I'm considering buying two expansions, one big box expansion and one small one. For now i only have base game. Some of my gaming buddies are complaining that AH base game is too hard. Although i myself love hard games, i'm willing to help them out via some expansions that would lover the game's difficulty level.

So which AH expansions you think would make AH easier ? And why ?

None. If you're having trouble with just the base game, lay off expansions. DH probably would help with Injury/Madness, but that's about it.

If you use just parts of the expansions, you can make the game a tad easier. Black Goat of the Woods has game difficulty modifier cards, and Kingsport has the Guardians--beings that help out the players. You might want to review the strategies you are using while playing. Teamwork is paramount to be successful. B)

The other posters have it right. For the most part, the expansions are in there to up the difficulty level. All of them do give something or other that can make the game easier, but might just as well mess you up if you're not careful. Double doom cards, gate bursts, and board mechanics are the high points of difficulty, as well as dangerous ancient ones. Adding distractions can really mess with you.

You might make sure that you are playing the game right. A great many new players come onto this forum complaining that the game is either too hard or too easy, and that's because they missed something in the rulebook. There are lots of common misconceptions that are cleared up right on the front page here. Take a look at the stickies on top of the page for some reference, and be sure to look at the FAQ in the Dunwich Horror rulebook, available on this site.

After you get things down, your friends will be complaining that the game is too easy. At which point you wreck their world with Dunwich.

I'd suggest getting Dunwich for the Madness and Injury cards, they make the game a bit easier and definitely a whole lot more fun. You've got somewhat more powerful investigators than in the base game in there as well, so if you just use these parts for starters and leave out the new board, mythos and location cards it should be quite a bit easier.

The other two big expansions also feature new, more powerful investigators, but you should definitely start with Dunwich, for the Madness/Injury cards alone.

The small expansions don't really have a lot of stuff that makes things easier. Some feature quite powerful weapons and other useful items, but they also dilute your item decks, so that's not much help overall.

As stated by others, using both difficulty decrease cards from Black Goat, the injury&MAdness cards from DH and the Kingsport Guardian (Hypnos would be best, imo) would make the game incredibly easy. Also, Kingsport Horror and Innsmouth Horror have some of the most powerful Investigators.

Also, you might want to look up which locations have a higher percent chance of having a gate open on them than others, and try to seal those instead of lower-activity locations.

*edit*

crimson basically beat me to it. I'll post anyway though so there.

crimson said:

Just an "IMO", but I've always felt AH + DH had the same power-level when it came to investigators. You had hits (Mandy, Joe, Leo, Jacqueline), misses (Amanda, Vincent, Jim), rest being in-betweens. KH and IH added more on the upper and upper-mid than low-mid and low level ones. Goes hand in hand with the tougher GOOs perhaps, but still.

I have a question about the investigators that come in the big expansions. Do they have starting locations on the base board or do they start on the expansion board? Can you just use them in the base gane if you wanted?

Ken on Cape said:

Almost all of the 48 available Investigators start in a stable Arkham Location. Of the remaining three that do not, only one has the freedom to begin on another board.

I don't think buying an expansion is a good idea if you find the base game too hard. I'd recommend playing with 4 or 5 investigators, if possible. If you want an easy game, try Azathoth. I think the most important thing is to find a good strategy, like:

• Do not just randomly close gates as fast as possible! This will only make for more locations where a gate can appear, which means a doom token will be placed with almost every mythos card (unless you want to awaken the ancient one as fast as possible).
• Close gates at hardly unstable locations, or when you're trying to close the last gates simultaneously.
• Always seal gates at highly unstable locations.
• Seal gates at medium unstable locations if possible, though sometimes it can be better to close them.
• Becoming the Deputy usually helps a lot.
• Don't waste too many clues on rolls, you need them for sealing.
• Usually it's better if one investigator has enough clues to seal a gate and the others have none, than each investigators having 1 or 2 clues.
• If you cannot prevent the ancient one from awakening, consider buying weapons and / or getting a blessing at South Church.