Arkham Incidents: Overall Review

This is a personal, largely spoiler free (or spoiler-vague) review of the fan-made scenario collection Arkham Incidents by The Beard for Arkham Horror the Card Game.

The Arkham Incidents are a collection of scenarios set around Arkham, each involving an iconic ally of a difference class. They follow a standardized template for all of them - if you have said ally in your deck they get to start in your opening hand, other allies of that ally's trait might give a bonus, they all have two rewards depending on how you beat them, and so on.

This standardization leads to the scenarios all having similiar highlights and lowlights. They're at their best when you can interact with the specific mechanics each of them is based around - Unscrupulous Investments, for example, cares a lot about how much money you have, both high and low. Being able to quickly gain - or spend - money will make the scenario far more engaging. If you can't interact with these, however, part of the scenarios feel locked off - there's things going on that you just don't have much control over. All five scenarios also struggle a bit in their final act - they each have a way to complete the scenario through clues or through combat, but those methods don't interact. Often, there's a simple best choice, which can leave some of the investigators without much to do on the last turn or two.

Of the scenarios, Too Noble and Mysterious Benefits feel the best. Too Noble has the least need for strange mechanics, instead focusing on a fun framing. Mysterious Benefits instead focuses on total resources and cards in hand - both gaining them and spending them, in amounts that anyone can do. The other three are a bit trickier - Something Big rewards clue drop mechanics, but still stands strong without many of them, the number of resources needed for Unscrupulous Investments can be difficult for some characters to hold onto, and Anything Once can be quite tricky due to strong enemies and potential location traps. None of the scenarios are bad, but they do ask you meet them where they are - leaning into the mechanics when possible, and being able to flex for the finales.

The Arkham Incidents are fun side scenarios, but work best when leaning heavily into their mechanics. The gimmicks of each are fun, but you need to make sure you can play with them.

More on Arkham Incidents:

Arkham Incidents: Overall
Too Noble: Review and Rewards
Something Big: Review and Rewards
Unscrupulous Investments: Review and Rewards
Anything Once: Review and Rewards
Mysterious Benefits: Review and Rewards