Mansions of Madness: Forbidden Alchemy
2-5
13+
120+
The one unbroken lamp in the ransacked laboratory illuminates a small, slug-like creature wriggling on a glass dish. The notes next to it are covered with a bizarre mix of mathematical formulae and arcane symbols. Suddenly, a thick stream of ichor falls across the notes from somewhere above you. Your blood chills as you unholster your revolver. Something growls at you from the rafters.
Forbidden Alchemy is a horrifying expansion for Mansions of Madness that presents investigators with three new tales of scientific horror, plus a host of new components for their existing stories! This comprehensive expansion contains four new heroes and two new monster types, plus never-before-seen rules and components for Alchemy puzzles, Side Effect cards, mutations, crawling hands, and even time travel. Do you dare face the eldritch horrors that lurk within?
images © Fantasy Flight Games
User Reviews (2)
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Do you enjoy the thematic horror of Lovecraft but need to infuse the setting with the evils of chemistry? Then rejoice, because Forbidden Alchemy is here!
Forbidden Alchemy is the first real expansion to Mansions of Madness that includes a few new investigators, 2 new monsters, 3 new very lovely scenarios with new room tiles to turn the original mansion setting into a evil scientists house of doom.
The new scenarios bring with them new challenges and detriments to the investigators and a new type of puzzle; the Alchemy puzzle. Which IMO, is the best puzzle of the bunch.
It’s an 8 sided, color and shape coded puzzle that is needs not be solved to continue with the scenario. That’s right, you don’t need to solve it to continue on your way.
Oh, right, if you fail the secret chemical mixture there is a good chance that you’ll get mutated or suffer from a nasty side affect much like a trauma, without the keeper having to play a trauma card on you.
Muahahahhahaha!
Side affects may or may not last the entire game though, but its a rather nice touch and new element to add into the danger and suspense of the game. Its a worthwhile puzzle also, unlike some of the original puzzles where they feel almost like a nuisance after the first time. The Alchemy puzzle has varying levels of threat to it and feels very thematic to the scenarios’ story and so its actually quite fun to engage the puzzle within the game.
The new Byakee monster has a slight tiwst in that you cannot look at it’s stats, only the keeper knows how much damage and life it has.
There are new combat cards with either/or tests and cards with “Non-attribute” tests where the investigator determines the level of difficulty.
And there are new threat affects for the keeper. Some of the new trauma cards have affects that are triggered when the keeper spends threat on them giving the keeper more options and decisions for his small pool of threat.
All in all, Forbidden Alchemy is a fabulous addition to the base game and the new rules are subtle, thematic and enhance the game.
For the thematically driven gamer, or big fans of H.P., the scenarios are very fun and thematic and the rules are nicely tuned to them.
This is essentially a must by for owners of the base set and Forbidden Alchemy is almost so good that it forces you to buy the base set. 😉
Mansions of Madness is a hit with my gaming group. We were always hardcore RPG nerds and sci fi fans but no one was willing to put in the work to run a campaign so we have moved onto board gaming with Mansions being a great bridge.
But this expansion pack, whilst having a bunch of re playability and great components just does not flow as well as the original game did. The clues seem to be very vague and objectives don’t make a whole lot of sense with the players just blundering about from room to room hoping we get lucky following the storyline. Perhaps it might be that we’re not very well versed in the Arkham horror universe or the Lovecraftian/Cthulu mythos but the stories in this expansion were confusing and I never got the sense why we were there.
As for game play, the new alchemist puzzle can be a nightmare and the new monsters are fun to shoot up. New characters are also included but apart from the Psychiatrist (who can heal horror) I felt they didn’t bring much variety to the originals.