SABG vs. The Emasculated Black Goat of the Woods

Yesterday an intrepid band of investigators (Chris, Jon, Scott, and I) journeyed to the sleepy hollow of Arkham. We responded to reports that a great ancient evil, Shub Niggurath (aka The Black Goat of the Woods, apparently), was stirring from his ancient slumber, threatening to plunge this dimension into eternal darkness and make other associated bad things happen. Yes, one of my favorite games, Arkham Horror, once more made it back to the table. We started to shuffle in the parts from all four expansions, but we quickly realized it would have turned into an all day extravaganza, and so we settled on playing with all the new cards and investigators, but without the new boards.

The four of us made steady progress the whole game, getting knocked out a few times each, but closing gates with relative ease. Chris' character was a mega-spell caster, but unfortunately for about 75% of the game an environment card was in effect that cancelled all spellcasting. Ugh! Jon and I were the tanks, and we each racked up impressive piles of monster trophies. Perhaps a bit too impressive actually....

We were nearing the climax of the game, where we needed to close one more gate to win. We were one doom marker away from utter destruction as well. White knuckles gripped all four sides of the table in anticipation of each mythos card draw. Just then, Scott pointed out that we had forgotten the Goat's power of adding one toughness to every creature in the game! Whoops! Major asterix. We coasted through the next few turns and dunked the ring, I mean closed the final gate, but we each new that the enemy we faced was somehow the weaker cousin of the real Old One we should have faced.

I have to say I still really enjoyed the game. The new cards and investigators were well done and fit seamlessly into the game. For some reason we kept running into mysterious old men in trench coats offering us candy, including one named Mr. Skin, which was perhaps a little too creepy. The lightning gun was fun though, and Scott's cursed reported was pretty cool.

Scott and Jon bolted after the grand finale, then Chris and I played couple quick hands of Blue Moon. All in all, a great day of gaming