Yig as Clubber Lang

I love the session reports The King In Yellow is writing, power to him and all that. My session reports for Arkham Horror are a little shorter on narrative, a little longer on bitching. Here's a recent one I posted at the 'Geek when I needed some quick GeekGold to tip a trade manager*.

I wasn't satisfied with that drubbing at Yig's scaly hands, so I decided to have another go this weekend while the kids and wife napped. I always play with Dunwich Horror expansion. My three characters were Redeemed Cultist (Diana?), Author (Gloria maybe?), and Athlete (uh, Rachel?). The bits got parceled out and the Author looked to be the enforcer: Brass Knuckles, Shotgun, and Monster Lure to bring bad guys to her. Sadly, her special ability works only in other dimensions, so it wouldn't come up too often. Redeemed Cultist girl had the spell that lets you Bless someone and I did that at first opportunity on the Author to give her that much more oomph. Squeaky Fromme was pretty tapped out after this, as her unique was a Mission that looked WAY too hard (sacrificing four gate tropies to kill all the monsters? No thanks). The Athlete was my gate runner, she was fast, had EVADE skill (can exhaust to re-roll an Evade check), and even if she got rocked, she can pick and choose through the Madness/Injury decks.

Let's talk the mechanics of soloing a little. You should solo with three characters. That's enough to have someone run gates, someone handle critters, and someone doing whatever else is required (like Rumors, quelling Monsters in Dunwich if it gets ugly up there, becoming Deputy--whatever). I've done it a few times now, so I'm wired on the numbers: Monster Limit? 6. Too Many Gates? 7. Outskirts Limit? 5. Soloing with one or two characters--especially with Dunwich-- is so damn hard as to not be fun. One "A Monster appears!" and it's a Dhole ? You're done. Soloing four characters is doable if longer, but it makes me reach even for the characters at that point, and that's a bit much. I set up the board with spare hearts on St. Mary's, spare san on the asylum, a money pile in the upper left corner next to Eastside and clues stashed between Northside and Merchant District. Investigator cards to the right, AO cards to the left, and Mythos and OD cards in between Dunwich and Arkham boards. Go!

Speaking of Dholes, that's what pops out of the first gate. If you haven't played the game, you're forgiven--this is Not Good®. I have only recently gotten over my urge to take on all the bad guys (barring the de facto unkillable Colour Out of Space), and largely as a function of Dhole-delivered asskickings. The score is Dholes 4, Team Jeb 0. I have a better record against GOO's! So, that thing is to be avoided. I'll hope for a gate closure or encounter to get rid of it. Meanwhile everyone is on Sneak duty if they get even close to that area.

The Author heads for an encounter, the Athlete works towards the gate, the Cultist takes a stab at an Inner Sanctum encounter (always sucks, I always try--no different this time, two monsters appear in the streets). Things chug along. The Athlete ends up Paranoid, the Cultist is Necrophobic, and the Author finds the Alien Weapon for the crazy whack funky Shotgun +4, Brass Knuckles +1, Alien Weapon +2, AND FIGHT +1 skill! I keep her natural Fight at 2, so she tosses 10 dice a go and 6's count twice. Oh, AND she's Blessed, 4's count too. That's an enforcer. Still won't take on a Dhole though.

I'm a gate away from victory by gate trophy collection when Yig awakens. The Blessings fall off the Athlete and the Author--the Cultist lost hers earlier due to her pisspoor rolls. If you read the other session report, you know that she sucks. She still does. I start WHALING on Yig, nine dice from the enforcer alone. Some shotgun hits and Yig's down to five counters before he even takes a swipe. Things head a bit south here, but I see it coming in time to trade away the enforcer's goods to the other investigators. Yep--the enforcer was busy enforcing and came into the fight with only 1 san and 2 stamina. She... she didn't make it. But the (heinous) Cultist and the Athlete power through and chip away at Yig until that scaly bastard gets slinks back to the festering hole he crawled from. Eye of the TigerSnake People plays up on the radio and we walk off into the sunset. What's left of us anyway.

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*I realized that this is away some folks get GeekGold. It took my more than a year to scrounge up enough for the avatar. Maybe I'll run a few trades to gather up the GG I need to show everyone my love of all things Arkham.