Just yesterday I was looking through my old games and saw Mystic Wood. Never played it though. That seems to be a common theme in my gaming life. My board game backlog is starting to hit the 4 decade mark. It’s like I have some sort of inherent fear (defect) of actually playing games.
I think I need to start a plan where I cannot buy a new game until I actually play an unplayed game I own. It’s just getting ridiculous. At least I can justify it somewhat that board games hold value better than most PC and video games.
I’m proud of me. I went out today thinking I’d buy Arkham Horror 3rd edition. I’ve been stressed and wanted something fun to buy. As I was walking along, I kept thinking about all those games I have in my room that I have not really grown tired of. So I kept walking past the game store, and I’m glad I did. I got home and tried to justify my decision and finally found a video that talked about the recent expansions to Arkham Horror and the general view was that the game is pretty much trash now, that the expansions haven’t really helped the game at all.
I’m certainly happy to hear if anyone has any dissenting views on that. I held off buying the game initially because, well, Eldritch Horror has a lot of playability for me still. And also because I heard that AH lacked that replayability. But getting any good information on the game since then, post small and ‘big box’ expansion has been hard. It just seems like a poorly received game overall?
AH3 is basically the Arkham Horror card game minus the card game. Same exact monster and combat mechanics, same doom/clue plot advancement. At first I thought “awesome!” because I’m terrible at deck building and abhor card game business models.
What I really liked about both was walking into new scenarios and not knowing how the setting, objectives, or plot would unfold. It was like playing a pen & paper session! The downside is you can only do that once or twice and then the plot (and branching possibilities) is not new.
But at least with the card game, there was the replayability of trying it all with different decks.
Not only is that not an option with AH3, but you also don’t get the breadth of scenario possibilities that the card game had. LCG could take place in the town, a haunted house, another dimension, or even a moving carnival parade where you have to duck between floats trying to find out which participants are cultists! AH3 is always the same board with same basic structure. It also doesn’t help that the AH3 board just isn’t appealing to look at (they tried to make it nighttime sinister, but it’s just dark and bland) and the modular construction attempt to shake things up never panned out.
There’s also a question of general play balance. Most scenarios are ridiculously easy, and near impossible to lose unless you use the absolute worst investigators (whose giant usefulness gap shows further balance issues).
So you’re left with the question: do you want to play the card game minus the cards, with each scenario only having a 1-2 game lifespan, no deck construction replayability, and a bland board to boot? If you’re fine with that, or figure you can sell the thing after playing each scenario once, then sure? If you’re expecting the longevity of Eldritch Horror (or AH2 before EH made it obsolete*), then HELL NO.
I put down AH2 the instant I got Eldritch Horror. I put AH3 away after I play a new scenario and go back to Eldritch.
Also, like, AH:LCG comes out with new scenarios on an extremely regular basis, whereas I think Arkham 3rd edition has gotten what, two expansions? And I don’t know how many scenarios each includes, but based on my experience with games like Mansions of Madness, I’m guessing 5 at most.
It’s weird because they could easily pump out “micro expansions” that are just new scenarios. A small pack of nothing but new codex cards, 10 cards (max) for each scenario.
No need for new monsters/items/investigators/mechanics. Save those for the bigger expansions. Charge $10-$15 for the new scenario decks.
I kept saying that for MoM too. They just needed to release new scenarios on the app and charge $5 each for them. They never did that. It’s a weird company.
I’d imagine developing scenarios involves a non-trivial amount of employee hours and possibly art assets, etc, and they don’t think the ROI is there. It’s definitely something I would buy, but, such is life.
Also, FWIW, they did do a few POD scenarios for 1E Mansions of Madness. Possible maybe those didn’t work out and soured them on it. Or maybe they’ve just decided not to do POD anymore, considering the recent Keyforge Adventures initiative is PnP instead.
Thank you! Yeah, that’s definitely the impression I’ve gotten about AH 3rd Ed. The hardest part with the LCG is getting hold of the cycles. I wanted to pick up Path to Carcosa cycle but it seems to be out of print where I am. I think FF is really just LCG’s and miniatures nowadays. It fits their business model, that’s fine, but from a boardgaming perspective, I rapidly fell out of love.
Yes, well. There are modders that do thousands of hours of development work on videogame addons for free as a hobby, but people who do it for a living still expect to get paid.
Arkham 2E isn’t obsolete, it’s still the king of just pure Lovecraftian insanity. Eldritch didn’t replace, it just added gutter bumpers to make sure it couldn’t fly off the rails anymore (or take 6+ hours depending on the variables). This is volume to 11.
Eldritch is the smoothest experience. It’s global scope, excellent expansions and modular design make it the easiest to mix and match, but the card management gets a little nuts. Overall, it’s the best design, but it does feel mechanical over time.
Arkham 3E tries to merge Pandemic with the LCG and mostly succeeds. It’s smaller in scale, introduces some mechanics from Eldritch expansions, and the latest expansions (the Dagon one) are vastly superior scenario wise. The biggest issue is the idiotic token draw bag. Luckily, people on BGG have come up with houserules to fix it and turned 3E into a worthy bridge of Arkham 2E & Eldritch.
Arkham LCG is a masterpiece of card play and the first 3 cycles really illustrated how far the design team could push the medium and mechanics without introducing too much bloat. More recent cycles are a little…ummm…crap (looking directly at you Dream Eaters), but the recent Innsmoth one is pretty solid so far. The problem is the insane cost now. It’s just so hard to find older cycles. There is a reason when complete sets go up on eBay, they sell within a day.
All are valid titles, and all have time at our table. Bottom line is this - If you want to dip your toes, get Arkham 3E. If you know you’ll like it, get Eldritch. If you want to have the best Halloween parties of all time, get Arkham 2E. If you win the lottery and live alone, get Arkham LCG.
I didn’t want to buy a another LCG after netrunner so I haven’t played Arkham LCG. I know people like Eldritch Horror, but I do not understand the comparison at all to Arkham. Eldritch is a globe trotting adventure game. Arkham Horror 2nd edition is much more of a confined horror game of dread. For all it’s faults, Arkham does a better job in creating atmosphere and sense of doom. The base game had a problem of either you were going to lose or you were going to crush the victory. Adding any of the expansions (dunwhich or innsmouth quickly fixed it). Yes it’s fiddly, yes it’s a table hog, yes I would never play a game with more than 4 players (unless everyone knew it really well), but man what a great experience that game creates. My plays of Eldritch have never felt as compelling or thematic as Arkham.
