Arkham Horror: I’ll Hide in the Corner

I pulled Sister Mary, the nun, from a coffee cup emblazoned with the logo of an Orthodox seminary and started my battle against the deep ones. It was my first time playing Arkham Horror. It was everyone’s first time playing Arkham Horror. We were pretty sure we’d be drained of our sanity and left shells of people mumbling strange phrases about cyclopean ruins.

Sister Mary's Playing Card

Fortunately, reading the Necromonicon doesn’t make you go crazy and the game was able to accommodate six new players with relative ease. Unfortunately for me, it took me the entire game to really figure out how effectively use Sister Mary. She had plenty of sanity, but little health. Little did I realize that my best bet was to blow through that sanity casting spells so I could run around the board slaying monsters and defeating encounters. As such, I limped around the board getting smoked by encounters and avoiding monsters. Secretly, I hoped Hastur would wake from his slumber, destroy all the characters and cover up my embarrassing play with a group lose.

Instead, I rode the coat tails of my comrades to victory. Despite my horrible play and the longer than usual play time as a result of learning the game, I found Arkham Horror to be an engaging game. Between all the tokens, colors, and quick turns, my attention remained on the game. At least, until I finally realized the end of the game was coming and I could to nothing to help win. I’m looking forward to a second play, maybe this time I can actually do something.