Home Forums General Board Games and Card Games Cthulhu Wars

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  • #42128
    Avatar photoNoel
    Participant

    Although I’ve had it for nearly a year, we didn’t start playing the game until a couple of months ago.  It’s a fun game.  It’s costly, which should make anyone hesitate.  For me, it is a win-win as we play mostly board games these days, but it’s got lots of large miniatures that I can paint and use in other games.

    I started painting the models.

    #42132
    Avatar photoAngel Barracks
    Moderator

    Never heard of it, what is it like sir?

    #42135
    Avatar photoNoel
    Participant

    It’s sort of a “dudes on a map” game, where each player controls a faction of cultists, monsters and elder beings from the Cthulhu Mythos.

    Its defining features are big, beautiful miniatures and asymmetric game play.  Although the winning conditions are the same (most points wins as long as you have all of your upgrades), the way that each player goes about it is very different.  Each player has an entirely unique set of units and powers to use and attempt to synergize.  During the game, there are six conditions or tasks that are different for the individual factions — the completion of each gets the player an upgrade (a special ability).  You’ll not only want to complete these for the upgrades, but you cannot win the game without having done them.

    It’s fun and interesting; you have to try to learn how to play your own faction and how to keep the other players from achieving their goals and earning points.  It basically a reworking of Chaos in the Old World, taking out the card play and area majority mechanics.  The rules pretty simple, making it easy to get playing right away.  The interaction of the different units, powers and goals (as well as player negotiation) is what gives the game its thinky parts.

    The miniatures are from Fenris, so they are lovely sculpts.  They come cast in “board game plastic”, but the material is decent enough to paint and they are mostly meant to be in 28mm, which makes them useful for miniature gaming in any scenario that calls for cultists, monsters, mutants, aliens, etc.

    Its downside is that it’s pretty expensive.  The base set has a msrp of $200.  Of course, there are a lot of expansions to dig a deeper hole in your wallet…  If you think of it in terms of cost per miniature, it’s reasonable and you get a board game to boot.  If you think of it in terms of board gaming, it’s going to be a question of relative value compared to other games, particularly when similar play can be gotten with games such as Chaos in the Old World, Blood Rage or Lords of the Ice Garden.  I really enjoy games that have card play, so Chaos was edging this out for a while; however Cthulhu Wars’ rules are more accessible to new players, I think, as well as having a more flexible player count (can be played with 3-8, while Chaos in the Old World is really just a 4 player game).

    There are more details here: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/139976/cthulhu-wars

    I found this set of strategy articles that have been a good read: http://gamerati.com/author/alexflagg/

    I bought it on a whim.  My flgs had it on the day it was released and I got it at significant discount (it pays to be friends with the retailer).  I’m not a big H.P. Lovecraft fan (I enjoy some of his work) and I don’t have “Cthulhu Geek Cred”, but I love miniatures and a good game.  It’s good enough that I will be purchasing expansions for it.

     

     

    #42777
    Avatar photoNoel
    Participant

    http://generalgulliver.blogspot.com/2016/06/first-cultists.html

    The base game comes with four factions, and each faction has six cultists.  I decided to start painting up everyone’s “basic” unit and began with the Black Goat.

    If the promise of lots of words doesn’t tempt you, there are also more pictures on the blog post.

     

    #42778
    Avatar photoNoel
    Participant

    I also just realized my original post on this topic didn’t include a link to my blog post on the power markers.

    http://generalgulliver.blogspot.com/2016/05/ive-got-powah.html

    #42780
    Avatar photoMike
    Keymaster

    That’s a cool figure.

    #45694
    Avatar photoNoel
    Participant

    http://generalgulliver.blogspot.com/2016/07/green-team.html

    I’ve finished painting the next batch of cultists.

     

     

    #48439
    Avatar photoNoel
    Participant

    If you love blue, then you might be inclined to using Crawling Chaos…

     

    http://generalgulliver.blogspot.com/2016/09/feeling-blue.html

     

     

     

     

     

    #61292
    Avatar photoNoel
    Participant

     

    After a fast start, I took a break from these, but now I’m back.

     

    http://generalgulliver.blogspot.com/2017/04/this-way-madness.html

     

    #61604
    Avatar photoNoel
    Participant
    #61605
    Avatar photoMike
    Keymaster

    great holy poop

    #69437
    Avatar photoNoel
    Participant

    http://generalgulliver.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-blob.html

     

    Added  a couple of finished monsters for the Great Cthulhu faction (that’s the green one).  These guys are sort of not impressive until the spellbook is obtained that lets them cannibalize your own units in combat to gain extra attacks.

     

    There’s a new kickstarter for this game currently running, with one week left to go.

    It’s expensive, but I enjoy it.

     

     

    #71336
    Avatar photoNoel
    Participant

    http://generalgulliver.blogspot.com/2017/09/flying-wurms.html

    End of vacation painting…

    Four of us sat down to play this last weekend and it was a lot of fun.  I got to play with the Black Goat (red faction) for the first time and really enjoyed using the annoying parts of it: Ghouls popping in to anyone’s battles to require them to retreat, Groth forcing a countdown and making people sacrifice their cultists, Shub-Niggurath swapping places with enemy units.  It is a mischievous way to play and I enjoy that.

     

    #87721
    Avatar photoNoel
    Participant
    #87723
    Avatar photoGone Fishing
    Participant

    From your description I can see this is quite a different game, but have you ever played Arkham Horror, and if so, do you prefer one to the other? I’ve always had a yen to do a Cthulhu based boardgame…

    #87725
    Avatar photoNoel
    Participant

    Hi, Gone Fishing.  I haven’t played Arkham Horror, yet.  I have friends who have enjoyed playing it.

    If you want to play as an investigator encountering Lovecraftian monsters and trying to defeat them, then Arkham Horror seems like a good choice.

    Cthulhu Wars is more of a battle royale of Lovecraftian horrors after the point where humanity has failed to stop them.  The designer is the same guy who created Call of Cthulhu.

    I have played Hills Rise Wild, which is sort of a miniatures game on a board.  Everyone controls hick cultists trying to get a hold of the Necronomicon.  It isn’t very good.

    I have just gotten Fate of the Elder Gods, where each player controls a cult and is trying to either be the first to summon their elder god or be the one who has gotten the least interference from investigators.  It looks good.

    Mythos Tales is in the style of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective.  You are given a map, a mystery and you travel around trying to piece together the solution, visiting locations and interviewing witnesses.  It isn’t a boardgame so much as a mystery story that the players try to solve and you can only complete each scenario once as you then know the solution.  It’s a brain bending experience though.

    Pulp Alley or Strange Aeons are miniatures games that work well for this type of setting.

    Hope you find a Mythos game that will work for you.

    Check out the list here, you can sort by rank.

    https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/5141/cthulhu-mythos

     

     

     

    #87726
    Avatar photoGone Fishing
    Participant

    Thank you for the detailed answer, Noel! Really appreciate it. I’ll look into both games…

    #87870
    Avatar photoNoel
    Participant

    No problem, happy to help.

    #106912
    Avatar photoNoel
    Participant

    https://generalgulliver.blogspot.com/2019/01/cemetery-creeps.html

    I did these a few months back, but forgot about posting them.

     

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