How can people say Dunwich is better? I have both, and dunwich almost never see any activity, while kingsport can never be watered down, beacuse the way it is built is pure genius. Don't get me wrong, I love dunwich, but what I don't love is that it almost don't see any action. The only action dunwich sees is its other words (granted, Another Time is my favorite other world). If I had to lose one of these expansions with no way of ever getting it back, I would sadly let go of dunwich. Also, epic battle is brilliant, making the final battle actually difficult and not laughable easy as it used to be. I also like the dunwich investigators and ancient ones more, but kingsport is ingenious the way it is built so I would have to top is as my favorite.

What do you think? I seem to be in minority here; about half the people don't like kingsport at all, and the other half likes it, but they like dunwich better. Am I the only one here who sees the brilliancy of kingsport?

DAM! NO! PUT IT DOWN! OPINION! OPINION!

I tend to agree because Kingsport is more active, and my cult favors Encounter cards. Kingsport is a pile of Encounter cards largely unhindered by meddlesome monsters. (I kinda hope that might changea little when Innsmouth lets loose the "blood-stemmed tides".) I like the Investigators, respect the Ancient Ones--even moreso the older ones because of the Epic Battle cards--and dig the Rift mechanics.

That said, I cannot LIVE without the Madness/Injury Decks, I LOVE the Dunwich monsters (Tcho-Tcho, Hunting Horror, the Colours, Goat Spawn, etc.), and Glaaki is still my "bastard to beat".

The 'must-have' content from Dunwich is the Injury/Madness decks. The 'must-have' from Kingsport is the Epic Battle decks.

Both towns have problems. Dunwich will only actually pose a serious threat in about one third of games. Most of the time, the Horror doesn't appear until very late, making it almost irrelevent anyway. (At least, that's my experience, across a dozen or more games).

The Kingsport rifts are more likely to happen BUT the town itself is less interesting and less distinct from Arkham. The Dunwich locations are very odd, whereas Kingsport has a few interesting places and a lot of 'cloned' Arkham locations. The Kingsport Head is interesting, but once you understand how it actually works, you'll probably come to the same conclusion as me: it's never worth the bother, because there's no way to predict how long it will take to get to the 'prize'.

My main problem with Kingsport is that it's a 'safe zone' because no gates open and no monsters appear. I once made a Herald that added gates in Kingsport and made monsters appear - I'll see if I can find that.

Even bearing all that in mind, I think I can't choose which expansion is better. The Ancient Ones are all interesting (except Tsathoggua who is a bit bland). The real master-strokes of AO design are Dunwich's Shudde-M'ell and Kingsport's Atlach-Nacha.

There are actually a cople of cards that realease monsters in kingsport, but they'e rare.

Corinthian summed it up nicely. Without a house-rule, Dunwich gets less active with more expansions (how I prefer to play), but the Dunwich Horror threat and Dunwich itself are fun as hell.

On the other hand, Kingsport rifts never get less active, but thematically they make less sense. I went to the pub and watched some sailors tell tales of the sea. I then went to the lighthouse and watched the sun set with Basil Elton. How has this actively kept the rifts at bay?

I love both expansions, and can definitely look past these flaws. Can't wait to see what Innsmouth has in store!

jgt7771 said:

Spoil-sport !

On a side note, I noticed the forums have seemed saner in the last few days, then checked and noticed that Avi hadn't (hasn't?, didn't check for today) logged in in a few days .

kroen said:

Every shiny new expansion is the most brilliant for a time. Come back in maybe half year, then we'll talk.

Just talking about using 1 expansion at a time:

I like both but prefer Dunwich. The extra unstable locations are great. 11 unstable locations with doom tracks to 12 or more and a gate limit of 7 open (always play 3-4 players) is just not enough pressure / chaos. I like the rift mechanic as well, although it feels like you are just playing Arkham with one less player. I don't care about guardians or the epic battle deck.

I love having that many encounters due to Kingsport though. Maybe I should try and play with that guardian that generates clues (hypnos?) on stable locations. It should increase my encounters, although I hate drawing 2 encounters and chosing one. Doesn't make sense to me so I might leave that part out. Or maybe I should house rule that clues can appear on stable locations during the mythos if the unstable target location already has a clue. Getting clues might be safer, but it will take more time cause they will be more spread out.

Eddie said:

Why doesn't drawing two encounters and choosing one make sense?

Hypnos gives you visions of the future and what might come. So you get two possible outcomes and it's up to you to choose which path you want to take....

kroen said:

To answer your first question: Very easily! Basic Arkham, with only eleven unstable locations, is something of a joke difficultywise. The extra five unstable locations in Dunwich are absolutely essential to make the game reasonably challenging. As for Dunwich never getting any activity, do you perhaps use all of the expansions at once? I only use Kingsport and Dunwich, and trust me, we still see a lot of action in Dunwich.

The Final Battle variant IS brilliant; no argument there. It blows Dunwich's Madness and Injury cards out of the water, in my (certainly minority) opinion.

jhaelen said:

lol so true. this post is actually a year after the quoted post, and I don't think kingsport is so great anymore. I actually think it sucks a little (that's what she said).

I'd still rather play with it than without it!

jgt7771 said:

Preemptive Damage ;')

Dunwich is better because the monsters are better. Period. There are lots of factors you can weigh when considering the two expansions, but to me it ultimately boils down to this— the toughest monster additions are from Dunwich, and if you have a weak monster pool, the game difficulty as a whole suffers. Kingsport released no extremely difficult monsters. Some interesting monsters, but nothing too life threatening (except arguably Shan and Moon Beast— however, I'd argue that those are potentially beneficial monsters since you can have them devour naked investigators to gain resources quickly if you're unscrupulous).

Dam said:

:'P what are you talking about? I'm on every day. Did you stop taking your medications again?

Edit:

::Blink blink:: apparently I was pulled into a time rift!

Tibs said:

me too, but whereas a year ago I was all excited to explore kingsport and deal with rifts I now tend to ignore them until it's too late... it just feels like a burden to send someone there....

That's how I've played it since day 1! Ignore it until a rift is about to blow. Still, it's nice to have the -1 investigator handicap for the extra board :-D