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Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu

Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu is based on the multiple-award-winning Pandemic game. In RoC you have Investigators instead of Scientists, cultists instead of diseases, and Elder Gods instead of outbreaks. The board shows four towns--Dunwich, Arkham, Innsmouth, Kingsport--each with half a dozen locations. If you get enough cards associated with a town, you can seal that town's Eldritch Gate; if you seal all four gates, you win. If you get overwhelmed by insanity, cultists, shoggoths, or Elder Gods, you lose.
In my first time through, playing solo, I drew the Hunter and the Driver as my investigators. The Hunter plowed along, wiping out cultists and shoggoths (atlhough she did go insane for a while); the Driver tagged along behind her until he collected enough town cards, then raced off to seal the next Gate. I won handily enough--but then I realized that I'd missed "if a site has three cultists, do not place a fourth; instead, an Awakening Ritual occurs."
So I tried again. In the second game, using a Hunter and a Detective, I'd gotten two gates closed when my Hunter successfully fought a shoggoth--but the Sanity roll you take for fighting a shoggoth triggered another two cultists appearing, on a location which already had two, meant Dagon Awakened, which added one cultist to every Gate location, which triggered another Awakening, and thens plummted out of control and then Cthulhu.