Arkham Horror LCG First Game Guide 2026: Setup, Rules, Skill Tests & Solo Play

Buy Arkham Horror: The Card Game Chapter Two Core Set if you are starting fresh. Fantasy Flight released it in March 2026 as the current evergreen entry. It contains five investigators, a usable player-card pool, tokens, and the three-scenario Brethren of Ash campaign. It is not a new edition of the rules; it is the new foundation and Current-environment entry point.

If you already own Revised Core, keep it. That box is still fully compatible and remains the cleanest physical foundation for the Chapter One library. Fantasy Flight now calls older releases the Legacy environment, but “legacy” does not mean obsolete. The card backs, core rules, and campaign model still work together.

The practical fork is simple: Chapter Two for a new collection, Revised Core for an existing Chapter One collection. Do not buy both before you know you want both eras.

The box gives one to four players the physical foundation: investigator mini cards, investigator and player cards, scenario cards, locations, act and agenda decks, encounter cards, health and sanity resources, clues and doom, and the chaos bag tokens used by every test. The campaign guide supplies the exact setup and story resolutions.

Before sorting by art or color, separate the three jobs: player cards build investigator decks, scenario cards create the current case, and core components are reused every game. Keep encounter sets together by the small set symbol at the bottom of the card. That symbol is more useful than the card title when the setup list asks you to find a packet.

Use the campaign guide, not a photograph of somebody else’s table. Choose the campaign and scenario, read only the setup section, gather every named encounter set by symbol, place the act and agenda in their starting state, build the location map exactly as instructed, then assemble the chaos bag for the chosen difficulty.

Each investigator chooses a legal deck and reads both sides of the investigator card. Put the mini card at the stated starting location. Take five resources and draw five opening cards. Perform one mulligan: set aside any unwanted non-weakness cards, draw replacements, then shuffle the set-aside cards back into the deck. Weaknesses drawn during setup are handled according to the rules rather than casually redrawn.

Think of the table as three zones. The scenario zone holds the act, agenda, encounter deck, and location map. Each investigator zone holds a deck, discard pile, investigator card, resources, and assets. The shared edge holds damage, horror, clues, doom, and the chaos bag.

Put the act and agenda where every player can read their thresholds. Leave space around locations because enemies, clues, and investigator mini cards will accumulate there. Keep each investigator’s threat area distinct; enemies and treacheries there are not communal decoration. The clean layout prevents timing mistakes because the physical location of a card tells the table who controls the problem.

After the first-round exception, each round follows four phases. In the Mythos phase, place doom, check the agenda threshold, and have each investigator draw and resolve one encounter card. In the Investigation phase, investigators take turns and each gets three actions. In the Enemy phase, Hunter enemies move and engaged ready enemies attack. In Upkeep, ready exhausted cards, draw one card, and gain one resource.

The investigators choose their order in the Investigation phase, and that order may change every round. Let the clue lead wait while the fighter clears an enemy. Let the support investigator move first if a boost must arrive before a difficult test. “Whose turn?” is a tactical question, not a seating chart.

A skill test names one of four skills: willpower, intellect, combat, or agility. Start with the investigator’s value, add eligible icons from committed cards and active bonuses, reveal one chaos token, resolve its modifier or symbol text, then compare the final total with the difficulty. Equal or higher succeeds.

Only commit cards that are legal for the test. Another investigator at your location may usually commit one card to your test; the investigator taking the test may commit any legal number. The auto-fail token makes the test fail regardless of total, so a giant commitment can reduce ordinary risk without removing all risk.

The bag is not a memory contest. Keep the scenario reference card visible because its symbol effects can change with difficulty and scenario state.

An investigator gets three actions and may move, investigate, draw, gain a resource, play a card, activate an action ability, engage, fight, evade, parley, or resign when allowed. While engaged with one or more ready enemies, taking an action other than fight, evade, parley, or resign provokes an attack of opportunity from each engaged ready enemy.

That means drawing a card, gaining a resource, moving away, investigating, or playing most assets can be brutally expensive while engaged. Deal with the enemy or have a teammate engage it away first. Also remember that attacking an enemy engaged with another investigator can damage that investigator if the attack fails. Arkham permits heroism; it invoices carelessness.

Use one investigator if your priority is learning timing and card anatomy. You manage one hand, one threat area, and three actions. Choose a flexible investigator with a credible clue plan and a credible enemy plan.

Use two investigators if your priority is learning the game’s team puzzle. One deck can lean toward clues while the other controls enemies. Two-handed solo is more administration, but it smooths the extremes of true solo and makes scenario pacing resemble multiplayer.

For the first scenario, do not optimize both decks between every action. Play open-handed, narrate triggers, and use a simple token or coin to mark which investigator has finished the turn. The second hand should add tactical possibility, not bookkeeping fog.

Resolve the immediate question from the physical rulebook or the latest Arkham Grimoire. If the answer still is not clear, choose a reasonable temporary ruling, write the question down, and keep playing. A ten-minute forum search in the middle of a scene costs more atmosphere than one reversible mistake.

For a guided watch, Fantasy Flight’s official beginner page links Watch It Played’s full tutorial. For deck and campaign bookkeeping, Arkham Cards is excellent, but the physical act, agenda, scenario reference, and investigator cards remain the live table’s source of truth.

Nothing until you finish the Core campaign. If the group loved the story and wants a larger arc, choose one Campaign Expansion. If the group loved building decks, add one current investigator deck such as Tommy Muldoon or Marie Lambeau. Do not buy a random old Mythos Pack: the legacy release model split campaigns across a deluxe box and six packs, and a single orphan pack is not a campaign.

Continue with Volume II: Deckbuilding and Campaign Teams when your first question changes from “what can I do?” to “what should this deck do?”