So the burning question hanging over Arkham Horror 3: does it obsolete Eldritch Horror the same way Eldritch obsoleted Arkham Horror 2?
I have never heard of this game so it can’t possibly be any good. Hmm, early Martin Wallace? I’m skeptical.
@sharpe, I haven’t seen Thunderstone since it first came out. I imagine it’s come a long way. Looks like there are folks selling the full Kickstarter edition for $200 on Amazon:
Not really. Oddly enough, it comes closer to obsoleting the Arkaham Horror LCG. So much stuff directly imported from that design. It feels a bit weird.
But there’s simply not enough content in Arkham Horror, Third Edition for it to obsolete anything. And in these games, which are pretty much just drawing cards and making skill checks, content is king. Also, the epic globetrotting adventure vibe in Eldritch Horror still makes it stand out from the more confined parlor room feel of Arkham Horror. And there’s no counterpart to the persistent deck-building in the LCG. So at this point, it’s just kind of a sad little starter kit.
That said, I find Arkham Horror Third Edition oddly compelling in the same way I do most Fantasy Flight games before they bury them under an avalanche of cruft. There are some pretty solid design decisions here in terms of card management and creature combat.
-Tom
“A sad little starter kit” is how I’d describe the card game!
I’m not a fan of deck building in general, so 98% of the appeal to AH:TCG was the narrative and discovering the surprises (which made it a terrible dollar value investment). Maybe…3rd edition would be just right for me?
Played a couple new (to me) games at a meetup today.
Quartermaster General Cold War is a fun addition to the series, though I feel like the complexity of the new rules may be a bit much for newer players. Also, like most 3-player games, its really important to keep the leader in check, which the players I played with seemed to have trouble understanding. Would like to try this again, but right now I think I prefer the WWI or ancient Greek QMG games.
Trick of the Rails is a really weird duck. Its a trick-taking train game. Players play tricks of cards to win stocks and build rails. Its actually a pretty cool concept, though it was very difficult to teach. Definitely one of those games that you need to play a couple times to get your head around. Its super portable too, which means it will probably travel with me to many future meetups.
North American Rails is basically a highly-simplified 18xx stock round card game. Players buy stocks, build connections to cities, and receive income from the companies. There was actually some pretty cool company and stock maneuvering that happened during this game, which surprised us. I’ve heard people call this “Chicago Express: the Card Game”, which seems like a pretty accurate description. However, the paper money in this game is absolute trash, and I can’t wait to use my poker chips to play it.
I just found this in depth write-up of Discover: Lands Unknown which leaves me conflicted:
The sense of Discovery sounds great. But the way things can fall flat and the lack of replayability one the twists and turns are known are a concern at that price point.
It sounds like an interesting experience though.
Hmmm… And then there is “So very wrong about games”, a podcast I enjoy, which just went into a lot of depth about Discover and really, really, really didn’t care for it one bit. Their opinion is scathing.
Also:
Feels like a potentially cool idea. But not that interesting after all.
I’ve never been of the belief that either of the games “obsoleted” the others, but Eldritch did bump Arkham from the rotation. My gaming group is 90-10 in favor of Eldritch, but I tend to be more 65-35 for Eldritch. I have always liked the small town feel in Arkham more than the globe trotting in EH, but I think Eldritch’s mechanics are better.
That said, to eat @tomchick was mentioning, at the end Eldritch had a weird weight to it. They introduced a lot of mechanisms that bloated the game. I was never a fan of the side boards. Prelude cards, Adventure cards, mystic encounters, focus, improve and degrade skills, all got to the point where I felt the game needed a GM to keep track of it. That said, I do still really like the game. However, Arkham 2 I can get on the table in about 15 min due to my organization scheme, but EH took a solid 30-40 min to get set up. I may take another go at organizing to see if I can make it faster, but I’m not sure.
AH3 has a lot of promise. I like the modular board and the scenarios. I like the improved mythos mechanics. I like how damage is handled. Like most FFG games, it feels like it needs another expansion for content. I’m not sure well it replays yet, but all scenarios seem to be a variation of “put x clue tokens on the scenario sheet before x doom tokens” and then a bunch of cards tell you what happens. That said, AH2 is just a race to close gates with some variables, so AH3 is a race to put tokens.
I have played 3 games so far and really enjoy it. I am looking forward to the expansions.
Hmm. That sounds like it addresses the thing that usually broke original Thunderstone for me - because things could come out in any order, you could end up completely unable to attack the dungeon for many turns on end. (Exacerbated by some monster sets playing very poorly without cards that countered their gimmick being available in the village/heroes, which seems like it would be harder to fix.)
Indeed. I keep considering buying stuff for the AH card game, but each of the adventure packs just seem way overpriced for the content they add, though. FFG really feel like they try to sell me a lifestyle, not a product.
That said, I was really impressed by TI4, which was packed with stuff. It really feels complete to me, and I don’t miss any of the bloat they did cut from TI3 and its expansions.
Thus far, the monsters seem much less gimmicky. For example, the whole damage immunity / partial damage immunity thing has been replaced by a simple numerical resistance (“this monster resists the first 4 strength points of magic damage”) and instead of puzzle/gimmick mechanics, good deckbuilding either for balance or for raw power can still beat most monsters.
It’s a very good upgrade of the whole game concept.
Three players? That’s interesting. Who is the third player after the USSR and USA? Which side did you play, and was that your favorite?
I would guess the third world/developing world?
It’s the Non-Aligned Bloc, which is basically China, India, Yugoslavia, and a bunch of other nations around the world that weren’t firmly in lock-step with either of the major players (even if said nations didn’t really get along with each other all that well historically).
Yeah same here with the card game modules. $15 per scenario we would only likely play once? (same with Mansions of Madness).
I’d consider it if I had a hardcore group of 4. Split the cost, and treat a night of a new campaign as a one shot deal similar to an Exit game.
TI3…I felt like it had enough content, but some mechanics and balance needed another playtesting pass. I have no clue what they were thinking with the Winnu. There are way too many tech based objectives (god those are boring crapshoots). And they had an interesting idea with the new agenda phase, but the voting usually turns into boring rounds of abstaining (to say nothing of the even more boring Rider agendas). I think they need an expansion redoing some of those rules.
I can’t imagine it being worth it with only one play, but I think you’re underestimating the replay value of scenarios for all of these games. If nothing else, using different investigators & decks really changes the experience for Arkham LCG, and there’s randomized elements of the Mansions scenarios. I get that you don’t like deckbuilding - neither do I - but there’s deck databases online.
After struggling with a ton of scenarios in Mansions of Madness (which we did 2 player), we switched to doing two investigators per player for 4 total.
WOW what a difference that made. Scenarios that seemed impossible were now cakewalks.
I don’t think FFG has been able to properly scale any of their co-op games since 2nd edition Arkham Horror (where a 2 player game was totally different from an 8, but still relatively balanced, and scaling is the ONE mechanic I think it did better than Eldritch). They need to get that guy back.
I’d been sort of idly wishing to find the old World of Warcraft Boardgame for sale for a long time but didn’t want to pay the $200+ eBay prices. So a friend of mine this week found a copy in extremely good condition at Half Price Books here in Sacramento for $100. Best of all, they had a big sale this week so I got 30% off. I got it all sorted and ready to play today and it’s really in very good condition. The box has a bit of wear but the components are close to pristine. For $70 plus sales tax. I am absurdly pleased.
Mission accomplished! I’ve found the 2 boardgames I’m buying for family members at Christmas (well, 3 if you count Loopin’ Louie, bought for my 5 year old nephew. Always wanted to try that one :) ).
For my niece, Magic Maze:
The stressful co-op where you can’t speak and can only bang the wooden token in front of a player should make for some fun times.
And for my mum, a game I just discovered that sounds just plain fun to play repeatedly during Christmas week: The Quacks of Quedlinburg (originally Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg):
2 to 4 players play charlatans trying to sell their amazing potions to unsuspecting punters during a 9 day market. Over those 9 rounds, the game mixes bag building and push your luck as you try and make the potion without your cauldron exploding (by pulling a certain number of bad tokens).
It seems relatively easy to learn; while the bag building lets you work towards a strategy that mitigates the bag pulling luck. And the presentation is really engaging.
Video overviews:
I’ll likely bring along my pre-ordered copy of Treasure Island. See review linked here:
Can’t wait.
Dude. You interviewed him. Ya gotta spell his name right!
So, is Shadi Torbey’s Nautilion part of the Oniverse? I didn’t know roll-and-move existed in the Oniverse.
Magic maze is great. My sister was quite pleased because it made the eight year old stay quiet. It is good with casuals because it’s easy to teach.
It is surprisingly difficult. I played with a bunch of nerdy engineers and they failed.
One rule I like is how you can put the big pawn in front of people to tell them to MOVE. I keep slamming that piece in front of people. I think it makes them nervous.