Arkham Horror Explosion

So I played some Arkham horror at the beginning of the year, but I haven't played in a while. The wife and I invited Robb and Alayna over for dinner and after decided to give it a go.

The ladies didn't particularly enjoy themselves, but Robb, being an old Call of Chthulu stalwart, liked it enough to want to play again over the weekend. And again.

So, we played a four-player Thursday and won handily. Robb and I then played a two-player and were doing okay, then Alayna joined us as she returned from work and we won quite handily. Then Robb and I played a two-player and lost terribly.

Then it was already out so I played two single-player games Sunday. I lost the first by just a hair, and "won" the second (though I think I was playing the Final Battoe incorrectly). Then due to the texts I was sending Robb on my single player games he came over for another shot at the title. We won that two-player handily.

That's a crapton of Arkham Horror. General observations:

Each character plays very differently. Physical combatants like Mike the Gangster are awesome at killing Cultists but their sanity maximum makes it impossible for them to fight, say, The Hound of Tindalos or Shoggoths. Magical characters do great as long as they get good spells, which is a coin toss at best. Utility characters can be great at either but rarely excel without work.

Get a weapon early. During one game on turn one Robb's salesman character went to the general store and bought a .45. Totally worth it. Also it's an interesting beginning to a story: scene one, salesman walks into an army surplus and buys a gun. That was cool on a few levels.

Fishing for items from the stores in general is good. The unique items deck has some ridiculous stuff in it and it should be rifled through whenever possible (curiositie shoppe for those). The healing stone and elder signs are fantastic, potentially game-breakingly good items.

Always sealing gates instead of merely closing them is a good policy to adopt.

Rumors are terrible. Get rid of them.

Starting with 3 clues is way better than starting with none. One of our worst losses was with two characters who begin the game clueless.

You can game for the final battle sometimes. For instance, Nyarlathotep eats clue tokens and then investigators without them. So an investigator with 11+ clue tokens and a decent weapon (say a Tommy Gun) almost can't lose to Nyarlathotep. Most Ancient Ones are tougher. . .

I haven't played all the characters or against all the ancient ones. Maybe I'll try to get in a few more games and rate both sets according to the ancient method.

-Merlin out

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