Fantasy Flight Games Announces Arkham Horror: The Card Game
August 3, 2016 by deltagamegirl22
"Assuming that I was sane and awake, my experience on that night was such as has befallen no man before. It was, moreover, a frightful confirmation of all I had sought to dismiss as myth and dream."
–H. P. Lovecraft, The Shadow Out of Time
Arkham Horror: The Card Game is the latest game announced from Fantasy Flight Games. It's a game of cooperative investigations for one to two players (or up to four players with two Core Sets).
You and your friends become characters within the quiet New England town of Arkham. You have your talents, sure, but you also have your flaws. Perhaps you've dabbled a little too much in the writings of the Necronomicon, and its words continue to haunt you.
Perhaps you feel compelled to cover up any signs of otherworldly evils, hampering your own investigations in order to protect the quiet confidence of the greater population. Perhaps you'll be scarred by your encounters with a ghoulish cult.
No matter what compels you, no matter what haunts you, you'll find both your strengths and weaknesses reflected in your custom deck of cards, and these cards will be your resources as you work with your friends to unravel the world's most terrifying mysteries.
Arkham Horror: The Card Game is a blend of the traditional customizable card game and roleplaying experiences. You become one of the game's investigators and customize your deck of cards to reflect your personal strengths and resources. However, as the investigators of Arkham LCG all have their own distinct personalities, each comes with his or her own deckbuilding requirements.
Because Arkham Horror: The Card Game is a Living Card Game, the Core Set is not just the beginning of your adventures, it is your gateway to new worlds, new dimensions, and a whole new level of thought and understanding.
While the Core Set comes with enough cards to promote a wide variety of different decks, and its adventures will reward you with hours upon hours of fascinating and horrifying mysteries, it also sets you apart from the vast majority of humanity, all those people who blissfully and ignorantly go about their lives unaware of the other worlds that border upon ours, the Ancient Ones that inhabit those alien realms, and the foul rituals conducted on earth by those mortals who worship them.
If you enjoy the Mythos of Lovecraft and living card games, then this is definitely one to watch out for. Arkham Horror will be hitting the shelves in the fourth quarter of 2016.
What do you think about bringing the world of Arkham Horror to a card game?
"No matter what compels you, no matter what haunts you, you'll find both your strengths and weaknesses reflected in your custom deck of cards..."
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With regards the mythos, I generally prefer the players to be banded together against the cosmic horror; rather than playing as one the squamous, unspeakable things from the outer darkness.
I’ve not tried any living card games yet, but this does sound entertaining. Is there any idea of price for the core set?
The core sets for their recent LCGs cost $39.95, so probably around that.
That sounds quite reasonable. Thanks very much.
Just remember that to play with 3 or 4 players you’ll need 2 copies of the core set.
This does give you more cards for tweaking decks with, so it’s not a bad thing!
I was thinking along much the same lines. The price of two core sets split between four players doesn’t sound too expensive.
Have you much experience with FFG’s other living card games? They’re something our gaming group have been thinking about.
I’ve played all them to varying degrees. Of what they’ve done so far, all bar one have been competitive games. Essentially a CCG (like Magic) just with fixed instead of random distribution. Lord of the Rings is a co-op game, in which each player has their own deck and you play through scenarios against the game. This looks to be closer to that, though with some added RPG elements. The competitive LCGs tend to follow the release model mentioned by @grodd1016, though in most cases they don’t keep to a monthly schedule for the smaller packs. LotR is slightly different… Read more »
Yeah, I’ve played most of them. Except for Warhammer: Invasion. They’re mostly really good games, but trying to keep up with the card pool competitively is a bit of a cash sink! The only other co-op game is Lots, which is much less of an issue as you can buy at your own pace rather than chasing the “meta.” Arkham Horror should be similar.
The games are well-designed though. Very structured, but there are many decisions to be made.
They come out with a booster pack once a month, with all the cards you need in one pack. So each month you can expand the game for about $15 retail. And once or twice a year they do a bigger release. Not as big as a starter box but it adds more to the game.
They sound rather good, particularly the LOTR game. That one sounds well suited to our particular group. If I may ask further, how many players can the LOTR core set deal with? There are three to four regular players that might be interested.
You can make all four of the starter decks from one core set, and play the introductory scenarios. Whilst it’s billed as only allowing up to two people to play with one core set, the only things you’re missing is two threat deals, and you can easily use something else to keep track of the threat level for the other two players, and (IIIRC) one copy of the Gandalf card. This will be fine trying the game out to see if you like it. After that, if want to keep on going with it, I’d recommend getting at least one… Read more »
Thanks once again, it’s most appreciated.
I know I’m bumping an old thread here, but I’ve finally got this ordered and I’m pretty damned excited about it.