Arkham Horror LCG – The Opening

“We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” – H.P.Lovecraft

After months of would it arrive, is it an April Fools joke, it will never appear, Arkham Horror Living Card Game burst onto the Card Game Scene, and was sold out in a day. For those that got speeding tickets so couldn’t afford the pre-order, that meant 5 weeks of checking daily for restocking to get your hands on the Eldritch goodies. Yes, that was me. Big thanks goes to Jim at Patriot Comics, Sheffield for keeping us up to date, and reserving me a copy as soon as it re-appeared.

So what is it? Why has it become an obsession leading us down a path no man was want to tred?

The newest LCG from the development studios of Fantasy Flight Games, Arkham Horror – The Card Game is a Living Card Game building on the design of previous releases such as the fantastic Lord of the Rings LCG to produce a familiar but new game. Where LotR tries to give you the feel of big battles and epic quests, AH makes it smaller, more Claustrophobic, and generally more horrific. Does it work? Only time will tell.

There are two main areas that will make or break the game, both of which go some way to explain the aims to someone unfamiliar with this type of game. Firstly, it’s a living card game. This is a business model based around the future release of the game. Unlike collectable card games such as Magic, Poklemon or YuGiOh, future expansions are not random, and you don’t spen 3 months wages to get that one card to make your deck unstoppable. Like these, one of the aims of an LCG is to build a deck capable of defeating the game, but all players have access to an identical group of cards. If you and your friends have the same core set, a deluxe expansion and the first encounter expansion, you all have the same card pool to build your character deck. There is no luck involved in getting your cards, and no advantage or disadvantage to buying multiple copies of the expansions. From a game designers view, this also give more control over how an e3xpansion will play, as you have a fairly predictable view of the cards players will be using. Like LotR, this is a co-operative game, where the players work together to complete the setting of the game, and each expansion adds a new ‘quest’ to work through. The game appears to run in a very similar way to LotR (not a bad thing) but the game mechanics have been advanced and altered to provide a much more story feel. Fantasy Flight talk alot about this being a melding of a trasitional game and Role play, but again, time will tell if this succeeds, and I’ll look at gameplay and this aspect in detail at another time, after it's actually been played.

The 2nd area, and for alot of those who have been waiting desperately, is the game setting itself. FFG have created an entire game setting, referred to as ‘The Arkham Files’, which covers a number of different products, all based around a themed world. These confusingly include other games named Arham Horror, which is a table game rather than cards, and the much applauded Mansions of Madness that uses a tablet app to run the game. These games share a number of characters across the games, such as some of the investigators you get to play as, as well as the background and woirld you play in. Set in the 1920’s, the world is based both loosely and strongly on the works of H.P.Lovecraft, and the expanded work of his Cthulhu Mythos. Fans of H.P.Lovecraft (yes, yes I am) are always worried that someone producing a modern work based in this world will ‘get it wrong’ but so far FFG have not missed a step. Explaining the Mythos would be a totally new, very long fanboy based post, so very quickly, .....

‘The world we know is just a then veil hiding you from the true horror of ancient magics and terrifying ancient gods, who’s followers tread the pathway of madness to return their masters to this world.’

So it’s scary. And at the core of this love for fans, is a traditional role playing game called Call of Cthulhu, which all games based on this type of settings are measured against. And it’s a hard measure. Can FFG create the atmosphere, horror, and feeling of losing your Sanity as the true horrors unfold? Again, lets wait and see. Like the success of LotR, it’s only as the expansions are released and the game moves forward that the opinions of if this is another winner will start to come out.

So, the game itself. Arriving in the failry standard box, the cover art is a delicious mix of classic 1920’s style with the hallmark of the Arkham games, long grasping tentacles. It’s styling and colours fits the setting well, and whil at first glance the subdued design could be passed over, every time you look there’s something else to grasp your attention. The main art is well done, and there is enough in the art for fans of Lovecraft to identify that sets off the excitement bells. The artist has done there homework, and what could have been done as a ‘paint something scary’ is in fact a good illustration that any Mythos fan would happily hang on the wall.

Lifting the lid reveals what is becoming expected of FFG’s Core sets, 2 or 3 game manuals, and sheets of tokens. Pretty Pretty tokens. In this case, there are three booklets in the core along the standard styles, a ‘Learn to play’ book, giving you the generics of the game, recommended decks, and a step guide to the gameplay mechanics, A second rules reference, which details all the current keywords, explains ambiguities in the rules, and lots of notes and tables for players to argue over the meaning. This is fairly standard stock for FFG core releases, and for players of similar games the Rules Reference will become your bible as game play changes will throw you out. ‘Well in Netrunner you do this....’ doesn’t wash. The learn to play will take you through your first couple of runs of the game; the Rules Reference will take you through the rest of the game. Of note are the two rules included. ‘The Golden Rule’ is a standard of card games, If the card your playing contradicts a rule, the card overrules. However, in Arkham Horror you also have ‘The Grim Rule’. This state’s if you and other players are unsure how a game or process works, you take the action that results in the WORST outcome at that time. This is a horror game people.

The Third booklet is a campaign guide, to setup and give you the specific rules for the three encounters within the core set, which link together to form your first campaign. TO feed into the RPG feel, as you work through each of the three settings you can gain experience to improve or change the cards in your deck, developing your character as you go along. This is a very new concept, and one that alot of players are waiting to see how this aspect develops with future releases. The campaign guide tells you how to set up your game for that particular encounter, as well a flavour settings to get you into the mood. Due to it’s nature, there is alot more focus on this text than other games, and players who want to skip this and just play the cards are going to miss alot of the point and fun of this game. It’s not about winning, it’s about surviving the horror, and the flavour text is going to be a big part of. Strangely the Campaign guide give you four differing setups for the game, offering four differing difficulties to play through. Yes, I am going to start on easy, I’m not a mug. Or should it be patsy.

The tokens appear to be to the expected quality for FFG, sturdy and cleanly printed, and are the mainstay of a new random mechanic brought into this game, the Chaos bad, which offers you an RPG styl modifier to help or hinder your game. Lifting out the token card, I am slightly disappointed, but not surprised, to find that there is not storage bag for these chaos tokens. A quick look in the rules book says you need an opaque container to put these in for play, and I can see an immediate increase in sales of Cthulhu themed dice bags over the next few months. The temptation to build a box is overwhelming, but I will not let the madness grasp me. Not yet.

Two stacks of cards, along with smaller player cards, hide inside.

And even just the top cards scream style. The artwork is gorgeous. There are a number of differing card types within the game, and already you can see these are instantly discernible at a glance. The card backs have a nice 20’s feel design, differing for the player and game cards, and are cleanly printed showing off the lavish illustrations. The first ‘monster’ card you find in the deck instantly makes you realise you don’t want to meet it.

And that’s it. For the box contents, nothing unexpected, exactly what you’ve come to expect form an FFG core set. Well made, well designed, and tantalising glimpsing at greatness.

Only through play will we know if that has been achieved, and with all LCG’s it’s future expansions that will show if it’s in for the long road, although announced expansions so far do seem to be heading in the right direction. So if what’s left of my sanity holds, I’ll let you know what the game feels like to play. In a dark, candlelit room. Alone. With the creepy music playing quietly. Mummy. I’m scared......