The Lovecraftian setting in board games is nothing new: da Call of Cthulhu a Arkham horror e Eldritch Horror, from Myth to the most recent The Mountains of Madness, the playful landscape is full of works inspired by the stories of Lovecraft.
The public success of these boardgames is undeniable, so it is not surprising that the CMON wanted to re-propose the theme, obviously enriching it with his well-known miniatures. Cthulhu - death may die, signed by the duo Rob Daviau e Eric M. Lang it will be launched tonight at 21.00 pm on kickstarter and already promises to be a triumph. Let's see some details on this new, interesting project.
What is it?
In Cthulhu - death may die, from 1 to 5 players will take on the role of investigators, who will find themselves facing the advent of a Old (Elder One), a god about to be summoned following an impossible-to-stop ritual (and obviously already triggered at the start of the game). The aim of the investigators is to damage the ritual in order to make the Ancient mortal for a brief moment, after summoning, and to be able to destroy it in this way.
Each game has a different scenario: this will determine which threats and cards will be activated, which monsters and Cultists the players will have to face and what objectives they will have to pursue; as you can guess, it is a collaborative game in which the investigators will cooperate in order to arrive at the epic final battle against the Ancient and kill him.
The mechanics
As for the dynamics, for the moment the CMON revealed that players will manage their characters through personal boards in which to keep track of their progress, damage suffered, skills learned, as well as the level of madness reached and determined by the "Insanity Cards". This feature is particularly interesting, as reaching a certain level of madness can be useful for triggering some special abilities; conversely, if an investigator goes completely insane or is killed before the Ancient comes, all players will lose, so it's important to find a balance. The progress of the story will instead be kept under an eye through the "Story Board", through which it will also be possible to know how much is missing from the advent of the Ancient.
The mechanics don't seem particularly difficult; during the turn, each player will be able to carry out three of the following actions: move, attack an enemy miniature, stand still to recover his vital signs or exchange items with the other investigators present on site. In short, the possible actions are very reminiscent Zombicide. There will also be a narrative component, given by the fishing of cards Myth at the end of each investigator's turn; these cards will indicate how to advance the story and what events will mark our characters.
Impressions
The project has been making headlines for months now, not only for the theme that the public obviously likes, but also for the predominant feature of the products CMON: the (objectively) beautiful miniatures. The images released in recent days even depict a giant "statue" of Cthulhu the size of a child; it is certainly of effect, although some perplexity can be expressed about its actual usefulness for the purposes of the game. Summing up, the game does not seem complex at first glance and the project is certainly interesting. Most likely it will not be a cheap product (also given the amount of miniatures and Cthulhu giant format), but there is no doubt that it will be a must have for collectors of the genre.
We just have to wait for the campaign to start.
