Secrets Of The Order Arkham Horror Review

Arkham Horror Third Edition Secrets of the Order is the third, addition to the Arkham Horror Third Edition board game. It combines Lovecraft’s stories and lore, elements of the second edition of the board game with the best of the LCG card game to build engaging stories and challenging scenarios, keeping players on their toes.

It offers the same thrilling cooperative gameplay as the base game, but with added layers of new mechanics, complexity, and scale.

Building from the base game, one to six players take on the role of investigators working together to uncover the hidden secrets of the order of the silver twilight and foul creatures that go bump in the night.

More Of What Works

With the 3 included scenarios, the story tension is there. WIthout going into spoilers, this expansion goes above and beyond previous entries/ expansions to immerse the players in the game with an engaging story. Lovecraftian games, and the stories themselves, might all have a very familiar underlying story, but this expansion goes into more effort to make the story immersive which sets it above the other expansions in the series, and the base game itself.

The expansion comes with 4 characters we’ve previously met in other lovecraftian games - with origin in the lore and games themselves. As Arkham Horror Third edition is famous for, the characters are balanced and designed so that each feels unique, each feels strong, and each has the ability to be tailored to achieve different playstyles. As is the case with other Arkham Horror Third edition expansions, making teams with combinations of these unique character playstyles, with the inherent randomization, gives every playthrough an entirely unique feeling - meaning the same players can play the same scenario and just change up their characters/ character specifics and have an entirely new experience.

Bringing In The New

There are less things in the box than the second expansion, but the reduced price, and the quality of what is included, explains the difference.

There are more headlines, events, encounters, allies, spells, items, and special cards, as well as 20 new monsters and cards for a new condition, and a new anomaly set. As with other expansions, many of these are compatible with the base game, and other expansions. This means that they can bring a new feeling to the original base game scenarios, breathing fresh life into playthroughs of those scenarios. More than just new monsters, this expansion brings in new abilities to those monsters, again giving it a new feel compared to the base game. I don’t want to go into the details for fear of spoilers, but the changes made really shake up how the monsters behave and how the players naturally interact with them, which in turn changes the functionality of some of the previous characters.

It wouldn’t be an Arkham Horror expansion without new tiles. This one contains 2 new tiles, which both have 1 existing side, and 1 new side with relevant encounter cards etc. The inclusion of the existing side enables bigger maps, and may be a sign of greater max expansions to come. There’s also another lone mystery tile, first introduced in Under Dark Waves, which comes with its own deck with multiple choice options for narrative. It also bring a new tile type for joining tiles in a unique way, and associated deck of cards. It would be spoilers to explain it, but just as they’ve done with previous expansions it involves changes to the way players can move.

The Downsides

The bigger sized maps aren’t alway a blessing. They can be unhelpfully shaped, and (without giving away too many details), movement can become something to pay careful attention to in order to really maximize gameplay. With some good coordination and strategy this can be overcome, but with a bit of bad luck this can become tedious.

It also doesn’t change the gameplay much. There’s more of the things that work for the base game, and there are a few things to change mechanics - but if you’ve already gotten one of the previous expansions then it’s largely more content of the same type. That’s great if that’s what you’re looking for (it was what I was looking for when I got it!), but if you were hoping to shake up the formula a bit then it’ll fulfill that less.

As with the base game and other expansions, poor luck can be the end of a party - and the games can feel more like an endurance race than a rollercoaster fight. This heavily aligns with the eldritch horror theme it’s based on, but if you get unlucky with rolls, or if things go badly, it can sap some of the fun.

Final Thoughts

I’ve only played this Secrets of the Order expansion with 2 players, so don’t know how well-balanced play is for higher or lower player counts.

With various effects, monster changes, and the like, allies are a big focus of this expansion. In a way, it makes a cooperative game even more cooperative. It also puts pressure on the players early on, and keeps that pressure until the end.

For these reasons, if you want a challenging game that adds more of what you love about the base game while giving a new feel to gameplay, then this is the game for you.