Loving Lovecraft and Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu

As you guys know, I’m a huge fan of the Cthulhu/H.P. Lovecraft universe. One of my gaming groups and I try to play Arkham Horror about once every other month. These are the guys I’ve dubbed affectionately as the Arkham Guys. So when Pandemic re-themed its game in that world, I was totally excited.

I’m pretty indifferent to the original Pandemic game, but I do recognize its place in being a great gateway game to get more people into the hobby. And I did a Pandemic Legacy campaign earlier this year, which was a fun experience. And funny enough, my friends who I played Pandemic Legacy with got me  Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu for my birthday this year. Woohoo!

Pandemic Cthulhu is a beautiful game with awesome miniatures, great components, and, in my opinion, a more streamlined but punishing than the original game. There are 7 different roles to choose from, and, instead of diseases, there are cultists and shoggoths filling the board.

You as investigators are trying to seal gates in four cities in the Lovecraft world: Arkham, Innsmouth, Dunwich and Kingsport. (Totally nerdy aside — if you haven’t read any Lovecraft, I highly recommend. The best stories take place in these areas.) You all lose if Cthulhu awakens, there aren’t enough cultists or shoggoths to fill the board, you run out of player cards, or all players are insane.

The game plays similarly to the original Pandemic. You have 4 action points you can use on your turn — some of these actions include traveling from location to location, removing cultists (like you would remove disease cubes), and giving or taking cards from one another. Removing shoggoths from the board require 3 action points but you gain a relic.

You can also move from gate to gate but that would require rolling the sanity die, which can result in nothing, a hit in your sanity, or adding cultists to your location. If you lose all your sanity, you become insane and your character card is flipped over, and you have reduced powers. A player can restore his or her sanity by sealing a gate while insane, which then transports the character to the church or hospital.

Players take their turn and summoning cards are flipped over to show where to add new cultists on the board. The shoggoth also moves closer to a gate when certain summoning cards are drawn. When a location surpasses three cultists, instead of an outbreak, an Awakening happens. When this occurs, the next Great Old One is awakened, which has awful effects for the game. As more Great Old Ones are flipped over, the number of summoning cards flipped over at each turn gets larger.

Shuffled among the player deck are Evil Stirs cards. These are like the Epidemic cards of the original game. The character who drew the card has to roll the sanity dice, an Awakening happens, a shoggoth appears on the board, and then the summoning cards are reshuffled and placed on top of the summoning deck.

If you run out of cultists or shoggoths, or you awaken Cthulhu, it’s game over. And you are devoured. This game is punishing, but it’s quick and plays about 40 minutes. Plus, most gamers know how to play the original Pandemic game so it’ll be easy to jump right in. Plus, the miniatures and artwork are just so freaking awesome.

Who out there has played this game?