Azathoth vs the World!: an Eldrich Horror AAR

Started by airboy, November 18, 2017, 06:56:59 PM

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airboy

Azathoth vs the World!: an Eldritch Horror AAR

I'm attempting my first tabletop AAR.  I'm trying to put the pictures on flickr and link them in.  We will see how that goes.

Eldritch Horror is a board game in the H.P. Lovecraft Universe, so there should be a lot of killing, insanity, and magic in the game.  This is my first game of Eldritch Horror so this might be a comic-disaster. 

The game is very well constructed and all of the pieces punched out without even a minor tear.  "Clipping" this heavy of a card stock would be difficult to say the least.

I'm following two recommendations for this game.  First, I'm playing against Azathoth as suggested by the rule book for a first opponent.  Second, I'm running four investigators as suggested by a forum member.

It took me about two hours to set up the game.  There are a lot of different decks and all of the pieces had to be punched out and sorted.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/141130441@N06/shares/G41wi8

As seen in the picture, the board is an abstract representation of the globe.  The Carolina Cup holds all of the monsters that can be randomly selected.  A Carolina Cup full of monsters is in honor of Brant and his nightmares about UNC Basketball vs. Moo U.
The players are set up on the left and Azathoth is set up on the right.  All of the regular decks are immediately below the game board.




airboy

#1
The game comes with four cosmic horrors.  I'm against Azathoth "the idiot god at the center of all things spreading madness and death.  Its seeds descend from the stars threatening to crack the world in half."

Each cosmic god has different victory conditions.  Some can be defeated even after they manifest on Earth.  If Azathoth appears the world is eaten.  If you buy expansions you get more cosmic gods, monsters and what-not to combat.

My characters have to solve three mysteries before the doom counter goes down to 0 and Azathoth arrives on Earth and game over.  As I start the game there is one open gate in Buenos Aries with a ghoul guard.  There is an expedition going on in the Himalayas.   

The doom clock is set at 15 to start with Azathoth.  Supposedly the doom clock can actually get better instead of clicking down to 0 and lights out.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/141130441@N06/shares/78G5Gt

airboy

#2
The game is for 1-8 players and the product description and game reviews state that it works for solitaire play. 

There are 12 potential characters that you can use.  Ominously, the rules state that when your current character goes insane or dies that you can choose one of the remaining characters and start playing them.  However, if all of the characters are dead or if the elder god has arrived you cannot start a new character. 

If a character is merely killed all of its possessions are dropped where they died.   But if the character is "devoured" then all of the possessions are destroyed.  Looks like monster digestive systems can handle anything.  The elder gods don't need Tums.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/141130441@N06/shares/100q8t


airboy

#3
Not knowing any better, I selected my four characters to have a balance of skills.  My first selection is Lily Chen – The Martial Artist.  She was selected first because she is a kung fu queen making a dramatic hand sign.

Lily starts out with 6 health, 6 sanity, a protective amulet and a lucky rabbit's foot.  She has 2 lore, 2 influence, 2 observation, 4 strength and 3 will.  She also has the special power to spend any number of health or sanity and then recover an equal number of health or sanity – whatever that means.  When Lily improves a skill she may immediately improve her skill again.

She starts in Shanghi.

May my Kung Fu Queen kick evil's ass.



airboy

Jim Culver the musician is character 2.  He starts in the US South and has 3 lore, 3 influence, 2 observation, 2 strength and 3 will.  Each investigator on his space recovers 1 sanity and also roll an additional die when resolving tests during combat encounters.  He seems like a good person to have in a team-up.  He starts with 7 health, 5 sanity, 1 Shriveling Spell and 1 clue.




airboy

And I'm out of time.  My wife wants to see Thor tonight.  I might get the other two characters posted before going to bed.

Hopefully doing this AAR will get me to think through my turns a little better than I usually do on a tabletop game.

airboy

Charlie Kane is the stogie sucking politician.  He is physically weak (4) but has an iron will (8).   His scores are 2 lore, 4 influence, 3 observation, 2 strength and 2 will start in San Francisco with his Personal Assistant.  He can grant another investigator 1 additional action.   When he performs an Acquire Assets action he may allow other investigators to gain any cards he purchases.

In the game if you have train or ship tickets you can move an additional space.  My plan is for Charlie to acquire all of the assets and spend the influence needed to keep the other characters going.





airboy

Diana Stanley "the Redeemed Cultist" is my fourth character.  She has the power that if there is a Cultist Monster on your space, discard all Monsters on your space or move the Cultist Monster to any other space.  She also reduces the horror of Monsters she encounters to 1.  She has 7 health, 5 sanity, 4 lore, 2 influence, 3 observation, 3 strength and 1 will.  1 will is bad, but she can take a max horror of 1 from a monster encounter which makes this problem less of an issue.  She starts in Central America.




airboy

To win I must solve three mysteries before the Doom Meter hits 0.  To solve the first mystery I need four clues.  Two clues are currently visible: Cape Town and Scandinavia.  Both are far away from my characters.  Jim Culver currently has 1 clue.

The more gates that are open the more monsters spawn and the faster the Doom Clock ticks.  3 investigators are close to Buenos Ares.  I also need to get one or more characters to London to spawn more clues which happens pretty frequently if characters are in that spot.

Plan: Charlie Kane: aquire assets and prepare to move towards London.  He is designated lead investigator.
          Lily Chen – move towards the Himalayas expedition and in the general direction of the Scandinavia clue.
          Jim Culver – move towards the Buenos Ares gate.
          Diana Stanley – move to Buenos Ares and attempt to close the gate.

KyzBP

Following!

I've always wanted to check this game out.  It looks like it could be a lot of fun with another person or 2. 

Thanks for doing this. O0

airboy

#10
Action Phase:
1] Charlie Kane rolls to acquire assets.  He has 4 influence and +1 reroll for his personal assistant.  With 4 die and 1 reroll I get 2 successes.  He buys the .45 automatic and uses his special powers to mail it to Jim Culver.  Another item card is drawn from the deck – bandages; and put in the open resource pile.  Charlie then prepares to travel by purchasing a rail pass.
2] Diana Stanley prepares for travel by ship (hence forth known as buys a ticket) and moves to the Buenos Ares gate.
3] Lily Chen fails to acquire an asset (2 die) and then moves to the expedition in the Himalayas. 
4] Jim Culver moves to Central America and buys a boat ticket.

Encounter Phase:
1] Charlie Kane got the opportunity to improve his observation in China Town.   He succeeded spotting cult activity which gave him a +1 observation on his card!  Unfortunately, he found a cultist temple and had to navigate a hex on the door.  He was fortunate to roll a success (2 die used) so he did not lose health or sanity.

2] Diana Stanley must encounter the Ghoul at Buenos Ares before she can attempt to close the gate.  I'm showing a photo of this to illustrate combat.  Diana must first resolve a will encounter and she has only 1 die – but she was lucky and got a success and passed.  On to the combat.  Instead of a strength test she casts a Wither Spell.  If she passes a lore check on this she gets a +3 strength from the face of the card.  She has a +1 tome so this is an easier test for her.  She rolls four die and gets two successes.  The Wither Spell card is flipped and on the back it states that she can reroll 1 die on the strength combat check because she cast an unusually powerful incantation.  So now she has 6 die to roll the strength test (instead of 3) and she can reroll one result.  The 6 die give her 2 successes.  The monster strength is two so you subtract the monster strength from the number of successes and get 2-2 = 0 so no damage to Diana.  The monster cannot withstand two successes and the ghoul is destroyed.

Ghoul Encounter & Wither Spell - Click Picture at the end of this report.

Having beaten the ghoul Diana gets one more optional encounter on that space so she tries to close the gate.  This is a complex multi-part encounter.  The gate is the "City of the Great Race" – You find others who, like you, have had their consciousness pulled into alien bodies from throughout time.  You try to convince them to share their knowledge (influence check).  Diana rolls two die and gets a success!  "Their stories are highly illuminating.  Gain 2 clues.  They remind you of a ritual you researched that may provide you with a solution (lore -1 check).  Her lore is very good and she has a tome so with 3 die she gets one success.  The gate is closed!

Diana can only spend one clue per research success to solve the mystery and she does so.  Only 3 more clues needed to solve the first mystery.

3] Lily Chen goes to the Himalayas and attempts the Expedition.
The passage into the mountain is very twisty-turny  and she passes a 2 die test to continue.  She then has a Will test which is a 3 die + 1 for her amulet plus 1 reroll for her rabbits foot.  She had 1 success out of 4 die and the reroll but that is enough.  She gained 1 artifact – the Silver Key.  The next expedition is – in the Himalayas again so the expedition counter is not moved to a different square.

4] Jim Culver is in an unnamed city so he draws from the general encounter deck.  The police tell him that people are being abducted by a monster in the sewer.  Wandering through the sewers Jim is attacked by a Deep One and must pass a strength test.  Unsure what exactly to do here (pass a regular strength test or a deep one strength test) I pull a deep one from the monster cup and use it.  It says the strength test is minus 1.  Jim has 2 strength + 3 for the .45 automatic that Charlie Kane sent him - 1 for the penalty = 4 die.  He rolls one success which is a pass in the random encounter.  This gains him one random ally rescued from the sewer.  I take the first ally card in the resource deck and get a Lodge Researcher which states that defeating any monster during combat gains a sanity and a clue – awesome!

The encounter phase is over and it was very successful.  I got a couple of lucky rolls when the odds were not great.  I got minimum successes (which was all that was needed) when the odds were heavily in my favor.  So the rolls largely evened out statistically, but they were spaced for maximum advantage.  By the end of this Charlie has +1 observation; Diana closed a gate, put a clue towards solving the mystery plus gained an extra clue and defeated a ghoul; Lily gained the Silver Key; Jim now has a .45 automatic and a Lodge Researcher.

Nefaro

Those rolls.   :o

You're far better at rolling in this than I.  This game brutalizes my characters, due to my consistently bad rolling, every time.  :hide:

airboy

Mythos Phase:

What Windi and Pete Dero keep claiming will happen is triggered by Azathoth.  There is a Global Heat Wave.  Old people and children die.  Each investigator takes three points of health damage.  This is a very serious issue for Charlie Kane since this leaves him with one health point.  Changes will be made in a lot of plans for next turn.

airboy

Quote from: Nefaro on November 19, 2017, 05:46:16 PM
Those rolls.   :o

You're far better at rolling in this than I.  This game brutalizes my characters, due to my consistently bad rolling, every time.  :hide:

Lets talk probability!  In Eldritch Horror you get a success on a roll of 5 or 6.  That means each die you roll gives you a 1:3 chance of success without any modifiers.  If you roll 3 die you should get an average of 1 success.

If you get to reroll one die, your chances of success now balloon to 1:3 plus 1:3 since these are independent events.  Getting to reroll something is much better than getting an entire extra die because you only reroll if you get a loss.

If you look at my overall rolls, they were pretty close to average.  The difference was that I kept getting one success when I rolled 4, 5 or 6 dies (with rerolls) but got lucky with successes when one or two die were rolled.

If the die are fair (they came with the game) then everything will even out close to the mean probability over time. 

But...... 
in this game if you roll a fail the results can be catastrophic.  You can go insane, lose an entire turn, or even die from physical damage.  If you pass, most of the time nothing bad happens.  After all, this is Lovecraft based.

airboy

Turn 2
This starts with every investigator down three health.  For Charlie Kane this is very serious because he has 1 health point remaining.  But no gates are open.

Action Phase:
A] Charlie Kane is again named lead investigator.  He rests and gains 1 health.  He attempts to gain assets (d5 + 1 reroll) and gets 2 successes.  He takes bandages and keeps them.
B] Diana Stanley – Rests and gains 1 health.  Travels spending a ship token to South Africa where there is a clue.
C] Lily Chen rests to gain a health and moves to India.
D] Jim rests to gain 1 health and uses a ship ticket to move to Arkham.

Encounter Phase:
A] Charlie Kane goes into the tunnels, sees the husk of a squid-like creature (-1 will save) and fails his roll.  He injures his leg (a condition).
B] Diana – Research encounter attempting to gain the clue.  Initially fails but burns her clue to get a reroll which passes.  She gains the clue and adds it to Occult Research giving 2 of the 4 needed to solve the first mystery.
C] Lily – has an influence test with a criminal syndicate and passes.  Gains a random service, "Sanctuary" which allows her to discard 1 condition.
D] Jim fails a 2 die observation test in a Black Cave abandoned by cultist.  He spent his clue to gain a reroll which passed.  He gained an Incantation Spell "Instill Bravery."

Mythos Phase:
2 clues are spawned – Istanbul and the Ocean off of South Africa – which is one move away for 2 investigators!

A rumor is spawned in Moscow and this is terrible.  There are 4 mythos tokens on the rumor card.  If a future Mythos Phase has an action symbol, then all 4 value assets are pulled from the draw stack and 1 mythos token is removed.  Then 3, then 2, then 1 if the rumor is not squashed.  This could easily wipe out all of the future assets from the board.  Yikes!   Worse, to kill the rumor an observation test is needed and Charlie (who has 2 health and a hurt leg) has by far the best observation.  He is also in San Francisco.  This really stinks.

Even worse, I now realize that there were symbols on the previous mythos phase card that I did not put into play due to an oversight on the game rules.  Instead of "only 3 damage on everyone" we also get a gate opened in Sydney, Australia by a cultist (monster).  I add these now.
:pullhair:

So at the end of Turn 2 we have every character down health (bad), an open gate in Sydney (bad), my weakest character with a bum leg (bad), and a horrible ticking time bomb rumor in Moscow.  On the bright side, the doom clock has not advanced, cultists are weak gate guards, the first mystery is 50% solved, and three of the four characters have additional spells, weapons or items to aid them.