Robert Sheets
United States
Oregon
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We have not played Arkham Horror in a long time. So we decided to play a basic games to relearn the rules. The first game was played on the 20th of January. It was a long and difficult game and we made a number of mistakes. We decided to try it again one week later. This game was much quicker and easier. We did not do a very good job of sorting out all of the expansion pieces before we started. If we came across something that did not work we just discarded it and drew another.
We had four characters: Mandy Thompson, Jacqueline Fine, Monterey Jack and I played Wilson Richards. Our strategy, as always, is to try and seal a few gates early and then just close them all or seal six gates. Unfortunately our AO was Hastur so we needed eight clues the seal gates.
I read a tome and got another skill: Fight. I moved to another location and found an Elder Sign. We all agreed that I should jump into the first gate and seal it. Mandy's turn was next. She grabbed a clue and got one more in her encounter. Things were looking up. Then a gate opened up underneath her, oh well. Jacqueline grabbed two clues and had a gate open up under her. So much for my character sealing the first gate. I jumped through the third gate. An environment showed up that made it easier to seal gates. It came too late to help Mandy, but Jacqueline sealed one. A Mythos card came up that did not open a gate, but put two token on the doom track. I used the Elder Sign and removed one of those tokens. Adding two tokens to the Doom Track was kind of scary, but not having a gate open would be a big help.
Our luck change after that. I found an item that would let me cure one Sanity or Stamina each turn. Jacqueline found some powerful attack spells. Monterey found a good magical weapon. Mandy found several good item. I just can't remember what they are. Monterey and Wilson kept the monsters in check. I really like that shotgun. Gates tried to appear where seals were located, or we had monster surges. Since we killed the monsters quickly the surges did not hurt us very much. The Terror track was at one at the end of the game. Mandy had found an Elder Sign earlier, jumped through the next gate. On that turn Jacqueline met up with me and gave Wilson a spell: Find Gate. Jacqueline was hurting and did not have any clues left to help her. Wilson was in great shape and had five clues. On the next turn Wilson jumped though the last open gate. While we were in the Other Worlds no new gates opened up. I was successful in casting Find Gate so Wilson got back to Arkham the same turn Jacqueline did. We closed both gates, that turn, and won the game.
This was one of the fastest games, of Arkham Horror, I have ever played, and won. We have lost this game quickly a few times, but have never won one quickly. We plan on adding a couple of expansions next time.
We usually play this game with six to eight players, but I like these four player games. There is not a lot of down time and its easier to keep four people focused, on the game, than seven or eight people. I don't know if we can get by with four people if we add something like Kingsport or Dunwich. I guess we will find out.
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fen
Wales
Cardiff
The Vale of Glamorgan
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Lovely!
4 People can manage 1 extra board, especially Kingsport as it's the home of 'nothing interesting or dangerous happens here'.
Dunwich you can just get away with adding in as it will either need plenty of monitoring or it can mostly be left alone with the occasional pruning - either way, when there is pressure at Dunwich there is less at Arkham. Kingsport requires different management, it has a separate pressure in the Rifts and these require constant attention no matter what is happening in Arkham. As a consequence I don't really like playing with the Kingsport board, but if I do we take an extra character as an NPC and assign them to patrolling the streets of Kingsport - then if someone else has a character who needs a breather they can swap and take over the NPC for a while. Not ideal, but it works.
Ultimately I think Dunwich and Innsmouth make for a better experience, Kingsport mostly doesn't work.
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Rauli Kettunen
Finland
Oulu
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Four investigators can handle DH + IH boards fairly easily (50% or better win-loss record).
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Robert Sheets
United States
Oregon
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Thank you for your suggestions. I think the plan was to do one board, and one of the card only expansions next. I think we should take your advice and use either Dunwich or Innsmouth. Do any of the card expansions work better with Dunwich or Innsmouth? Should we avoid any of the expansions?
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