I have been fortunate enough to purchase Arkham Horror and we enjoy it thouroughly this week.

My apologies for the question if repeated here but I was unable to find anything in the search but which expansion(s) do you recommend getting and if so which first?

Thanks for your time x

Curse of the Dark Pharoah among small box expansions, since it introduces some very helpful items and benefits/detriments to improve your gameplay.

Among the large box expansions, my favorite is Innsmouth, since the boost of 16 investigators and 8 Ancient Ones is much awaited, and I like Personal Stories, a lot. However, it does increase the difficulty significantly, so I would recommend Dunwich first, to go step by step upwards. Kingsport is too simple, and most of the time you'll ignore a couple of areas there anyway (poor accessibility).

That's great thank's.

I would eventualy like all of the expansions but want to walk before I can run.

Yeah, I was grappling with this, as all new players do, when I first picked it up a while back. The AH wiki had me salivating to get them all.

Injuries and Madnesses were just too good to pass up on so I knew I had to get Dunwich. Then, hemming and hawing over King in Yellow and Black Goat before Kingsport.... Then Innsmouth was announced. Potentially against my better judgment given my cash flow... Having first game with it in an hour (oh boy!).

And now that I have Innsmouth and Dunwich, I don't actually feel the game's missing anything (except maybe epic battles, but if you're playing right you shouldn't really be getting into Final Battles anyway).

All the card decks are big enough as they are, the Mythos card gate location dispersion is fine, the Other World encounters seem to be evenly enough balanced out so Lost Carcosa encounters and particularly cool base OW encounters are just about frequent enough, I've plenty of Investigators and Old Ones to keep me happy for a solid 3 years, I've got the Personal Stories and Injuries and Madnesses and can do without the Epic Battles.

I honestly think that Dunwich and Innsmouth are the two that together round the game to a sort of nirvana...

I say all this without playing any games yet... All I know is that when I had Dunwich I still wanted more. Now I've got Innsmouth, I'm quite content to leave it at that...

Who am I kidding.... I'll have King in Yellow before the year's out... And I'll probably regret it

Which expansion? Well, I mostly recommend three:

- Dark Pharaoh: it's very thematic and flavoured BUT makes the game kind of easier. That might be both an advantage or a disadvantage, you decide.

-King in Yellow: veeeery flavoured and enjoyable. Adds more stuff than Dark Pharaoh but turns the game into a hell on earth, so beware!

- Innsmouth Horror: a must have if you like spitting your own blood on the game board. Very challenging. Veeeery interesting Great Old Ones. And you get personal stories for investigators too. And adds the most challenging extra game board.

Now it's up to your tastes.

Gott said:

On the one hand, the new allies are generally better than the base ones, and the Exhibit Items deck is more powerful on average than the Unique deck. On the other hand, the double doom cards do break some of the strategies for sealing victories that work too easily in the base game (true of every expansion, of course) and the OW encounter deck is made significantly nastier. It's probably a slight increase in difficulty, overall.

Anyway, my recommendations:

- if you're finding the game hard enough already, but want some more variety, then Dark Pharaoh

- if you want an increase in difficulty, but only use 2-3 Investigators, then King in Yellow

- if you want an increase in difficulty, and use 4 or more Investigators, then Dunwich Horror

Black Goat is a little disappointing compared with Dark Pharaoh or King in Yellow, though it's also the toughest of the three small box expansions if you're wanting difficulty.

Kingsport I don't yet own, so I can't say one way or the other. I intend to get it someday...

Innsmouth is excellent, but you will not get full use out of it without at least some of the Dunwich components (not necessarily the extra board). On the other hand, Dunwich can be enjoyed entirely without needing Innsmouth. It's an expansion, I think, for people who have already been playing a while with at least some of the other expansions.

That's very well put, and everyone did answer to you with very good and detailed explanations. Follow them, I'd say. I absolutely can't help you on that matter. I never work like this, and I bought all the expansions in the following month after I had Arkham... same for Innsmouth, even from France, I had it in the month. So I hardly remember we actually had a few games with only the original game... I'm compulsive.

Once again : everyone gave you pretty much the answers I think you needed ! Cheers.

From what I've seen here and on boardgamegeek, there are three expansions that are quite popular (Dunwich Horror, Innsmouth Horror and King in Yellow), and three expansions that are controversial (Curse of the Dark Pharaoh, Kingsport Horror and Black Goat of the Woods).

cim said:

Over all a good answer. However what's in Dunwich that enhances Innsmouth? The injury and madness cards that actually make the game easier? I'd recommend Innsmouth over Dunwich (though Dunwich is definitely second). Innsmouth is probably easier to get too. Innsmouth is as tough as advertised even without the heralds. The only problem I have with Innsmouth is Patrice, otherwise FFG did its best job ever with an expansion of Arkham Horror.

On the other hand, if you get Innsmouth first, you'll probably even be more disappointed with any subsequent purchases.

All expansions are good and challenging except I'd buy Black Goat and/or Kingsport last. Though I could have gotten along without either one of them.

Worst thing about IH is that it adds no items. If you run base + IH, Elder Signs will remain "rampant".

Dam said:

No more rampant than the base game.

mmmm. Maybe that's why I wasn't doing so well with just Innsmouth and base Arkham incl monsters. Not enough elder signs! Thanks.

Well I have a rough idea now what to get thanks.

I can only imagine the mayhem of owning and playing with every expansion...

I will get there eventualy though

mageith said:

But it's a big difference between regularly seeing 2 or more ES in a game (base game) and hoping just to see one (as I do). I remember those days, even had an exception to the rule of late, getting 2 ES in a game. 1 is okay, 2 makes things ridiculously easy (that's 10 less Clues to collect, not to mention the -2 doomers). I know I can beat the game without an ES, but it's going to be touch and go for the most part. It's one of the key reason I don't like Wendy, even though I've not played her, free ES from start is just . Okay, using random investigators you would first need to get Wendy, but every game you do, whammo! Gets even worse if you pick investigators.

Elder Signs are always welcome. Especially in Innsmouth. But my elder signs are no more rampant than yours. I use all the items. Innsmouth usually eats up 6 of your clues in the Feds raid. It adds 4 clues but mostly in out of the way places. And Innsmouth has more tests, for example, the evade checks under martial law that tempt one to use clue tokens for skill checks.

I think the discussion is what expansion to get first. I still hold that Innsmouth is the most perfect expansion of all time. Dunwich is quite good--clearly a close second. The rampantness of elder signs is just one factor. There's all sorts of factors to take into consideration in weighing this. Not the least of which is unified theme which I think Innsmouth does better.

BTW, Wendy is even better than you think. Her free elder sign is only the tip of the iceberg. Her personal story sort of limits her early use of the elder sign however and so does that fact that as long as she has it she can't be arrested--very helpful in Innsmouth.

When I play with other people, I do let them choose investigators if they want to but only from those who haven't been devoured in my recent campaign--so its not like we play Patrice, Wendy, Mandy and Daisy every game. In fact at this point only Daisy remains undevoured and she's not even the real Daisy, she's more like Tib's Daisy.