Arkham Horror: The Card Game

The support problem with 2p is the same in Spirit Island. I've still never played with the slumbering serpent.

Am I reading this right that he can start with any advanced level rogue cards he wants at the start of the campaign?

Not quite, the deckbuilding options are just that; options. What it means is he starts as a Survivor with all level 0 cards and a splash of Rogue but can't buy any higher level Survivor cards with XP. He can buy Rogue cards with XP meaning he'll transition from a Survivor to a Rogue as you gain experience. On a more meta level, this is fantastic as Survivors have pretty strong level 0 cards and often struggle to spend their experience in late campaigns.

A clearer example is Norman Withers who starts as a Seeker but becomes a Mystic as he abandons the sciences and embraces magic. All of the investigators in the new expansion will have similar deckbuilding rules. Monterey Jack: Starts as a Rogue/Indiana Jones but becomes a Seeker of truth as he grows. Lily Chen: Starts as a Mystic but becomes a Guardian as she fulfils her destiny.

As an aside, I just played a solo game of Spirit Island with Serpent Slumbering Beneath the Island and won on difficulty 5. It was pretty fun being able to combo out so many cards despite having a terrible printed card play.

Oh, I follow you, that's very tricky.

I think support actually works pretty well in Arkham, even at lower player counts, so long as they can pull their weight on clues. Carolyn is the only other investigator I’d call true support, and she can provide anyone with a steady stream of resources or free up horror soak slots on a Roland or Tony or Agnes.

The first build that comes to mind for Bob is Scavenging as the first four intellect Survivor. He can keep recycling and playing his Gravedigger’s Shovels, Lanterns, Leather Coats and Cherished Keepsakes pretty well.

I really enjoy the storytelling within the deckbuilding of these new investigators, but I’ve found Norman frustrating in practice. He’s frozen out of the Seeker unlock upgrades, and it feels like the deck shifts a lot more over a campaign than it does for anyone else.

On a side note, I kind of hate Lily’s place in the universe. I love her design and she looks like a blast to play, but in-story she’s too competent. She (and Akachi, too) has trained her whole life to fight the mythos. She knows what she’s facing and is ready for it. I kind of prefer a Sefina who stumbles into something way out of her league or a Roland who feels small and weak against these adversaries even with his training and backing by the federal government. Probably not so different a feeling from the people who hate that you can pull a shotgun on Cthulhu.

I grabbed some Dunwich+core decks on arkhamdb to see what difference a more competently constructed deck would make, even with the constraints of just a cycle and a base. I played the base game first scenario on easy.

It definitely made it easier. Rex, in particular, geared to hoover at least 2 clues at a time shortens your bullshitting around time considerably.

I downloaded the Arkham Cards app, it's incredible. This game would be even more difficult to deal with without the community stuff built up around it. I can already see that if I was constructing a deck I'd never pick any of the more uncertain but more fun cards and build around it, even though that's the joy of deckbuilding. Hopefully I can find decks that try to trade on weirdo assets and such that somebody else thinks of so I can enjoy the creative space to play in. There's just no question this is the best deck builder/LCG for a casual ever made because of the upgrade mechanics, coop, and severe deck constraints which prevent wtf do I do overload which I easily fall into.

I’m glad to hear it’s coming together! Rex is super powerful so you’ve made a good choice there. There are definitely tons of meme decks that can work and are based around silly cards. Arkhamdb can help you filter for decks that use cards you’re interested just to see how people build them. As you get more familiar I’m sure the rest of deckbuilding will come together without having to reference existing decks. Even if you copy a decklist verbatim, making choices on upgrades mid campaign is a nice way to personalise the deck and make it feel like your own which can be a nice compromise in terms of deckbuilding.

I agree that the community is one of the best ones I’ve seen and I think it being coop plays no small part of that. There’s no fear of swapping strategies or tactics or decklists as tournaments don’t really exist. During events like Arkham Nights people are still happy to share ideas.

Yeah, my spouse isn't a part of it but she might get interested later. Either way it's a pretty solid solo experience. I'm always very happy with how short scenarios are.

I completely agree on how crucial the upgrade mechanic is to bring you into deck building really gently. It's fun because you are bringing in legitimately better cards, so you can't really make a wrong decision that brings in a bad card (mediocre for your deck, maybe). That's so critical and it gets you more interested in thinking about how you would construct a deck itself. The small decks are also key here because deckbuilding isn't overwhelming in size.

Thanks for pushing those arkham lcg investigator packs, I just got them in. They're everything in terms of focus and a distinct point the base investigators sort of lack. They also have some much, much needed basic cards. Like more damage boosting stuff.

It still annoys me that I don't have 2 of some key deckbuilding cards but also getting another core is a lot of extra cards I don't need anymore.

I’m glad you like the investigator packs. They’re pretty playable straight from the package, but I’d definitely try to find space for some more resource generation in any of them you run. That’s their biggest general weakness.

You might also give #CPA-TDL a search under ‘Decklist name’ at ArkhamDB. It was a community event that challenged participants to beat Dunwich with a core, Dunwich, starter cardpool, so those decks ought to be pretty close to what you have available.

Feel free to take with a large grain of salt but FFG Spain seems to be indicating that a reprint of classic cycles in the new format is expected:

Excellent. I'm holding back on new cycles to get the investigators and maybe another core (ugh) so this is good news.

DarthJoJo wrote: You might also give #CPA-TDL a search under ‘Decklist name’ at ArkhamDB. It was a community event that challenged participants to beat Dunwich with a core, Dunwich, starter cardpool, so those decks ought to be pretty close to what you have available.

I'm running a couple of these right now. They're what I had a better time with up above in this thread.

That said, almost every deck build with likes or popular in arkham db (eg structure) assumes you have at base two cores. So I think I'll probably do that which is still annoying.

Putting the older campaigns into the new format is a total no brainer so I'm pleased to see more hints and loose confirmations slipping out from FFG on these. I am curious about the release schedule they're planning. One every six months? One a year? All at once? I have to assume the first will be Dunwich but who knows. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.


Speaking of, I'm currently on my second run through of Dunwich. Both times I've only used a single core and cards from the Dunwich cycle. I haven't dived into deckbuilding for this game so am just using FFG's official deck builds for Rex and Zoey. They're not super-optimised obviously but they've been capable and I'm muddling through okay on Standard. I haven't felt like I'm missing a second core.

I did fail one scenario with Zoey being defeated - can't remember which one - but fortunately it was a 'fail forward' one rather than a 'game over' one. At this late stage of the campaign Zoey now has two physical trauma and one mental trauma while Rex is limping along with just one physical trauma as we head into Where Doom Awaits.

In my last run through I also used the FFG builds for Jenny and Ashcan Pete and had a blast. The end was very memorable and thematic, especially after what the pair went through together in the campaign: It was a sad moment when it was all over and I was breaking up their decks and putting them away.

I think that having investigators who complement each other's skills is key with a limited card pool. In this current run I pretty much leave the investigating to Rex and have Zoey on defense/offense hunting down any foes who pop up. I also lean into the storytelling part of the game and tend to make thematic decisions rather than optimal (sensible) ones.

This approach seems to be working fairly well. So far at least...

Kmann wrote: Speaking of, I'm currently on my second run through of Dunwich. Both times I've only used a single core and cards from the Dunwich cycle. I haven't dived into deckbuilding for this game so am just using FFG's official deck builds for Rex and Zoey. They're not super-optimised obviously but they've been capable and I'm muddling through okay on Standard. I haven't felt like I'm missing a second core.

This super impresses me, honestly. I have had a hard time on easy until I used a more optimized constructed deck from arkhamdb, I beat down the final boss of the first campaign with Zoey beating the shit out of it using some of the additional 2nd copy cards from the investigator packs (e.g. finally two vicious blows). Maybe I need to read the rules real carefully again. Or maybe you're just a much better player than I am!!!

I completed the circle by buying a 2nd Dunwich copy for 30 bucks, I'm done for a few months at least. Now I have two campaigns, the 2 cores, and the investigator packs. Now I can use many of the online decklists, at least, no more not having a bunch of the crucial 2nd copies of some of the core cards. Talked about some of this stuff a little more here fwiw, it's so interesting how different my experience has been than others:

Before getting into AH I'd been playing Marvel Champions a few times a week for around a year. That helped immensely. The game would have been a nightmare to learn without that MC background. I can easily see myself feeling how you describe in your post without that experience - the difference being I probably would have given up.

Funny story: when I was learning how to play I mucked up and accidentally put the Standard tokens into the chaos bag instead of the Easy ones. It was brutal - although I had fun - but I kinda got used to it. I remember thinking, 'people said this game was hard but this is ridiculous!".

I also played through the core campaign at least 7-8 times using all the core investigators before moving onto Dunwich so that no doubt helped my playing as well.

The puzzle aspect you talk about is something I feel more strongly with MC. AH I'm playing for the story moments; Jenny taking a swig of whisky for some Dutch courage before storming into a location guns blazing to (hopefully) take down a monster, or Zoey smashing down a locked down because Rex failed to find the necessary clues fast enough. There's some great soundtracks on YouTube that I have playing to add to the ambience.

All that said, I don't find the game easy at all. I've read many posts that reckon 'easy' should really be called 'standard' because there's nothing easy about the game. I fully agree with that. I'll downshift to Easy for the next campaign cycle I play. And if something goes terrible - like dying on turn two for example which happened the first time on the Essex Express lol - I'll just reset and go again.

My last game, which was the Undimensioned and Unseen scenario, would have been a total fail if Zoey hadn't drawn the investigator token from the chaos bag to pass the final skill test, save the day and win the scenario. Anything less than -1 would have been game over. Oh, the joy of seeing that token come out! So it might not be better playing, I might've just been a wee bit luckier than you!