Beware the Wrath of the Elder Gods (Call of the Cthulhu)

When friends turn up at the door for a quiet "board game" night i was slightly taken aback with the "quantity of bags" they had brought. Their explanation, a kick-starter, stretch goals and multiple add-on kick-starters (see below, a big box of tricks):

The "world" but not as we know it (see below, Earth - divided up into pieces for the Elder Gods):

The ultimate goal - summon an Elder Gppd and vanquish all (see below, I ended up playing Green [The Great Cluthlu himself]):

Starting positions with only small minions, "Gates" and acolytes present - soon bigger monsters appeared and battles ensued (see below, I went "nuclear" first and burned power points to summon an Elder God):

Each faction had its own special abilities, fights differently and has plenty surprises up their sleeves which leads to a very entertaining and suspense filled game (see below, it had a strange feel of "mad" RISK):

I had the satisfaction of my Big Green eating a not-so-big Red Monster (see below, I was itching to see these resin figures painted):

Soon though I was backing away from a gang of "Blue Fiends" - whose speciality was to bring "other monsters from other regions" into the fight and abduct your monsters from participating in the fight (see below, the "Blue Elder God" was as strong as the magic capacity of both players in the fight - which meant he was going to do a lot of damage the later the game went on):

I decided to "chew bubblegum and kick-ass" on the slightly (or rather seemingly) less daunting "Fungi Red" monsters - but I soon run out of bubblegum and although I tried to kick-ass I soon ran out of gas. We went head-to-head for several battles [blood and guts everywhere] before breaking it off  (see below, unpronounceable monsters do battle [again]):

Finally my Elder God was slain, but my special ability is to re-spawn cheaply The Great Cthulhu was quickly back in the fray (see below, "Blue" caught me cold, partly by abducting my other monsters who could have soaked up the death and pain for me):

Who won? Certainly not humanity .. the "players" may a corny answer but is close to the truth. It was a great extended play-test. As ever, subsequent closer reading of the charts and rules meant that we learned we should have done certain things slightly differently but in the wider picture we got most things right. I think this one is addictive, particularly as you can play with up to eight factions.