Return to Arkham

When my children were babies I used to play a fair amount of solo Arkham Horror. I’d set up a game on the table of my game room and play a half dozen or so rounds while I had a baby in a sling or tucked under an arm. The past few years the kids have gotten older (that seems to happen) and Arkham has gathered dust.

While the kids where in the bath I took it out last night and decided to play through it this upcoming year, starting with the base game and adding expansions, I’ll see how many Great Old Ones I can banish. I don’t own Lurker or Miskatonic expansion, but have all the others. I am going to play with three characters and when they are devoured they will no longer be usable. If I lose, all the characters I was using will be devoured and removed and I’ll start over with that expansion against that GOO. If I win I’ll keep the investigators and move on to a different Old One and a different set-up. I suck at winning at Arkham so this might just be a race to see how quickly I can get through the investigator deck.
I have not decided how I will do the expansions yet, but I am leaning towards playing each by themselves and then if I want to still play mix them, maybe ending in one giant Arkham game.

So, first game will only be Arkham Horror character, equipment, old ones etc., I spent 45 minutes cleaning up from my last play which apparently included Dunwhich and The King in Yellow and then set up the board. First up is Shub-niggeroth and her Dark Young!

I choose Jenny Barnes (my favorite character), the scientist Kate Winthrope or something and the cultist (Diana?). Barnes ended up drawing martial arts as here skill and then drew an axe and brass knuckles as starting equipment which was kind of a disappointment.
Played three turns and it looks like it is set to easy- gate one in the woods with a warlock- gate two in Kate’s location so no gate! Gate three back at the woods so single monster surge. Three turns in and only one gate, nice! Spent the turns gaining equipment and gathering clues.

I'm a huge fan of Arkham Horror. I would play it a lot more often if I had butler to set up and put away the game for me. In years past, I hosted big games of Arkham Horror so often that some of my friends didn't know that I owned other boardgames. The Lurker expansion is interesting, because there is an ongoing decision for each character about how much damnation they are willing to risk for short term gains like clue tokens or healing. The Miskatonic expansion is more of the same for every expansion, but really delivers if you like to play with all expansions at once, which is my preferred approach. My second favorite method is to play with one large and small expansion.

At one point, I found an okay campaign variant at BGG. Basically, characters that survive one game of Arkham Horror gain a skill card, get healed (but not from Injury or Madness cards), and continue to the next campaign. The challenge is to defeat each of the Great Old Ones before all the characters are killed. I played three games with base + at least one expansion, but lost the third game. I could have continued with the campaign with a fresh set of characters, but got busy again with life.

Shellhead- thanks for the campaign suggestion. That is a good idea to gain a skill but keep injury and madness cards... I might add them to my first game. Did you allow survivors to keep there gear and spells, etc.?

I have played a few large games of Arkham, but much prefer solo or with one or two other people. My FLGS plays a lot of Arkham and suffers from some alpha dogs in the group, Co-ops are hard that way because the discussion of a plan is part of the fun, but players really need the same amount of experience or the more experienced players take over. The time I played with them I was instructed that my character's job was to wait in one space for an open gate and then close it. (I was Wendy Adams).

I think the variant let survivors keep their gear and spells, but I think it would be nice to let people sell off some gear and spells between games. Let them cash in for the $ value on the card.

Any game experience can be diminished by misbehaving players. The alpha dog problem in co-op is insidious because the offending player has good intentions and is focused on winning. As the most ridiculously experienced Arkham player at the table, I prefer to lay out strategic options as I see them and let the other players either volunteer specific ways they can help towards one plan or another, or just do their own thing. In fact, I encourage new players to do whatever they want so they have the chance to explore the game the way I have. I don't need to win to enjoy the game.

That said, there was one game where I berated a player who was blatantly ignoring some important advice. We were up against a Great Old One that got tokens on its track whenever we found tomes, and this player was using an obsolete strategy of camping out in the Curiousitie Shoppe to fish for Elder Signs. (This strategy is only sound with the base game and maybe one expansion, if the unique item deck is trimmed down to just those sets. Otherwise the deck is too diluted.) She got annoyed at me and relentlessly pursued her strategy. Four tomes later, we went unprepared into Final Battle and quickly lost. That happened seven years ago, and that woman hasn't played Arkham Horror with me since.

edulis wrote: When my children were babies I used to play a fair amount of solo Arkham Horror. I’d set up a game on the table of my game room and play a half dozen or so rounds while I had a baby in a sling or tucked under an arm.

Oh man. That was my entire gaming life for about two years.

That and soloing Castle Ravenloft during lunch hours in the back of my car.

MattDP wrote: That and soloing Castle Ravenloft during lunch hours in the back of my car.

That sounds like a hilarious euphemism. You will be hearing from Black Barney soon.

So 48 investigators vs 24 GOOs - Good luck!

BTW, Diana's from Dunwich expansion I think. No, that weird knocking and slithering sound coming from the basement isn't a figment of your imagination - I believe it's the AH expansion separation brigade coming to set things right.

Even with the skill card reward, I guess the campaign odds are pretty tough. As an experienced Arkham player, I have been winning about 50% of the time with some or even all expansions in the game. So 24 consecutive games of Arkham would likely include 12 losses, and loss means every character gets devoured. And even a winning game sometimes include at least one devoured character. Soloing the game with 3 characters each play would probably mean losing the campaign after maybe 13 games.

However, with survivors gaining skills, plus the retention of items and spells (though offset by the retention of injuries and madness), the odds of winning should be better than 50% after the first game. And if a character managed to survive two or more consecutive games, they are likely to be pretty tough and capable, especially in final battle. It might be enough to make winning the campaign plausible, though still hard.

Arkham has still got it! My wife's favorite game. It's just the Butler problem mentioned above.

Arkham was a fave of mine until recently when I finally forked out for a copy of Eldritch Horror and a few small expansions (to fatten it up), EH just fitted nicely in what we wanted from an Arkham game and it has been played extensively in the past couple of months while AH got a play every year or so. I still like AH as a game but I made a comment somewhere that EH felt more of an adventure game (a series adventures to be survived and solved) and AH more of a dungeon crawl (survive the hackest of monsters, gear up and fight the boss at the end) and the adventure game gives more fun for us.

But the campaign idea seems to be a good way of playing AH, rather like a long rpg campaign. I'm interested how you would fit in the large (board) expansions - has someone done (or can do) a short narrative of the campaign revolving around different locations as it moves on or would you just play it as normal with the boards being added and you choose to use them or not ?
This could even be something that could be done in Vassal or possibly a forum game to get all those soloists in one game.

Okay game one was lost in the final battle, thus three investigators gone forever. It was a bit or relearning the game, so game two went a lot smoother with Joe Diamond, Bob the salesman (who ended up being a monster slaying beast) and Gloria winning with a gate sealing victory with shubby having 7 dooms.

I made up a few campaign rules.
1. Keep a single clue per game survived
2. Keep four item of choice.
3. Each 5 toughness of trophies allows you to up your max sanity or stamina.
4. If you ave 5 clues left you start with the an ally
5. Unique items that are discarded or used are lost forever (this might get brutal)
6. Keep all injuries and madness
Next I added the original Curse of the Pharaoh traveling exhibit with the herald and Ithaqua. It was a pretty easy win with two parchment of the elder signs being g drawn right away and only one curse dealt by the Pharaoh and that to Joe who had a healing stone. Bob met with a terrible fate going man to god against Cthulhu and getting devoured. Amanda Sharp joined the fray collecting Bob's tropheys and dropping them off at the newspaper for 16 clues! Won with a gate sealed victory.

I had never realized how awesome the science building is, I am always struggling for clues to seal gates but never used the science building before. Next up Dunwitch.

Columbob wrote: So 48 investigators vs 24 GOOs - Good luck!

BTW, Diana's from Dunwich expansion I think. No, that weird knocking and slithering sound coming from the basement isn't a figment of your imagination - I believe it's the AH expansion separation brigade coming to set things right.

Damn it... I also missed the brass knuckles. But I think I got the rest I need remove all the monsters other than original Arkham ones.

Had a tough time with the Dunwich expansion with Abhoth (also used the herald but he didn't arrive in all three games). Went to the final battle with my survivors from curse of the Pharaoh only to see them fall with 4 points left on Abhoth. Next up Harvey Walters lead a group (the nun and "one man army") who also went to final battle and fell a few points short. With 6 investigators dead, I changed strategies and just fueled up for the final battle as Abhoth is one of the easier final battles, his attack forces each investigator to discard three clues, items or trophies and he is only -4 when attacking.

My random investigators were the trumpet player (Jim?), Mandy the student and Jackie the physic. I used the rumor "the great experiment" to load up on trophies and spent time gathering gear and worried little about sealing gates. Worked well as all investigators survived the final battle, although all of them did end up with some madness from Colors from outterspace rules from one hanging out in the only open gate in Dunwich. So everyone gains a skill and start with four items left over from the game before. Mandy still had 5 clues so she starts with a random ally.

Next up my brave three take on Azathoth with Dunwich herald. After which I will remove Dunwich and add Kingsport (and final battle cards).

Thanks for the reports, this is a rad way to play Arkham.

Spent the weekend in Dunwich- my three adventures from the rumble with Abhor took on Azathoth. Ended up losing 5 investigators in the first game with Mandy sacrificing herself with a elder sign and only one sanity and one stamina left in an effort to keep 7 gates from opening. She was replaced by Wilson Richards roaring in on his motorcycle. Soon after Jacquelyn Fine was devoured due to getting two of the same injury and was replaced (I can't recall by whom) only to have the 7th gate open. Set up again using Leo Anderson, Dr. Lee and Darrell Simmons. Darrell is awesome with his choosing which cards to pick at locations. They managed a sealed gate win with Darrell swimming in clues and even finding an elder sign.

Ended up with lots of clues and trophies so all my characters received skills and Leo started with two allies. Also they all had good gear and a fair amount of money.

Set up Tsathoggua with Dunwich Horror herald. The Horror had yet to awaken in any of my Dunwich games so I drew the starting Mythos card until a found a Dunwich one (he still never showed up). This turned out to be a log game. I started strong sealing several locations and keeping monster in check. Lee was suffering from -1 sanity and amnesia (can only have 4 clue tokens at a time) so he was not much good for sealing gates so ran around trying to find equipment and deal with rumors - but things were going good I had 5 locations sealed and then RUMORS. One that required investigators to pay sanity was especially awful, coupled with two colors from outer space, poor Dr Lee had 5 madness cards! and Darrell was lost to his agoraphobia and replaced with the Great Drake.

Tsathoggua awoke and ate him, along with the veterans.

Up next I decided I needed some help so I am leaving Tsathoggua as the old one, removing the herald and adding Nodens. I also put away Dunwich (other than equipment and monsters) and added Kingsport. On aside the last game was the first time I have ever joined the Sheldon Gang or had Velma's gratitude, also had the chance to open the rare book collection, but lacked the Necronomicon.

This has been fun, but I am quickly running out of investigators- Welcome Rita, Rex and Daisy. Good luck.