APR 10, 2024

Arkham, Tabletop game

<aside> 📒 I thought it was lame. It turned out awesome!

</aside>

I heard a few things about this campaign before we played. My impression was that it centers around the gimmick of cursed tokens – and that there’s a lame scenario of a care chase. Man, how pleasantly was I surprised.

This campaign is either my favorite or a strong second place (after the “Dream Eaters”). The mechanics are cool and flavorful, a lot of scenarios just have a cool mechanical side to them. Investigating Innsmouth, rushing through invaded Innsmouth, the ship travels, the car chase, the temple – all are very evocative adventures. There’s something very cool about how they utilize the space: the layout does feel as a location full of adventure.

In the last scenario, we had a dramatic moment with drawing two Ancient Evils encounters – which reduced our three remaining turn into one – a sure loss, it seemed. We needed about 40 clues/damage to finish the boss and we had about 20 of that. But one of the players unraveled the entirety of his hand and dealt 16 damage, with me getting 4 clues – so we finished the game with two more players not even taking a turn. Wild pacing, you cannot wish for better)

Other thoughts/notes:

• I finished the campaign drawing 12 auto-fails and 6 Elder Signs (which are critical successes in the game). At times the game was very infuriating with those, denying turns or flashy set-ups.
• I played a clue-getting Trish Scarborough and initially had a few Fingerprint Kits as the means of clue compression. In the end, I swapped them for Thieve’s Kits and Pilfers – which proved to be way more reliable way of getting cards. One copy of Lucky Cigarette Case was also tremendous for card draw. Didn’t get it in the last scenario – so maybe having two of those would’ve been better.
  • Money and card draw – turns out my economy wasn’t great. I had Faustian Bargains and Deep Knowledges – but they were not enough on their own. Easy Mark evened the playing field a little bit, I truly needed Thieves’ Kit to secure the money. In retrospect, not taking Dr. Milan might’ve been a mistake
  • No skill boosts also was a bummer. I planned for Gene Beauregard and Lola Santiago – but they were costly and lack of stat boosts felt direly. Maybe I should’ve squeezed a copy of Magnifying Mirror.
  • Fox Mask – a great hit
  • Strangely, a lot of evasion-centered events didn’t pay out, even with the synergy that having an enemy at the location gets Trish. Evading itself was a clutch in the earlier scenarios, when our primary fighter Silas Marsh struggled with consistency (and Charlie Kane and Kōhaku Narukami went online slightly latter)
    • I had a round in the boat adventure at Devils Reef, when the others felt like we were trapped at an island, with four monsters at us – but was able to evade all four. That felt big and flashy!
  • “You handle this!” was a clutch. That, plus a high evasion score, served Trish well

Attribution: cover image for this post is taken from the Fantasy Flight Forum