Arkham Horror - solo practice run

I'm planning on busting out Arkham Horror (for the 1st time) for one of our upcoming game nights. Before I unleash it on the masses, I thought I'd better play through it solo in order to get the hang of things.

Besides using Mr. Skeletor's flowcharts, do any of you FA:Tties have any tips for solo play?

Play three characters when you play solo. That way you have a chance of winning by closing or sealing gates. Until Kingsport Horror addresses this issue, the only bad part about Arkham Horror is the horrid dicefest endgame if you don't deal with all the gates and the Great Old One shows up. Arkham Horror is a perfectly fun game to play solo, and with three characters, you will have enough to work with to develop some strategy for winning besides just desperate shopping and lucky dice rolls in the final battle.

For the first play I would take on Yig. He's small, so the game won't go too long, even if there's a final shootout. He also makes you sweat the Environment cards, which people mess up horribly.

Thanks for the tips. If all goes according to plan (which it never does), tomorrow's the day.

Well, F:ATties, thanks to your tips, Joe Diamond, Sister Mary, Ashcan Pete and Mandy Thompson were able to turn back Yig before he made it into our world.

I had a great time, but I'm really glad I played solo 1st. It would have taken much longer had we tried to learn as a group. I think I will give it a go on my own at least once more before attempting to teach it to the rest of the guys.

Well, F:ATties, thanks to your tips, Joe Diamond, Sister Mary, Ashcan Pete and Mandy Thompson were able to turn back Yig before he made it into our world.

I had a great time, but I'm really glad I played solo 1st. It would have taken much longer had we tried to learn as a group. I think I will give it a go on my own at least once more before attempting to teach it to the rest of the guys.

Joe Diamond and Ashcan Pete are two of my favs! I can't stand the nun though. She's terrible.

metalface13 wrote:

Joe Diamond and Ashcan Pete are two of my favs! I can't stand the nun though. She's terrible.

I don't have any frame of reference since it was my first time playing, but I thought she did OK. The Blessing thing gives her more hits on skill checks and combat and her high lore made her a good magic user.

I would be curious to know what everyone's favorite characters are.

Also, can you use DH investigators in a basic game of AH, or can they only be used in conjunction with DH?

I enjoy the nun. My favorite is the reformed cultist though. Can't remember her name or which set she's from, but I got to use her in my last game a couple of weeks ago.

From the base set, I like Monterrey Jack because he was in the original Arkham Horror, and also because he was sample character in at least one of the Call of Cthulhu rulebook editions. We used to call him the cheesy guy, and in the original game, he was the only character with a translucent pawn. Also, I like playing the gangster, because he starts with a tommy gun. And there are like three different female characters in the base set who all look like Agent Sculley, and I kind of like the scientist one because she blocks gates from opening at her current location.

All of the characters from the Dunwich Horror expansion are pretty cool. I like the Expedition Leader, for his ability to help out other players. The jockette is great for taking a hit for the team, and she is extremely fast. But the coolest one is the handyman... he starts with a motorcycle and a bottle of whiskey, and he can pick up cash here and there by doing odd jobs like chopping wood.

I like the Nun. As noted above, the Blessing is awesome. Getting a Blessing in game at the Church is difficult, if not impossible against some GOO's (you can't be pitching Monster trophies against some of those guys amirite?) And let us nto forget the story. A shotgun-toting nun is pretty sweet. Think of the conflicts roiling through her brain when she takes her first trip through a gate.

I also like the Hobo. I haven't played the Handyman yet, but having a motorcycle sounds awesome. In any game of 4+, I like to have a cop just to be able to drive around.

One thing (among many) that I wasn't clear on - can more than 1 investigator enter a gate at the same time? If so, are there any advantages to doing so?

I wouldn't recommend it. I've always played with the rule that if you seal the gate with your teammate still in the Other World, that they are immediately Out of Time and Space and you lose a sanity point for sacrificing them. That's a pretty fucked up thing to do.

Well I guess Sister Mary would be OK if you had Blessing for the majority of the game. But I am TERRIBLE at rolling for Blessings during the upkeep phase. I ALWAYS roll a one on the first turn after getting a blessing.

So whenever I play as Sister Mary from turn 2 on I'm just some bumbling nun who has lost her way and doesn't have the stamina to fight off any monsters or any other good stats to do anything worthwhile. So she slowly loses her sanity until she's finally devoured by some ungodly creature and I can thankfully draw a new character.

Like I said before, Joe Diamond is my favorite character. He's just so cool! Cruising the streets with his .45, piecing together clues and putting the hurt on the GOO.