When comparing Arkham Horror vs Azul, the Slant community recommends Arkham Horror for most people. In the question“What are the best board games?” Arkham Horror is ranked 21st while Azul is ranked 48th. The most important reason people chose Arkham Horror is:
Currently there are 8 licensed expansions on the manufacturer's site. There are also many fan made expansions available online as well thanks to the games large and friendly community. Both the manufacturer's and community expansions add plenty of new content to the game including cards, investigators, board addons, Heralds (mini-bosses), Ancient Ones, spells, and items.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Lots of expansion boards available
Currently there are 8 licensed expansions on the manufacturer's site. There are also many fan made expansions available online as well thanks to the games large and friendly community. Both the manufacturer's and community expansions add plenty of new content to the game including cards, investigators, board addons, Heralds (mini-bosses), Ancient Ones, spells, and items.
Pro Scales well from solo to large groups
The game supports up to 8 players, which is something of a feat for a game of its size and components. Makes for a great party game due to the size of players it allows. However, at the lower end it can also be enjoyed with one or two players, making it great for intimate gaming session. No matter how few players you have available, you'll be able to enjoy the game.
Pro Great challenge for those that enjoy difficult games
The win conditions of the game are quite slim and require one to know the rules ins and outs, so while not a game for casual players it is a game for the hardcore who enjoy a challenge.
Pro Well-crafted
Big map, lots of items and heroes with their own graphics, player figures on plastic stands; lots of tokens and monster cards made of firm cardboard.
Pro Lots of choices
Each location offers you different opportunities to trade for and to explore. The imaginary hero class (like tank, mage, support, stealth) is up to you and usually not well-tied to hero abilities.
Even when apocalypse comes, you still (might) have a chance to defeat the planetary evil.
Pro Great atmosphere of Lovecraft tales
Your weak heroes have to dive into parallel realities, use magic, defeat unknown guests and apply unique artifacts. Each game's location has its own secrets and 'contacts' with various outcomes — good and bad.
Pro Role-oriented
You either choose by yourself or get a random hero, and play with them the whole party (if you were not killed, of course). You and your hero have skills, items, unique qualities and effects, and their story.
The game itself encourages role-playing elements to dive into the Lovecraftian environment.
Pro Highly cooperative
Though the rules do highlight "best players of the game" via basic calculations, the game itself is aimed towards collaboration. To win, everyone must commit to the victory, and you often forget about the existence of a "best player".
The game allows players to exchange items or help other players via skills, special abilities and magic. In practice, players often compete their tasks in pairs and more, e.g. they close gates in pairs, where one has to clean the entrance from monsters, and the other seals the gates.
Pro Each game is unique
The game starts by choosing a random boss and/or heroes. Each turn begins with the myth phase, whose effects apply from a random card in the deck. These effects include monster movement, game-wide buffs and de-buffs, quests, monster gate breaches, etc. You will never know if you will be able to win the game.
Items and skills are usually taken randomly too.
Pro Tactically rich
Apart from the initial setup, luck plays little to no role in the outcome of this game.
You have to try to predict the moves of your opponents while simultaneously thinking about your own moves, in order to win. For example, if you're trying to collect the full set of same-color tiles, you need to be aware if other players are doing the same. There are 20 tiles of each color, and if all players are trying to collect the yellow ones, there might not be enough in rotation for all to succeed.
You get points from placing tiles, and various combinations give you more points. You can lose points if you don't think ahead, and you can also take risks where you lose a few points to gain many more.
Pro Aesthetically pleasing
The game itself is very beautiful. Azul was inspired by the tiles at Alhambra. The design is bright, upbeat and colorful.
Pro Variety of strategy and patterns keep the game from becoming repetitive
There are multiple ways to get points. For example- aiming to get all tiles of the same color or getting the most columns.
If the preset pattern has become too familiar, you can use the other side of the board to create your own pattern. It's completely blank, so you can come up with multiple possible patterns.
Cons
Con Very unaproachable
Arkham Horror has a lot of moving parts, its rules are difficult to follow, and the gameplay itself is pretty difficult. This all adds up to a game that is very unapproachable and will take the most dedicated of players to really understand the whole concept put forth.
Con Huge rules
24+ pages of rules. Though they are well-written, highly illustrated, enriched with small data tables, it is easy to forget small details, especially when some critical rule is applied, e.g., for just one type of bosses.
Con Long
The game is very long (several hours).
Con Playing alone or in small team (2-3) is usually easy and boring
Arkham is best enjoyed when played by teams of 4 and more.
Con Long preparation time
Laying out all the things may eat up to 30 minutes (without extensions).
Con Hard to find
It was actually released in 2005 and currently out of stock at official page.
Con Scoring system can be confusing
Scores are counted at the end of each round (when there are no more tiles left in the factory). It's confusing for the following rounds, because you have to count each single tile only once. The scoring system is also confusing in the way that it counts tile combinations. For each adjacent tile, you get an extra point for the row and for the column. It takes a little practice to get use to it.
Con Minor design flaw may cause you to lose a piece right out of the box
When you first open Azul, you'll have to push out the cardboard pieces from a larger sheet of cardboard (as is often the case with many games nowadays), which is not a problem. However, one of the game pieces- the 1st player token- is not easily noticeable at first. Some users have accidentally thrown out this piece in the trash.