Some things Man was not meant to know...

I was pretty enthusiastic to read that Nigel Clarke was running ARKHAM HORROR by Fantasy Flight Games for Thursday Night Gaming Group (TNGG) at the Game Parlor.
Based on the original ARKHAM HORROR by Chaosium, the new version retains the basic themes and situation of the old game done with Fantasy Flight's trademark graphical flair. Nigel also had the most recent expansion CURSE OF THE DARK PHAROAH, but not, I think, DUNWICH HORROR, which has been delayed until September (I think).

I had played this a few times at WBC last year, and really liked it, sufficent to purchase a copy for myself. Alas, getting 4+ people together to play a complex horror game like ARKHAM HORROR can be a challenge, so on my bookshelf it has sat since WBC. I do get the pieces out for a wistful fondle now and then.



I got there a bit late, and the game had already started. That's almost a benefit for me because the game requires intricate setup and I'm a lazy sod.



I pulled KATE WINTHROP as a researcher, and was initially disappointed. She can't fight very well, has limited Clue tokens at start, very few artifacts, not much in focus, and a not very wide range of useful skills. As the effects of some of the Mythos cards started to impact every player, Kate lost more sanity and more stamina as the game went on, until we got down to 2 stamina maximum and 2 sanity maximum. Since the goal of the game is to seal off a number of inter-dimensional gates appearing all over town with sanity INTACT, having 2 to start with was a challenge!



It had been quite some time since I played last and had to kind of work my way back into the game. Every game has a randomly selected "GREAT OLD ONE", an Elder God that gradually approaches the barrier between worlds in an attempt to enter this one and either destroy or enslave all of humanity. AH is a cooperative game in that ALL players work towards a common goal of sealing off the gates into the town (the number of which depends on players in play and other situations.



It was nice to actually meet Jim Adams in the flesh (above) after reading his blog for about a year and a half. Early on in the game his character (a photographer) got stuck unconscious on the other side of a gate (in the Dreamlands), which had him lost in time and space....



Naturally, more monsters showed up every turn. And they were ass-kickers. My poor scientist tangled with a MIGO, which basically sucks sanity right out of you as well as inflicting stamina points. After that, I assisted in getting one of the gates closed (but not sealed).



Alas, I got killed promptly and spent a turn or so LOST IN TIME AND SPACE, before returning to the Hospital. Now I was down to 1 stamina point per turn recovery.

Nigel reminded me that the FLUX Generator kept NEW monsters from generating in the same encounters in the same space as myself. So we decided to have two investigators traveling together. That way, the Doc, played by Nigel, could benefit from the generator while I benefited from Doc's ability to trade with other players.

While across the portal in Dreamlands, I received a vision (on an event card) stating that I could seal a portal immediately if I sacrificed myself to do it. I decided to be selfless and stuck a dagger in my neck, thus sealing it off forever.



Nigel, you might have realized, was stuck on the far side of the gate, but that was an easy price to pay. Things continued to spiral downword even after I left to walk around the store, with the doom markers stedily advancing until the Big Guy was expected. Once the game realized a full grown Elder God as an opponent (Cthulhu himself!), we called it quits, as we were were in no shape to fight him.

I really like ARKHAM HORROR, but it can get pretty relentless. There are no easy victories and no easy decisions. You can't even outrun trouble because it pops up all over! Still, it's a great game, and kudos to Nigel for running it.

Nigel Clark's comments

Despite the intention to play with 5 investigators we started out with six but the wakening Great Old One was the tentacled one himself and we soon lost two investigators who opted for riding the rails instead. Ashcan Pete and the student departed to be replaced by the scientist played by Walt (a late arrival).

We mostly blundered about the city as we had little luck in organising ourselves over the volume of noise from the rest of the store. We accumulated three gate tokens and Dexter and Jenny had large stacks of monster tokens, but gates kept opening and we generally failed to close and seal them fast enough. A late combination of the reduced maximum stamina and sanity exerted by the tentacled one and an environment card that also reduced stamina by one made the game a lot more difficult in the closing stages.

A heroic action by the scientist enabled Walt to close and seal a gate but at the cost of her life (Editor's Note: Walt is all man, but was playing a female character... luck of the draw, honest!) (and it must be said resulting in a trip to Lost in Time and Space for the good, but generally useless doctor). Cthulhu awoke around 9:45 leaving enough time to clear up as our much reduced sanity and stamina did not even give most of us the chance to take it to him for even a single combat round. The game took just under three hours as we started about 7pm and had two players who hadn't previously played requiring a bit of a learning curve.

The new cards from the expansion made for an interesting game but the ones giving two doom tokens seem to make for a faster game. One thing we did wrong was in solely using the Mythos cards from the expansion whereas we should have alternated the two decks. I don't believe that would have helped us as I had a bunch of spells and no
weapons as the doctor and others had similar issues where no-one really seemed to get cards that suited the character.

Nigel