Has anyone played the Arkham Horror boardgame?

[Stark]

I've not played the kind of super-complex wargame/RPG/boardgame you can get these days, but Arkham Horror looks pretty cool, combining an interesting setting and co-op play with much lower 'entry requirements' than a full RPG. Has anyone played this, or similar multi-genre complex games?

[Raj Ahten]

I've played it. It can be lots of fun. Good thing about it is that the players are all fighting the elder horror together. Everyone wins, or everyone loses. Cuts down on the asshole factor of most players.

[Laughing Mechanicus]

I have it - it is pretty good. You choose a "boss" enemy at the the start of each game which is basically the difficulty selector - the boss enemy effects the stats of certain monsters and, if the shit hits the fan, you have to fight it at the end of the game (unless you choose Azathoth, in which case he just ends the world).

We also found that playing with 3-4 people it can be very hard game - but its hard in an entertaining rather than frustrating way, the feeling of ever growing desperation as your mystical characters dash around Arkham trying to close portals while the combat characters desperately fight off waves of monsters is great. You also all really do have to cooperate closely otherwise you are totally screwed.

Also, one of the best combat characters is a bum.

[Stark]

Well shit. Amazon won't ship internationally and the publisher is out of stock, which I imagine means it's out of print. Fuck eh? TIME TO BUY WOW BOARDGAME AM I RITE.

[weemadando]

A damn good substitute is Betrayal at House on the Hill.

Not quite as much detail, but the way the game works is so fun. Everyone starts out as the good guys, but then one becomes the traitor. They then have a randomly selected mission to accomplish.

The most memorable one was when someone turned traitor after the house had become the most insanely convoluted design we'd made to date. They then became some world-eating two-headed serpent which we had to thwart before it grew too large.

It was a fucking bloodbath, interspersed with some insane "snake" games, trying to lead the serpent to double-back on itself into dead-ends etc.

[Stark]

Nah, it's quite different in tone. I'd rather get AH, even though this is apparently im-fucking-possible.

Fucking Australia.

Fucking customs woudl steal it anyway.

[Rawtooth]

Arkham rocks. It'll take a few tries to get everything right in one game, but once you do the rules are simple to remember. The base set is easy, barring some of the crazier Great Old Ones such as Yog-Sothoth or Cthulhu. Each of the two board expansions adds an entirely new area, new monsters, new investigators, and new GOOs to fight, which I highly recommend. The two smaller expansions are more hit and miss; Curse of the Dark Pharaoh isn't that hot from what I've heard, while the King in Yellow brings out the pain.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is also good. It lacks the complexity of Arkham, which is a plus or a minus depending on what you're looking for. I will say that Betrayal is a far faster game then Arkham, barring silly situations ultimately ending in player loss to one of the Great Old Ones.

[El Moose Monstero]

I enjoyed it, and so did my 15 year old sister, although there's an assload of cards to cope with - you need a damn big table to deal with all the bits and pieces, but apart from an initial 15 minutes of piling up cards and shit, and obviously your first game is slow as you're learning, but it's a lot of fun. And that's coming from someone who's not really a hardcore boardgamer.

I also quite enjoyed Shadows over Camelot - although I don't think we've beaten it without a little bit of cheating yet.

[Stark]

I've heard Shadows over Camelot is another coop/traitor game - that sounds pretty cool too.

Hey Ando, are there any AU online gaming stores I should be checking? Brisbane's gaming scene is pretty much entirely DnD and MTG, so I doubt anywhere would stock anything like this. Because it's so heavy I'll get raped on shipping if I buy it in the US.

[Civil War Man]

Arkham Horror takes forever to set up, just warning you. Also, if you go more than 5 people, playing becomes really unwieldy. Once you get into it, though, the game's great.

I once played it single-player (yes, they have rules for that). Took me about half an hour to set up. And, due to unbelievably lucky draws, I finished in about 10 minutes. Turns went like this.

1. Gate opens in same district as me, cultist pops out. I run over, kill the cultist, and jump in.
2. Gate tries to open in the same spot, causing a bunch of really scary monsters to jump out. I traverse the other world.
3. Gate to the same other world opens in a different location, lame monster jumps out. I was using one of the expansions, and this card had "close one existing gate" as its event. I jump out, kill the lame monster, and close the gate.

At this point, I checked for victory. All gates closed? Check. Do the players possess a number of gate trophies equal to or greater than the number of players? Check.

And so I save the world.

[El Moose Monstero]

I've heard Shadows over Camelot is another coop/traitor game - that sounds pretty cool too.

Hey Ando, are there any AU online gaming stores I should be checking? Brisbane's gaming scene is pretty much entirely DnD and MTG, so I doubt anywhere would stock anything like this. Because it's so heavy I'll get raped on shipping if I buy it in the US.

Yep, truth be told, we never really play with the traitor in, simply because we found the game hard enough to beat as it is, and traitors never seem to have as much fun as everyone else unless you've been playing the game long enough to really know how to play it.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/15062

[Stark]

Oh yeah, I'm using BBG as we speak. I even found the old dinosaur game I played when I was like 5. If Ando has this shit, I'm hoping he knows of some AU-local store I can use, rather than pay 60USD to ship it from the states.

[El Moose Monstero]

Oh yeah, I'm using BBG as we speak. I even found the old dinosaur game I played when I was like 5. If Ando has this shit, I'm hoping he knows of some AU-local store I can use, rather than pay 60USD to ship it from the states.

Not Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs by any chance? I had that. It was fantastic as a 5-10 year old. I don't think I ever really played it very often more than I did playing with the little dinosaurs and the volcano that came with it.

[Rogue 9]

Shadows over Camelot is great. Arkham Horror is okay; I haven't played it that much.

[weemadando]

I've heard Shadows over Camelot is another coop/traitor game - that sounds pretty cool too.

Hey Ando, are there any AU online gaming stores I should be checking? Brisbane's gaming scene is pretty much entirely DnD and MTG, so I doubt anywhere would stock anything like this. Because it's so heavy I'll get raped on shipping if I buy it in the US.

I'd recommend

Mil Sims who I used to order stuff from a lot.

and

Mind Games but their stock is massively variable. Some stores (like Melbourne) are a veritable Alladin's cave of wonders, others are just a hole in the wall that sells chess sets and executive toys.

Mind Games Melbourne shows hte following:

8994210 ARKHAM HORROR $78.00 T.O.S
8994286 ARKHAM HORROR - CURSE OF TH DARK PHARAOH EXP. $30.00 T.O.S
8994284 ARKHAM HORROR - DUNWICH HORROR EXPANSION $62.00 T.O.S
8994336 ARKHAM HORROR - KING IN YELLOW EXP. $30.00

However MilSims appears to have gotten new stock in of it recently.

[The Yosemite Bear]

yes, I used to have a copy before my dad sold it on EBAY along with the rest of my junk.

[Stark]

Not Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs by any chance? I had that. It was fantastic as a 5-10 year old. I don't think I ever really played it very often more than I did playing with the little dinosaurs and the volcano that came with it.

Hell yeah. I don't think I ever really played it either. I bet Scotland Yard is less cheat-filled if you play as adults, too.

And Ando, thanks. I'll check the Mindgamez'z I can think of in Brisbane, but otherwise I'll order it. Amusingly, due to price inflation, it's worth it for me to buy the base game here due to cheaper shipping, but the absurd prices they charge for the expansions mean if we like the game I'll import those from the US anyway.

[Stark]

So, I found this game and it's cool.

However, do any of the players here have 'house rules' to make it harder? I've ordered Dunwich, which apparently makes it harder, but in the games we've played so far with 1-4 players, we've only lost through short-term bad luck (like a pile of mosters surges cutting us off from the gates until another one opens and we lose, etc) and generally had it under control. I'm interested in increasing the general threat level while keeping the game's very unpredictable nature - in two games, we had 'No One Can Help You Now' come out, and in one game, due to the reshuffle card, it came up TWICE. Even so, and facing Hastur, we won and aside from some scares midgame had little chance of losing.

In particular, does anyone have rules to increase the sensitivity to players? As it is, the game only changes at one point (5+ players) and all it does is change the monster spawn rate. If possible, I'd like to make it a bit more responsive to the increased ease of more players, and not just in monster limit/etc.

[Civil War Man]

Most of the time when I play we just do a lot of monsters when we want to up the difficulty. Or we play against specific Old Ones like Nyarlathotep or Yog-Sothoth.

Though one time, we went up against Ithaqua. I drew the mobster. Monsters would last maybe two seconds if they dared venture out into the streets (Ithaqua deals 1 damage to investigators in the streets, and the mobster has damage resistance 1). Adding more monsters wouldn't have helped that.

[Rawtooth]

Before jumping to house rules, try the free Dunwich Horror or Dark Pharaoh Heralds. Also try some of the League scenario's. Although, yes the core game is somewhat easy barring fighting the heavy-weight GOOs.

As for home-brew fixes, the first thing I'd do would be random investigators/GOO, then cut down on the clue tokens starting on the board. If you want something that will really push up the difficulty, I'd try drawing an extra Mythos cards every two players after the first four. I've never tried that before, and off the top of my head I can't think of anyone who has, but that would surely turn up the pressure. For an in-game justification, if that many investigators are trying to stop the Mythos, surely it must be some grave and terrible threat barreling down upon them like a juggernaut.

Which Great Old Ones have you guys faced down so far?

[Stark]

I always randomise investigators; choosing sounds extremely cheesy and lame to me. Last game we had a bunch of noncombat guys; Nun, Author, Doctor and Titty Researcher vs Yog-Sothoth, and we had it under control pretty much the whole game. The Author ended up with two-fisted shrivelling and the Cleavage Researcher shut a pile of gates; it was surprisingly easy.

I've already ordered Dunwich, but I'm not sure if it'll up the difficulty in general (given card dilution) rather than provide more high-difficulty spikes. I'm thinking of implementing a 'two gates hitting a seal in a row bursts it' house rule, or something, to keep the game more unpredictable. As Civil War Fellow says, after about 5 turns 80% of the monsters are zero threat and even the Doctor with a Rifle can blow them away with little risk.

However, I realised last game I've been doing Hounds wrong; I thought their movement type meant they moved towards the nearest investigator when they came up - but it clearly means they move ALL THE WAY to the nearest investigator, which makes them much more dangerous.

We've played Shrub-niggerath (only game we lost, got him down to half hitpoints lol), Hastur (won through seals at 10-Doom), Yog Sothoth, Yig and Azathoth. If Hastur had woken up (ie, less lucky on Mythos cards, less luck on using all 4 elder signs) we'd have been fucked, the terror level was quite high. I'm curious about the Kingsport 'epic battle' card system, but I'm not very interested in the expansion itself. Does anyone have it, and does it make the GOO fight harder/more interesting?

[Civil War Man]

One of the things is that Azathoth is one of the easy difficulty Old Ones. His "if he wakes up, you all die" power is scary and all, but it takes a lot to wake him up, and he doesn't make the monsters or environment nasty.

You have played some of the nastier ones, though. Hastur's deal with requiring extra clue tokens to seal a gate sucks unless you are able to get a steady supply of Elder Signs (hint: Give the homeless guy money. He can dig through the trash at the Curiosity Shoppe). Shub-niggurath I believe is the one that kills anyone who gets Lost in Time and Space, which makes exploring gates risky for everyone who isn't the Nun. Ithaqua can get pretty mean to games that don't have the mobster available to cull the monster population without taking environmental damage.

Cthulhu can get really nasty. It takes less to wake him up than Azathoth (still takes a while, which is good if you like winning), but his environmental influence is much more vicious than Azathoth's. And while he doesn't automatically end the game if he wakes up, having to fight him sucks more than a lot of the other Old Ones since he hits all investigators simultaneously.

[Stark]

Maybe you could up the difficulty simply by starting with more doom tokens? Say, one per player beyond 2? That'd cut down on buildup, and in many of my games we've had doom only a few spots away from endgame, so it could be important.

And in the game with Hastur, we had Indiana Jones, who quickly found a pile of Elder signs at the shop. We weren't scumming, we just went there a few times (when we'd cashed him up) and we got lucky (not even a third through the deck and found all four).

EDIT - One thing my group is thinking about at the moment is using the game engine and framework to run a Watch-verse game. Obviuosly the Arkham Watches are going to be pretty small, but replacing 'gates' and 'other worlds' with 'crimes' and 'investigations' and 'clues' with 'interventions' and 'doom track' with 'balance', it seems pretty easy to do so mechanically. Something we're looking forward to is having players form different watches cooperating; if the game goes bad and it looks like the tribunal is going to be convened to sort the situation out (rather than Cthulhu lol), the opposing factions are going to want to make sure their side has more evidence/interventions/support so that the OTHER side gets dematerialised.