Arkham Horror: The Card Game

I have heard mutterings of that but nothing official or concrete. So it’s possible it’s echo chamber in my head. Cause it would make sense for them to do.

A little good news on finding packs. A Phantom of truth just had a reprint. That was /is? The holy grail pack. Before the reprint it was going for 110-150 on eBay. It maybe worth grabbing that if you don’t grab anything else right now.

You may also have some luck looking at lots on eBay.

Tried out another two fan scenarios, one pretty great, one not so great. Consternation on the Constellation, designed by the hosts of one of the game’s most popular podcasts, is the great one. It has a solid setting in a cruise ship carrying relics of interest to a cult, has a great sense of escalation as the ship begins to sink and covers the basics of art and encounter cards very well. It has no weak spots and is simply a lot of fun. An easy recommend.

The Colour Out of Space, unfortunately, has nothing to really recommend it. It has two interesting conceits: one in punishing players who lose their allies and the other in an extra encounter deck whose cards are placed on locations and act like hunters before they are drawn. The scenario doesn’t effectively highlight these innovations, is riddled with rule ambiguities and scales very poorly. It really needed a few more rounds of play testing to reach its potential and sand off the rough edges.

Both can be found at Arkham Central.

I would like to highlight the Ashcan Pete deck with which I tested the scenarios. Using Yaotl, it effectively ran the desperate suite of four-icon skill cards from Carcosa. If Ashcan was too sane, I could still discard them with Ashcan’s innate and get the icons through Yaotl, and if Ashcan was a little crazy, Yaotl could get you +8 on a test by commiting the same desperate skill twice. Pretty fun but with a higher skill ceiling.

Looking at a run of Circle Undone next with Nathaniel and parallel Daisy. Unfortunately every deck I think of for Daisy could probably be done better with Mandy, but I really want to run Daisy for her personal scenario. We’ll see.

That’s the second confirmation I have on the quality of Consternation. Thanks for the info.

We finished our Dunwitch run. After the ass kicking we took on our last scenario the final 3 were cake walks. One of the stars of the show, Strange Solution Acidic Ichor. What a bonkers card.

We are prepping for Carcosa now. Will be a blind run for us both so pretty excited about it. As of now looks like I will be on the clue side of things again. Have a few ideas and not sure what direction I’ll go. Have a neat tome centric Daisy concept. So that’s one. I also have a Min concept as well as a Akatchi, Wendy and Carolyn. So lots of fun stuff. Also a Sister Mary that I would be excited to trot out. Daisy and Mary would be my top two choices. Both are unlike decks I have played before.

Looks like it will be Sister Mary. It’s an odd build I am excited to try.

Relying on Mystic cards to get clues. And sword cane for monster management early on. Also a pair of spectral razors. Lots of support stuff to sorta fill out the deck. It’s a heavy bless deck. With a fair amount of encounter deck control. That’s through 4 encounter card cancels and a bunch of will boosts. It should not ha e issues being the primary clue gatherer for a two player game I think.

I need to do a lot of test drawing though to see if 4 clue spells will be enough. I plan to add in recharge. I feel like that should be enough. But have to see it in play to really detour one that.

Parallel-front Daisy and Nathaniel lost Circle Undone by just two rounds, which I'd consider a pretty solid finish considering how brutal Before the Black Throne can be.

I can pretty well guarantee that I would have been better off with Mandy over Parallel-front Daisy, but she was still fun to play and ran a deck no other investigator would try. Carolyn and Tommy are my favorite guardians but not for their ability to pump out damage. As a pure damage dealer, Nathaniel might be my favorite option at the moment. He runs a lot of cards most other investigators wouldn't look at and put out 17 damage in one round in the final scenario (only ten of it from Dynamite Blast).

It's not my favorite campaign. In brief, it's a mature design with solid fundamentals in encounter cards, but there too many overly long, overly stuffed and overly difficult scenarios. Too many scenarios just feel like a grind or rely on some potentially brutal RNG. I'm hopeful for the Return box. The bones and ideas are there. They just need some smoothing. I still think it's the messiest narratively, which is a pity considering how strong the hook of the prologue is.

Looking forward to Parallel Agnes and Parallel Skids in Carcosa next.

www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2021/...o-edge-of-the-earth/

New release model announced and it looks so much more convenient for everyone with a separate box for character cards and another for campaign cards. Should be good for players, FFG and retailers and will hopefully address the stock problem. I think the new complaint will now be gaps between releases as everything will need to be designed upfront instead of trickled out but I much prefer this model overall.

"Combine this with lengthy, multi-part scenarios containing checkpoints and interludes"

It seems like this may even open up some design space for developers to make campaigns more intricate and interconnected.

This is just smart now that they have a solid content base. Buying all 6 Dunwich modules in stock at the same time was just dumb.

This is probably a good idea for all the reasons already stated, but it’s the online binge versus the traditional television season here. Tiger King comes and goes in a week, but people talked about WandaVision for months. The monthly release kept people engaged constantly. Now the hardcore will burn the latest campaign in a weekend, everyone else will lag behind, and the spoiler wars will rage. I hope with two full-time designers they can bring more stuff in between campaigns to keep excitement up.

But definitely better for people coming in later. Lily looks like great fun.

DarthJoJo wrote: it’s the online binge versus the traditional television season here.

As a new player to the game currently using a borrowed core & Dunwich cycle, I'm very excited about this new format and I really hope they replicate it for the older cycles. But this is a solid point and one I hadn't thought of.

One of the things that initially drew me into Marvel Champions was the idea of having something small to look forward to each month. I'd been waiting for the next AH cycle to begin so I had two small things to look forward to each month.

But for me, as a someone brand new to the game and yet to buy anything of my own, the ease of purchase outweighs the monthly dopamine hit of getting something nice in the mail. And I'll be especially jazzed if the older cycles get reformatted like this.

I am stoked about this article for a few reasons.

First the purchase model is just better. You are not wrong on the binge vs trickle infusion method, but all I can see is the upside. Not only is it a little cheaper and easier for stores to stock. But it’s in many ways a better play experience for us. We will get all of the cards to use the new mechanic of the cycle. This informs deck building in a huge way. Think how different we feel about Guardian bless tech now vs how we felt at the beginning. Only upside there.

As stated, Lilly looks awesome. I don’t have the Norman promo so have not messed with him at all. But it’s a pretty cool deck building rule set. I am real excited to check out the different options the new investigators will add. Whomever has starting survivor cards or morphs into survivor should be a blast to play.

Then last but by no means least we have a new back of dual class cards. Just fantastic. I can’t wait.

mythosbusters.com/2021/06/05/mythos-bust...07-edge-of-the-hype/

The Mythosbusters podcast did a great interview with the lead designer of Arkham and she talks a bit more about the upcoming release and the opportunities it presents for the game.

There was a lot she couldn't talk about for corporate/marketing reasons but I got the sensation from one of the questions asked that a re-release of old cycles in this format is potentially on the table. There's also the rumours of a revised core being released in early fall.

It’s a good listen. Thanks for posting it.

Hope to kick off Carcosa today. So likely to post with info about that.

We did indeed kick off Carcosa. Sister Mary and Yorick.

We started off a little slow. I as Sister Mary getting most of the clues and Yorick providing the muscle.

Only had Six Sense to get clues so it took a little to get going. That made for a slightly slow start to the game. We got up and rolling though and got to work.

The highlight of the game was Yorick doing Yorick things. He twice threw his Winchester into the face of a horror only to snatch it back up and be ready for action. Act of desperation is an amazing card for him. He also ate 3 horror on a cherished keepsake only to pop it right back into play. The man is a beast.

I made some predictable upgrades with the 6 xp we earned. Bought the Sacred Covenant and 2 upgraded Holy Rosary. This should really bulk up the bless tokens in the bag. My next upgrade I think will be Nephtys. This will be a huge boost for me as I currently have no Ally’s in my deck, it boosts my will, and passive damage on demand. Getting my will up is a pretty big deal for me. Not a cheap pair at 8xp. But a huge boost.

Looks like Yorick is investing in some bless tech as well. A pair of Favor of the sun and the survivor covenant. Not sure what his plans are for the last 2 xp.

Long term I plan to mess with the new Enchant Weapon and Holy Spear. Not sure how fast I get there though. Excited to try out both these cards. Can’t wait to try out a heavy bless suite.

Played scenario 2 of Carcosa. What a refreshingly different scenario. Was a bit of a mixed bag for us. We drew some poorly timed Ancient Evils which caused issues.

All in all we got it done. I was attempting to have an awesome Delve / Delve / Resign last turn. It was not to be. Mary escaped with 1 sanity left only getting one delve off.

So far bless has been awesome. It lets us be a little more aggressive on close checks. We are both leaning into it. I have now added my first reward card for bless by adding a single Nephthys. Yorick has the survivor covenant which is basically an auto pass if Yorick draws a bless token. Also 3 damage on the Winchester.

Off we go to the third scenario, but we have an interlude to complete first.

After trying this a couple of weeks back with Sornars on TTS I decided to jump in on a second hand copy replete with the full Dunwich cycle. I'm not super into deckbuilding (I got tired pretty quickly with the LotR LCG where the game felt procedural and winning or losing came down almost entirely to building the right deck for the adventure) but it doesn't seem to be such a strong factor in this design. In any case, the atmosphere from just a handful of cards in the first scenario grabbed me immediately so I'm looking forward to exploring this some more.