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Arkham Horror: Board Game - thoughts?

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20 Oct 2017 02:49 #256034 by __
So I was curious about the board game, after trying out the LCG and enjoying it quite a bit more than I had expected. Its listed on BGG as "best with 2" but I had a feeling that this was a "more the merrier" experience, but dont know if the votes for 2P are from people who resent having to buy a 2nd core set, or concerned about downtime or something else. I can't imagine it not being better with 4 of you for example


But how does the board game compare to the card game? Its quite an old game which I have never played, at the time I first heard of it I guess we were into other kinds of games and put off by the sheer amount of chits and rules and stuff, and loads of expansions.

Has it stood the test of time? How does it hold up gameplay wise vs the card game? How well does it work with just a base game box, are expansions required, or worth it, or just too much? best with many players, few players?
Have other games come along and surpassed that kind of experience, I mean we havent even tried Cosmic Encounter yet (I know, heresy) but the whole spooky soundtrack, semi roleplaying, shit is going to happen so just enjoy it vibe is something which seems like a great fit for us (part of me even wonders if its worth just finding a decent bare bones streamlined RPG ruleset in the cthuhlu type mythos instead)

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20 Oct 2017 04:13 #256039 by Matt Thrower

Tron wrote: Has it stood the test of time? How does it hold up gameplay wise vs the card game? How well does it work with just a base game box, are expansions required, or worth it, or just too much? best with many players, few players?


I'm still a fan of Arkham Horror. It's admittedly a bit clunky by modern standards but I don't think there's any other co-op game which feels so alive, both in terms of generating a sense of place and a sense of another, competitive player. It's very dynamic for a co-op with gates popping up, monsters wandering around the board and events making stuff happen at certain locations. And while the use of so much story text (on the cards) to build narrative is kind of passe, it works: I've had more memorable sessions of AH than perhaps any other game.

Ubarose once said you shouldn't think of it as a horror game but more of a questing adventure game and that's very true. You have adventurers who wander the board looking for loot which they then take out to go monster hunting. It's not very H.P. Lovecraft but it is a satisfying co-op experience.

It's long, though, although that gets better with time, and it gets longer the more players you add. That's why people suggest 2 is the best number, and they're not far wrong: I'd say 1-3 is optimal (it solos well). Don't go adding more as you'll just end up with an awkward, sprawling mess that takes hours and massively overstays its welcome. Game length is very variable depending on how things pan out but a 3 player game should be doable in 3-4 hours.

Same goes for expansions. There's a fashion to throw in as many as possible but, again, you just end up with a sprawling mess. The game works fine without any at all and that's how I'd start out. Once you've been through the game a few times an expansion is good just to expand the variety in the encounter card decks. Dunwich Horror is the best one IMO, and I'd say that was entirely enough by way of expansions. Whatever you do, absolutely don't add more than one big-box expansion to the game.
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20 Oct 2017 10:37 #256064 by Shellhead
Arkham Horror holds up well enough. I played the hell out of mine, and would still play on a semi-regular basis if it was shorter and easier to set up and put away. The base game is fun, but experienced players will eventually beat the base game 90% of the time. Once you add in at least one expansion, the game stays reasonably challenging. The limited supply of encounter cards for the base set locations get increased with subsequent expansions so that you eventually get lots of variety in the encounters. One distinctive aspect of Arkham Horror is the Mythos deck. It functions like a big stack of archaic computer punch cards, serving as a crude AI for the game and also providing a semblance of a plot.

The first two big box expansions add an additional town board and and an additional aspect to the game that feels mandatory once you've tried it. Dunwich Horror introduced madness and injury cards, and those cards do an amazing job of making permanent disadvantages feel just right in terms of game mechanics. Kingsport Horror introduces an annoying rift threat, but also includes epic final battle cards that make the final battle more of a story than just a mechanical dicefest. Innsmouth Horror has the best additional town board, and while the personal story cards for each character are nice, they are not essential and players often forget about them during play. The other important thing about the big box expansions is that they include new Great Old Ones and characters, so that you can eventually have 24 GOO and 48 characters to choose from. Miskatonic Horror is strictly optional and only recommended if you have all the other big box expansions. Miskatonic doesn't include a board or any new characters, but adds more cards for every single deck in the game and expansions, and some of those cards create links that connect one expansion to another expansion.

The small box expansions are more optional, but offer good value. The King in Yellow is rich with the strange texture of Carcosa. Black Goat offers more combat and a source of corruption. Dark Pharoah has a nice Egyptian theme. Lurker at the Threshold offers some interesting choices and can make the game a little easier.

I disagree with Matt about player number and expansion number. I have played with as many as eight players on many occasions, and the game is still very fun. Yes, there is more downtime, but the threaded turn sequence makes that less of an issue, plus there is plenty to look at on the board between your turns. If anything, the game doesn't really scale properly down to just one or two players, unless you are each running two characters (or three if solo). As for expansions, it is a big waste of time to cull the card decks and monster bag before a game to get it down to the base set plus one expansion. Maybe play with only one expansion town for up to four players, plus another town expansion per two more players. Also, the game scales well with high player counts, and doesn't necessarily go longer. The shortest game that I ever played was an 8-player game that lasted one hour. (Gates opened quickly due to unlucky encounters at unstable locations, and we weren't at all ready for the final battle when it came.)

Matt and Uba are right to say that this is like a questing adventure with a horror setting. The 1920s setting sets it apart from all the other adventure games and makes it more accessible to non-gamers, who tend to really enjoy Arkham Horror. There is a tantalizing sense of possibility, as you race around the board collecting weapons and spells, avoiding or fighting monsters, and having strange encounters in other planes of existence.
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20 Oct 2017 10:41 #256065 by __
awesome feedback, thanks!

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20 Oct 2017 11:11 - 20 Oct 2017 11:11 #256075 by Matt Thrower

Shellhead wrote: I disagree with Matt about player number and expansion number. I have played with as many as eight players on many occasions, and the game is still very fun. Yes, there is more downtime, but the threaded turn sequence makes that less of an issue, plus there is plenty to look at on the board between your turns. If anything, the game doesn't really scale properly down to just one or two players, unless you are each running two characters (or three if solo). As for expansions, it is a big waste of time to cull the card decks and monster bag before a game to get it down to the base set plus one expansion.


For clarity, when I said don't play with more than one expansion I meant don't play with more than one expansion-specific board and/or rules. Keeping in the characters, cards, GOOs and all that jazz from other expansions is fine. It is, however a law of diminishing returns: additional expansion cards always enhance the game to some extent, but more you add in, the less the additions help to make things fun. Hence my suggestion that one is enough.

Is that more clear?

And I agree with Shellhead about the character numbers as distinct from the playernumbers.
Last edit: 20 Oct 2017 11:11 by Matt Thrower.
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20 Oct 2017 15:45 #256092 by jeb
I love ARKHAM HORROR. There is a deep vein of material about AH in the forums here. One thing that is indispensable are the flowcharts put together by Mr Skeletor (eRIP).

...which are no longer hosted here? WTF

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20 Oct 2017 15:58 #256093 by san il defanso

jeb wrote: I love ARKHAM HORROR. There is a deep vein of material about AH in the forums here. One thing that is indispensable are the flowcharts put together by Mr Skeletor (eRIP).

...which are no longer hosted here? WTF


I have played Arkham Horror probably 20 times, and I've never been able to do it without that flowchart. It has to be over on BGG, right?
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20 Oct 2017 16:25 #256099 by dysjunct
I used to be all-in on Arkham Horror, due to my love of the Call of Cthulhu RPG. Then I realized that AH is fiddlier and produces less coherent stories than just playing CoC.

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20 Oct 2017 16:39 #256100 by ChristopherMD
Arkham Horror is probably my favorite co-op of all time. Not going to add much since Matt and Shellhead have already covered a lot. I've played mostly 4-player with those games taking about 4 hours once we got the rules down. I'll also recommend Mr Skeletor's flowchart. We found it tremendously helpful when learning the game. If 2 of my friends hadn't spawned a tiny human together then I'd still play a game every few months.
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20 Oct 2017 16:45 #256101 by ufe20
Now I haven't played it nearly as often as Arkham Horror, but I think I prefer Eldritch Horror. It really does clean up and speed up some of the elements that drag Arkham Horror down.

I love collecting and spending my monies in adventure games, so it's a shame that bit is abstracted out of EH, but AH was never really about amassing wealth in the first place, so I can live with it.

I don't remember all the names of the decks off the top of my head, but the way EH has more encounter/mission/whatever cards tailored towards your Great Old One makes for a more coherent story in the game. After you add a few AH expansions, it's easy to get a one off mention of the King in Yellow play and never hear about it again.

The no more futzing about with the sliders is also nice. Those things, like the terrain dice in Runebound, were always way cooler in theory than practice.

Monsters having health is a nice addition too. Even if you didn't get enough successes to kill it outright, you got to chip away at it over a few rounds.

My wife won't let me get rid of AH (it was her first "hobby board game" she really liked) so I'll still play it occasionaly, but I honestly prefer EH in most ways. It really does need expansions though since the base game is a little lite on the encounter cards.
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20 Oct 2017 19:09 - 20 Oct 2017 19:09 #256111 by Disgustipater
What's the flowchart for? Turn order/rules?

Not to brag, but I never found it difficult to internalize everything in the game.

/brag

ufe20 wrote: Now I haven't played it nearly as often as Arkham Horror, but I think I prefer Eldritch Horror.


I really liked some of the new mechanics in Eldritch Horror, like the condition cards. But because the game plays out over the entire globe, I found the encounters to be pretty generic. It was enough to turn me off of the game, since the narrative, of which the encounters are a main component of, is one of the main reasons I like Arkham Horror.
Last edit: 20 Oct 2017 19:09 by Disgustipater.

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20 Oct 2017 19:21 #256112 by lj1983
not sure about the rest, but our favorite way to play AH is two players, two characters each.
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20 Oct 2017 19:22 #256113 by jeb
The flowcharts cover everything. They are amazing. Yeah they are at BGG (1.x is base game only, 2.x is base game + expansions). Just sucks they aren't here anymore. Sucks even more that Frank isn't here anymore. Ooh, hey found a post where I link the BGG ones:
fortressat.com/forum/10-ameritrash/23768...rror-scary-how#23790

Anyway, AH + DH is one of the best Adventure games on the market. Cool shit happening, money to spend, monsters to kill, shit to buy, jobs to land, all that. It's tons of fun and best with 3-6 chars, so 1-6 players, but can do more. Respect the house rules too once you know what's going on.

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20 Oct 2017 19:51 #256114 by Shellhead
I agree that the flowcharts aren't at all necessary. There are only five phases to each turn, and they are probably listed on the back cover of the base game rulebook: upkeep, movement, encounters in Arkham, encounters in other planes, and Mythos phase. Yes, several fiddly things happen during the Mythos phase, but the Mythos card will prompt you to do them all: open gate or handle monster surge, move the monsters, resolve the headline, and place the clue token(s). It's unfortunate that the Mythos card isn't laid out in that order, but you can get used to it. Oh, and maybe you need to update something involving an environment or rumor card in play.

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22 Oct 2017 07:35 #256155 by __
just catching up here but now it seems Eldritch Horror is of interest - the group I have in mind probably would prefer a boardgame type experience to the card game versions, and EH seems to be much more streamlined and I think that will be a big factor for them, though I see now that EH also has a gazillion expansions. Was EH released as an alternative to AH or an evolution of AH or totally separate? I might keep AHCG as a solo/wife game at home but try EH with some work colleagues who are not really "hardcore" gamers whatever that is, but basically they're not at a stage where taking on loads of rules and explanations and not really getting whats going on is going to be a good thing, so the quicker the overall game "clicks" with them the better.

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