For a while, I’ve been looking at getting Arkham Horror: The Card Game as I had heard nothing but great things about it, the gameplay and the replay-ability of it so I finally took the plunge and brought the core set along with the first expansion, The Dunwich Legacy.
So what is Arkham Horror: The Card Game?
Arkham Horror: The Card Game is a one or two player Living Card Game (LCG) from Fantasy Flight Games (which can be extended up to four players with a second core set) based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. To be completely honest, this is my first dabble into Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos but being a tabletop gamer I’m very aware of the games that have been developed around his work (I’m looking at you Call of Cthulhu), I just haven’t played any of them. The basic premise of the game is that you play as an investigator and your job is to investigate the strange goings on the the city of Arkham and not get killed or driven to insanity.
What’s in the Box?
The box contains 239 cards, tokens, campaign guide, rules reference and the very handy Learn To Play book. The artwork on the cards is amazing and captures the atmosphere it’s trying to convey very well. You’ll also find the odd quote from Lovecraft dotted around the game to add to the mythos. So how do you play it?
The Learn To Play guide goes through the process of setting up the game in great detail and explains the rules simply as well as providing examples to help you. You start by creating your investigator decks but don’t worry the guide tells you exactly what cards you need to build the starter and encounter decks. You need a place to put all your tokens in easy reach (I use craft storage boxes that you can get in the pound shop) and get the Chaos bag ready. The Chaos bag is a bag of tokens that you pull a token from when you are completing skills tests and have different values or symbols printed on them which can affect the outcome, good or bad. The scenario is set up using Agenda (bad things) and Act (story progression) cards, and locations which you have to explore to find clues or fight an enemy. Your investigator mini card is placed at the starting location, you get your starting hand of five cards and five resources to spend on using those cards then you’re ready to go.
Gameplay.
The round is split into four phases, the Mythos, Investigation, Enemy and Upkeep phases where you get to play your cards, replenish your hand and face the many horrors that are out there to stop you. The Mythos phase advances the agenda card using doom tokens and making you encounter problems such as enemies and obstacles that may slow you down. The Investigation phase allows you to take up to three actions, draw a card , play a card, activate an ability, investigate the location, fight/engage an enemy or evade an enemy which can be done in any order and multiple times if necessary. The Enemy phase allows any creature or person to hunt you down and attack you to try and reduce your health and horror to zero making you lose the scenario or possibly your sanity. The upkeep phase then resets everything and allows you to draw a card ready for the next turn.
I’m not going to spoil the story in this review with a full play through but highlight some of the things that happened in the first couple of turns. The first turn I took was pretty straightforward. I was using Roland and Wendy as investigators as suggested in the Learn To Play guide which allowed me to get to grips with the game quicker as I was doing each turn twice. Each of the investigators managed to investigate the study getting the clues needed to progress to the hallway by advancing the act. Once in the hallway, the investigators went their separate ways on the second turn. Roland to the attic and Wendy to the cellar. In the cellar, Roland faced a ghoul and defeating it allowing him to gain a clue through his card ability. Wendy on the other hand despite reducing the number needed (shroud) to gain a clue by two still managed to fail by pulling a minus four chaos token form the chaos bag.
Roland didn’t fair much better after that. The agenda progressed due to having the doom counters on it and Roland had the cover up weakness come out slowing his investigations down. Eventually the enemies got the better of both investigators and they were defeated. On the second run through, I only used Roland and didn’t fair much better and got defeated again.
The third run through was a lot better. I had got to grips with the mechanics of the game. I was getting quicker at taking the turns and not using the Rules Reference book much and I actually managed to complete the scenario. I used the experience I had gained to upgrade a couple of the cards to give me a better chance of completing the next scenario which took a couple of attempts. The third scenario, however, I managed to beat first time with something fitting for the game but I won’t spoil it.
Final Thoughts.
Overall, the game was fun and that’s what counts. I would highly recommend this game for the mechanics and the story based gameplay. Rather than beating any other players, you work together to reach a common goal. I can’t wait to play this with others and I think I will get a second core set which is recommended by many people to allow three or four players plus more deck building options. Deck building in between scenarios is needed as each scenario gets tougher and you pay for the cards using experience points gained in each scenario. FFG provide everything you need as always in the core box and with new cycles coming out regularly the longevity of the game is enhanced with new investigators and cards to use giving you more options plus you are not chasing cards you needs like a Customisable Card Game (CCG).
The only downside I can think of is that I am a few cycles behind meaning if FFG discontinue the game, the products will be harder to get hold of like the rest of their games. Luckily, they recently announced a new cycle which lasts a good part of a year to release therefore I still have time to catch up. Each Mythos pack can retail around £10-£15 with the main expansions costing around £20 which is much cheaper than buying a booster box of cards and still having to buy more t9 complete sets making this investment more worthwhile!
Tabletop Tales 