I hate the snow...man. Ithiqua

The way to beat Ithaqua is to take less than 4 investigators. You need the ones with the best skills to come up more often. I can beat him fairly consistently with 2, but I haven't played in long enough that I can't remember which 2. Maybe Gloria. And someone else that adds dice.

You fuckers just cost me $3.99 and the 30 minutes it took me to figure out how to emulate an Android on my PC. Thanks!

I mean that: thanks. Pretty engaging little game. It really has me praying that FFG has a digital version of Arkham Horror waiting in the wings...

Jason Lutes wrote: You fuckers just cost me $3.99 and the 30 minutes it took me to figure out how to emulate an Android on my PC. Thanks!

I mean that: thanks. Pretty engaging little game. It really has me praying that FFG has a digital version of Arkham Horror waiting in the wings...

I agree, and I want you to know that the precise feeling of anticipation is the same as all of us waiting on Thrilling Tales!

ALSO...2 heroes is the key. Really great advice, I got sooooooo close.

Oh, that's right. It was the chick who doesn't take damage from completing tasks. Not having to worry about healing all the damn time is great. So Gloria kills the other worlds and that chick takes on the damaging tasks, and between the two of them you have a pretty good shot at getting a ton of items, which is what you need to beat Ithaqua.

If you hit the random event that destroys the remainder of your supplies three spaces from Ithaqua's cave, you're screwed.

I went with Lola (Chick who gives up 2 trophies to get a green die back) and the chick who is immune to terror and no monsters come out on her turn. I was 1 Elder Sign from the punk ass but I ran out of food, didn't realize it, and ended my turn. Lola was already dead (recently) and that was the last life for her. Man was I pissed. Rookie mistake.

Drinkdrawers wrote: The way to beat Ithaqua is to take less than 4 investigators. You need the ones with the best skills to come up more often.

I know that the Cthulhu campaign is easy with just Jenny Barnes, but it seems counter-intuitive that you'd want to take anything less than 3 investigators to fight Ithaqua. After all, you have to defeat him three times in a row (on the first attempt for each fight if you want to rescue Ashley), which could be a problem if one of your 2 investigators blows through all of his/her items. IMO, after having read several threads about this game I'm convinced that there are very few "bad" investigators. It's more a matter of playing to their strengths. I think I'll try a Jenny and Kate team next to see if I find it easier.

SuperflyTNT wrote: I was 1 Elder Sign from the punk ass but I ran out of food, didn't realize it, and ended my turn. Lola was already dead (recently) and that was the last life for her. Man was I pissed. Rookie mistake.

That sucks. My success rate improved once I started to play more deliberately since the margin of error is so much smaller for the Ithaqua campaign. The key for me is knowing when to stock up (either by defeating easy adventures, buying equipment, or spinning the wheel of fortune), when to go after elder signs, and when to have an investigator make a surgical strike on an adventure he/she has no hope of completing solely for the purpose of killing a troublesome monster (wolf packs, glyph-lockers, etc.). I also avoid doom track-advancing failure penalty adventures unless I have enough juice to easily defeat it, and I only enter Icy Winds adventures (and cross my fingers) once they're the easiest ones left.

The fewer investigators you have, the more likely it will be that on their turn there is an encounter which matches their strengths. And the more items they will have to deal with stuff. My experience has been that none of the Ithaqua adventures individually are that tough, so I never blew through an entire load of items on any one of them.

I've won it twice, but only saved Ashley the second time I made it to the snow man.

In many ways I think this is on par with the Cthulhu campaign whereas the new Egypt stuff seems to be so so. Or maybe I'm just burnt out. I think there's a lot to like in the game, but at the same time I hate that losing a task is a downward spiral. No new items means you're not gonna be of much use on your next turn which will again most likely impact the turn after that and so on.

I played Dark Pharaoh again today with just Kate and Jenny and Jenny was an anchor the entire game. I think I'd rather play with 4 investigators because you have three other characters to carry the load if one of them is having bad luck. I realize that you'll have item dilution with rewards being split four ways but, unless an investigator's having just horrible luck (lost all their items on a failed adventure, typically) I can usually find an adventure where an investigator can be useful. The fact that people use so many different combinations of investigators effectively is one of the games greatest strengths, IMO. Plus, I find it more fun and challenging to wrangle 4 characters. YMMV.

SebastianBludd wrote: Unless there's a surprise "He's not dead yet!" event after you defeat him that I'm not aware of, you just have to complete 3 tasks in any order: double Lore, double Terror, and double Peril.

I really wish I would quit jinxing myself in this thread. In the aforementioned session I defeated the Dark Pharaoh only to find out that he has a second form; that of the Dweller in Darkness. You have to perform the following tasks in order (no Terror effect, -4 Sanity failure penalty): Double Terror, Double Lore, Peril + 3 Investigation. I got to the 3rd task with Kate but she couldn't roll a damn Peril with 3 dice so I ended up losing on my next turn.