Family weekend

Half the tribe came over on Sunday including the Bratii; they timed it just right and arrived just before dinner was served so no need to keep the Bratii amused. Dinner eaten and much sitting around the table later and amazingly the Bratii stayed in place rather than attempting to dash off and drag me with them; though Bratus Major decided that using his mobile to surf the internet was acceptable behaviour at the table [sigh].


Table cleared and I decided to introduce them to the board game "Arkham Horror" which as a co-operative affair might be good for them and keep them occupied.

I picked Azathoth as the monster which gave us a long Doom Track to fill, but meant the end of the game if it was completed. Major picked the Private Eye, I picked the Archaeologist and Minor finally settled on the Professor; so two fighters and a thinker.

Off we started and we headed through a few locations until Minor confronted some thing and aced both his Horror and Fight check to kill it. Major had a Hound of Tindalos jump to his location and decided to fight it. Having not bothered to alter his Will it ended up 2-2=0 dice to roll. A clue token spent gave him two dice (special ability) and he failed losing four sanity which sent him straight to Arkham. Meanwhile I ended up Cursed, Minor ended up Blessed and took out more monsters before heading through a Gate.

Major kept failing his Horror checks and ending up in Arkham, I ended up Lost in Time and Space and Minor closed a Gate with an Elder Sign. Major finally managed to close, but not seal a gate only to have another open up beneath him and suck him through.

With three gates on the board and only one doom token left to fill we ended up being devoured. All-in-all Minor had fun and Major got fed-up; he (and I) just got some bad dice rolls and Minor just picked up some useful equipment to help him.

Packing that away it was time to play Batman. Cries of woo met the appearance of my new TV. Major had played the demo on his XBox360 and the full game on his friend's, but had got stuck on the first riddle and had tried to scan the entire area to no avail. I'm not saying the riddle was hard to solve but it's one step and a look to the left to solve it from the point you're given it.

Anyway to take them through quickly I created a new slot on the easy difficulty level and ran straight through to that room just in time for tea.

Post-tea and back to that room takedown where I'd forgotten to upgrade to the Inverted Takedown ability; made life interesting. I showed Major the solution to the riddle "You're kidding me, it's just there?" and headed into the Arkham grounds. A quick run-around to pick up some riddle solutions "Up here, across, pick-up; glide to here, pick-up; down to earth, over this, scan." "How do you know where they all are?" "I've got a 100% completion" "Yeah but how did you find them in the first place" "I'll show you later".

Past the Batmobile, picked up the gel and some more riddles, tracked Gordon through to the other area and picked up a perspective riddle solution "Oh I'd seen a dot, but didn't know what it was". Into the medical facility and took everyone down; headed through quickly to get to the first Scarecrow nightmare level and picked up a Riddle Map on the way "See it gives the rough position of all the riddles for that area".

Just started the true Scarecrow level when it was time for them to go.

Ah well I'm having them again next Sunday and knocking out a stir-fry for them; we can continue from that point afterwards.

Amazing the difference from Hard to Easy; the enemy is much less likely to crowd you and the lightning bolt warning makes things so easy. The only hard-time I had was battling eight goons at the entrance to the medical facility with a tree blocking my view, couldn't evade well being next to a wall, and couldn't see thanks to the tree. Major was astonished with the speed I was getting through everything.