Fantasy Flight GamesArkham Horror The Card Game: Mythos Pack - 2.1. Echoes of the Past, Card Game, Ages 14+, 1 to 4 Players, 60 to 120 Minutes Playing Time

Caveat Emptor indeed. It wasn't at all clear in the ads or even on Fantasy Flight's own website, both of which -in both product descriptions plus the fact the original set is out of print- give the impression this is a revamped and complete version of 'The Dunwich Legacy'. But the fact is this is NOT everything you need to play any version of 'The Dunwich Legacy', so if you do not have that box set already -and it is not easy or cheap to get (Fantasy Flight themselves are out of stock and the cheapest -only!- english-language edition on Amazon costs over £50: fully twice the rrp!)- this is not a recommended purchase.However. What 'Return to the Dunwich Legacy' is, is EXACTLY what the title says: no more, no less -pedantically, a number of cards (a LARGE number) that CAN be used in place of cards that were already included in the core 'Arkham Horror' set and the 'The Dunwich Legacy' expansion set, but which both those products will still play fine without. And a nice box you can keep them all in, with headed separator cards to help organize them by scenario (for the scenario cards) and by set (such as 'rats', and 'creeping chill' etc). There are even titled separator cards prepared for the other expansion sets ('mythos packs') such as 'The Miskatonic Museum' and 'The Essex County Express', none of which cards are included in 'Return''.The marketing stategy is clear -to maximize income from each scenario set while at the same time maximizing replayability for the existing playerbase: a win-win for all in the final analysis, but 'all' defined as only FFG, lcg retailers and those long-time players. (The Ancient Ones?) New players -like myself- meanwhile are presented with an obstacle that may deter further investment/exploration of the hobby if they buy the product thinking it appears to be a new 'deluxe' edition of the otherwise largely unavailable (or at least elusive) 1st expansion and then it arrives and turns out to be merely an expansion of the expansion, so to speak.Having said all that, if I can track down a copy of the original expansion for a reasonable price (and at time of writing I think I may have) I suspect the 'Return'' box will be well worth it, hence the generous 4 stars for a product that I cannot make use of as yet.[Edit] I revisited the FFG website and checked and while the description for the 'Return to The Night of the Zealot' box does in fact make it clear the contents still require a copy of the original 'Night of the Zealot' from the core set, the description for 'Return the The Dunwich Legacy' entirely fails to spell it out. Which is the wrong way round: Zealot was the non-optional core set (you couldn't play the game without it), so any and all purchasers of 'Return...Zealot' would already have the cards they needed -the same is not true of 'Return...Dunwich Legacy' as the original 'Dunwich Legacy' was an optional expansion. Therefore they should be making it explicit in the promo material for 'Return...Dunwich Legacy' (and all future 'Returns') that the original expansion sets will be required to make use of the cards in 'Return...' [end Edit]

TLDR: Very little effort has been made to introduce the game to casual gamers and the first play session is a brick wall that many gamers will not enjoy climbing.This game looks fun and it’s clear it’s the most accessible LCG on the market but after trying to play 1 session some things are very clear:*the gsm of the cards is very low compared to say hogwarts battle or pandemic and protectors will be required for everything since this is the core set, genuine card and token protectors can double the true cost of this product.*there is no dice bag included but it is required, this seems a bit mean.*the rules are very complex, there is a QuickStart guide which is the length of a typical games rules. There is then a 30 page rule book that is simply an alphabetised glossary. The game is pretty much unplayable until you have read and memorised this cover to cover as all the exceptions completely change the gameplay and you will meet exceptions every turn.I would say this is no more complicated than say Hogwarts Battle but HB introduces the rules with such well thought out grace over 10 sessions and Arkham makes no effort to ease into the complexity. Ultimately it is up to the main player to explain the game in it’s entirity to a new player and I could not get my wife to play this game, who happily plays HB and Pandemic. It took me 2 weeks of reading the rules instead of playing to memorise them all.

Bought this about a week ago and my wife and I have played it almost every night. The story is great and the challenge is right up there.We couldn't successfully complete the campaign in our first few plays but it was fun chatting after losing about what we could've done better. Once we tried a different 2 investigators and dumped the suggested original 2 we started to make progress. On our second attempt we absolutely smashed the 1st scenario, scrapped through the 2nd and are playing the 3rd and final one tonight.There's lots of cards that I think will keep replayability high, not to mention the options that the expansions bring to the table.The components are the usual FFG great quality although I would've liked some more resource tokens but that's just nit picking.We REALLY love this game, so much so that the postie delivered the 1st upgrade "The Dunwich Legacy" to us this very morning! I've never bought a game expansion so soon after buying a core set so that should tell you something.If you like The Lord of the Rings LCG or something similar like Warhammer Adventure Card game and enjoy a bit of tension and horror then this game could be right up you street.A keeper!

Lets get the negative out of the way firstThe cons:It has a very steep learning curve, I recommend watching some YouTube videos there are a load of them(the Arkham Chronicle ones are very clear and entertaining to boot) but once you get your head around them you'll be okay.It's brutal... prepare to fail. I have no idea how anyone could survive on hard or expert! But it is very tough.Okay now lets get positive. You maybe wondering why I've given the game 5 stars with cons. It's because once you learn the rules it's not a problem and if I went through the story in one sitting it wouldn't be any fun at all, but for you if you get frustrated with games you can't pick up right away or that are tough on you maybe this isn't the game for you.The Pros:The story is very well done. The artwork on the cards is excellent. The gameplay is loads of fun with unpredictable events and challenges. Don't worry about replay value. Okay once you have played through the first time you will know the story but trying it with different characters and difficulties + deck building and fan made scenarios on boardgamegeek will keep you busy