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So, how should this start?

Even on the easiest Ancient One, you’ll still have your work cut out for you. Even if you have a great beginner load-out with your Team (Harvey, Amanda, Vincent, Carolyn) you’ll still spend a few games cursing like a sailor at how hard winning can be, as well as running away from events that require multiple actions, each having multiple lore requirements to finish. It can drive you crazy, but it’s more addicting than you could ever believe. Seriously, for as much as the rolls for glyphs may make you feel abused, once you start, you just can’t stop.

Learning the game
learning the game, if you’ve never seen the boardgame itself, seems a lot more daunting than it really is. The tutorial looks huge (it provides multiple videos, as well as a bunch of text based tabs), however the text based tabs are a repeat of the video for your reference. Do note though, that it is extremely helpful to watch the videos. This is not a game you can just pick up and think you’ll start winning. If you try to do this, you’ll most likely get frustrated quickly and wonder where all the mythos pain is coming from, and why your face wont stop hurting. Watch the videos, and the game is easy enough to pick up.

Playing the Game
This entire game, while you’re still feeling it out, is entirely about your Team setup. Pay special attention to the special abilities that each player has, as these abilities will literally save your blood pressure from climbing. This is why it’s a good idea to learn the game with Vincent and Carolyn holding up the final two spots of your line-up, because their abilities to give health and sanity during their turn means that you can essentially provide free maintenance to your team without wasting player turns at the hospital…all while watching the doom track double at midnight. After you get a feel for the game, it’s nice to try random line-ups and see if you can win.

Dealing with the Pressure
If you are prone to cursing when you don’t get your way, and you are often in places where the people around you are sensitive to this, play this game in a concrete bunker out in the middle of nowhere. Or get a squeezy stress ball.

Seriously, it’s a lot of fun.
Everyone says that the glyph rolls are really unfair and they never give you what you need. This can be true, but it’s still entirely random, just like a dice roll in real life. It’s an amazing game, and it really can satisfy a craving for some Lovecraftian addictions in a pinch. Especially if you don’t have time to set up the real boardgames. Get this game, love this game, try not to throw your phone or tablet into a wall.

You really can’t go wrong with UNO. My family typically has this game out at every get together or event. The rules are simple, the gameplay is easy with infinite replay value. Where this game excels is in the interpersonal relationships that happen while playing.

When you throw a draw 4 down, and there are no young kids playing, there can be streams of cursing and playful punching and evil glares. This game tests family relationships, friendly competition and lasting friendships.

Really, its quite a bit of fun, and it’s fast as well so if you’re not looking to play a full on board game that takes two hours to set up, full out a deck of UNO cards and be prepared to have a pretty good time.

This game took me a while to learn. Once you pick it up though, its a great game with unlimited amounts or replay value. This is a tactics game, but not really a wargame, so the people that will be happy with this game might not be the ones that would expect to like it.

I’ve been playing this game for ages and I still don’t have it all down. As a few other people have said, this game tends to keep you on your heels, reacting to the moves made by the AI instead of having the ability to plan and be strategic. Also, it takes forever to learn the abilities of even one of the factions, let alone how they move and react to the actions of your opponent.

For me this game is a great game for a smartphone. Its a great time killer, and it makes sense that it’s a phone app. If you like boardgames at all, you should get it , learn it and love it, just be prepared to lose more than a few games in the beginning while you learn how it’s played.

With a lot of digital deck building games, the quality of your deck is directly proportional to the amount of real money that you’re willing to sink into the game. Not with this one though. This game is a deck building mega-god on the cheap…where cheap is free. This game is very easy to learn, allows you to save games, play multiple games, beat the AI down into submission (or be destroyed by it), and take on multi-player games.

While it seems that sometimes there is a lot of luck involved with who wins, I would honestly say that building a good deck will quickly mitigate that feeling. This game does not feel repetitious at all either, which is especially nice.

Also, the art on the cards? Its great.

It is a great introduction to the 40K world…but it is a massive money and time pit. You can do a lot with the miniatures and the table depending on your skill in building them, and the set up of your armies and such means that no two games are ever going to be the same. Overall, it can be a lot of fun, you just really need to be prepared for the cost and time factors associated with this entire genre.

That is how this game was described to me. It’s the new, modern chess…and that description is correct. It’s even better than chess. There is a lot more strategy involved with how you play your tiles, and the added expansions serve to only make the game even more interesting.

The games themselves are relatively quick (10-15 minutes on the long end) and you generally want to make sure that you’re playing with people that care enough to try and out-think you. I have found that once you get to know the way your opponent thinks about their approach to the game, you can start to interact with them on a different level, which adds another strategic element to the game.

A lot of my friends and I haven’t played a board game in ages. However at one gathering, one of my friends brought this game, and it changed our lives. Now we can’t get enough. If you’re willing to spend the hour that it takes to set this game, and its myriad of expansions, up, then you’ll never be disappointed. You may not win every time, you may think you’ll never win, but every time you play there will be laughing, crying, cheering and victory laps through-out. This game is hands down amazing.