Preparing for Arcs: The Blighted Reach - Learn to Play the Base Game!

If you want to play the campaign version of Arcs (Arcs: The Blighted Reach), join us at Pandemonium for a demoed session to learn and play the base game! You’re especially welcome if you’ve never before played hobby board games (and are curious about where to start). 

We’re going to start demoing games that take more than one session to play at Pandemonium, and our first selection is going to be Arcs: The Blighted Reach. Internet wisdom recommends familiarity with the base game, so we want to give folks a chance to learn (and practice!) before jumping into the deep end (so to speak).

So what is Arcs? Foremost, it’s an aggressive game about galactic hegemony and conquest. To succeed, you have to outcompete players, sometimes with cunning and other times with brute force; ambitious and bold plays – with a dash of necessary adaptability – drive this game, rather than mastery of the mechanics.

But how does the game work? Fundamentally, it’s a card game – although more akin to poker than ones with trading cards. Arcs takes the uncertainty and tension of moving tiny fleets of miniatures typical to the space opera genre and abstracts it to a trick-taking game. Every player knows what cards are in the deck and can see what other people play, so it becomes a matter of guessing what folks will do and holding on to your trump card for just the right moment to take the actions you want. Furthermore, instead of having predetermined public objectives or overall paths to victory, Arcs asks each player to choose what conditions will earn points each round and then bet (indirectly) on whether or not they’ll be able to take the victory. The problem is that choosing that round’s objective tips one’s hand, and every other player has an equal chance of claiming what you hope to make your own.

WHY MIGHT I WANT TO PLAY THE CAMPAIGN?

The campaign sees players take on a heavily-modified version of the base game and discover how your small faction within a dying space empire grows, shifts, and shapes the fate of the galaxy in which you all live.

To discover this story, you play through three sessions of the game. But instead of playing for points, you and everyone else at the table will have a specific objective that you’ll either complete or fail to achieve. How you play one game will influence the makeup of your faction in the next game and just how powerful the dying empire’s starships (and all-consuming alien blight) become.

So if either sounds like fun to you, and you don’t mind putting in some time to try it out, come out to one or both of these events in March. And if you think you already know Arcs well enough, then feel free to sign up for the campaign game in April!

RULES FOR ATTENDING: 

• Proof of COVID vaccination is required at EVERY EVENT. Either the presentation of the physical card or a clear picture will suffice. Pandemonium does not keep any records, written or otherwise, of vaccination status.
• Advance online registration is required.
• Anyone not registered in an ongoing event will not be allowed in the event space to maintain capacity limits.
• No food will be allowed in our event space for the time being. Drinking is allowed.