Things I wish I knew before I started Arkham Horror LCG

First of all, I’m still a beginner learning the game. This isn’t a guide to teach you how to play Arkham Horror or to give you all the information you need to start playing Arkham Horror the card game. However, what I want to provide is a list of things I wish I knew before I started playing it.

To give you some background, my wife and I started playing board games because of COVID. Given that we had zero experience with board games (apart from the classics like Monopoly and Catan), we started with Forbidden Island. That was a success, so we wanted to crank up the challenge a little bit (more on that later). Enter a visit to our local board game shop and buying Arkham Horror: The Card Game.

We’ve now been playing for a couple of weeks and there are a few things we learned along the way. As mentioned earlier, with this post I want to share these lessons, hopefully answering some of your questions.

It’s expensive

Probably the most important thing you need to know. The starting point for most people is buying the core set, but this will only provide you with a small set of cards and three scenarios.

You get tired of them pretty quickly (it took us ~4 complete play throughs I think), so you’ll want to start looking into the vast expansion library that exists at the moment.

These expansions are released in cycles (with some exceptions). Each cycle consists of a Deluxe Expansion, a number of Mythos packs and ultimately a Return To … for that particular cycle. The Return To can be skipped if you want to, but you are more or less required to buy the expansion + Mythos packs if you want to play that cycle, because they form an entire campaign (roughly 8 scenarios). A full cycle will set you back with ~£130. As you can see it adds up very quickly.

And at that point, you only have the cards. You need storage (although the Return To … boxes can act as storage for that particular cycle) and if you want to sleeve cards, you’ll even have to spend more money.

Depending on your disposal income, this could immediately be a deal breaker. We were told that you could buy some individual Mythos packs and an expansion to continue playing, but that is not true. The Expansion begins with a number of scenarios and then the Mythos packs are a continuation of that campaign, with additional scenarios. While technically you can just dip your toes in and buy random packs to treat them as standalone scenarios, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to do that. When you buy a book, you don’t purchase some random chapters and then leave it at that.

Core set is a tutorial

The core set comes with three scenarios (The Gathering, Midnight Masks and Devourer Below), but its sole purpose is to teach you the game mechanics.

The Gathering is a tutorial to learn how each round works and what the consequences are of certain actions. Midnight Masks is my personal favourite, as there are multiple outcomes you can achieve and you have to work on a strategy to jump ship in time. The Devourer Below teaches you that Arkham Horror is a difficult game, by punishing you each round, up to a point where it almost becomes impossible.

You’ll get some replay value out of it, because you can try a different investigator combo and you can try different techniques. But ultimately, after going through them a couple of times, the novelty wears off and you are desperate for some new content.

The game is hard. Like, really hard.

This probably doesn’t come as a surprise, given that it takes place in the Lovecraft universe, but the game is designed to be difficult. Especially for beginners it can be a frustrating endeavour at times. There is a thin line between thinking your investigators are going to solve the puzzle (but probably won’t) and being completely crushed.

There is nothing stopping you from implementing your own house rules to make it a bit easier, if it becomes too frustrating. The game police won’t come knocking at your door to arrest you. Ultimately, you have to have fun and if that means to invent custom rules, then so be it.

You can die, multiple times

When you play Arkham Horror, you play through a campaign and each campaign consists of scenarios. As you probably have guessed by now, Arkham Horror is not a conventional game. With most other board games, you define a strategy and at the end there is a winner. This isn’t always the case here for AH. Each scenario has multiple outcomes, so having your investigators completely crushed or resign from the game is very normal (and the game mechanics cater for that). So don’t interpret the death of one investigator when playing an individual scenario as a failure and that you have to start all over. You’ll just have a different resolution for that particular scenario (and unless your investigator dies or goes insane, they come back in the next scenario).

The game is difficult

The golden rule is, if you think a scenario or the game is easy, you are doing something wrong. If you feel that a scenario is completely impossible and you are going to lose all your investigators, you are probably doing something wrong.

The core set comes with a rules reference and a learn to play guide. The learn to play guide is not a tutorial, but helps you set up shop. The first time my wife and I played (remember, this was all new to us), it took us 4.5 hours to complete one full round. The second time was a bit faster, but still we didn’t finish the first scenario. Be prepared to Google almost every step and almost every keyword. Even now, with every play through, we discover new stuff that we didn’t know before.

1 or 2 core sets?

Probably the most popular question on Arkham Horror. And the answer is, “it depends”. The Core set comes with a set of investigators and a number of cards. In AH, cards are split between neutral and then classes (Guardians, Seekers, Mystics and Rogues). The problem with the core set is that the cards belonging to a class are not doubled. So if you want to build your own deck and you want to increase the chance of drawing a particular card, that won’t be possible.

Because of that limitation, certain investigator combos are not possible either. So if you want to explore all combinations and see what class works best with your play style, you either have to play solo or buy a second core set. This problem does not exist with the expansion cycles by the way, as you will receive two copies of each card.

So, in short, you don’t have to buy two core sets from the start, but the chance is highly likely that you will want to buy one further down the road. And that brings me back to the first point in this list.

Conclusion

Arkham Horror is a fun game, but not in a conventional way. It’s a narrative driven game, so you have to play from chapter to chapter, to learn more about the story. The atmosphere is really great and drawing cards from the Encounter deck is sometimes nerve wrecking. But winning that final skill test that gives you the desired outcome on a scenario is much more rewarding than what I’ve experienced with other boardgames.

Ultimately you decide how much money you want to invest in the game, as you are not required to collect each expansion out there. I hope this list helps you in making a decision whether or not the game is something for you.

An alternative may be Marvel Champions. The mechanics are very similar and the core set is actually tailored to four players. The first expansion cycle has just begun, so you’re just in time to start your journey.