Arkham Horror

[Zencore]

Anyone try this game? I've gotten it recently (Christmas) and have tried one game so far with my son - we lost bad.

We are getting ready to try it again, with both of us playing 2 "characters" - hopefully with more sucess...

Fun game though..

[Gaston Gosselin]

This is an AWESOME game! I fell in love with it first time I tried it. Biggest thing I found that helps with this game is playing with someone who already knows the rules. And losing at the game is par for the course. It's hard to keep up with all the gates opening and spewing out monsters.

One place that may help you both in strategy and in understanding all the rules is Headless Hollow (http://www.headlesshollow.com/freebies_games.html). Download the rules helps for Arkham Horror. There are a couple, including rules summaries and such. One sheet even has the locations showing which places are most likely to have gates opening, so those would be the ones you're trying to seal up. Helps a great deal.

Enjoy!

[Chris Miller]

I love this game. Love it.

Played a full game of it for the first time with the Geeklabel guys, WorkingMan and Tangent from FFoC, Mur Lafferrty and Jim Van Verth, Kris, and Gunnar at Origins last year.

it's very complex, but once you get the rules down, it's a lot of fun. Hell...it was fun before the rules were down, but it's more fun now, knowing that we're getting it right. :)

I'm considering picking up the card expansions for it. We shall see.

[Gaston Gosselin]

I've got 'em all dude, even Dunwich Horror. Just waiting on the new Kingsport expansion (another board expansion) to come out next month. :) Can bring stuff for next game night, if the desire is there.

[Chris Miller]

Oh, yes.

[Mark "Thayan" Reed]

I can concur with teh complexity issues. I was introduced to this game at a game night at a friends house. And not to brag too much there were some Fantasy FLight people there, and even with game developer help we still struggled the first time through the rules...

But all thigns said I LOVE the game its a lot of fun and I do like the fact that it can be, with some difficulty, be played solo for those adventurous enough to go insane that fast.

[Zencore]

Thanks for the heads up on the Headless Hallow site. I had actually visited it before, but didn't know enough about the game to know what the aids were all about.

The son I usually play with is 14 and really loves the game. It's so deep and rich. Luckily we have a table setup in the basement and we can leave a game in progress there until we have time to finish it. The game can take a while to play and sometimes the youngest (6 year old) bedtime gets in the way. ;)

We just got the Dunwhich expansion, but we haven't added it into the mix. I think we'll play the original a few times to make sure we have it down before adding in stuff that I've heard actually can make it more difficult to win. Well... we did add in the injury and madness cards - which we will use try when we play this afternoon when he gets home from school.

[Gaston Gosselin]

I'd suggest playing it a number of times without expansions. Get a good hang of the basics before you start throwing in new stuff. It's already a full game without them. Also, once you understand how the game runs, it shouldn't take more than, oh, 90 minutes, I think, to play a full game.

[Kris Johnson]

I'll chime in here, too: the game is a heck of a lot of fun, provided you can keep from succumbing to the energy-sapping knowledge that you will, in all likelihood, eventually be defeated by the Great Old Ones.

We actually recorded an entire play session once upon a yesterday; it's probably still floating around the aether somewhere.

[Random]

I was just listening to that a couple of weeks ago. I was writing a review of my experiences with the King in Yellow set for my blog and I used that as background noise while writing to keep myself focused on Arkham Horror. It also was a key factor in my purchasing the game in the first place so thanks very much for sharing that.

[Random]

I've played my copy about a dozen times usually with 5 or 6 players. It was a blast every time. We felt like we were going to lose each time and won every time. Usually because of a lucky draw or role in the end. I've only played with the King in Yellow expansion once (I just got it 2 weeks ago) and it was a great experience.

It does take a while to get the hang of the rules and since it's "players vs game" you can't really fudge any of them.

[Zencore]

We just finished a 5 player game (the base game) and actually won!! The players were my middle son, eldest daughter, my brother, his wife and myself. The Old One wsa Azathoth - if you ask me he's possible the easiest of the possible baddies.

I think the key to our winning was the luck my daughter had with her character. She was playing ate Winthrop - the Scientis and she had three - THREE gates try to open right on top of her. A great time was had by all. Fun stuff and - our first win!

[Zencore]

We've played this three times now and are ready to try a fourth. Tomorrow night my middle son (13) is having a friend sleep over and since they both are naturals fans of this type of game - it's definetly going to be added to this weekends activities.

I only need to find one more to add to the mix, as I think the sweet spot for this game is four players.

The first game was lost - and badly - the second was won easily, and the third... well I guess we shall see....