Arkham Horror Review

A few weeks ago I decided we need something a little new in the GFUK circle so I went out and purchased the highly recommended Fantasty Flight board game of “Arkham Horror”

I am a massive HP Lovecraft fan so the though of a multilayer co-operative board game sounded really appealing. It doesn’t come cheap (around £40-50) for the starter however it’s got a lot of pieces and it’s very high quality build.

How Does Arkham Horror Work?

Essentially Arkham Horror is a scaled down version of a tabletop roleplay game, there are preset characters and equipment, events, monsters and locations all represented either on the board or by tokens, you make skill checks with D6 and different effects come out of passing or failing them.

When the game starts an “Ancient One” is selected, these monsters are typical Lovecraftien gods or Great Old Ones such as Cuthhullu and Azathoth. Each Ancient One has different on going effects, monster modifiers and combat powers so the Ancient One chosen at the start can massively change how the game plays out offering large variety.

Each Ancient One has a Doom track which fill up as the game goes on, if it fills up the monster awakens and you have to face it in (a usually very difficult) combat session so your usually aiming to win the game before this happens. Winning the game is done by closing and/or sealing gates to other dimensions which open each turn, essentially it’s a race to shut the gates as they’re opening.

Each player takes a turn to move around and do things which is followed by the monsters having a turn and opening new gates, spawning new monsters and environmental cards altering gameplay mechanics.

A turn basically involves moving to a location, having an encounter there (which means drawing a card where something will happen such as fighting a monster or making a skill check to discover/escape something) and fighting monsters that have come to attack you. You venture through open gates to other worlds, spend a few turns moving through them then return to Arkham with the ability to seal the gate you came out of.

Is Arkham Horror Difficult to Play?

I wouldn’t say Arkham Horror is hard to play but it’s by no means the kind of game you can pick up and play in five minutes. The rules are complex but well presented in the manual therefore having someone on hand with the manual in your first game is advised and just keep looking problems up as you encounter them.

Most of the game is made up of skill checks and modifiers so anyone familiar with tabletops won’t have trouble but it really doesn’t get any harder than adding your combat modifiers to your fight stat and subtracting the enemy modifier.

Combat itself is interesting as it always a bit risky, you need to roll enough success’ in one check (a success is usually a 5 or 6) to hit an enemy for all of it’s health, damage doesn’t carry over to the next round of combat so you really have to think before getting into a fight with a big beastie. A really nice twist is having to manage sanity as well as health (called stamina). The crazy world of Lovecraft Monsters can be havy on the mind and it’s really well reflected in the fact that you need to make sanity checks before fighting the grotesque monsters of this world.

Winning the game is certainly not easy, we have currently done about 5 games (with between3-5 players) and we have won 3 lost 2 so it’s certainly not one of those one where you always win but that adds a lot of fun and pressure to the game, especially in larger multilayer. A heads up though, games can go between 2-4 hours.

What Do I Like About Arkham Horror?

The number one thing I want to big up Arkham Horror for is how well it captures the Lovecraftian feeling of being truly overwhelmed by your battle with the Old Ones. Sometimes you’ll literally be surrounded by enemies trying to run but failing, going mad and generally struggling to survive alongside the horrors, although this might seem like the game is really hard it makes a lot of sense for anyone a fan of HPL, very few people survive their encounters with Lovecraft’s monsters and while your intrepid investigators deal better than most they are still just people up against Gods. Should you actually awaken the Ancient One combat is usually very difficult against them and especially once a few of your team has fallen. This just makes it all the more rewarding when you do win.

I also love the multi player co-op element, we’re all big fans of that at Guardian Force so we enjoy playing as a team, passing items around and working together to smash monsters and seal the gates.

The design of the game itself is also very high, pieces are high quality with fantastic print work and really nice illustrations, although its pricey it’s easy to see where that money went and I have no doubt we will be getting out money’s worth out of the box by playing it so many times.

What Don’t I Like About Arkham Horror?

Every game has it’s flaws and Arkham Horror’s is that sometimes you just can’t catch a break. It’s really annoying to be very close to winning the game and then lose all your items because a random card got you arrested or the biggest monster possible spawned on your head. It does add unpredictability to the game and stops you formulating long term easy win tactics but sometimes it’s very demoralising to see you loose 1 gate from winning.

A few of the starting investigators are also woefully underpowered compared ot others, we seem to never use certain investigators on the grounds that they are crap.

Conclusion

All in all Arkham Horror is an awesome game and I strongly recommend it to people who play games in groups, its expense means you need a fairly reliable group to play with but if the conditions are right you will enjoy the multi player co-op horror feel game and I’m already looking at expansions. its decent into Lovecraftian mythos is executed almost perfectly and more importantly the game will make you feel like you really are on the run from one of the Old ones