Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Thanks for the tips, upgraded Chainsaws was next on my list of things to buy but with only two scenarios down, I've spent my XP elsewhere. I was originally thinking to upgrade into Bandolier to keep Blessed Blade around but if I'm being honest, I think that may be too many pieces to try and assemble and I'm finding the Blessed Blade to be kind of underwhelming so maybe freeing up my hands for Chainsaws would be a good next step. Replacing Cherished Keepsake with the Rosary would make a lot of sense.

sornars wrote: In addition to the Carcosa campaign that I've kicked off with Gary Sax, I picked up my solo Dream Eaters campaign where Tony and Luke went in Search of Kadath.

Warning: Spoiler!

This scenario was very fun and it was very evocative of an epic quest but by the third area I was getting pretty tired and was ready for things to end. There is a ton of interesting stuff going on in this scenarios including the encounter deck being seeded with bespoke monsters depending on your location and the fact that only flying monsters and the corsairs could follow you from one area to the next.

I'm enjoying this campaign quite a bit so far, I think this might be one of the better campaigns to do a blind run through of.

I think the Dreamlands half could even be a solid campaign for newbies. Those first two scenarios have a pretty gentle curve and relaxed pace, so long as a veteran is there to keep things moving as the locations rotate. The only mark on the campaign is the finale which can have absolutely brutal randomness on lower player counts.

I thought the first scenario of the waking half was a good intro/early scenario too. It's very clear how it fits together but it introduces a really new mechanic (new draw bag) that does something pretty legible and concrete. The scenario goals are very concrete too at each agenda.

I actually prefer the waking half, but I find it quite a bit harder at the beginning at least. It has a much different tone, too. Dreamlands feels like an adventure; Waking feels like a nightmare.

Blessed sword is pretty underwhelming in my play experience too. Think rosary would do it’s job better.

It’s a fresh conversation in my mind as I had it last week with my buddy playing Yorick as well.

Not as many options in survivor as there are in Guardian. 45s might work. But they are a little expensive. He was running Winchesters so less options as he already sorta had 3 damage.

I really like dream eaters. Both sides. Next up for us will be Forgotten Age. Then Dream Eaters. I had a blast playing that one.

The Epic scale of Search for Kadath is really well done. It really shows how cool the roots of the game are.

I was stupidly close to buying the circle undone cycle today with the 10% miniature market sale on today. It's the only cycle I don't have you can still get.

Bad FFG distribution paranoia FOMO has me in its grips.

The only reason to pass on a complete cycle is if you believe it'll be released in the new format and are happy to wait for however long it takes for FFG to release it onto the market.

If not, I'd grab it while the grabbin's good.

I'm in complete agreement with Kmann. It was harder to make that recommendation when you were still on the fence about the game but now that you're deep in the pit it's an easy decision (budget notwithstanding) to pick up any complete cycles if they're available rather than waiting for reprints that may be months or years away. Even if you're not interested in a particular campaign (and to be clear, I haven't played a campaign that I'd consider bad yet even if some took me a few playthroughs to warm up to them), the player cards add options that'll make deckbuilding more interesting. I've mentioned in the past that FFG's terrible distribution probably increases sales but that FOMO feeling is somewhat justified.

Y'all are a bad influence ha

Haha, if I really wanted to help you waste your money I’d be out here extolling the virtues of Warhammer or something. I’ll leave that to other more qualified folks.

To be fair, Charlie Theel already got to me on this, with the Core Space kickstarter.

The real killer about Arkham LCG for getting me to buy more and more is that I actually play it a lot in the evenings since it's coop/solo. WH would have a hard time capturing me that way.

Sornars and I had a fitting end to carcosa on easy, with us being shut up in a mental asylum forever. It was one of those games where I felt we had the game locked and were progressing with excellent speed... and then it just went completely sideways on the escape. We probably should have stuck together... dunno. Losing my gate box early was a real blow.

I think sornars thought I was going to blow my top with the non-standard game over, but it really just is the sense of helplessness caused by the bad decks that was driving me crazy in this game. I kind of thought the game over was hilarious. My Luke deck wasn't like amazing but it does have tools to handle most situations, you just might not have them handy.

I also played a solo game today with Roland and Stella, the unnameable scenario was a little long but fun. Got whacked just before the end, the stair descent reset cards are absolute heartbreakers.

That loss is a bit of kick. I lost Minh there in my first Carcosa run, but if you choose to struggle on, Carcosa isn’t so bad that a 0 xp start on the fifth scenario is impossible. The asylum is one of my top scenarios. The slow drip of enemies and increase in their threat reinforces the possibility that this all really is in your head. There’s a nice callback to Midnight Masks, too.

I like A Thousand Shapes of Horror alright, but on repeat plays, you absolutely need to save your cancels for that treachery. It’s brutal.

Well. Finished carcosa. It ended a mess. We were doing well. And then it went wrong. Some of it was first play things that will never happen again. We messed up on when we advanced something and spawned the boss with chainsaw on zero fuel, and me without holy spear in play. We were rallying from that. But then it all just fell apart. I had a blast with it.

I loved the mary deck. What a blast to play. The biggest change I would make is taking a few more clue spells even if they will only ever be level 0. Having you main clue person rely on 4 cards to function was bad in play. It worked. But that does not mean it was bad design.

With that crashing defeat we are now in prep for the forgotten age. Not sure if I’ll be on monster detail or clues. My buddy is gonna play rogue. I have a few decks built from my failed night of the zealot session. I could doctor up one of those.

Event based Jenny could be lots of fun here. Don’t think I would name Nathen as my guardian of choice for Forgotten age. But Wendy could be fun. After our recent talks I have 2 player clue getter Carolyn in my head.