Cthulhu and the Ancient Ones

So....

I finally bought myself Arkham Horror, the boardgame. Greatest fear was that there will not be anyone to play with. Considering the fact that this game is quite hard to understand and it is something of a niche/alternative boardgame. Nothing like Monopoly or shite like that, this had some RPG elements mixed into it. But, my fears were merely that, I managed to convince people to play this game on the weekends with me. People who don't normally like to mix around with the "uncool" group.

Anyways, had to learn the game on my own before unveiling to the hostile crowd I lived with. Well the game did state it you could play alone, so thats just what I did, but its fuckin' tough. IMHO, it is on par with the replayability of Betrayal at House on the Hill. Where, BaHotH had 50 scenarios, AH on the other hand, has 16 investigators and 8 Ancient Ones. I made a house rule, where no one can use the same investigator every game, randomised it basically. Also, I randomised the AOs. This is so players won't be too comfortable with their preferred investigator.

Edit: By the by, each investigators have their own unique statistics, so that is why each game is random and all that bullshit. IT IS FUN!

Game
After familiarising myself with the rulebook, I pulled in the lady to play with me. The first game was easy because we skipped a few rules and vowed to fix it up in a later game. Managed, to close all the gates before the AO awakened. The second play through, we lost, because we didn't focus on closing the gates and focused more on killing monsters and collecting clue tokens. With too many gates open, the AO entered play and we didn't manage to kill the bastard off. We managed to finish both games in around 3 hours each.

The next few days I managed to pull in a few more people and its safe to say that the game gets more interesting with more players and more monsters on board to fend off. Sweet spot I would say is 4 - 6 players. By the way, this game is a fully cooperative game so you are fighting the board not other players. I might just be a spectator and conduct the game rather than be one of the investigators later. That I don't mind.

Summary
All in all, this game is fun, easy to understand once you get the hang of it. I know the fact that it might get boring to some of you with just a few investigators and ancient ones. Fear not, there are expansions readily available and I plan to buy them all. Each with new investigators, new cards and encounters and monsters. Mwahaha!

I look forward to laugh at you when you fail your horror check.

/nerd