Was thinking about ways to pair up the large and small box sets in a way that seemed right thematically without diluting the story too much. Was playing around with these ideas:

AH + Kingsport + King in Yellow

AH + Kingsport + Lurker

AH + Dunwich + Black Goat

AH + Innsmouth

AH + Curse

Those seem to fit best with some of the stories -- have others found combinations that work really nicely?

Wolfpack48,

Those are very good pairings...especially anything with Kingsport as the game's Rift mechanic doesn't dilute with additional expansions in play. If you choose to not include the Dunwich and/or Innsmouth boards in a particular pairing, you can always the Investigator (small) cards [ Items , Spells , Skills , etc.] from either of the expasnsions; and the Injury & Madness cards from Dunwich ; and the Personal Stories from Innsmouth .

Cheers,

Joe

Remember that Kingsport locations have Mythos opening only on the core board, so that not adding Dunwich or Innsmouth will result in very heavy on monster games (you'll have several gate surges for sure), many seals being bursted away and generally longer games.

A fun thing to mix it up is to just remove the AH board completely. Say run insmouth, kingspot alone. Adding in lurker

booored,

I'm sorry... What?!?

Remove the Arkham Horror board completely and play with just the small town expansions and one of the small box. I like lurker.

boored,

With all due respect, that's the craziest idea I've ever heard... You have obviously been spending too much time at the Arkham Asylum . Seriously, though, how do you even play with all of those locations removed from the game...I'm thinking in terms of not only obtaining items ( General Store , Curiosittie Shoppe , etc), but healing ( Arkham Asylum and St. Mary's Hospital ) and garnering Clue tokens ( Science Building ); Blessings (South Church); and Allies ( Ma's Boarding House )?

Cheers,

Joe

I've consider AH boardless before, though you'll probably want add Vermont or Lovecraft Country to round things off a little. Here's a slightly more invovled VH board than the standard one. ( http://s1113.photobucket.com/user/jabie1/media/Lovecraft%20Country%20Horror%20-%20Board/Hinterlands.png.html?sort=3&o=2#/user/jabie1/media/Lovecraft%20Country%20Horror%20-%20Board/VermontHorrorDeluxe.png.html?sort=3&o=1&_suid=140654911385108145626437676041 )

All investigators start at a railway terminus of their choice.

If an investigator is driven insane / knocked unconscious, they are sent to Congregational Hospital and may pay $2 for a full heal in the relevant stat.

As for options to buy things:

Healing: Congreagtional Hospital, Gilman House Hotel and Harney Jones. (Monastery and Wavecrest in VH and LCH)

Items: Dunwich Village (Brattleboro in VH, Dean's Corner in LCH)

Clues: Devil's Hopyard (Pennacook Reservation in VH, French Quarter in LCH)

Blessings: Encounters only (Peck Valley in LCH)

Allies: Encounters only (Monoliths in VH)

Jake yet again,

Wow! I wish you luck with the variant...but I'm keeping my Arkham board in-place

Cheers,

Joe

(snip)

it works fine. The more you play the more you want to try something new, this is that. A game is a game, it is just as fun without the store or w/e.. Give it a go, you might like it. I mean it is not like it effects playing with it. Just something to do now and then for fun.

It would be interesting to find a way to really push most of the investigators towards the expansion board for a good part of the game. I suppose playing only there would be one way, but a lot of cards would need to be tweaked. Hmmm...

Are we talking thematically or mechanically? Lurker at the Threshold took place at the midpoint between Arkham and Dunwich. I always associate the two thematically, and was rather disappointed when Lurker turned out not to be an expansion for Dunwich.