The rules are quite simple and quickly explained: at setup all players take a random faction card (hero or monster), all remaining faction cards are removed. Then, each player draws three character cards, and the game begins. In your turn, you can always choose between two options: playing a card from your hand or drawing a new card. The limit of hand-cards is three, so after set-up you always have to play a card. All cards are played in front of the players, and count as victory points at the game’s end. Most cards are hero or monster cards, only a few are neutral and do not count as victory points. All cards have an effect, which can either be good for the active player or bad for her or his opponents.

Although a clever strategy to strengthen your own forces is a reasonable way to win the game, you should not forget that destroying the other players front cards can also bring out some very positive effects to you. “The abomination from the deep” effect for example lets all visible hero cards, except those in your own area, vanish from the table. Other cards let other cards move from one area to another or enables the active player to take a random card from another player.

Professor Lake, as a hero, helps you to put all “Horrifying Hieroglyph” cards from one player to your own area. These special cards count as an extra victory point at the end of the game, so they are quite valuable.

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It is always important to have the remaining cards of the drawing deck in mind, because the game ends immediately, after the last character card has been drawn. All cards still in the hand are discarded at that time, and do not count for the final score. Now the faction card each player drei at the beginning of the game comes into play, with named characters on it in the active players area giving extra points. It is the player’s aim to collect as many characters as possible from the faction of this card, for only this faction count as victory points (on the contrary all cards in the player area of the opposite faction count as negative victory points).

As you can see the rules are fast explained and really simple. We tried the game with few and more players, and I can say it is much more exciting with more players, because you simply have more options to take cards and switch cards between the players. It is also harder to find out, whose faction might be hero or monster.

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Monsters vs. Heroes guarantees a lot of fun in a short playing time. The game is a nice pastime to round off a heavy gaming night. The character cards are nicely illustrated in a typical Lovecraft thirties style, with a lot of the well-known Lovecraft’s characters. But even if you have never heard of H. P. Lovecraft before or if you are not interested in those mystic stories, I hope you will have a lot of fun with Monsters vs. Heroes: Volume 2 – Cthulhu Mythos. I, personally, had!