Those of you who saw the Elder Sign episode of TableTop probably remember the “Girl Power!” moment shared by Felicia Day (playing the psychologist, Carolyn) and Wil Wheaton (playing the student, Amanda). (For the record, Wheaton initiated the idea; he explained to their confused teammates that it made perfect sense because he was role playing a girl.)

Lately, I’ve been relying on Girl Power in my Elder Sign gaming: while I used to start with a mixed team of male and female characters, in recent games I’ve gone with an all-girl crew of Kate (the scientist), Jenny (the dilettante), Mary (the nun) and Amanda (the student). It’s worked so well that I’ve been reluctant to break up my winning combination — although I have no hesitation at picking a male character if one of my ladies dies during game play. (The Doctor tends to be my next pick, despite the fact that he looks nothing like David Tennant.)

I never really made a deliberate decision to choose an all-girl unit. But after trying out most of the characters in different combinations, I found that I preferred the skills these ladies brought to the game and liked the way they worked as a group. It seems to be a winning strategy, or maybe it’s just blind luck; I won my last two games easily, despite going up against some of the most difficult cards in the deck (including The Curator and The Koi Pond, both of which foxed me in the past). In fact, in one game I didn’t fail a single adventure, which was a first for me. (I probably should have run to the store immediately and bought a lottery ticket… oh well.)

So I’m sticking with my girls and keeping my favorite fellows (Vincent/The Doctor, Bob/The Salesman, Darrell/The Photographer and Monterey/The Archeologist) as backup… at least, until I get my hands on the Elder Sign expansion. Because who knows what fun new characters might bring?

(Do you play Elder Sign? If so, what’s your favorite character? Please share in the comments!)

The board game Elder Sign basically kicked my ass today.

I’d finally gotten past the whole Koi Pond disaster. That card showed up in 3 of the 4 games I’ve played since my previous post — something that ought to be statistically impossible. I avoided tackling it the first game, and then decided I ought to face my fears and have another run at it. So I did, and I beat it in both of the following games — first with Bob the Salesman and then with The Doctor. I knew it was risky to try with a character other than Kate, given the Terror effect of that card, but these characters were both loaded for bear with items, spells, and clues, so I figured the risk was minimal.

Today, the game apparently realized that it needed a new card to terrorize me, and it picked a choice one. The Curator has a Midnight effect on it, so you can’t just ignore it; each time Midnight strikes, every player loses either 2 trophies or 1 sanity and stamina. It doesn’t take many turns for that to really decimate a team.

This card is also a bitch to beat, given that you need 3 Lore together, plus a Lore and 3 investigations. And it costs 2 sanity each time you try and fail.

I lost 2 investigators to that card. Finally, Carolyn (the psychologist) beat it with pure, sheer improbable luck: she got nothing the first time, re-rolled with a clue, and got the whole damned shooting match: 4 Lores, plus investigations. She  filled in the first row (the triple Lore), focused one Lore on a spell and defeated the card easily with her next roll.

But the game still won, no contest. This set was pretty much doomed from the start — tons of monsters and terror effects, lots of locked dies, difficult cards — the whole thing was just a mess. Defeating The Curator was the only bright spot.

Part of the irony is that I was playing a near-duplicate of the team used by Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day on TableTop, a combination that the TableTop staff said was particularly powerful. I was using Amanda (the student), Dexter (the magician), and Darrell (the photographer), and only deviated by substituting Jenny (the dilettante) for Carolyn. (I put Carolyn into play after Jenny bit the dust.)

I won’t complain too much, though. I usually win, or at least come close; I haven’t lost this badly since my very first game of Elder Sign. And I plan to kick Narcolepsy back to Hell next time.