My first experience of Arkham Horror occurred when a dear friend of mine visited us from America. An avid board game fan, she was eager to try out anything and everything my wife and I could throw at her. During a trip to Forbidden Planet, we decided that we would give Arkham Horror a try since it was a co-operative game and we’d all heard good things about it on the geek grapevine. It came to dominate the trip. Though we dabbled in other board games while she was here,a lot of Arkham Horror was played. We had to keeping coming back to it.
We wanted to figure out what the best skills, weapons and spells were. We wanted to figure out the best strategies. Should I be at the shop buying new weapons or should I be hoarding clue tokens? Should I be trying to close gates or should I be fighting the monsters that roam the streets? And just when you thought you were finding the answers to these questions the game would throw a new monster at you, or a new event, or the weather in Arkham would change and throw your plans completely. It’s a game of decision making, a game of teamwork and a game rich in theme.
Since those early days I’ve played quite a lot of Arkham Horror with quite a lot of people and I’ve had the pleasure of observing several different patterns of behaviour. Everyone seems to approach the game in their own way but there are a few broader strokes that are common across players. Let’s take a (tongue in cheek) look at them.
