Arkham Horror Third Edition rules: how to play and how to win

Arkham Horror Third Edition quick rules

The goal

Arkham Horror is a cooperative game: you all win or lose together, and each game follows a scenario. At the start, you don’t know how to win: the codex cards, placed next to the scenario sheet, give you your objectives one at a time. Most often, you gather clues around town and research them onto the scenario sheet. When doom spills onto the scenario sheet, the codex cards turn against you and can make you lose.

A round

A round has four phases. Action phase: each investigator performs two actions. Monster phase: monsters move and attack. Encounter phase: each investigator reads an encounter where they stand. Mythos phase: each investigator draws two tokens from the mythos cup. During the action and encounter phases, you take turns in any order.

Actions

On your turn, you perform two different actions, never the same one twice in a round. Move: up to two spaces, plus one per dollar spent, two at most. Gather resources: one dollar. Focus: a token that raises one skill by one. Ward: a lore test, removing one doom from your space per success. Research: an observation test, placing one of your clues on the scenario sheet per success. You can also attack a monster, evade it, or trade with an investigator in your space.

Tests

You roll as many dice as your value in the tested skill, bonuses and penalties included, and always at least one die. Each 5 or 6 is a success; one is enough to pass, and the number of successes is your test result. After rolling, you can spend a clue or focus token to reroll one die.

Monsters

When you move into a space with a ready monster, it engages you. While engaged, you can only focus, attack or evade, and you get no encounter. Attacking is a strength test: each success deals one damage. Evading is an observation test: each success frees you from one monster, which becomes exhausted. In the monster phase, ready monsters activate, engaged monsters attack, and exhausted monsters ready.

Encounters and clues

In the encounter phase, you draw a card from your neighborhood’s deck and read the text for your space; on a street, you draw from the streets deck. A clue in the center of a neighborhood means an event card is among the top three cards of its deck: it can let you gain that clue. If you miss it, the card goes back into the deck.

The mythos phase

Starting with the leader, each investigator draws two tokens, one at a time. Spread doom: one doom on the space shown by the bottom event card. Spawn monster, spawn clue, read headline. Gate burst: one doom on each space of a neighborhood. Reckoning: every reckoning effect in play. The blank token does nothing.

Doom and anomalies

Doom never goes on streets. When the Anomalies card is in the codex, a space with three doom or a neighborhood with five doom gets an anomaly: each new doom in that neighborhood then goes on the scenario sheet, and you resolve anomaly encounters there. Remove all doom from the neighborhood to make the anomaly go away.

Being defeated

When your damage reaches your health, or your horror your sanity, you are defeated: you discard your cards and tokens, and the team places one doom on the scenario sheet. You choose a new investigator never played in this game, who arrives on the starting space after the mythos phase.

Beginner traps

Chasing clues and forgetting doom: remember to ward. Keeping your clues: a clue only counts once researched onto the scenario sheet. Performing the same action twice in a round. And reread the codex cards: they tell you how to win and how to lose.

How to win Arkham Horror Third Edition

No points

Arkham Horror has no points: the whole team wins or loses together.

Victory

There is no default way to win: you win when a codex card says so, usually after researching enough clues onto the scenario sheet.

Defeat

Through the codex cards, most often when too much doom reaches the scenario sheet. And when no investigator is left to replace a defeated one.

Game mode

With Under Dark Waves: Story Mode (one spread doom token replaced by a blank token) or Challenge Mode (the opposite). The Ludingo sheet records the mode and how the game ended.

Example ending

In a scenario with anomalies, Rivertown has 3 doom: 2 at the Black Cave and 1 at the Graveyard. A gate burst places 1 doom on each space, one at a time. The Graveyard goes to 2, the Black Cave to 3: an anomaly appears. The last doom, due at the General Store, goes on the scenario sheet instead.

Common mistakes

• Thinking a gained clue already counts: you must research it onto the scenario sheet.
• Forgetting that a defeated investigator also places one doom on the scenario sheet.
• Placing doom on a street: it goes on an adjacent neighborhood space.
• Looking for a score: the game is won or lost, only through the codex or by running out of investigators.

How to set up Arkham Horror Third Edition

Setup follows the scenario sheet: its back shows the board layout, the monsters, the mythos tokens and the finalize setup instructions. For your first game, play “Approach of Azathoth.”