removed those with zero effort.

Same could not be said about the dilettante, who rolled and re-rolled a total of nine dice, but scoring only a single point of damage to grasping fungus.

Really early there an anomaly emerged in Riverdown district, but investigators were able to normalize things in just one round, too. 

It all seemed... too easy. 

However... Jenny started getting spammed by Lore checks with her mighty lore of 1, and despite focusing and re-rolls other players managed to pick only one doom token from the board at a time. Letter carrier became Tainted. Harrigan was more than adept at beating down monsters, but then again, that's all that he did. And that did not count too much for the scenario victory, except for when he shot down the elite Dhole that had been experimented upon, almost wrecking Corpse Picker on the same turn. 

For the longest of time only one Clue token was on the scenario sheet, while doom tokens kept popping up in there. Even Jenny had managed to pick up clues and had two in her possession, but did not succeed in planting even one of them on scenario sheet after six dice worth of rolls. I sure felt useful with my character.

After the letter carrier punched a street kid, clues started dripping where they should, and a new wing was opened in the science building to test the found Mi-Go stuff. Unfortunately, a street was eaten off the city by a gigantic maw. So investigators were in a bit of a hurry.

And soon enough, Tsathoggua awakened as investigators were unable to stop the amount of doom spiraling out of control. 

What struck me as a bit odd was how easy it was to stop Tsathoggua from gobbling up the city - although we did have perfect investigator for that, Stella, who was able to add a success by spending a focus point. Which meant that converting clue tokens into stops cost only one clue from scenario sheet. 

Anyway, we were a bit unprepared as the awakening happened so unexpectedly. This left into drastic measures. Harrigan had the Mi-Go brain box thing, so Jenny gave Harrigan her determination to find Isabella as well as her glamorous dress. Next, Harrigan absorbed Wendy's talents and personality, and most importantly, a lucky cigar case.

So, two investigators were robbed of their personalities and Harrigan, in his new fancy dress and brandishing a shotgun, went to shoot Tsathoggua for a bit. 

A Dhole had spawned in the same district as science building, and Stella had enough health to survive for two rounds, so there was somewhat of a limit. However, first round of attacks dealt twelve damage in to Tsathoggua. That's an impressive number of wounds for seven dice worth of attacks. Combined with automatic damage from tokens on scenario sheet, this meant the big bad evil had just four health left after first attack. 

Robbed of her personality Jenny, as a final act of defiance, tried to kill steal Tsathoggua with Astral Projection. Well, that amounted only to one extra damage.

Next turn.

Before Harrigan activates, Jenny tries to kill-steal the beast again with Astral Projection. She had three re-rolls at her possession, so she just might do that! Alas, two extra damage was the best she could do.

But then Wendy, the other robbed investigator, announced she would intervene in my kill-steal attempt. And there it was, two extra successes. So, that just happened. Kill-stealer got kill-stealed.

Withers withers

 A couple of years it has been, but during my visit to Kuhmo I got to play my second game of Arkham Horror 3rd edition.

Scenario was the Dead Cry Out.

My investigator was Norman Withers the astronomer, and the rest were Agatha Crane the parapsychologist, Calvin Wright the haunted and Zoel Samaras, the chef.

Of course I didn't have the experience to tell if we were doing good or bad, but after a few rounds the other players started to express their anguish. I don't get it. The first monster that spawned was only some sort of a gluttonous giant, that the chef and the haunted guy beat no sweat.

Norman Withers started to ramble about his psychic visions in a police station, and against all odds he was gifted with map of arkham. Don't know why they had used excessive force when circling the sanatorium with a ball point pen. 

 Well, players were rolling their wardings rather poorly, so Norman Withers had to come and save the day when Uptown had like two, two, three doom tokens in their locations. He and Agatha managed to remove two doom tokens in total. With Lore 4 + rerolls and Lore 5. Yeah.

Monsters kept spawning and Chef and the Haunted guy were busy with them. Also the bystanders needed to be taken into consideration. Situation was doomed, hopeless, without any prospect of good outcome until Norman Withers bought the spell Wither. This is when he started single handedly beating any and all monsters that he engaged, and saved handsome allies like Arthur Johnson in the process. 

Technically I didn't lie. But as it happened, Norman engaged only one monster in the game. 

While scenario sheet didn't receive too many doom tokens, investigators had absolutely horrible luck in getting any clues either. 

Haunted guy was stuck in St. Mary's Hospital, the parapsychologist at train station and chef in silver twilight lodge. 

Only the hero of the team, Norman Withers who uses Wither kept moving anywhere, and he did so into the underworld. 

Painstakingly other investigators flipped those colored markers, and in our plight obviously luck gave us two same colors, which meant scenario just dragged on and on, ultimate demise approaching rapidly while investigators still had no clue how they were supposedly to even win exactly. 

Fortunately they did manage to flip third colored token - one round before the game ended in Mnar thing's victory.

This will look good on my portfolio

 One four player game of Arkham Horror, third edition.

Investigators were Diana Stanley, the redeemed cultist and Tommy Muldoon the rookie cop, plus Father Mateo and Charlie Kane, the politician.

Scenario was Tyrants of Ruin (the one with Father Dagon and Mother Hydra)

I played the politician, and what an absurd ride it was.

First he becomes the hotel portier, and soon enough was raising four dollars per gather materials action. This allowed for an entire legion of task force members.

Then, he finds a harpoon and derringer. Then he enters police station in hopes of attracting a shotgun for his campaign, but is instead blessed after finding the bunny of a little kid. And he just sat there in the police station, never getting the shotgun but yanking various horrendous monsters from the streets with his harpoon.

But this martial prowess did not end here, oh no. Charlie was after bigger game. 

Father Dagon spawns after investigators find all the required relics.

And Charlie Kane is there to greet the monster.

With his harpoon, dragging the monstrosity from Devil Reef to Falcon Point. 

Thanks to newspapers running out, Mother Hydra spawned right after. Before even finishing Father Dagon, the harpoon was put to good use again when Charlie piled the ancient, massive monsters on top of each other. Then a lightning struck both. The redeemed cultist had tossed lightnings left and right throughout the game, and with the relic book that let her focus lore at the start of each of her turns, those lightnings were a killer.

Father Dagon lay dead, and pursuing Mother Hydra went after the cultist.

The hulking monstrosity laid terror on the ferry landing beyond a body of water, and Charlie Kane brandished his harpoon and threw it to the Hydra from the other shore. And pulled her all the way from Arkham back to Innsmouth. There, he slays Mother Hydra.

If this isn't going to affect next elections, I don't know what will.

Now, Charlie Kane even wasn't the biggest star of the game. Without Father Mateo we would have lost ages ago, as we had plenty of effects that happened with Reckoning. He also prayed off plenty of wanted warrants and tainted conditions.

Diana also removed her fair share of monsters from the board, and what wasn't killed by Diana was mopped up by Tommy Muldoon.

All in all, it was a hilarious game and I don't know if Cthulhu mythos game is supposed to be hilarious.