Creatures of the Underworld

My take on this set: This is not a set that left much of an impression on me. It’s mostly a servicable set of enemies that provide something to fight and evade, but with some mechanical bits that provide the possibility for neat interactions. Both scenarios using this set also use the Ghouls, and the similarities between the Hunting Ghast and the enemies from Ghouls are pretty obvious.

What it does: Hunting Ghast is a basic Hunter enemy with middling stats all around. It’s slightly more difficult to evade than defeat it, which together with Hunter makes it pretty clear what you are supposed to do with it. When it enters a location that also has a Gug enemy, those Gugs are all readied and the Ghast takes one damage.

My take: I have never seen that Gug readying ability happen, which isn’t too surprising considering there are only two Gugs around for the two scenarios using this encounter set. Mostly, it means that sticking around an evaded Lumbering Gug is still dangerous because you might draw this Ghast in the Mythos phase, causing the Lumbering Gug to engage again. Which is fair enough, but does leave the Ghast as a fairly basic enemy on par with the Ghouls it shares all scenarios with.

Threat level: Low. It says “Hunter” on the card, but actually it is easy prey.

Dealing with it: This is a bog standard filler enemy, a bullet to the head should do.

What it does: Lumbering Gug is a fairly big enemy that not only can take a punch or two, but also deals a lot of damage when it attacks. Its does however only have 2 evasion, which opens up a route to deal with it. Whenever it exhausts, no matter if its due to being evaded or due to attacking, it will not ready in the next upkeep phase.

My take: One of the rare cases where it’s actually relevant to remember that enemies do exhaust when they attack. It’s best to not let it come to that however, since it deals quite a bit of both damage and horror. Keeping it down with evasion is the most likely plan to deal with this card, since there is neither Hunter nor a victory point on it. During Point of No Return, it is usually easy to leave this guy behind as it requires little backtracking. If it spawns in a bad spot during Thousand Shapes, it can be a bit more annoying though. Some of the locations are frequented a bit more often, so it may require repeated evading there.

Threat level: Low to Mid. Can be a bit of an action sink if things go wrong.

Dealing with it: Its achilles heel is printed right there on the card and most investigator teams will find it relatively easy to exploit it. Move into its location, evade it and get your business done in a turn or two before moving out again and leaving the thing. As mentioned, Hunting Ghast could potentially be a draw that messes with this plan, but even then it’s not too bad, unless its an investigator with very low base agility.