Finally we were able to continue our Arkham Horror Campaign.
For those of you that don't know what the Arkham Horror LCG is: It is a narrative card game that plays in the Mythos by H.P.P. Lovecraft. Each player (one or two (or up to four with two core sets)) represents an investigator in the 1920's. All investigators had encountered or experienced something strange in the recent past. So strange that they can't help themself but believe in the supernatural, or at least investigate it.
The deck of cards each player has represents the skills, abilities and tools the investigator owns. But each investigator also has his own weakness, which can probably hinder him or her during gameplay. The main aspect of Arkham Horror is not a single scenario, but a campaign of eight scenarios, which could be lenghtened by some available side scenarios. In each scenario in a campaign the investigators learn more and more about whats going on around them, solve puzzles and fight enemies, both mundane and supernatural. Between scenarios investigators may spent earned XP to buy new cards to strenghten and develop their decks. But the world is full of dangers and if an investigator gets too much hurt, or if he/she sees too many horrible things that let them doubt their mind, they can get a trauma, which weakens them for future scenarios.
So, back to our playthrough: We played the scenario "Extracurricular Activity".
Again, if you have not played this scenario by now and still want to play it and therefore want to avoid any spoilers scroll down until you see the [END OF SPOILERS!!!] tag.
We spent our XP's and setup the game. Zoey improved their Beat Cops and also got some extra ammunition for her .45 caliber, Agnes aquired the Book of Shadows and a Bind Monster spell, Skids got the upgraded version of de Luca and Ashcan Pete... I totally forgot what he got! Shame on me!
So we started the game and while the other three investigators went to the library and the Humanities Building, I thought that Skids should go to the Students Union to maybe ask some of the students if they have seen Prof. Rice. That was a bad mistake! While the others got some strange happeneings and encountered a Whippoorwill, Skids was enganged by a Yithian Observer. My bad luck of the first round, where I only found one clue, because a drew an autofail continued when I had to spend two actions to flee from the abomination (drew a -4 the first time). Time went by and we collected clues left and right. Then we got the info to look for the janitor. Last time I played this scenario I managed to shuffled him to the last three cards of the encounter deck. We drew cards, discarded clue tokens to discard more cards and the Experiment already appeared when we finally found Jazz. It was the last but three card. The others decided right then, that I'm forbidden to shuffle any deck in this game like... forever!
So we had a tough decision to make: The Experiment (with its whopping 18 HP) was on it's way to the Dormatories and we had to decide to look for Prof Rice and run for it or try to stop it. I didn't took part in this discussion as I knew that the Prof. wasn't there anymore (we played The house always wins beforehand). Luckily the others decided to fight! It was a tough battle and only because of a Dynamite Blast from Skids and the relentless effort of Agnes and Zoey was Pete able to finish the beast off! Not before time, as the best woukld have walked right into the dormatory in the next Mythos phase....
[END OF SPOILERS!!!]
After our visit in Arkham we played a game of "Once upon a time" where I was able to jump in in the middle of the fairy tale, because Sven wasn't able to continue and made a steamrolling victory as nobody was able to stop me. But we had a good laugh. This game of storytelling is really, really good, if you play it with the right people and don't play it too often.
We closed the evening with a game of "Fantasy Realms", which is not the next installment of White Wizards Realms series (Star Realms, Cthullu Realms and Hero realms), but a simple and yet intriguing card game by Wizkids, where you have a hand of seven cards and every turn you must decide to either draw a card from the common deck or take one of the cards from the open discard pile. Then you have to discard a card from your hand to said discard pile and as soon as the discard pile contains ten cards the game is over. All cards have a basic score value and some sort of bonus and/or penalty. And here it is where the game gets so interesting: The relation between the cards and to get as much bonus and as less penalties as possible to maximize the score out of your seven cards is challenging, especially because there aren't all cards in play (as the common deck would not be depleted). I got this game last year in Essen on the SPIEL 2017 and I'm really happy that I bought it. Could even be the best game I bought last fair (from a pure cost-benefit ratio). But this game was won by Maik (who plays Ashcan Pete in our Arkham campaign).
All in all it was a fun evening and I'm looking forward to wednesday, when we four delve into the Miscatonic Museum to get hold of the Necronomicon!
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