Title: Re: Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2014
Post by: Zarniwoop
Well we started off the New Year with a game of Eldritch Horror. the brilliant new game from Fantasy Flight Games set in the Arkham Horror (Cthulhu Mythos) universe. Whilst this games does share a lot of common ground with Arkham Horror. it is definitely its own game. The rules have been streamlined and once players get into the game then the turns start to rattle along quite quickly, they have also split the rulebook so you have a rulebook with the basics to get going then a reference book with fuller details. The game now has a Mythos deck built according to the Ancient one, there are also decks specific to the Ancient one in play making the theme more specific in play.
Clues are now much more thematic as you have to take a successful research encounter in order to collect them. These research encounters are one of the decks specific to the Ancient one in play. In order to win players need to complete 3 mysteries, the other Ancient one Deck, each of these require the investigators to complete different tasks to succeed. Combat is much easier to handle with this game and again benefits from the streamlined approach taken with the other rules. For me the game is much slicker, the theme is even more integrated than Arkham Horror and the game is extremely tough. I have now played this 3 times against Azathoth and have lost each time, in fact the results getting worse each time. However, to put this into context each game has been played with different players so no real learning curve involved, other than my own.
The game last night started off in a very bad way right from end of setup, players were forced to immediately fight any monsters on their location. This resulted in several players getting hurt right away which did not bode well. After the initial third full turn we had already lost our first character and then during the rest of the game we ended up with 4 investigator fatalities as the bad mythos events ramped up the worldwide horror. We did not play to completion but after 3-4 hours, 4 deaths, only 2/3rds of the way into completing our first mystery and with The Spinner of Webs also one Reckoning away from ending the world we decided to call this one another loss.
Great game, great group of players who all bought into the theme and atmosphere of the game hopefully enjoying the experience. I will have to try this again as surely we can win at least once.
Spirit Games (Est. 1984, Lefglow Ltd) - Supplying role playing games (RPG),
wargames rules, miniatures
and
scenery, new and traditional board and card games for the last 40 years
