I've had a lot of good luck with Bank Loans in this game. I seem to roll really well during the upkeep phase for them, and I manage to pay them off before the game ends, so as not to hurt my score. That being said, my luck with them, is not everyone else's luck with them. My friend gets eaten alive by them.

Yep, basically we want to get the clues off the board and onto our characters as quickly as possible since a gate opening in a location destroys any clues there.

Moving to the Historical Society for an encounter is a great idea. I would just recommend that someone else with an Elder Sign, probably Rokk, since he's fast enough to get there this turn if he increases his speed and moves before you anyways, moves to the South Church in the movement phase and hands off his Elder Sign to you so that's taken care of

Eh, I'll leave that up to your teammates. Were this a normal 4-player game, I'd tell you to grab every clue token you can find. But, since there's 8 of you, and you need to seal gates, it might be better to try and consolidate those, with those who started out with clue tokens. I don't know which is better in an 8 player game. I've only done one once, and it was a bloodbath.

There's also the Elder Signs to consider. You are basically starting out this game with 3 "free" gate sealings, which is going to give you guys a ton of breathing room. They will take doom track markers off of Yuggy, and keep a few gates and monsters from being able to spawn, if you luck out on the Mythos draws. So, with that in mind, maybe it's not such a bad idea to go on a mass collection extravaganza.

Melk might have more experience with this scenario.

EDIT: And there he is. He hass the flame.

I still want to rap someone on the knuckles with a ruler.

On the flipside, something important to consider is that we need to sparse out the gate token achieving wisely or we're in serious trouble when Yog awakens...and chances are good he will awaken.

Our current plan seems to be putting a lot of them into three people's hands and while they're definitely optimal it means about five of us are devoured soon as 12 hits.

By golly, if any "more foul and loathsome than the putrid slime that clings to the wall of Hell" monster devours one of my fellow players, I will definitely rap its knuckles with my ruler!!!!

What is the monster is an eldritch amorphous gelatinous mass of writhing tentacles?

I'll find knuckles to rap on it somewhere!!! Nuns can do that--it's like a super-power.

Turn 1 - Upkeep

Rokk - Bob Jenkins, Salesman

Sanity - 4/4
Stamina - 6/6

Ability - Shrewd Dealer: Any Phase. Whenever Bob draws one or more cards from the Common Items deck, he draws one extra card and then discards one of the cards.

Focus - 1

Speed 2 3 4 5
Sneak 3 2 1 0
Fight 1 2 3 4
Will 6 5 4 3
Lore 0 1 2 3
Luck 4 3 2 1

Possessions:
$9
Tommy Gun
Whiskey
1 Elder Sign
1 Alien Statue
1 Fight Skill

She should also be getting about +$4 each upkeep as they're awesome at getting people to fork over money.

Still, your character is a young nun. Maybe she hasn't developed those abilities yet.

As in:

How many knuckles can you find on an eldritch amorphous gelatinous mass of writhing tentacles?

Nun.

I'm sure there'll, unfortunately, be plenty of gates to go around. I just think that our most important order of business is to get those 3 Elder Signs we were lucky enough to get in place STAT (always wanted to say that to a doctor! )

Once we got half a victory in hand and hopefully some breathing space from 3 sealed location (thank the Elder Gods there are no Gate Bursts in this mythos deck!) we can see about getting everyone equipped for a worst case scenario

Another really good point. This is how Arkham Horror works, kids. No easy answer for anything.

That's why I enjoy it as a co-op game.

I take it Gate Bursts remove Elder Signs from the board?

Among other nasty things.