Fantasy Flight Games, Eldritch Horror, Board Game, Ages 14+, 1-8 Players, 120-240 Minute Playing Time

This review initially covers the base game, followed by one for the ‘Forsaken Lore’ expansion. It is not possible to post the latter review against the expansion due to the manner in which Amazon have linked the products.It is a very long review so I will briefly summarise before diving into the detail:It is a physically big game with many components but with a straightforward turn structure and the rulebook is well laid out. The cooperative element is very strong but success is highly dependant on dice rolls. It is difficult to win, especially with two players, but plays well four handed. The ‘Forsaken Lore’ expansion adds a lot more variability to the base game but does make it more difficult.Base Game:The Lovecraftian universe seems to have spawned a good few games and ‘Pandemic Reign of Cthulu’ is one of our regularly played two player co-operative games. ‘Eldritch Horror’ is another co-op set in the same universe but on a globetrotting scale and with non-Pandemic mechanics.This is a physically big game with lots of components and the board is huge (about 84cm x 56cm). There are seven different types of token (health, sanity, clues, travel tickets, ability improvements…), ten decks of cards for encounters, artefacts, assets, conditions, mysteries and mythos as well as epic & ‘standard’ monsters and finally a stack of gates. In addition to all that, you need space for a dice tray, the player investigator boards and their asset etc., ancient one sheet & mysteries. Our gaming table is 126cm x 90cm and is just big enough (as you can see from the photo). A couple of cheap plastic business card holders are great for keeping the decks tidy and saving space. Component quality is excellent.With all of those components, setup takes about 20mins but once you’ve done it a couple of times it is not complicated. The rulebook is pretty good but we have found a few ambiguities where we’ve had to resort to the internet (there’s an excellent Fandom Wiki). After the first couple of games, gameplay is fluid and we find ourselves only referring to the rulebook during combat (we have only played five games so far). There are three phases to each turn; action, encounter and mythos. During action, each player can perform two actions (travel, rest, trade, prepare for travel and acquire assets) but not the same action twice. In the encounter phase each player has one encounter with a location, monster, gate, clue, rumour, or adventure. Location encounters allow the player the chance to improve one of their abilities or acquire assets etc. The mythos phase is where mostly bad things happen – advancing the doom & omen tracks, spawning monsters & gates. It all sounds very complicated, but it is not.The game finishes when the doom tracker reaches zero from a starting value determined from the current ancient one, the mythos deck is empty, all players are defeated or after a particularly nasty rumour encounter. When any of these things happen, the game is lost. Prepare to lose quite a lot, sometimes right on the brink of victory. The game is won when the investigators manage to solve the ancient one’s three mysteries. Acquiring assets and all encounters are driven by dice throws (number of dice set by the investigator’s ability and usually 5 or 6 wins) and something good happens when you win while otherwise usually something not good. The dice mechanism introduces a huge (often frustrating) degree of luck to the game but it works really well. The two times we’ve won so far have been down to lucky dice rolls at the right time.The co-op play element is strong and essential to having the vaguest chance of winning. As we play mostly co-op games this suites us very nicely. With twelve investigators to chose from, each with strengths and weaknesses in their five abilities, four ancient ones of varying nastiness and the randomness from the card decks and dice throws, no two games are the same. Also, the range of game-over prevents interminable games - with the least nasty ancient one the game will be over one way or another within fifteen turns. Our games usually take a couple of hours.Despite the perhaps daunting size and vast number of components it is a delightful and somewhat addictive game to play. Pace is good for the type of game, there is no analysis paralysis, there’s lots of discussion at the table (although it could fall victim to the alpha gamer syndrome) and the phase sequence is intuitive. My only very minor gripe is that there are no grip-lock bags provided to hold the tokens & decks of cards when it comes to put the game away (thankfully they are cheap & readily available – I have some 10x15cm bags which are perfect). An all-round excellent game if you like co-ops and I’m considering getting the ‘Forsaken Lore’ expansion in the future.Rulebook: 8/10 Complexity: 6/10 Component quality: 10/10 Replayability: 10/10 Gameplay pace: 8/10Forsaken Lore:Having played the base game a fair few times (and even won occasionally), it was starting to get a bit samey with the relatively small number of mystery and encounter cards. We decided, therefore, to opt for this ‘Forsaken Lore’ expansion to add a lot more variety to the gameplay.The small box was packed with loads of cards and some more bits and pieces (another ancient one and some more epic monsters (like we need more of those!)) but there’s no point listing the details here as they are visible on the back of the box in the product photographs. There is a small rule sheet with a minor combat alteration and some ‘cross that bridge when we get to it’ sort of stuff. The cards were all shuffled into their respective base game decks and the much-anticipated game commenced.It is certainly true that there is more variety in the multitude of decks, which is good, but it has also made it harder to win despite the upgraded asset and artefact decks. There are some particularly nasty encounter cards that instead of failing an ability test before something unpleasant happens, the player just gets a nasty condition (there’s only one nice condition (‘Blessed’) that we’ve found so far and neither of us manages to hold onto it for very long). Consequently, we’ve failed to win a game since incorporating the ‘Forsaken Lore’ expansion and are currently developing some house rules (nothing wrong with that) to make gameplay more enjoyable rather than staring defeat in the face at almost every turn. However, as with the base game, success depends greatly on the dice throws and with good luck and a fair wind it can feel like you’re getting somewhere (but then, lady luck is a fickle mistress).We would have a go at playing two investigators each (like when we play the similarly themed ‘Pandemic Reign of Cthulu’) but there isn’t room on the gaming table and, for the same reason and because the game is now ‘interesting’ enough, we probably won’t be getting further expansions as it seems that most of the other expansions have supplementary boards. We certainly don’t need anything to make it more challenging as we’re currently failing to win against the easiest Ancient One, let alone the nastier ones.Adding this ‘Forsaken Lore’ expansion on to the base game makes it feel complete, almost like the base game is a pared-down version. This could easily be the case as the sum of the prices of the base game and this expansion would take it out of the ‘this looks good and not too expensive – let’s give it a go’ group into the less appealing ‘looks good but rather pricey – not sure’ category. Perhaps a clever bit of marketing but, nonetheless, this expansion is pretty much a must-have if you enjoy the base game.EDIT: Having failed miserably to win any games, even with fairly generous house rules, we decided to press my Granddad’s old folding card table into service and have a go at a four handed game. Games take longer but are much more fun, there’s more opportunity to specialise the investigators & strategise, less rushing about fire-fighting and, at last, we have actually won. Time to adjust the house rules if we start winning every game!Rulebook: 10/10 Complexity: 8/10 Component quality: 10/10 Replayability: 10/10 Gameplay pace: 10/10

Eldritch Horror is a mid to heavy weight cooperative game set in a H.P. Lovecraftian version of the 1920s and 30s. There is a lot going on in this game and it has masses of replayability. It might be a bit heavy for a very casual gamer but don’t let that put you off. The rulebook is excellent and comes with an in-depth glossary with really helps with clarification. Certainly if you’re a fan of games like Pandemic then this isn’t really a big step up although there is slightly more complexity in the things you can do.I like this game. If you get yourself organised and familiar with the rules, it can be fast paced, tough and a lot of fun. Despite looking overwhelming, gameplay is actually deceptively simple. Each player has two actions, you then take it in turns to draw a card, fight a monster or both, then turn over one last card and everyone does what it tells you to. All the cards tell you what to do so you don’t need to memorise every tiny little detail of the game.As with all Fantasy Flight games, the components are excellent and the game looks really good out on the table. You’ll need a big one for this game as it takes up lots of space. Everything oozes theme. Every card, monster and story looks and sounds like it belongs in this alternative world. One of the best bits of the game is the reckoning mechanic. These are double sided cards that you flip over whenever the game (Usually a card) tells you to do so. Then, something unexpected, usually horrible and terrifying happens to you. It’s such a good idea and really ramps up the tension. You’re never quite sure if that bank loan you took out to buy a gun is going to come back and haunt you. The loan sharks could break your legs or it turns out that the contract gave away your soul in the small print.Theme in this game is SO strong that I didn’t even care when we lost because the story of how we lost was so much fun. A sailor won the affection of the cats of Ulthar and they helped him to close a portal to another world. An aged professor found a brain in a jar in the heart of Africa and it drove him into the depths of insanity. Then Cthuhlu rose up consumed us all in a watery takeover of the planet. It was great! There are so many good parts to this game. Every decision, the smallest of mistakes or bad dice roll feels like it could affect the outcome of the game. You have to work as a team with each character’s weaknesses and strengths playing a very important role in winning or losing.There are some negatives. They don’t detract from my enjoyment of the game but they are worth consideration. First problem I ready touched on when I mentioned organisation. There is a lot of stuff in this game; over 15 different decks of cards, hundreds of monster, health and sanity tokens and more. This is great for the game but a logistical nightmare as the manufacturers supply no form of organisation at all. No trays, bags or card boxes. Nothing. You will need to sort this out yourself or you’ll never bother to play it due to set up time. I built my own in box organiser out of foamcore, specifically with set up and take down in mind. I enjoy doing this and you’ll find lots of different methods online but, if you don’t then it could be a problem considering the hefty price tag. This does seem to be an issue with Fantasy Flight Games in general.Second problem is the twisting of Lovecraft’s fiction. Lovecraft’s work is about terror, the unknown and the insignificance of man in a universe that we don’t fully understand. Yes at times this manifests itself as monsters or aliens but virtually never does anyone actually fight these things. In part, because it is often impossible to do so. In this game all the creatures, monsters, aliens inter-dimensional beings etc can be shot, stabbed and generally beaten to a pulp. If you’re the sort of Lovecaft fan who finds this simplification of his work annoying then I would stay away from this game! For me the game was strong enough to overlook this and on the plus side there is none of Lovecraft’s racism, classism and lack of strong female roles in this version of his world.