Since I got Innsmouth I've been playing with it and the Dunwich and Kingsport expansions. I'm curious as to how many others are doing the same and what insights they've gleaned so far.

Obviously the first issue is one of prioritization. With only four Investigators, you're never going to have enough manpower to cover everything you need to. So it's question of what you let go. The Rifts? The gates and monsters in Dunwich? The Deep One Rising track? The Rumor that just came up? Or do you attend to all of these and in so doing neglect gate sealing? I'm still struggling with the best way to keep on top of things, especially since there is often so little time. Last game we had twelve gates open in thirteen turns and there was Shub Niggurath. Ironically, we would have won if stupid Tommy Muldoon had not been delayed and had sealed his gate!

The Personal Stories, aside from being great thematically, are definitely a boon to the Investigators in my opinion. In the game mentioned above, the reason we nearly won is because Silas Marsh (who is an absolutely terrific character!) completed his Personal Story and in so doing sealed the gate at Devil Reef. Then n the first game we played against Cthulhu with Innsmouth Lily's Personal Story gave us a real boost against him. Due to her completion of it and several other factors it seemed we were actually going to defeat the High Priest of Ry'leh in Final Combat for the first time ever. By the time our attack concluded on the fourth round was finished he was down to only four Doom tokens! Of course that was when Cthulhu decided he didn't like the way this fight was shaping up and ate us all his Flabby Maw Sinister Plot. Sigh.

There is definitely a sense of completeness and satisfaction in playing with all the towns at once, at least for me. Despite the great challenge involved, it's hard for me to envision taking any of them out.

Oh, and the Servitor of the Outer Gods has shown up a couple times, interestingly enough in ways that increase his already formidible threat. For example, in our first game against Yibb-Tstill, he was the second monster out! He spent practically the whole game on the board, periodicially swooping down on us and requiring us to get two successes on the Evade check to sneak away from him. Then in the game before this a mutated (an additional -1 to Combat checks) Servitor attacked Sister Mary at Gardener's Place!

The poster who said that Kingsport would see more action with Innsmouth I found right, though only to a small degree. So far we've had two attacks by aquatic monsters on Investigators at the Lighthouse and that's all.

And I thought it (almost) impossible to play with all expansions. We only played with the base game and minor expansions. Which major exp would you suggest to try first ('easiest one')?

PS - I still think that characters(!) playing all of them at once should be given the option to commit suicide.. ;-)

First of all, how many investigators are you using? If you're using fewer than five, then your ability to handle the multiple threats is probably more dependant on chance than on strategy.

I've been playing with all the expansions, but using the "anti-dilution" variant, and it's been extremely hectic (but very, very effective).

I usually don't worry too much about Dunwich unless it fits into a win-by-close plan. Kingsport doesn't become a focus until one of the rifts is one space away from popping. Innsmouth is just hell to begin with and by the time I worry about the Deep One track, Martial Law has already been instated.

Usually my first priority is Personal Stories, but if a rumor is going to spell bad times or if it awards clues to everybody, I usually shoot for that.

I usually felt that victory was somewhere within my control when using 5+ investigators. With 4 investigators, I never had control, and narrowly won just once.

Citron said:

I'd recommend playing Kingsport first, as the board itself is the least threatening and easiest to handle. However, if you're asking which you should buy, get Dunwich. It comes with more cool stuff. Innsmouth is not "first expansion" material and should be saved for later--possibly last.

The rules grant investigators a handicap for using multiple expansions boards, too, so that it remains somewhat fair.

Tibs said:

Thanks. We already own all of them (well, not exactly true - still waiting for Innsmouth to get here). I felt like 'starting' with Kingsport, because Dunwich looks more dangerous to me.

Citron, I wouldn't want to play with all of the expansions at once either, but I have found playing with all the of big expansions to be quite enjoyable and challenging. I must agree with Tibs when he says that Kingsport is the easiest expansion board to handle, Dunwich is considerably more difficult, and Innsmouth should most certainly be saved for last. And you're right too, Citron; Dunwich is definitely more dangerous than Kingsport.

As I said in my post, Tibs, we're using four Investigators. It can certainly be argued that this is too few; on the other hand, with that number of Investigators and all boards the Rumors and the number of open gates are much less of a threat.

Fortunately, with just the major expansions, no anti-dilution method is needed. As for ignoring Dunwich, the Dunwich Horror can certainly wake up the AO if he emerges; paradoxically, his emergence can also be an opportunity to get an Elder Sign. I agree Kingsport is a danger when a rift track advances to three, but that happens frequently and often we can ill-afford an Investigator for permanent Kingsport duty. Martial law in Innsmouth is certainly problematic, which is why in some of our games I've sent an Investigator down before it is declared to put four clue tokens on the rift track. But whether that is a productive use of early time and clue tokens is a good question.

We have only played one game with all the big box expansions so far. We only played with 4 investigators, but managed to luck out a win by sealing gates. Having Patrice and Silas were key to the victory.

What I really like about having Kingsport and Innsmouth together are all the aquatic locations. There just didn't seem to be enough with just Kingsport and the the two spots in Arkham.

Silas was sailing from port to port, first dealing with rifts in Kingsport, and then calling in the Feds in Innsmouth.

Were playing again this weekend using all the big box expansions, but we'll have 6 players this time.

I use all expansions all the time. Everything mixed, no deck sorting, no trimming, nor any anti-dilution methods. We usually have 4 investigators.

Every game is unpredictable. Pre-Innsmouth, we tended to win about 40% of the time. We've only played a few of games with Innsmouth, and have yet to win, but two games were very close, and one very promising game ended when the Third Act began :-)

The expansion boards activity varies greatly from game to game. Some games the boards will be ignored, some games they will be very busy. We play a variant for Kingsport so that the rift tokens can appear at any stable location, on any board, so we never need to have someone sent there permanently on 'rift duty'.

We don't even change the set-up when introducing newbies - my wife and I know the game very well, and its co-op, so we are happy just throwing our friends in the deep end :-) Everyone we have introduced to the game so far likes it, and has requested to play it again.

In total, we have played about 40 games so far, and Arkham is easily our favourite game (out of hundreds we own).

scotherns said:

same here. but we newer play with more than 4 investigators (it feels like cheating aginst H.P. Lovecraft). our group talked about anti-dilution variant, but it was rejected. having gate open at Arkham itself only 33% of the time sounds strange. becides we love chaotic atmosphere. all expansions at the same time and total random gives us the chaos we need:)

scotherns said:

"We play a variant for Kingsport so that the rift tokens can appear at any stable location, on any board, so we never need to have someone sent there permanently on 'rift duty'."

This sounds really interesting. How do you decide where the rifts open?

The mythos phase is/will be a complete nightmare.

I also play with all expansions together, with no anti-dilution mechanic. I am using 4 investigators and my win/loss ratio is about the same as pre-Innsmouth (at the moment at exactly 25% after 8 games).

The last few games, the main reason for my losses were two or three double-doom cards in a game. It's almost hopeless to defeat AOs like Yibb-Tstll or Yig if you get more than one of these cards (except in final battle, of course, but I don't count that).

What I most often neglect is Kingsport because I often don't have the time to go there. Aquatic movement has actually proven to be a boon, because it let's you lure monsters in Innsmouth away from the vortices (at least if they are aquatic).

Morgaln said:

I've noticed that too actually. I forgot about it last game however, and it caused the DOU track to fill and awaken Y'Golonac, who shredded us.

I just got Innsmouth, and tried playing it with all the expansions except KH and BGotW. I play solo, and I was playing with 3 investigators. It was pretty brutal. I never even got to go to Innsmouth once; I was too busy trying to manage Dunwich. Even without Kingsport, it felt extremely overwhelming. I usually think that more is better, but this is one case where it's starting to feel a bit excessive. It seems like it would be sketchy even with 4 investigators and without using the KH board. If I were to use the KH board, forget about it.

placeboeffect said:

I made a custom set of rift tokens - the file is up on boardgamegeek ( http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/31536 ). There's enough spare tokens that you can put a face down one on the location that needs investigation (as well as the face up on the rift tracks), so its obvious where the investigators need to go. With this (and a similar Hypnos variant) we get to see lots of encounters at stable locations that we otherwise would never visit.

scotherns said:

Neat. And thanks. However, I see the post on BGG but not a link to the actual file. Am I missing something?

placeboeffect said:

It's in the 'Files' section further down the page. Sorry, I meant to put up the direct link to its file page: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/33623