Arkham Horror: The Card Game Review

Read more...

Yes! Good review. I 'subscribe' to this LCG via my FLGS. That's a first for me on two fronts; subscribing to a game, and playing a LCG. At the end of the day, I find I enjoy the narrative element a lot. I don't care for deck building at all, and find that to be less interesting. I view AH LCG as a very good facsimile of a CoC scenario. A scenario that I can now play solo.*

* Also important since my board gaming group has ventured into RPGs more and more. I'm too old and impatient to sit there and watch/listen as they struggle through the GM role. I can't rewind the clock for memorable teenage RPG campaigns. AH LCG? That I can do, and it scratches a needling itch...

I agree that it is extremely well done to emulate a Cthulhu adventure in a card game and we enjoyed our first play through, unfortunately it is not for me because of the severe lack of replayability, after you play through the first campaign the narrative has gone and further play-throughs are just trying to beat the system as you pretty well know what is coming each time. And I am not going to dump money in to it by first buying the Dunwich big box expansion and only get three scenarios and then buy six more mini (but not cheap) expansions to finish the campaign, and rinse repeat.
I don't want hundreds and hundreds of cards and a couple of campaigns - I want more campaigns for the amount of cards I choose to buy. If they did very small expansions of new campaigns, maybe with variants on the existing locations (just like drawing different encounters at a location in big brother Arkham or Eldritch) so creating new campaigns could be easier and modular, similar I suppose to how Descent has small co-op campaign packs (even if it is a Print-on-Demand format) then I would probably be all over that.
Suppose the bottom line is that non CCG or LCG gamers like me are not their target audience.

You do know they've made two expansions that are only scenarios, right? One is Curse of the Rougarou and the other is called Carnivale of Horror. I don't know if they are good, but I remember that Massing at Osgilliath and the Lake Town scenarios for Lord of the Rings were very good and they were the same concept.

mads b. wrote: You do know they've made two expansions that are only scenarios, right? One is Curse of the Rougarou and the other is called Carnivale of Horror. I don't know if they are good, but I remember that Massing at Osgilliath and the Lake Town scenarios for Lord of the Rings were very good and they were the same concept.

Nope, I stopped looking after going through the Dunwich expansions and then its following child cycle of six mini expansions. I will investigate the existence of scenario-only packs.

It's an excellent game. Replayability off the core set is achieved using different pairs of characters which require different play styles. The chaos bag is easily skipped over by using an iOS app, which simulates the chaos bag, which is a real time saver.

Dunwich Legacy is a great story and deeply immersive. It is a perfect soloist game.

I've tried both stand alone packs and they allow you to tool up in between scenario plays of a large cycle. The core set is three linked scenarios while Dunwich Legacy is 6 or 7 scenarios. You take the same characters through each one. If they go insane in one scenario they have a permanent mental disability in the next scenario (ie they aren't dead yet). Hard to beat. If you don't play to the strengths of the characters you will get screwed.

You are a fucking idiot if you don't like this game.

It feels like you need to drop about $150 for the full experience. Cheaper than Kingdom Death: Monster, and Cthulhu Wars, certainly. But still.

You are a fucking idiot if you don't like this game.

ThirstyMan wrote: It's an excellent game. Replayability off the core set is achieved using different pairs of characters which require different play styles. The chaos bag is easily skipped over by using an iOS app, which simulates the chaos bag, which is a real time saver.

Dunwich Legacy is a great story and deeply immersive. It is a perfect soloist game.

I've tried both stand alone packs and they allow you to tool up in between scenario plays of a large cycle. The core set is three linked scenarios while Dunwich Legacy is 6 or 7 scenarios. You take the same characters through each one. If they go insane in one scenario they have a permanent mental disability in the next scenario (ie they aren't dead yet). Hard to beat. If you don't play to the strengths of the characters you will get screwed.

You are a fucking idiot if you don't like this game.

I'm not in the zone where numerous small expansions just to complete one campaign are financially viable, and I do miss the narrative surprise once a scenario is played and it's just the mechanic left to beat the next time - not a biggie with the game itself, just how it affects me.

I will repeat one more time. There is no necessity to buy all the expansions for a campaign. Each one works as an independent adventure. Only the truly OCD would go down that route. There are plenty of good fan made scenarios. You don't seriously think that people cannot possible play the game until all the expansion packs for that cycle have been released. That just does not happen.

Why is there an obsession in only playing a complete published campaign when this is not necessary?

Its exactly like LoTR LCG you don't HAVE to buy all the expansion decks for a cycle. It works perfectly well without the entire cycle and each pack can be dealt with independently.

Oh I realize what you're saying, unfortunately for me I lose interest in the campaign once I know what each scenario does and when you play it again you are just trying to beat the known challenge. it's why I bought lots of expansions for Arkham and all the small box expansions for Eldritch - so I would retain some surprise as most of the time we'd get different encounter cards, even then we still remember what choices do what on some cards that have randomly popped up more frequently. Again, nothing really wrong with the game, just how I get (or fail to get) fun from it.

I finally started the Dunwich Legacy even though I had bought it back in February. I liked the first adventure, but it's just one adventure. We played Rex and Zoey. Both are pretty good and are an upgrade over the base set investigators. Then again, it could be the added cards from the expansions. I've heard Pete is bonkers and Jim and Jenny are also pretty good. So, if anything, the investigators in Dunwich are really cool.

I've also heard Curse of the Rougarou is meh and Carnevale of Horrors is pretty damn good but tough. I've been told Carnevale is good to play as a side mission after Miskatonic Museum.

Overall, I do like the game, but I definitely feel that it's overpriced for what you get especially if you have to buy two core sets. The base set campaign is a bit too difficult with just base set cards. The hardest part of that campaign is the last adventure. I don't think I will buy the Carcosa campaign for now. I may change my mind if it gets good reviews after all of the campaign has been released.

I will mention, finally, that I played my Dunwich Legacy adventure on OCTGN even though I own the physical game. I just wanted to try it out with my friend in Minnesota. I think this OCTGN is a good way to try out the game. It's better than the Tabletop Simulator version. I may just end up playing this game through OCTGN in the future. You do have to wait 6 months to get the card images if you don't want to scan them in yourself. That's probably fine with me. If you're interested in the OCTGN version, here's the link to the mod:

octgngames.com/ahlcg/

It is absurd that people think you have to buy two core sets. YOU ABSOLUTELY DO NOT. Buy Dunwich and use those characters or just play better and use a core set. Yeah, it's hard, it's supposed to be. It's Cthulhu. I have beaten the base adventure campaign with one core set using as many different pairs of characters I could use, while waiting for Dunwich Legacy, so don't tell me you need two core sets.

Agree with OCTGN though. It's a good way play remotely. I think AH LCG is really designed for solo play unlike LoTR LCG.