Relevant personal background: My CCG background is limited entirely to Magic: The Gathering, which I played off and on for years. I started playing the original release, dabbled in some of the expansions, dropped everything out of financial frustration, then got back into it a couple of years later. I never aspired towards tournament play, however I enjoyed being competitive with my deck. I just couldn't keep up with all the cards, and had fewer and fewer people to play with.
With this in mind, the LCG model - which takes the random 'baseball card' collecting mechanism out of building a deck - interested me greatly. I also find that I am happier in the role of a casual player, and was looking for a card game I could play out of the box with my wife.
My interest in Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos was enough to put me over the edge and pick up a copy of the Call of Cthulhu LCG at my local game store. This is my first review on the Geek, and while I realize many good CoC LCG reviews have been written (covering rules and cards in much more depth) I'm hoping this one might be another helpful opinion for casual players looking to get involved at the ground level with a Core Set.
=Below expectation=At expectation=Exceeds expectationQUALITY/QUANTITY/TYPE OF BITS
The domain drain markers (solid, heavy plastic Cthulhu figurines) are a very nice touch. The cards are well printed and finished on nice heavy cardstock. Though I may receive threatening messages from CCGers, I'm a big fan of the white borders on these CoC LCG cards. I don't keep my cards in sleeves, and I know they're going to get handled. Unless they print them on solid black core paper, I think the white edges wear better. The board is solid, a simple horizontal bi-fold, clearly laying out the center of the action between the two players.
The Rulebook has large print and clear directions, including a lot of good examples. Especially helpful is a full-page flow chart, which explains a lot of the dicier timing mechanics. Having said this, I find myself posting a lot of questions on the Geek, anyway, then learning later that the flow-chart would have answered my question just fine.
I do wish they had included 6 designated domain cards, 3 for each player. I know it's not a huge problem to place three unused cards upside down to do the job (as stated in the rulebook) however domain drain markers could have been cardboard chits instead of statuettes, and that would have been one less nice touch, too. When packing up after a game, I've almost always packed up the domain marker cards in the deck I was playing, and have to dig them out later after realizing my error.
The box is well constructed, but enormous. The insert becomes useful in an upside down position in the box once you crack open the three provided cellophane-wrapped stacks of cards. I suppose all the space is for your Asylum Pack purchases in the future? But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Personally, I removed all the parts, put the cards in a smaller box, and keep the chits and domain markers in tupperware until I can build a nice box to hold everything. Alternatively, take a look at Poor Ronnie's lovely tuckboxes, here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/43265
ARTWORK
As a fan of the Cthulhu literature, I'm used to imagining all of the monsters and madness in my head. The box illustrations, and those on many of the cards, therefore, fall short of the mark for me. This is no fault of the illustrators (they had to make images of some sort, after all, and they draw well). It's kind of like reading Tolkien, however, and then finding an illustrated copy that doesn't quite gel with what you had imagined.
My attraction to Cthulhu stories include the lurking but unrevealed nature of the creatures, the slow onset and/or abrupt shock of madness from terrors explained by the protagonist but not fully exposed to the reader, and the implication of terrific and portentous eventualities, barely staved off by humans on the verge of darkness. Less the head-on physical clash of man vs. mind vs. beast (aiming pistols at twelve-headed and betentacled demons) I may have reacted better to more atmospheric - less illustrative - imagery.
GAMEPLAY
Playing with only the Core Set, matching two 20 card factions together, plus 7 neutral cards each for a deck of 47 per side, has been a blast. In my first 8 games, there have been no runaway blowouts, no stalling, and plenty of good fretting, bluffing, and nail-biting.
Using the above setup, both players have roughly 50 cards each to use in an effort to be the first to win three Story Cards. They achieve this using characters, events, and support cards from their deck, choosing some cards to play out of their hands, and others to contribute as permanent resources among the player's three domains. Each of the three resource domains can be drained - once per turn cycle - in offensive and defensive actions, including bringing out new characters, playing support cards, and paying for events and card-specific abilities. Characters and support cards may only be played during a player's own turn, while events may be played at various stages throughout both players' turns in an effort to help or hinder their respective progress in completing stories.
Judicious resource management - knowing when to add cards to a domain, and when to drain domains - is a huge part of a successful strategy, as is deciding how to deploy characters, support cards, and events. Do you commit all of your characters to a story? This exhausts your characters, generally meaning they can not be used to challenge your opponent while they commit characters to stories themselves. Do you sit back on your heels and play defense? This may keep your opponents victories to a minimum, however don't get too far behind or you might not catch up again. A balance of offense and defense, as well as holding on to some disruptive event cards, always seems to lead to good matchups, and more than a few surprises.
OVERALL
More often than not, while playing this game - with many faction pairings and against a variety of opponents - I find myself very pleasantly satisfied. I initially thought I would be luke warm on this game as it is not so much story driven in a narrative sense (see the Mythos card game), as the idea of stories simply represent a central game mechanic. That being said, the effects of winning stories - indicated on each story card by special text - has swayed a couple of games both in my favor, and against me when employed by my opponent. I like that aspect of the game, because I do not feel I am simply throwing my characters at whatever story is unoccupied, just to get a quick victory. Depending on the tabletop situation, and what my hand looks like, certain stories become much more attractive, and I find myself willing to take bigger risks to challenge the other player for their completion.
Overall, and regardless of what factions I match up with my opponents, the Core Set covers enough ground that I feel I can make intelligent choices to counter my opponent's strengths, with rare instances of simply drawing a useless lot of cards and getting railroaded on any particular turn. The factions seem fairly character heavy, which is fine for the Core Set experience. As an introduction to the game, I expect to mostly manage my critters and investigators, do my best to play off of my opponent's weaknesses in that department, then throw in some well-timed events to elicit groans of frustration from the other side of the table.
Explaining the rules to new players has been very easy, and much of the basic gameplay is very intuitive, or explained well enough on the cards themselves, that very few training rounds have been necessary.
For people looking to get a good 2 player game for casual play, grab the Core Set. If you want to expand your options and get trickier, the Asylum Packs add a lot of dimension to the factions, especially with the addition of more unique event cards. More than wrangling creatures and crunching numbers to calculate the outright winner in a contested story, these expansions provide deck builders the opportunity to get sneakier in their strategies . . . in accordance with the Cthulhu theme, nothing is as it seems.
It's always worse."
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