Arkham Horror: The Card Game rules – how to play and how to win

Arkham Horror: The Card Game quick rules

The goal

It’s a cooperative game: you investigate together against the forces of the Mythos. One game is one scenario; several scenarios make a campaign, where your choices and wounds follow you. The act deck is your investigation, which you want to advance. The agenda deck is your enemies’ plan, driven by doom. If the act leads to the resolution, you have usually won; if the agenda gets there first, you have usually lost.

A round

A round has four phases. Mythos phase: doom rises and each investigator draws an encounter card. Investigation phase: each investigator takes a turn. Enemy phase: enemies move and attack. Upkeep phase: everything readies, each investigator draws a card and gains a resource. In the very first round, you skip the mythos phase.

Your turn

You have three actions, in any order, even the same one several times: draw, gain a resource, play an asset or event card by paying its cost, activate an ability, move to a connecting location, investigate, engage an enemy, fight it or evade it. If a ready enemy is engaged with you, almost every action gives it an attack of opportunity; only fight, evade, and parley or resign abilities don’t provoke one.

Skill tests

A test compares one of your skills (willpower, intellect, combat or agility) to a difficulty. You may first commit cards from your hand: each matching skill icon adds 1, and each other player at your location may commit one card to your test. Then you reveal a token from the chaos bag and apply its modifier: equal to or above the difficulty, you succeed. The auto-fail token always makes you fail.

Clues and the act

A location is revealed the first time an investigator enters it, and gets its clues. Investigating is an intellect test against the location’s shroud: on a success, you take one clue. The group spends together the clues the act card asks for to advance it; read each act carefully, as it says when to spend them or gives another objective.

Enemies

An enemy you draw usually spawns engaged with you. Fighting it is a combat test against its fight value: on a success, it takes one damage. Evading it is an agility test against its evade value: on a success, it exhausts and lets you go. If you fail an attack against an enemy engaged with another player, that player takes the damage. In the enemy phase, hunter and patrol enemies move, then each ready engaged enemy attacks and exhausts.

Mythos and upkeep

In the mythos phase, place one doom on the agenda; if the doom in play reaches its threshold, the agenda advances. Then each investigator draws an encounter card: a treachery resolves at once, an enemy enters play. In the upkeep phase, each investigator draws a card, gains a resource and keeps at most eight cards in hand.

Defeat and the end of the scenario

When your health or sanity runs out, you are defeated and leave the scenario; you can also resign with a resign ability. The scenario ends when a resolution is reached, or when no investigator is left in play. The campaign guide tells what happens next.

Beginner traps

Forgetting attacks of opportunity while engaged. Thinking a successful attack deals several damage: without a weapon or a card, it deals one. Playing the mythos phase in the first round. And to help another player, only one card, and only if they’re at your location.

How to win Arkham Horror: The Card Game

No points

The game has no points during a scenario: the whole team wins or loses together.

Victory

When the act leads to a favorable resolution. In standalone mode, playing a single scenario, any numbered resolution is a win, unless it says otherwise.

Defeat

When the agenda reaches its resolution, usually an unfavorable one, or when every investigator is eliminated without a resolution. In a campaign, you still move on to the next scenario, with the consequences.

Difficulty and resolution

Easy, Standard, Hard or Expert: the level changes the tokens in the chaos bag. The Ludingo sheet records the difficulty, the game mode and the resolution reached; experience and campaign progress stay in the campaign log.

Example ending

Jake has 3 combat against an enemy with a fight value of 4. He commits a card with 2 combat icons: 3 + 2 = 5. He reveals the −1 token: 5 − 1 = 4, equal to the difficulty, so the attack succeeds and the enemy takes 1 damage.

Common mistakes

• Thinking the victory display is a score: its victory points become experience for the campaign.
• Counting only the doom on the agenda: all doom in play counts toward its threshold.
• Thinking a defeated investigator is dead: they leave the scenario, and take a trauma in a campaign.
• Ending the campaign when everyone is eliminated: the campaign guide has a follow-up, even with no resolution.

How to set up Arkham Horror: The Card Game

The setup common to every scenario, then the scenario’s own setup, read in the campaign guide. For your first game, use the core set’s ready-to-play starter decks.