Ghatanothoa in Cthulhu Wars: The Great Old One Pack 2 Guide

What Is Ghatanothoa in Cthulhu Wars?

Ghatanothoa is a neutral Great Old One in Cthulhu Wars, not a faction. It ships in Great Old One Pack 2 alongside Atlach-Nacha, Bokrug, and Father Dagon, and any of the game's four factions can recruit it for a single match instead of owning it outright. Collectors want the figure for its petrification-themed sculpt and the fact that its spellbook plays differently depending on which faction brings it to the table.

That distinction gets lost online more often than it should. People searching for Cthulhu Wars expansions sometimes assume every named entity is a playable faction with its own cult and starting units. Ghatanothoa isn't that. Get the entity class right first, and the rest of what this figure does on the board and the shelf will make a lot more sense.

Is Ghatanothoa a Faction, a Great Old One, or a Terror?

Ghatanothoa is a Great Old One. Cthulhu Wars sorts its units into distinct classes, and mixing them up is the single most common mistake new players make when shopping for expansions or explaining the game to a friend.

Factions are the playable sides of the game. The O4 core box ships with four: Great Cthulhu, Crawling Chaos (Nyarlathotep), Black Goat of the Woods (Shub-Niggurath), and Yellow Sign (Hastur, the King in Yellow). Yellow Sign is part of the base game, not an add-on. Beyond the core four, Petersen Games sells additional faction expansions that add whole new player slots, each with its own cult, units, and spellbook built around a specific god.

Great Old Ones sit in a different category entirely. They're neutral, colossal figures sold in standalone Great Old One Packs. Ghatanothoa lives here, in Pack 2, alongside Atlach-Nacha, Bokrug, and Father Dagon. Pack 1 has its own separate roster of five (Abhoth, Chaugnar Faugn, Cthugha, Mother Hydra, and Yig). Any faction, core or expansion, can recruit a Great Old One during a game. None of them belong permanently to anyone. A Great Old One is a wild card that shifts strategy depending on who summons it and when.

Terrors make up a third class again, unit types like Quachil Uttaus from the Cosmic Terrors pack. They aren't Great Old Ones and don't function the way Ghatanothoa does. If a source calls Ghatanothoa a faction, or a Terror, that source has the categories wrong. Keep the three separate in your head: faction, Great Old One, Terror. Ghatanothoa only ever belongs to the middle one.

Who Is Ghatanothoa in the Cthulhu Mythos?

Petrification. That's the defining trait Ghatanothoa carries across the wider Cthulhu Mythos, the shared fictional universe H.P. Lovecraft started and other writers expanded after his death in 1937. According to the entity's mythos history, Ghatanothoa first appeared in "Out of the Aeons," a story Lovecraft ghostwrote for client author Hazel Heald, and was later developed further by Lin Carter as part of his Xothic Legend Cycle. In that lore, anyone who looks upon Ghatanothoa suffers a medusa-like curse: the skin hardens into an immobile shell while the mind stays intact inside it, aware and slowly going mad. Some mythos scholarship even holds that Ghatanothoa is meant to be read as an alternate face of Cthulhu, sharing the same bloodline.

The entity's cult origin adds another layer. Mythos stories place Ghatanothoa's worship on Mu, the lost continent, where the cult grew so powerful it outlawed every rival religion on the landmass. That's a lot of dark history packed into one figure, and it's the kind of detail that makes a Great Old One Pack more than a box of miniatures for readers who track the source material.

Sandy Petersen didn't invent this identity. Cthulhu Wars is Petersen Games' own property, but the Lovecraft and Lin Carter mythos material behind Ghatanothoa is public domain, and Petersen Games doesn't claim to own it. What the studio does own is the interpretation: a colossal miniature, a dedicated spellbook, and mechanics built to fit the petrification concept, which is consistent with how every entity across the Great Old One Pack line gets translated from page to table.

What Does Ghatanothoa Do on the Cthulhu Wars Board?

Ghatanothoa plays as a petrification-themed, cross-faction Great Old One. Like every entity in the Great Old One Pack line, it arrives as a colossal miniature with its own spellbook, and any faction in the game, core or expansion, can recruit it during play rather than owning it as a permanent unit. Exactly how its abilities resolve depends on the spellbook card in the box, so check that card at the table rather than trusting a secondhand summary, this one included.

What you can plan around before you own the pack is the shape of the decision Ghatanothoa creates. A petrification-associated entity naturally points toward control-oriented, area-denial style play: locking down space, slowing an opponent's momentum, and forcing a rival faction to work around a threat rather than through it. Layer that on top of whichever faction recruits it, and the effect shifts again depending on that faction's own strengths. The exact numbers and triggers live on the card, and player threads on BoardGameGeek's Cthulhu Wars page are a good place to compare notes with other owners once the pack is on your table.

New players sometimes assume a Great Old One acts like a faction leader with its own cult and unit line. It doesn't. Ghatanothoa has no home faction, no dedicated cultist force, and no permanent allegiance. A player recruits it for a game, then may lose it to another player's recruitment attempt the next time out. That impermanence is part of what keeps the Great Old One Packs replayable across so many faction combinations.

Why Do Collectors Want the Ghatanothoa Miniature?

Table presence, again. Ghatanothoa is one of four colossal sculpts in Great Old One Pack 2, and a petrification-themed figure tends to read differently on a shelf full of tentacled, aquatic, and serpentine Cthulhu Wars minis. Collectors chasing a full Great Old One roster tend to treat Pack 2 as a near-mandatory purchase, right alongside Pack 1, and Ghatanothoa is often the name people search for individually before realizing it ships as part of a four-figure set rather than solo.

Part of the draw is the design pedigree behind the whole line. Sandy Petersen's track record, going back to Call of Cthulhu (1981) and decades of tabletop and video game design, is a big reason fans trust a Petersen Games miniature enough to display it rather than just play with it. A colossal-scale Great Old One standing next to a faction's core units gives a Cthulhu Wars table real visual scale, the kind that photographs well and plays well, which is the "wow on the table" moment the brand builds every expansion around. Independent reviewers have made a similar point about the base game's components; Meeple Mountain's review of Cthulhu Wars calls the presentation some of the best the reviewer has seen in a tabletop game, which is exactly the standard a new Great Old One figure gets measured against.

Cross-faction compatibility adds a practical angle for anyone weighing which Cthulhu Wars expansions to buy next. Because any faction can recruit Ghatanothoa, the figure pays off no matter which factions are already on your shelf. That's different from a faction expansion, which only matters once you've added that specific player slot to your games.

How Do You Get Ghatanothoa for Your Cthulhu Wars Collection?

Ghatanothoa comes in Great Old One Pack 2, currently listed at $34.99 and in stock on the Petersen Games site, alongside Atlach-Nacha, Bokrug, and Father Dagon (re-verify pricing and stock on the live product page, since availability can change). You'll need the Cthulhu Wars base game first; the O4 Edition ($249.00) is the current core set and ships with the four core factions along with the miniatures, dice, and map you need to actually field a recruited Great Old One in a match.

If you already own the core box and a faction or two, Pack 2 is a fast way to round out your collection without committing to a whole new player slot. Four neutral entities in one purchase, compatible with every faction already on your shelf. Browse the current Cthulhu Wars collection at Petersen Games to see the rest of the Cthulhu Wars expansions in stock, including both Great Old One Packs and the full faction lineup.

In-stock orders process within 48 hours. US orders ship via USPS Ground Advantage, typically 2 to 5 business days in transit. Canadian orders ship via DHL Ground, typically 3 to 7 business days in transit. Rates are calculated at checkout based on destination, weight, and size.