Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
Board Game Review
Arkham Horror, Pt. 1 - Equipment
I first heard of Arkham Horror from llamachan and almost immediately ordered it. Amazon and SCS Collectibles did not go to any extra trouble to have the package sent to me on the earlier part of the shipping estimate. Rather, it seems that they may have gone out of their way just to make sure it landed on my door just moments before I would have picked up the phone to ask where the hell my damn game was. Nevertheless, it arrived, in all of it's Lovecraftian glory.
To be quite honest, I was impressed from the moment I opened the package from the USPS. The material of the box itself was a pleasure to feel, and the graphics on the box delivered. The story is detailed perfectly on the front. Evil crap is trying to kill you, and you and your 1920's era compatriots need to represent. There is no need to flip the box over to read what the publishers say the point of the game is.
Well, I captured it for you anyway.
Contents Detail | Description Detail
Fantasy Flight Games spared no expense on the manual itselft. The booklet is the size of the box itself: 24 pages of full color illustrations and in-depth game details which make extensive use of yellow ink. Really extensive use of it.
Whilst I was browsing the manual, the cat took it upon himself to explore the horrors of the ancient ones...
...and sleep amongst them. Rule number one, dear cat: DO NOT TAUNT THE ANCIENT ONES.
Rule Number two: DO NOT DESTROY THEIR HOME. SRSLY. Not two minutes after this happened did Cthulhu's revenge manifest itself in the physical realm. The cat violently lost one of his rear claws. Well, not so much violently as hillariously as it just flew off of his foot and struck the strings of my guitar. We were both pretty startled by it.
Damned alien beings.
Anywho, you guys probably want to see something a little sexier than the rules and feeler-faced monsters. How about some CARDBOARD COUNTERS?
Left | Right
Left | Right
And here are the counters punched out.
Huh, what are those there in blue?
Those are brains counters! It's another zombie game! Fantasy Flight calls them "Sanity Tokens," but we know better.
Okay, enough foreplay. The game board.
Detail: Upper | Middle | Lower
And here are the cards for the characters and ancient ones, neatly bound by the security strap that wasn't anywhere near the stack of cards in the box. At least it has the inspection sticker on it, to show that at the very least, the folks at Fantasy Flight Games take the adhesive on their wrappers seriously.
Like all good games, it comes with smoking hot protagonists…
…and jerks who look like bumbling idiots.
The game comes with 16 character sheets with which the different traits and abilities add another level of complexity to the game. And by complexity, I mean that the game will still destroy you brutally, but perhaps in a new and totally clever manner.
Our brave cast
standing on Yog-Sothoth and Nyarlotep. They're just asking for trouble, aren't they?
Each character also comes with a snippet of backstory, adding to the role playing possibilities with the game (though the game itself is strictly rolling dice and dying).
What's that noise? Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! Wait... what the crap is that? I don't know, but I don't think I'm going to like it.
The coolest part of the game? The fucking Ancient ones. Beautifully illustrated, and ready to completely fuck your shit up, the game details that one of the allowed victory conditions is to defeat the Ancient One after it has completely awoken, preventing the destruction of the town and the world.
Defeat the Ancient One? That's like saying the game is cancer, and waiting until it has metastasized throughout your body, culminated in end-stage, terminal breakdown of your bodily functions before considering radiation therapy. It's just too brutal. I wouldn't want to try taking the game that far. Old Ones sheets ahead:
Shub-Niggurath and Hastur | Yig and Nyarlathotep
Ithaqua and Yog-Sothoth | Cthulhu | Azathoth
If you thought there were a bunch of counters to this game, wait until you see the number of cards.
Yup. A whole crap-tonne. The game would like for you to believe that magical spells and elder signs are important when fighting the terrifying reality of our existence, but I found the two cards that will always win the game.
These items are also useful in the event that mutated super soldiers survive in a post-apocalyptic nuclear holocaust, during a zombie invasion, or when at a town hall meeting with the President in attendance.
There are plenty of other cards in the game designed to really screw with you, inviting all sorts of nasties to join you on the board, or globally screwing everyone. In the end, it's still just a maddening good time.
Coming soon, Part Two - Solo Play Session
Not like that, pervs.
Arkham Horror, Pt. 1 - Equipment
I first heard of Arkham Horror from llamachan and almost immediately ordered it. Amazon and SCS Collectibles did not go to any extra trouble to have the package sent to me on the earlier part of the shipping estimate. Rather, it seems that they may have gone out of their way just to make sure it landed on my door just moments before I would have picked up the phone to ask where the hell my damn game was. Nevertheless, it arrived, in all of it's Lovecraftian glory.
To be quite honest, I was impressed from the moment I opened the package from the USPS. The material of the box itself was a pleasure to feel, and the graphics on the box delivered. The story is detailed perfectly on the front. Evil crap is trying to kill you, and you and your 1920's era compatriots need to represent. There is no need to flip the box over to read what the publishers say the point of the game is.
Well, I captured it for you anyway.
Contents Detail | Description Detail
Fantasy Flight Games spared no expense on the manual itselft. The booklet is the size of the box itself: 24 pages of full color illustrations and in-depth game details which make extensive use of yellow ink. Really extensive use of it.
Whilst I was browsing the manual, the cat took it upon himself to explore the horrors of the ancient ones...
...and sleep amongst them. Rule number one, dear cat: DO NOT TAUNT THE ANCIENT ONES.
Rule Number two: DO NOT DESTROY THEIR HOME. SRSLY. Not two minutes after this happened did Cthulhu's revenge manifest itself in the physical realm. The cat violently lost one of his rear claws. Well, not so much violently as hillariously as it just flew off of his foot and struck the strings of my guitar. We were both pretty startled by it.
Damned alien beings.
Anywho, you guys probably want to see something a little sexier than the rules and feeler-faced monsters. How about some CARDBOARD COUNTERS?
Left | Right
Left | Right
And here are the counters punched out.
Huh, what are those there in blue?
Those are brains counters! It's another zombie game! Fantasy Flight calls them "Sanity Tokens," but we know better.
Okay, enough foreplay. The game board.
Detail: Upper | Middle | Lower
And here are the cards for the characters and ancient ones, neatly bound by the security strap that wasn't anywhere near the stack of cards in the box. At least it has the inspection sticker on it, to show that at the very least, the folks at Fantasy Flight Games take the adhesive on their wrappers seriously.
Like all good games, it comes with smoking hot protagonists…
…and jerks who look like bumbling idiots.
The game comes with 16 character sheets with which the different traits and abilities add another level of complexity to the game. And by complexity, I mean that the game will still destroy you brutally, but perhaps in a new and totally clever manner.
Our brave cast
standing on Yog-Sothoth and Nyarlotep. They're just asking for trouble, aren't they?
Each character also comes with a snippet of backstory, adding to the role playing possibilities with the game (though the game itself is strictly rolling dice and dying).
What's that noise? Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! Wait... what the crap is that? I don't know, but I don't think I'm going to like it.
The coolest part of the game? The fucking Ancient ones. Beautifully illustrated, and ready to completely fuck your shit up, the game details that one of the allowed victory conditions is to defeat the Ancient One after it has completely awoken, preventing the destruction of the town and the world.
Defeat the Ancient One? That's like saying the game is cancer, and waiting until it has metastasized throughout your body, culminated in end-stage, terminal breakdown of your bodily functions before considering radiation therapy. It's just too brutal. I wouldn't want to try taking the game that far. Old Ones sheets ahead:
Shub-Niggurath and Hastur | Yig and Nyarlathotep
Ithaqua and Yog-Sothoth | Cthulhu | Azathoth
If you thought there were a bunch of counters to this game, wait until you see the number of cards.
Yup. A whole crap-tonne. The game would like for you to believe that magical spells and elder signs are important when fighting the terrifying reality of our existence, but I found the two cards that will always win the game.
These items are also useful in the event that mutated super soldiers survive in a post-apocalyptic nuclear holocaust, during a zombie invasion, or when at a town hall meeting with the President in attendance.
There are plenty of other cards in the game designed to really screw with you, inviting all sorts of nasties to join you on the board, or globally screwing everyone. In the end, it's still just a maddening good time.
Coming soon, Part Two - Solo Play Session
Not like that, pervs.