Arkham Horror: The Path to Carcosa

Board Game Geek Reviews

1. 9 out of 10

   Dungeonmaster_007

   Best card driven game I ever played. But I stopped buying expansions and sold my copy. i am more of a co-op plying kind of guy.

2. 6 out of 10

   CortexBomb

   (I use these base box pages as my mother pages for comments on the campaign as a whole with comments about the specific stuff interspersed, yes, there are some spoilers. I also log all of my plays for the sub-expansions to this box here under the mother page). The campaign starts out with Curtain Call, a pretty straight-forward intro that has elements of the Miskatonic Museum in the way it works, but while I didn't care for Miskatonic's single-minded focus I thought the way it was implemented here was better as the scenario gave both clue-gatherers and fighters something to do throughout. A solid start. The second scenario, The Last King, is a sort of mix of a "collect 'em" scenario with a more combat heavy one as the chief goal is to interview as much of the cast of the play as possible, but a lot of enemies are also spawned by the encounter deck which can make progress pretty slow going depending on how you draw. This one can definitely swarm you fast with a bad draw, but I like the thematic immersion and overall mechanics. Echoes of the Past, the third scenario, is something of a let-down. While The Last King is one of the harder scenarios, Echoes of the Past is one of the easiest, as the scenario tends to spit out easy to deal with enemies, but teams that can keep up with them will have almost unlimited time to navigate the scenario. The fourth, The Unspeakable Oath, takes the players to Arkham Asylum where they are trying to find an actor from a previous performance of The King in Yelllow. Thematically UO is excellent, as it really conveys the setting well, unfortunately, it can also lead to some very tough draws and it is pretty much impossible for the team to not get a perma-death resolution without either having 2 monster hunters (out of 2 investigators) or having added a very specific Rogue card (preferably in multiples) to each investigator's deck. Even with near perfect knowledge of optimum play based on the locations, how many clues they spawn, and what needs to be done to survive the scenario (i.e.: basically optimal play) it is very likely that this scenario will kill the team without having that card and will require starting over with new investigators for part V. This is a curious design choice, as it seems to almost certainly cleave the campaign into 2 4-part halves as opposed to 1 8 part whole without pre-knowledge and gamey optimization. The next scenario, A Phantom of Truth, picks up in Paris and will have a wildly different objective based on the previous decisions the team have made. Allegedly there is 1 harder mode and 1 easier one; we must have gotten the easier one the first time around because I found it a bit on the soft side. The Paris setting was decent, but the easier version of the scenario reminded me of an easier version of the Rougarou stand-alone so I found it middling. The Pallid Mask sees the investigators going into the Parisian catacombs and uses an appealing system to randomly place the locations during the course of play. This one can definitely vary in its toughness depending on how the Catacomb locations come out, but also on the Encounter deck draws as some of the toughest enemies can be prevented if another enemy type is kept under control. Overall though, I felt this scenario was a good middle ground between tough and fair; it can definitely beat you, but not in a totally out of nowhere, unfair way. Black Stars Rise, the penultimate scenario, has a very unorthodox double agenda set-up with 2 possible branches to explore. The challenge here mostly relates to figuring out which of the two scenarios you are playing and then navigating that as effectively as possible while dodging the numerous enemies that the scenario throws at you. This can play a bit longer due to the double agendas and is a very easy story to lose your first time out, but once you figure out how it works you will have a reasonable opportunity to succeed and continue on. The final scenario, Dim Carcosa, is a solid end to the adventure cycle. Like Dunwich's finale Lost in Time and Space it has some variations based on the various decisions players have made during the campaign; though its actual in-game play is not as chaotic (or, hence, thematic) but it does carry the themes of the campaign well and it can deliver some entertaining final story results depending on how it was completed. In sum I'm somewhat conflicted about the campaign as a whole. I really like the themes of madness that are explored in the King in Yellow story, but I'm not 100% sold on elements of the campaign, particularly the very all-or-nothing middle act which can result in the players needing to wholly rebuild their team. I like it and would play it again, and can certainly see how there are some different branches to explore in the story, but I'm ultimately not as big a fan of this one as I was of Dunwich and would still endorse new players going through the campaigns in order as I consider this one inferior to that original cycle. In the base box: there are a few solid player cards here: the Rogue class picking up Lockpicks is probably my favorite obvious evergreen card so far as it can make that class much better at gathering clues than it was before. Sleight of Hand also seems like it could be very amusing / powerful splash in a late game Guardian deck featuring the big guns like Lightning Gun or Shotgun. Fieldwork helps Seekers do what they do quite effectively. Aside from that the base box seems kind of light on playables. The new investigator mix isn't bad here. Akachi is fine as a beginner's type Mystic because her special ability is easier to grok than Agnes', but I think she is probably a shade weaker overall. William has gotten some play simply because he is the best of the Survivors so far at playing a Guardian-type role while still having access to the best actions of the Survivor class. Mark vs. Zoey vs. Roland is kind of a wash to me, but Mark does have some interesting combo options with his abilities for the intrepid. Minh is pretty solid overall, best in high player count games, but wild icons are never bad and she gives them out like candy. Her high base Will also makes her naturally encounter deck resistant so though she isn't quite as adept at grabbing clues in big gobs like Rex she is still sound and is probably comparably powerful once you start getting to the 3+ count games. Sefina and Lola I'm not personally sold on.

3. 8 out of 10

   alethic

   A very good deluxe set (as they've all been so far). Two memorable scenarios. We've only gone through the campaign here once, ending rather rapidly in Dim Carcosa, so I doubt we're in a position to judge especially well, but we found it substantially better than the Dunwich cycle. Mind you, the Forgotten Age has been more enjoyable again, so I think the game is only getting better.