Arkham Strategies

So, there hasn't been a thread on this topic for a good 3 days now.

I am just discovering the game. I want to familiarise myself with the core game before introducing the expansions one by one.

I had my third game yesterday, a five player game.

It struck me that there has to be some strategising about how players approach the middle game and the end game.

The early game seems easy, gather clues and kit up.

However, the middle game seems to offer a number of options. Are there any solid, guiding principles, or does it depend upon your GOO and whatever random incidents occur?

Regarding the end game, we decided that we could not win the game before the last 3 doom tokens were placed, so we focused on kitting up ready to fight the GOO, which we just managed to defeat, thanks largely to an enchanted tommy gun.

Again, what principles are in play for deciding how to play the last few turns before a GOO combat?

Thanks for posting Arkham questions Expanding Man, I've been delinquent this last week.

It's sounds like your approaching the middle and end game similar to how most people approach it. I start a game with 4 or 5 players thinking all we need to do is have everyone seal 1 gate plus 1 or 2 extras. But usually bad stuff starts happening and you end up in the middle of the game with 2-3 gates sealed and nobody with enough clues to seal a gate. By the middle of the game there is usually a lot of monsters on the board, the terror level might have started rising and you have a number of open gates. This is the time to start using more strategy. I usually look to see who has the most clues and suggest that other players don't pick up clues but let that player collect enough to seal a gate. Then looking at the other players, its good to find somebody to focus on killing monsters. Perhaps it may worth closing gates and not sealing gates if you have 4-5 open gates. About this time its good to assess equipment and work out equipment exchanges with other players or get some money and go shopping if your lacking a good weapon or spell. By the middle of the game you probably have a couple of players with enough gate trophies to get the deputy badge or an ally.

Sorry for the long rant about the middle of the game but there's a lot possibilities. This is the make or break stage in most games so it is important to play it smart and talk thing out with your friends.

For the end game, I think you've got it right. There is some point in the game where it's pretty hopeless so it is better to get ready for the final battle. Gear up, get blessed, get an ally, save clues for re-rolls. Depending on the GOO you may need to gear up differently depending on it's ability. For example hit the magic or curiosity shop against physically resistant GOOs.

Our group eventually kind of solved the core game. Regardless of who you are playing and who the GOO is, just try to seal six gates. Even after you seal just 3 or 4, the game tends to stabilize and become very manageable. If for some fluke reason things are getting out of control, spend some time shopping for extra gear, getting one bank loan each if necessary. We got so good that we were winning 90% of our games that way. Even with expansions, it's still a solid basic strategy.

These days, we play with everything except maybe the Kingsport board, so the game is a lot harder. With each big box expansion, the GOOs got nastier, even as the investigators got better. So we're winning maybe half the time lately, and usually the Final Battle is hopeless, even with great gear. I don't remember winning any final battles of the last dozen.

The last time I played was a four-player game against Hastur. It was funny, it was almost like a classic D&D group: the big farmer guy (fighter), the reincarnated witch (magic-user), the nun (cleric), and um, the attorney. We got three gates sealed, which was really tough because it takes 8 to seal when Hastur is the GOO. But when you have Dunwich and Innsmouth on the table, seals are rarely relevant, because there are just so many places where gates can happen. And with only one good monster whacker in the group, we eventually got overwhelmed with monster surges, sending the Terror track to the top, with the final spot also triggering the endgame. So Hastur had a toughness of -10, which left two of our people useless in final battle. The farmer guy managed to survive the longest, but we lost.

Shellhead wrote:

It was funny, it was almost like a classic D&D group: the big farmer guy (fighter), the reincarnated witch (magic-user), the nun (cleric), and um, the attorney(thief).

Fixed it for ya.

Yeah, that's where I was headed with the attorney reference.

Btw, our group has hit on a useful strategy for the early part of the game: go shopping together. It sounds lame, but actually reflects something that often happens in a Call of Cthulhu rpg... shopping for gear before going somewhere dangerous. When FFG first published Arkham Horror, I think that players could only exchange money and gear with each other during the upkeep phase, but more recent FAQs in the expansions say that players can trade stuff anytime they are in the same space except during combat. You can even hand stuff off even if one character is just passing through the other's space during movement. Anyway, shopping together means that you can pool cash together to afford a more spendy item.