Hey everybody!
I feel like it’s been a while since I really thought about playing board games and the like, though my recent foray into Middle Earth has gotten me thinking a lot more about the breadth of other games out there in the wild, so it was with no small amount of excitement that I read the news of the next deluxe expansion for the Arkham Horror LCG, The Circle Undone!
I haven’t played nearly as much of this game as I’d have liked by now – indeed, despite buying the expansions as they have come out, I’ve never yet made it beyond playing the core set! Since that time, of course, the deluxe expansions for this game have taken us all over the world, currently alighting in Mesoamerica, but it feels quite exciting to me that with this deluxe box the game will be returning to the city where it all began.
The box comes with a prologue scenario, where you play as specific characters and try to find out some clues that presumably help with the main scenarios of the box. This does sound pretty awesome, as I’m always a huge fan of alternative ways to play like this. Having a sort of prescriptive introduction sounds like it’s a narrative player’s dream, so I’m all for it!
I’m definitely feeling excited by this, and I’m thinking about breaking back into the game with a couple of the decks that I’ve had built for well over a year at this point. I mean, it would be a victory for me to just get to the Dunwich expansion, and see something new for the game!
Arkham Horror is one of my all-time favourite games, for sure, and I really do love the board game version like an old friend. The card game has a completely different feel, for sure, but it’s not something that I don’t like – the reason why I’ve not gotten round to playing the game nearly as much as I feel I should is simply one of time. I’ve devoted so much of my time to Warhammer 40k over the past year, in addition to all of the real-life stuff that’s been going on, that I just haven’t had the time to sit down and enjoy a game as I once did.
It’s certainly a difficult game when playing solo (I tried to get my wife into it a few weeks back, but even though it’s a co-op game, it didn’t go down as well as Lord of the Rings or Elder Sign). I think this might be another reason why I’ve neglected it somewhat, but the fact that I was moving house and getting everything packed up during the first cycle has sort of put me back a little bit on getting into the game. I did recently take a look through all of the material that I have for the game, more in an attempt to try and organise it all, but I’ve still not yet played with any of the expansions – something that I really think it’s time that I changed!
You just know that any blog that I write cannot go without mention of Games Workshop! When Warhammer Underworlds first came out last autumn with Shadespire, I wasn’t particularly interested in it, as I was trying to focus more on 40k and wasn’t paying any attention to the fantasy stuff. As time went on, I did like seeing some of the models for these warbands, and I did go so far as to buy the Fyreslayers because I love the scenic bases in that kit, though I have since sold that on and stuff. However, the new season of the game, Nightvault, has brought out another slew of amazing-looking miniatures, particularly for the Nighthaunt range, and I’m now considering buying into it. One of my regular gaming buddies does actually have a set of Shadespire, so I’m thinking about giving it a go before I dive on in, but I have been particularly taken by the sculpts of these flying ghost-people, especially their leader, the Briar Queen.
The Nighthaunt range does look amazing, but I had been trying to resist the fantasy stuff during AoS2, and so hadn’t got anything for it. Now, however, I’m already building a Beasts of Chaos army, so I can see the slippery slope of getting back into fantasy is occurring, and I have been considering getting a few ghosts to try my hand at painting…
For now, I’m trying to keep my slide into AoS a slow one, so as not to overwhelm myself with too many models. I don’t really know what I’m doing with the game overall, yet, either – though that’ll be the subject for another blog, I think…
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