Tactical Tabletop Terrors Times Two - Arena: The Contest and Cthulhu: Death May Die

After a long dry spell in gaming, it was delightful to get the gang up for a tabletop session on two successive Saturdays, a feat that is, tragically unlikely to be duplicated anytime soon. Remember how in high school we thought we'd have more time for playing games, not less? Sigh.

Last week, Earl, Jeff and I, the ones who had backed its Kickstarter, unveiled our purchase: Arena: The Contest. First-time producers Dragori Games have done tremendous work with this game, even if their lack of experience meant it got to us six months later than anticipated. The volume of material and quality of the game made the wait worthwhile.

Set in a fantasy world where armies have been outlawed by the gods, and where potentially violent conflicts are settled by small teams in the titular arena, the big appeal, the game features brilliant production values and stunning art. The big draw for us though was Arena's versatility.

The game can be played either as a player-vs-player deathmatch for 2-8 combatants or as a cooperative dungeon crawler by 1-4 players. Best of all, the co-op version can be played as a series of one-offs or sequentially as a narrative campaign building to an epic conclusion - like a D&D campaign where no one has to be the Dungeon Master.

In co-op or PVE games (Players verus Enemies), deck of cards impact the players and varies the enemies tactics; they can usually be counted on to attack the nearest foe with the lowest hit points, but will periodically gang up on a weakened opponent or break away from melee to target shooters and spell casters, making their actions difficult to predict.

Each of the twelve characters in the core game is categorized into 6 tactical roles (Tank, Healer, Shooter, etc) with the same stat line, but each one has a unique set of abilities and powers. Best of all many of these powers complement each other, with an almost infinite potential for combinations.

The expansions we had purchased not only gave us additional monsters and three-dimensional walls and doors to replace the counters that came with the game, but they also added another 16 characters (including a new class) for a grand total of 28.

Having only played a handful of times and not cracked the campaign yet, we are all quite impressed with the clarity of rules and the dynamism of gameplay in both PVP versions.  And since it supports up to eight players, it seems like it would be a good fit for G&G.

Next up will be trying some games with the larger monsters and hopefully the campaign!

A similar game in a much more sinister setting is CMON Games Cthulhu: Death May Die. Another Kickstarter game, this time backed by Pete. Normally, games in H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos feature hapless human investigators (often in a 1920s setting) stumbling across Secrets They Were Not Meant to Know and trying to stop Nameless Horrors from ending the world before they are killed or go mad. In Death May Die, the player's characters have already gone mad, and are attempting to use that liberating and invigorating power to lure in the Elder Gods and their thralls, in hopes of destroying them.

With a streamlined set of rules by revered game designer Rob Daviau, fantastic artwork by Karl Kopinski and a brilliant assortment of miniatures (some of which are gobsmackingly horrifying), this game is another winner. Players spend their time fighting the foes on the board as well as a ticking clock, but never the rules.

Running through a burning mansion and smashing arcane laboratories while frenzied cultists set the place ablaze and then combatting the monstrosities they've managed to summon is challenging enough. As the players encounter more horror and stress, their character's level of insanity increases, giving them access to a variety of increased abilities and "power-ups" to select from. Eventually, however, too much insanity will do them in, the same as being burned, bitten or shot.

Having a retired nobleman facing off against one of the most infamous entities in existence armed only with a shotgun probably sounds like a great time, but Great Cthulhu must be slain multiple times in order to end his threat.

In the end, it was only due to the selfless sacrifice of one of my comrades, shrieking through the room I was in and drawing away nearly a half dozen cultists and a fire vampire, that allowed Sir Ian to maintain his sanity for one final turn and dispatch the Elder God, ending the game.

With the sole survivor badly wounded and within one point of snapping his remaining twigs for good, this still counted as a victory. What a world!

The game uses a modular gameboard for flexibility and replayability, and the counters, rules and objectives for each scenario are contained in a tidy "Episode" box within the main game (actually, the game's packaging is among the best I've seen, and I was already quite impressed with Arena's). I look forward to combatting the minions of R'lyeh many times to come... schedules permitting, of course.

I highly recommend both games, and should mention that the first expansion to Arena is coming to  Kickstarter on Feb 4, and Dragori is re-releasing the core game (with improved character miniatures!) at a discounted price.