Good review, I think there is a reason that scenario three of the intro campaign is to show it's not all roses for players in Arkham. I know that's not to everyone's taste, but if you play Call of Cthulhu RPG then you get where the LCG is coming from. As others have said, try the longer campaigns, particularly the Dunwich Legacy as it is a 'beginner' campaign and demonstrates a lot of the great gameplay elements that AHLCG has to offer. But of course, it is your money on the line and it may be outside of your game finances. I love AH, but my major stumbling block with it is deck building inertia, once you have thousands of cards it is really difficult to build a deck as there is just too much choice. I know there are platforms that help deckbuilding or even provide random and fan made ones, but it's nice to be able to put something together yourself and with the amount of choice this is absolutely overwhelming and something only possible if you ignore every other game in your collection to concentrate on AH.

You can also add a few one shots. The Carnevale one springs to mind.

One of my all-time favorite games. Not for poor people.

for the majority of AH fans we kind of consider Night of the Zealot (the core box set 3 part campaign) as the tutorial campaign to teach our friends how to play the game. That campaign is basically a feeler into the AH. The game does shine in campaigns beyond this. It's an amazing game (one of my favourites of all time) but it's definitely not a budget game either. It's a Fantasy flight game - you have to almost expect this. This is their model. That said, the game is so good it does leave people wanting more.. and often you'll not only be spending money on extra campaigns (game stuff) but you'll find yourself wanting to enhance your thematic experience with additions (fancy tokens, storage, 3d Miniatures of the investigators etc - often from places like Etsy)...because you fall in love with the game so much.

Some individual scenarios are replayable as well. Its a really common challenge to try to nab as many cultists as you can in Midnight Masks.

Since you are looking for storytelling, I would recommend Carcosa. The way the story is told with your characters being the driving forces is done better than in Night of the Zealot. Dunwich is fine. It was designed at the same time as Night of the Zealot, so they still don't know what direction the LCG will go. Nothing's wrong with it, and it actually has one of my favorite scenarios. But it is simple when compared to the later campaigns, in terms of gameplay surprises and storytelling.

Started two weeks ago, got core and Dunwhich and already ordered carcosa stuff for later (way later). I'm starting dunwhich. 2 handing and true solo has been fun. Also the coop with someone else new to the game after going through the campaign by myself is like the closest thing to playing the campaign for the first time again, the first time going through the unknown is exciting, win or lose. And after that I get to create challenges and try different builds to see how miserably I lose lol 😆

Agree on the value proposition being warped if you consider this revised core in isolation, and it doesn’t compare favourably against many other games. They were constrained in that they didn’t want to alienate existing players by adding more contents to their revised core. In truth the 3 scenario mini campaign is really a tutorial and taster, rather than a full blown campaign. The luck element is kind of on theme, in lovecraftian worlds our choices have little consequence as we are tiny barely significant ants facing horrors beyond our comprehension. You are kind of “meant to” lose the last scenario in the zealot campaign, it’s trying to teach you that this game isn’t about “winning”, and that success is more granular than that. Dunwich and Carcosa are both superb campaigns with more interesting narrative, but it is a significant ask in terms of price. In my limited view, as a narrative gamer, the larger campaigns do have some replayability but it’s finite - I’m not going to play dunwich 10 times through. But with 8 scenarios, 2-3 play throughs, it is 16-24 games at 1.5-2 hours per game - so for me that feels like good value. I view the price as being more in line with a movie with a bunch of friends, rather than a typical board game where I buy it once and play it a million times. I love this game, but it isn’t cheap, so you have to decide if this experience is where you want to be spending your money. Overall good review, keep up the good work.

Just finished Dunwich after the revised core set and had a blast. There is the price tag but the expansions open up replayability, together with allowing for more creative deckbuilding by growing the player cardpool. I recommend adding the dunwich and carcosa cards and trying out an expansion, the game really opens up!

Very good. I'm crazy over this game and have everything. As you said the core is perhaps the low point. This is due to the lack of usable cards and the quirkiness of the scenarios. #1 too short and easy, #2 fast and furious and very good. #3 one of the hardest scenarios in all of Arkham Horror. Very unbalanced. Dunwich should be the next to try. Carcosa is considered to be the best ever, but until you get a good selection of cards and investigators Carcosa might be too much. Every cycle of campaign and investigator cards brings new mechanics, theme and locations. Each cycle will have fantastic and disappointing scenarios. But the good outweigh the bad. If you can continue through Dunwich and Carcosa. If you don't want to continue you can sell or trade them without much problem.

I was extremely lukewarm on the Core set, so much so I actually put it up on sale after two playthroughs. As luck would have it, one of the other ads was for the entire Dunwich Legacy cycle, extremely cheap, so I said screw it, I'll purchase that, play it, and then sell everything as a bundle. 6 years and 9 cycles later, I must say things didn't exactly go as planned. :)

The core box campaign of 3 scenarios, you have to view them as an intro/tutorial/demo. Highly recommend grabbing Dunwich Legacy for the full wonderful experience that is Arkham Horror: The Card Game

I too have such mixed feelings about Arkham LCG. Love the world, enjoy the mechanical parts, love the idea of campaigns. But I agree with you about all the negatives. The brutality of the game, the susceptibility to bad luck, the frequent feelings of things not really being in your control, and then the the kicker of minimal replayability at high costs... In the end it leaves me looking for something else.

I absolutely loved the story.

Great video. I have been looking at it and cant decide to get or not. I found the original one yesterday in a store for $12 and almost picked up. I subbed. Please consider sending one my way!

After waiting many years, I finally got ahold of Arkham Horror in 2018 and tried it for the first time. It was a major disappointment. The game was extremely fiddly, convoluted, and it was hard to keep up with all the different aspects of the game. My wife and I tried playing it for three hours, completed 2.5 turns, and just gave up. I've been hesitant to try the game since. I wonder if the card game would be a better alternative.

The game is quite good but it simply doesn't warrant the price tag.

the expletives feel cringy. Don't. Try to add dignity to the world. It needs it.