Games Played 2 April 2014

15 in attendance this week and 7 games played. First time attendee was Ed.

I gathered 3 other players and gave Eldritch Horror another run out, this one used Yog Sotthuth and seemed to be in three phases defined by the mysteries in play, the first went quickly as The Dunwich Horror was defeated, the second took probably the bulk of the game as the casting of spells and discarding of them was required, while the final mystery also went quickly as everyone went to gather clues as the doom track, which had hardly moved in the earlier game started to tumble.

The investigators were:

Jacqueline Fine - Mark W
Jim Culver - Andy S
Lola Hayes - Dave D
Leo Anderson - Steve W
Diana Stanley, who replaced Jacqueline when she died.
Silas Marsh, who replaced Diana when she went insane.

The first mystery was The Spawn of Yog-Sotthuth placing the Dunwich Horror on the board in Arkham and we needed to defeat it to solve the mystery. We spent a turn or so collecting equipment, during which Jim acquired a double barrel shot gun and went to Arkham to deal with it, I had been in Tokyo during this time and had, due to an encounter there, reduced the Horror to 3 hits, so this was dealt with fairly easily. Doom did not move in this time because no gates matched the omen symbol when it moved.

Next up was Arcane Understanding, requiring 4 eldritch tokens to be accumulated on the card by discarding spells cast successfully. This was more difficult, Jacqueline was the primary spell caster, but others of us did look to acquire some. The problem was that the circumstances had to be right to cast the spell and some spells we would have liked to have kept. Another minor problem at the time was a rumour, Secrets of the Past, which was reducing the expedition deck, so someone needed to reach the active expedition to solve the rumour. Sometimes, someone would get close to the expedition, only to have it move somewhere else. It was during this time that Jacqueline died in San Francisco to be replaced by Diana, who swiftly recovered Jacqueline's stuff. Diana helped in the resolution of the mystery, but went insane due to a Cthonian in the Heart of Africa.

By the time that the second mystery and that rumour had been solved, the number of gates on the board had grown somewhat and Doom started to fall more quickly. Another rumour, Dimensions Collide, came up which would lose us the game if it had no eldritch tokens left, these would be removed by a reckoning effect depending on the number of the gates on the board. On the basis that this would probably coincide with end of the mythos deck, we decided to ignore this one and set about  the third mystery, The Beyond One, which required the solving of research encounters and placing 4 clues on the card. With everyone moving to clues on the board, this mystery was solved in 2 rounds giving us victory with the doom track on 6.

Other games played included Euphoria, Terra Mystica, Caylus Magna Carta, Love Letter and (for the first time) The Resistance: Avalon. I'm not sure how, if at all, this differs from The Resistance, but playing that a couple of times, it seemed that the only thing going for it was that it was quick. It's a traitor coop, but seemed like Battlestar Galactica with all the good bits taken out.

I look forward to seeing many of you on Saturday  at our first Games Day.

Game results follow.

02/04/2014
Eldritch Horror - 180 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	0
1	Andy S	0
1	Steve W	0
1	Mark W	0
Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia - 90 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Chris S	10
2	Phil	8
3	Ed P	5
Love Letter - 15 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Phil	0
2	Ed P	0
2	Chris S	0
Terra Mystica - 150 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	108
2	Jaime	95
3	Dave F	83
4	Ian	66
5	Stan	63
Caylus Magna Carta - 140 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	46
2	Gordon	44
3	James S	37
The Resistance: Avalon - 15 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	0
1	James S	0
1	Ed P	0
4	Chris S	0
4	Phil	0
The Resistance: Avalon - 30 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	0
1	Ed P	0
3	James S	0
3	Chris S	0
3	Phil	0