Eldritch Horror

Warning, slightly long review and other comments follow. As a long-time fan of the actual Lovecraft stories, I was excited to hear about this game. I had first been introduced to Lovecraftian gaming through the Call of Cthulhu RPG, but never could get a group to play. I had then heard of Arkham Horror, but I never seemed to have the money at the right time to buy it. Then I just recently heard about Eldritch Horror. I must say, I LOVE this game! If you are brand new to Lovecraftian gaming but are familiar with the stories, you will love this game even more as you will "get" the references used and likely why somethings happen the way they do. The quality of everything from the game-board, the individual (thick and sturdy!) pieces to the game box itself is just a joy to touch in your hands. Apparently Fantasy Flight Games has a reputation for this. As my first FFG game, they have made me into a loyal customer. On my first game playing it, as suggested in the manual for beginners, I chose to go against Azathoth. My partner and I had done pretty well at first thinking the game was pretty easy so far. But then when the doom track hit 8 or so, things went downhill fast. I was hit with a couple different madness conditions such as paranoia and amnesia on top of being cursed. Finally the doom track had hit 1 we had almost solved our 3rd and final mystery to defeat Azathoth, and we had only 1 mythos card left. If that doom hit 0, Azathoth would wake up and devour the world. Well we used that last mythos card. Lucky there was no doom advancement. Still only at 1... but that means our mythos deck is all gone. We continue anyway just to see how it plays out expecting that we will lose. After all... if you can't draw a mythos card when you need to, the mythos phase ends and the investigators lose. Well in that turn, we solved the 3rd mystery but can't claim it until the end of the mythos phase. Closed an other-world gate that was open and continued on to the mythos phase. No card to flip, game over. We thought we had lost. HOWEVER... according to the games reference guide under "Winning" pg 12, "If a mythos card cannot be drawn during the Mythos Phase, the Mythos Phase ends and investigators lose the game." To win a game, you must solve 3 of 4 mysteries before Azathoth wakes up (doom track hits 0). Since we couldn't draw a new mythos card, according to the above rule, the mythos phase ends, and the 3rd mystery is solved... therefore we win. It's a conflict. Do we win, or lose? According to the reference guide under "Conflicts" pg 4, "If multiple effects would be resolved at the same time, [my 3rd mystery solved therefore win, mythos deck empty therefore we lose] the active player decides the order in which they are resolved." So it looks like I could choose that the mystery was solved before I had to flip the next card, therefore I win. In addition to that, the section on "Winning" on pg 12 again also says "The game immediately ends when an effect specifies that 'Investigators win the game,' or 'Investigators lose the game.' In the rare circumstances that both these effects happen at the same time, investigators win the game." THEREFORE WE ACTUALLY WON!!! It was so intense of a game, even when we thought we had lost, I was on the edge of my seat. We had a blast! For confirmation, this scenario has happened to others with this game. If you go to boardgamegeek and check the forums on this game, there is a thread called "Last second loss against Azathoth". Not my post, but pretty much the same thing happened. The info from there sealed it for me. I won my first game with my partner... barely. Now as I said, this is my first Lovecraftian game so yes, that means I have NOT played Arkham Horror which according to many... this is a sister game. This is NOT intended to be an easier or harder version nor an expansion. As such, I cannot comment on how good, bad, long or epic of a game it may be. I hear allot of people who bicker about which is better, or should they drop AH since they now have this one? People being defensive about AH because they have spent SO much money, time and effort into that game including its vast number of expansions. I will say however that I would LOVE to play and learn AH someday. But until then, this game does it for me. Yes, there desperately needs to be more cards which thankfully an expansion is on its way sometime soon with a at about 88 new research cards and over 100-150 new encounter cards among other things. (likely within the next couple months from what I am hearing). So this is going to be a temporary issue. Allow me to digress a moment. I don't think one needs to BE better than the other. Each one is designed for a different kind of player in my opinion. AH is very lengthy, has more things to deal with such as skill sliders, much more as far as decks and such. EH, tends to be much quicker of a game with a built in "timer" via the mythos deck and (from what I have heard from Arkham veterans) more streamlined and easier to follow rules for beginners among some other nifty changes. Also some negative ones most likely. Some will be drawn to AH, others will be drawn to EH. EH is (I think) not meant to replace AH at all. AH has many expansions, it continues to be in print with many, many loyal fans. I can't imagine FFG just shutting that down. I think that for actual fans of the Lovecraft stories among others, it is great there is this diversity. Someday I hope to even pick up Elder Sign which is much more luck based as it is very much a dice-rolling game. There are fans of that kind of thing who want to get into Lovecraft games but don't have any interest in AH or EH because of time or table space. All in all, if you don't have Arkham Horror, but want to try out Lovecraftian games, get this game. If you own and love Arkham Horror, you should get this game. It is shorter to play and likely just as fun. If you want to know if you should keep Arkham Horror after buying this game, I would say yes. This is not intended to replace Arkham Horror unless you want it to.

I purchased Eldritch Horror strictly out of excitement. I own Arkham Horror, Mansions of Madness, and Elder Sign and I enjoy them all for what they are. With that, Eldritch Horror really is an excellent renovation of Arkham Horror, they've changed so much while giving you the same experience. Monsters seem less diabolical in Eldritch than they do in Arkham but that isn't quite right. More often than not when a monster is spawned they sit at the gate in which they were spawned. While this leaves your city mostly free to roam it makes the gates immensely hard to deal with if you leave it alone for too long. They feel more like festering wounds that will cause you to die if you don't treat them. Because each time the Omen track reaches a new symbol, (There are 4 total. A comet, a Sun, and 2 star formations which are the same.) you check the board for any gates that have the symbol the Omen track is now on. If there are any move the doom token 1 for each. So once you finally decide to fight that gate you now have to deal with 4-5 monsters because you neglected it for so long. If monsters are on your space you can't have an encounter unless you kill each monster there. You can have an encounter on the same turn you kill every monster if you manage to kill them all. The game also disables many actions if there are monsters on your space, you can't acquire assets or rest or trade. You can move away though, no need for an evasion test. Some monsters have spawning conditions such as, 'When this monster spawns move it to specific location.' There are also reckoning effects on monsters that you resolve whenever a mythos displays a reckoning icon which can cause the monsters to do other actions such as move the doom token one, or pull the nearest investigator a space closer. There have been complaints that the game feels too random compared to Arkham Horror to which I can't agree at all. At worst, it is equally as random. In reality it is much less random overall, not only do most places say what kind of specific encounter you will have (not always true there is still some randomness to it.) You can permanently upgrade your skills on top of getting items. Also many investigators have built in actions/skills that let them influence their dice further. You get a somewhat better semblance of control, not that you are now fully in control but it seems as if you have a little more power in most situations. Now that investigators can no longer use focus to change their stats, each investigator really fills more of a role. The new static stats combined with each investigator having their own skills makes each investigator feel a lot more varied. We played a game where we had one friend playing as the astronomer and he was excellent at closing most gates but couldn't fight to save his life. He also had the ability to give up 1 sanity to use as a clue token which was really interesting, I was the soldier and could choose to damage myself and a monster by 1 if they were on my space. I also couldn't be delayed or detained unless I chose too which was infinitely useful. Reading through most of the investigators they feel more useful this time around, each of them. Previously you would almost always run Joe Diamond because his ability was so great but now you want to run everyone because they're all so good. (At least now, I've only played 3 games so far I imagine I might find an issue as I play more but so far everyone has had a very good use.) Another point to make is the game is much easier to learn and quicker to teach. It took me a good hour to really flesh out, explain and teach Arkham to two different sets of non-board gamers. I taught Edritch and setup the board for us all to play in less than 40 minutes. The game has a very natural progression of handling everything. The two actions you get to use a turn feels like a better way to handle the game similar to how Mansions gave you actions you could do. My friends really enjoyed Arkham despite it being harder to teach to them but they enjoyed Eldritch even more (Surprisingly enough to me, it's hard to get them to like a new game.) They enjoyed the fact that we were traveling the world this time (Mostly flavor and theme it's not too different from just moving city locations on Arkham's board.) Mentioning monsters again there are now Epic monster that spawn with specific events and mythos that can be cataclysmic to your game if you don't handle them. Even if you try to handle them though they will likely ruin your lives, they're often very strong and can put down even the toughest investigator. I tried to cover a yeti in kerosine while being blessed on top of my 6 strength thanks to skill improvements and he just rolled in the snow and didn't care. (I rolled 10 dice with the help of a nearby allied investigator's skill to let me roll 1 additional die in combat tests and only passed on 2.) It creates a lot of tension having these new epic encounters. Initially you feel like the game is going to be easier than Arkham but it really isn't. It stacks the odds against you very quickly if you aren't on top of your threats. I had a few friends really dead set on upgrading their characters and getting new weapons as opposed to helping us close early gates. Things spiraled out of control in two turns and it didn't matter how strong they were when they ended up cursed messing around with all their encounters. They've also done away with money and instead strictly use a stat called influence to gain assets (common items.) You test your influence against the cost of an item. So if you had 4 influence you get to roll 4 dice and if you succeeded on all 4 (A 5 or a 6) you would get to draw items up to your value from the reserve pile. So two 2 cost items, one 4 cost item, etc. This feels like a much better way of handling money instead of having another item to stock up on for use in the game. While Eldritch Horror is a new game and people are complaining about the lack of encounters and not quite enough variety in items and such. This is only natural as this is the first box for the game. Arkham Horror's base game had the same issues. Fantasy Flight has already acknowledged everyone's disdain with the lack of cards (not that there really is a lack, its just mostly comparison to Arkham and it's expansions.) They're working on a small box expansion that is adding something like 200+ cards and Yig as another great old one to fight. It's gonna be a fun ride with this board game and I can't wait for the new expansions.

Altro gioiello per la serie Arkham Horror. Un gioco a sé stante che vi porterà in giro per il mondo (la plancia è il mondo!!) degli anni '20 a bordo di treni e navi. Dovrete investigare, combattere e resistere alla pazzia. Pe chi come me ha già giocato ad Arkham questo gioco non lo sostituisce ma è promosso in pieno in quanto non è affatto un sequel del suo fratello ma un gioco a parte con dinamiche diverse, veloci e comprensibili fin dall'inizio. Per la versione inglese si considera che lo sappiate bene l'inglese in quanto i testi narrativi delle carte sono molto complessi e richiedono una padronanza medio alta della lingua. Altrimenti beccatevi la versione italiana.

Amazing game - very easy to learn, difficult to win. Win or lose it's a lot of fun with friends. Would recommend getting at least one mini expansion though, for more encounter variety.

An interesting game, I recommend you to try it. Good quality of workmanship.

One of the best boardgames I played, a must in the collection

Çok istediğim bir ürün olarak aldım fakat ambalajı açtıktan sonra kutusunun hasarlı olduğunu gördüm. Köşeleri yırtık ve ezik. Bu yüzden de ürünleri saklamak ve kapatmak bir hayli zor. İçerisindeki ürünlerde herhangi bir hasar ya da eksik olmaması bir nebze de olsa iyi bir haber. Genelde çok kullanılan ve koleksiyon ürünü olan kutu oyunlarında ambalajın düzgün olması çok önemlidir. Çoğu yerde hasarlı ambalajlar daha düşük fiyata defolu ürün olarak satılır.