Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Expecting some hot edge of the earth takes now that it is shipping in most territories.

Welp, it is done. Boardlandia had every single Carcosa pack in stock. So I pretty much have every piece of content for this stupid game like the whale I am.

85 plays in six months is hard to sniff at, at least.

Having just finished that campaign last night...

TAKE WILL WITH YOU.

You might consider running Return for your blind play. It fills out the story, improves the encounter sets and doesn’t make anything worse.

I hope you’re enjoying Forgotten Age. It remains tops for me.

I think the "dueling sides of weirdos" works genuinely pretty well in Forgotten Age, which helps. I want to go back again and play it soon. Only part that didn't work for me was supplies, but that's easily gotten around.

Sornars and I continued our tts campaign of Innsmouth, we played Devil's Reef. Genuinely in my top 5 scenarios, and this particular game was an absolute blast. One of the best plays of Arkham (or anything) I've played in a while. Huge Jaws vibes and lots of just little annoyances that gave excellent color---GET IN THE BOAT. I love Diana Stanley's design, masterful stuff. Sornars' build seems... a lot more frustrating.

Sefina can certainly be built better than the one I’m playing. The deck relies on some key cards coming out, some of which are only one offs and that leads to a lot of actions spent either drawing cards or gaining credits. I actually think she’s quite a fun character if you like toolbox characters who have the answer to any problem.

Forgotten Age went from one of my least favourite to one of my most favourite campaigns upon a second play through.

I’m surprised to hear you liked Devil Reef so much. It might be my least favorite in Innsmouth. There’s so much backtracking that goes so slow and without any interesting locations.

The rewards are pretty good, though.

I like the challenge of the boat and the monster waiting for you at the mouth of the cave.

I wonder if Innsmouth might not gain the most from higher player counts. If you’re willing to split the party, you can reduce the need for backtracking, and there are more decisions to be made with regard to the boat and cars.

DarthJoJo wrote: I’m surprised to hear you liked Devil Reef so much. It might be my least favorite in Innsmouth. There’s so much backtracking that goes so slow and without any interesting locations.

The rewards are pretty good, though.

At least in this scenario the backtracking hooks into a fun central mechanic of the monster lurking on the shores.

I think there’s two more things going on here:
1) We got really lucky with the back tracking. This meant we only had to back track once and that was to claim the last key (and end the scenario). A different key draw and I would’ve been very annoyed with having to revisit multiple locations.
2) I haven’t gotten bored with the generic tidal locations yet. For me they’re still fresh and interesting and the interactions with the flood mechanic make them feel dynamic. I can see my opinion changing the more I see them.

I love Diana as both a character and as a design. There's so much interesting stuff going on in both her story and mechanics. The slow build up of power followed by the playing of the twilight blade which starts eating into that stored power; granting you multiple uses from a cancel but at the cost of your newfound Will - all of it forces a great ebb and flow of power peppered with tense choices but always providing a choice. The fact you can build her to be totally awesome without any regard for Arcane slots is just icing on the cake. In Devil Reef she ended up accumulating all of the artifacts and we were joking that she had to leave the Silver Twilight Lodge because she was committed to a different cult.

The tradeoff to getting those fishy cult items was interesting---it's the first thing about this campaign that didn't outright reward your success for all future scenarios. I didn't see this before because last time I played Innsmouth I was behind the eight ball the entire campaign, starting by losing the first scenario and only finding a single flashback which sets you way, way back.

The edge of the earth campaign box is fucking huge. People seem to love it but I'd rather have the Return To size for storage. I don't want to throw it out in case they just release a return to blister pack and assume you kept the original box.

100% agreed. I hate it and will be sad if the return to boxes are no longer produced but I feel compelled to hold onto it until FFG announce their plans for Return To content.