Mansions of Madness: Second Edition (2016)

How to Play Mansions of Madness: Second Edition

Overview

In Mansions of Madness 2nd edition, you take the role of investigators entering different locations situated throughout the Cthulhu Mythos. At the start of the game, you will have a brief overview from the digital companion app about your mission and enter your chosen scenario. In the beginning, you will not have the means to win. But upon furthering the story and finding relevant clues the path to victory will become clear.

One essential part of this game is the Mansions of Madness application (the app) for your phone, smart device, or computer. One of the downsides to this game is that using a phone will force one or more players to narrate and direct token and miniature placement during the game.

Each investigator specializes in different stats and abilities. They will start the game with a set number of equipment, spells, and clue tokens. Fans of Fantasy Flight’s Arkham Files games will be seeing plenty of familiar faces.

Gameplay

A normal round starts with the investigator phase. Each investigator will have two actions from the list of; move, explore, search, interact, attack, or component actions. You will spend most of your time moving, searching, and interacting with points of interest, which will allow you to further the story and eventually find a path to victory. All interactions and explorations are through the app, whether you are clicking on interact tokens or exploring new rooms. The app will tell you what you’re investigating or direct you what tiles and tokens to place in the board.

While exploring and interacting, investigators will make checks with the special 8-sided dice provided with the game. Each test you make while exploring will require you to roll a certain number of successes with some tests being cumulative over each action towards it. By exploring and interacting with the map, investigators will find more clues, items, and evidence to help complete the scenario. Once all players have completed their chosen two actions the game moves to the Mythos phase.

Mythos phase

The Mythos phase is where the game makes your life terrible. It will start with an event, generally focused on a certain room or investigator. Once that is complete it will possibly spawn monsters and cultists, who will move and attack. The end of the Mythos phase culminates in horror checks for those close enough to enemies that their sanity must be checked.

When your health reaches zero you gain an injury card. If your sanity becomes zero you gain an insanity condition. The difference being is that the insanity cards have alternate win conditions for that specific player. Sometimes these may be setting all the spaces on fire or making sure every token is removed from the board. It may even be helping to sabotage the other players making sure the monsters win. Upon losing sanity or health a second time an investigator is eliminated giving the remaining players one turn to win the game or become defeated.

Eventually, it will become clear what is needed for the players to win. By the time this happens the game board is usually filled with enemies and has grown exponentially, pushing the investigators’ resources to their limits. Upon completion of the scenario, the narrator returns to give you a debrief of the mission.

Mansions of Madness: Second Edition Review

“If you love the Cthulhu Mythos and other Arkham Files games such as Eldritch Horror, Arkham Horror, and Arkham Horror LCG, this is a game you can sink your teeth (or tentacles) into. Mansions of Madness: Second Edition has an immersive story with the flavor of a dungeon crawl, great minis, a solid app. Its shortfalls include the app being a struggle on smaller devices, tile organization and bloat, and possibly losing the scenario after three hours of playtime.”

George Botelho, boardgamequest.com

“At it’s heart, Mansions of Madness is an adventure game with a touch of horror. Whichever role you play, you’re in over your head, but the fun is in exploration and discovery. Though you may become wounded or lose your mind along the way, it is possible to win…

Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition is a great example of how to update a board game, fix huge issues with the inclusion of an app, and treat your fans right. If you love the concept, you’ll love the execution here. It’s an immersive game that is quite challenging but a lot of fun to play, and I highly recommend it.”

Wolfie, islaythedragon.com

“I will say this however, that Mansions of Madness is my favourite game of 2016 and is in stiff competition with the Arkham Horror LCG for the best game in Fantasy Flight Games’ Arkham series. It’s got atmosphere, puzzles, tactical miniature combat and exploration. I have already racked up more hours of enjoyable gameplay than any other game I purchased in 2016 and if you are weighing up a game based on ‘bang for buck’, in my opinion Mansions of Madness Second Edition has already payed it’s due.”

Steve, polyhedroncollider.com

The content of this article is originally from Board Game Geek and boardgamequest.com. For more information and a better understanding of the game, you can watch the videos below.