Eldritch Horror – What Is It?
Eldritch Horror is, in my opinion, a fantastic monster fighting turn-taking cooperative (or solo play) board game that puts you, the players, against the game in a battle to save the world.
Eldritch Horror is based on HP Lovecraft’s world of monsters and pits a team of investigators (that’s you) against creatures of other dimensions like Cthulu and Azathoth from Lovecraft’s creations and more familiar creatures from lore such as ghosts, cultists, vampires, zombies, and the mummy.
Be warned, Eldritch Horror is not for the feint of heart, it’s a complex game with many different things to remember and as much as my guide might help you, please do remember the rulebook and reference guide, you’ll need them the first few times you play. I would also like to point out at this point that Eldritch Horror has many expansions, this guide is predominantly for the base game but you may see references in the text and images to the expansions as I talk you through the game.
Objective (and Other Basic Concepts)
Save the world. Seems simple, right? In Eldritch Horror, the goal of the game is to defeat the ancient one (the boss monster) before it destroys the world. To do this, players work together to solve mysteries linked to the ancient one before the doom tracker (a simple way of knowing how close you are to doom and destruction) reaches zero. These mysteries comprise of things like defeating monsters and solving clues.
Eldritch Horror is predominantly a dice rolling game, which of course means there’s a lot of luck and not a massive amount of skill, but players do need to think carefully still about their turn as their actions are limited and can impact the whole game.
I feel it’s also important to note that Eldritch Horror can be played alone or with a group of up to 8, and the game itself scales its difficulty to the number of players, by generating more creatures and more clues the
more players there are, which is the first game I personally ever played that scales its difficulty and a concept I think is much needed in this game.
Game Unboxing and Setup (2-4 Players)
Eldritch Horror takes up a fair amount of space so you’ll need a decent table to play on. We use our extended dining table and sometimes still end up having piles of things elsewhere so I would definitely suggest some containers for your tokens to hand before you begin.
Inside the bod you’ll find a large game board (a map of the world with certain locations marked and routes set between them) which will need placing in the centre of your playspace, one rulebook and one reference guide which you’ll want to keep handy, 12 investigator sheets with matching character tokens, 4 ancient one sheets, a whole load of cards in two different sizes which will need separating into piles according to their backs and then shuffling well (apart from the purple backed mythos cards at this point), monster tokens which will need separating into two piles one for the regular monsters and one for the orange coloured epic monsters, and a whole variety of other tokens which will also need separating into their types, and of course some dice.
Now listen up, you will need to reference the rulebook to set up Eldritch Horror correctly, but essentially, you should have the board in the middle and all the tokens in their respective piles within reach. Each player should then choose (or randomly select) their investigator character and place that character sheet in front of them. On the reverse of the character sheets are instructions on starting position on the board (each character has it’s own start space) and which starting equipment each character has in their possession which you will place alongside the character sheet, and each character sheet on the front will show you a starting amount for health (the hearts) and sanity (the brains) which you will need to represent with tokens. Then players can choose (or randomly select) their ancient one and place this sheet where all players can see. The ancient one sheet will guide you with where to place your doom tracker marker and in how to create your mythos deck, this is how the game fights back and takes its turn. At this point, all the separate decks of cards should also be within reach of players.
Not quite ready to start yet… once everything on the table is set up you’ll need to put a few things into play on the board before you begin. You’ll need to use the reference card that corresponds to the number of players as the game creates a different number of things depending on how many people are playing the game. For example, in a two player game, the game will spawn one gate to another dimension, one monster, and one clue before the game begins.
There are expansion sets which add additional cards, characters, ancient ones, and tokens available.
Playing the Game
Now you’ve got past the setup (which honestly isn’t as complicated once you’ve done it a few times), you’ll play, and one round of gameplay looks a little like this:
1. Each player starting with the lead player takes it in turn to perform actions
2. Once each player has performed actions each player starting with the lead player takes it in turn to perform an encounter
3. Once each player has performed an encounter, draw and resolve a mythos card (the game’s turn)
4. Pass the lead player token on
The Action Phase – Each investigator can perform up to two actions, and can not perform the same action twice in the same turn
- Prepare for travel – gain a ship or train ticket (this allows you to move an additional space during the move action)
- Travel – Move along one of the routes on the board one space
- Rest – Gain back one health and one sanity (you can not do this if there is a monster on your space)
- Trade – Trade any number of posessions with another investigator on the same space as you
- Gain assets – Roll to see if you can gain new posessions (you can not do this unless you are on a city space with no mosters)
- Unique action – Investigator sheets and certain cards in play have their own unique action which can be performed by the player they belong to only
- Focus – There is an expansion which adds an additional action, focus, which is essentially a re-roll of one of your dice during a challenge (this is not available in the base game)
The Encounter Phase – Each investigator can resolve one encounter. The type of encounter you can resolve depends on where you are on the board and what tokens are on your space.
- Combat – If you are on a space containing monsters, you must do a combat encounter against all the monsters on the space, more details on how to fight monsters are in the rulebook
- Gate – If you are on a space containing a gate token you may choose to attempt to close the gate by resolving an other world encounter (these are typically harder than regular location encounters but can offer grater rewards)
- Clues – If you are on a space containing a clue token you may choose to attempt to solve the clue (useful for defeating the ancient one)
- Expedition – Locations such as Antartica or the Pyramids may have the expedition token on them, if you are on the space with this token you can resolve an expedition encounter (these are typically harder but offer grater rewards)
- Rumors – Sometimes the game will place rumor tokens around, these often need to be resolved quickly or they have some detrimental affects on the gameplay
- Defeated Investigators – In most situations, if an investigator runs out of health or sanity, their player marker is left on the board and other investigators on their space can try to collect their lost belongings
- Other Locations – These are standard encounter cards for when a person doesn’t have or chooses not to interact with other tokens on their space
The Mythos Phase – You will probably want to refer to the rulebook for this one but essentially you draw a single card from the mythos deck. Each card will have a number of symbols on the top which relate to actions such as spawning a new gate to another world, spawning clues, and creating a new rumor. These need to be completed in order. Once the symbols have been resolved the players can then read out the text on the card which also creates effects for the game, these can be negative effects such as spawning monsters or discarding possessions, or positive effects such as closing gates or improving skills. Once the whole card has been completed, players choose a new lead investigator to begin the next round.
Ending the Game
Essentially, the game ends when the mythos deck is depleted, the final mystery is solved, all investigators have been eliminated, or a game effect states “the investigators lose the game”. You’ll probably realize that three of those four ways to end the game result in a loss, but losing, and you will probably lose more than you win, still results in a very fun to play game.
Additional Things You Need To Know
Each investigator in Eldritch Horror has it’s own stats for skills. The skills are lore (the book), influence (the handshake), observation (the eye), strength (the person), and will (the head). Each of these is represented with a number which indicates how many dice you get to roll when doing a test of that type. Typically, 5s and 6s count as successes on dice.
Some of the cards in the game are double sided, you should only ever look at the front of these cards unless otherwise instructed. The backs usually contain information such as how successful your spell may be or what happens if you can’t heal your injury. Reading these ahead of time can spoil the game.
Generally, if a player’s investigator loses all their health or sanity, that investigator is eliminated, and at the end of the mythos phase they can select a new investigator to continue playing with. There are however certain effects that cause the investigator to be defeated or devoured entirely and in this case the player is eliminated too.
Under the solo game section of the reference guide book, the text states that the player can choose to control two investigators at once. This doesn’t have to apply to just the solo gamers, as a duo, my gaming partner and I regularly play with two characters each as it makes the game more interesting.
There is also an additional rule to allow the game difficulty to scale up or down a little. If you’re struggling with your first game, when you play again, use this guide to lower the difficulty.
Things to Remember!
1. Eldritch Horror is a cooperative game where you go up against the game to win or lose together
2. Setup looks complex and the rules are extensive but after one or two playthroughs you’ll soon get the hang of it and enjoy the game even more
3. Most things you do will be determined by your dice rolls, the more dice you can roll the better chance you have of success
4. Keep the reference guide handy at all times, it’s a valuable resource for your game
5. You can score your playthrough, there is a guide to scoring in the reference booklet
6. Practice makes perfect. Play a trial game to help you remember the possible actions and use the rulebook for guidance
7. Have fun!
About the Author:
My name is Charlotte and I’m a married mum of two boys, one with special needs, and one who is turning into a gamer like me. I love board and video games and have been playing games since before I can remember. Eldritch Horror was my first complex longer play-time board game and I fell in love with it instantly, it’s still one of my favourites today, probably because I love all things monsters!
