Hi recently purchased all the expansions for arkham horror. But now i maybe wished I hadnt. The amount of space needed for all the boards is ridiculous and ive just realised that i dont have a big enough table for the boards lol. Christ I need a massive dining room table to play these expansions. Silly really because the game is excellent. I can play arkham horror on my table just about but its pretty tight. They should really hae made the board smaller. Now im stumped cos I want to learn to play the expansions but i simply dont have the space for them. These games are pretty expensive too so i feel ive wasted my money on them simply because i dont have a big enough table. lol. I think i need to spend out on a massive table just so i can play these games lol. I mean Christ almighty I need a table that fills the entire room hahahaa. What shall i do?? Sell all my expansions cos i cant play them or have a game on the carpet and end up having cramps and friction burns. hmmmm Maybe I have to play them on the bed. Not bad eh if youre playing with females hehehe ***** the game!!! Lets have sex muhahahaha. Im pretty gutted really cos i wanna play these expansions but i simply dont have the space. I was thinking of naiing my computer desk to the dining table with nails and use that for the other boards but even that doesnt have enough space for them. So I have decided to sell my house and buy a mansion so i can play the arkham horror games on a large dining room table. muhahahaha

Actually you are quite lucky. I don't think the game was intended to be played with all the expansion boards at once. Will your table fit one expansion board? That's all you really need.

As an alternative sell your least favorite expansions and buy a 8'x4' piece of plywood at the hardward store and carefully place it over you current table. That's should be almost enough room to set everything out. (You'll probably need to not lean on it though.)

If you live near San Francisco, I'll even give you one, painted green, also suitable for Warhammer.

I have no trouble with 2 extra boards in play. But then, my table is spelled "floor" .

mageith said:

That's ridiculous, of course it is.

Right now my table can fit ONE expansion, but I doubt it will fit more. If all else fails, I use my trusty table tennis table, which I use for World of Warcraft Board game and Doom board game, even Games Workshop games (they need massive boards, 48 inch square)

Magic Pink said:

It is and it isn't. There are rules here and there that reference more than one expansion, but those are rare. There are often far too many ambiguities and confusing situations that arise from combining items or effects from multiple expansions.

As multiple expansions are added, Dunwich, Innsmouth (to a lesser extent), and Next Act increasingly become a fraction of their original presence and danger. I don't think every expansion was designed to complement every other expansion; they were just designed for the most part that you could use multiple expansions together if you wanted to. I believe that Kingsport is the one true universal expansion; its board mechanic does not get diluted, no matter how many expansions you use.

Joe, I recommend playing the base game a few times first. Then add one expansion and play a game or two. Then remove that expansion and add a different one, and so on until you've experienced each expansion on its own. After that, play a few games with all the expansions mixed in! Either you'll love it, or love it when you incorporate house rules to counter the dilution problems I've listed above, or just flat-out hate it. If you wind up hating it, I recommend playing each game with one board expansion and one card expansion. That keeps the theme random between games, while remaining pervasive and coherent.

I also recommend this order for trying the expansions on their own (increasing difficulty):

1. Curse of the Dark Pharaoh
2. King in Yellow
3. Black Goat of the Woods
4. Kingsport Horror
5. Dunwich Horror
6. Innsmouth Horror

Tibs said:

I'd say to that, I'm doing exactly that, but with different ordering of the expansions. I'd say alternate between Big Box (those with 'horror' in the name) and Small Box expansions.

I listed it that way because I can build excitement in new players and ramp up to using the board expansions.

Magic Pink said:

Then how come many important things don't work so well when all played together?

Acts from King in Yellow are hardly noticeable.

Dunwich is usually out of the picture if played with any other expansions.

Deep One rising track is usually out of the picture if played with any other expansions.

If FFG had actually playtested the boards together, then they'd work better together.

Several investigators are immune from ancient ones in other sets.

About the only consideration they made to all the expansions was to count the game as one less investigator for additional boards played.

The game has great components and you can pick and choose from the different expansions to create the kind of game you want. I have all the expansions but never, never play them all together.

The easiest version of Arkham horror is the base game.

The second easiest version of Arkham horror is all the expansions together. It's just a mish mash. The designers were very good a developing a theme in each expansions but for the most part those themes disappear when the expansions are thrown together.

I'm not sure I'd say the second easiest version of the game is when you mix all the expansions together (well all without Innsmouth, I still haven't played it yet). Honestly, we've played some VERY difficult games with all expansions mixed. I think the thing that people seem to underestimate about using all expansions together is the sheer randomness of it all.

You would expect that with using all expansions the game would be easier because there may be less activity in Dunwich. Then you're playing a game and a gate opens on Wizard's Hill. Okay, not a big deal, get someone up there to handle it fairly soon and you'll be okay. The next turn a gate opens at Gardner's place. Whoops! We've got a bit more of an issue. Next turn, Whatley Farm. (Yes, this happened to us in a game with a lot of expansions mixed together). Oops! You're screwed. That's definitely not what you were expecting!

I think the value given to mixing all expansions together is that planning for what could happen next becomes exponentially more difficult because you don't know if something is more likely to happen in Arkham proper, Dunwich, Kingsport, or if you'll end up with some of those crazy rumors from some of the expansions. I really have a fun time playing all of the expansions together.

I am a long-time player of the base game, who has only recently bought all the expansions for periodic play with my group (who meet VERY infrequently). I'd say, from having read the rules, that a combination of ALL the boards and explansion rules may make an interesting game, but it would dilute the mood , more than anything. Innsmouth's board and the Deep One / Feds mechanic really seems to convey a feeling of Shadow over Innsmouth : the parnaoia, the one-way trip to the reef. Creepy. King in Yellow seems to load the streets with mad rioters and wigged-out versions of local people, littering hypnotic yellow signs across the board (or like The Crying of Lot 49 ). Dunwich? Well, the idea is someone has to climb Sentinel Hill and face down that blasphemy. Otherwise, where's the fun? I'd hate the Dunwich Horror to be a sort of sideshow.

So, loading all the pieces and boards together may be a fun game (to each her own), but for my very Lovecraftian group (call us purists), I'd think one-at-a-time expansions capture the feel better. Now time for an Mountains of Madness board!

I think the difficulty varies from game to game depending on what Mythos cards you draw. In most games you would only draw 15-20 out of that giant deck. Depending on the luck of the draw, you might get an easier game or a harder game.

From the gates perspective, if most of the gates are in Arkham then you would close/seal them faster. But if you drew a gate in an expansion board, most of the time you would have to spend at least a turn just to the board itself, more if you don't have the clues/ES.

Looking at the gate distribution file, the chances of you drawing the hot gates in the base game is 15%, but if you put all of the expansions together, your chance goes down to 9%. It's more likely that you will have a new gate opening than a monster surge when you put multiple expansions together. This can be good/bad for you depending on how long the doom track is.

In terms of theme/mood, most likely it will suffer from the dilution. If that's an aspect of the game that you enjoy the most, don't put too many expanisions together.

I suggest playing with only 1 expansion board at a time as well. But, have you wasted your money, buying other expansions? I think not... The 'big box' expansions add a lot to the game, even if you don't play with their boards. Extra items, injury/madness, investigators, AOs, heralds, monsters and encounter cards are all things you can put in your arkham games without having to use the extra board..

I really don't think it's gonna kill you if you have to play on the floor.

As for the dullution vs. randomness, I'm all in favor of the randomness. I think in addition to the expansions having a theme/mood, the game overall has a mood too and I'd call it a general "lovecraftian" feeling, and it's not like it loses that by mixing all the expansions together. Also, while something like the Acts may not be near as big a threat, you just know that eventually one of these days, there's gonna be 3 Act cards one right after the other that you weren't expecting but it snook up on you, and that will be a great feeling.

mzonic said:

I still think my average for my last 24 games (after adding IH) is somewhere around 14 Mythos cards. Either I win in that time or the GOO wakes up. Less surges = more doomers.

awp832 said:

Yes, I would strongly agree with the caveat above. I can't see why you shouldn't have the full suite of investigators at your disposal for any board (or small box expansion), along with injury/madness, heralds, etc. I'd keep a few of the "mood" monsters out of the mix and use them with specific boards (the Watleys and that huge crop of Deep Ones that come with Innsmouth for example). On that point, I am dissapointed that (if I am right), "barred from neighborhood" sitations only arise when using the DP small box expansion. This seems like a nice "universal" situation that should be in the mix all the time.

I want to address the question "Was it a waste to buy all the expansions" by way of the "sheer randomness of all expansions" comment.

Dam, I want to borrow you for a while, but not as a "target". (Not this time, anyway. ) Everyone knows we play differently (and have "butted antlers" a few times), but I'm only using you because you are so forthcoming in your method of play.

Over X number of games, Dam will get approximately 14 Encounter (per Investigator) and Mythos cards per game from all over the Arkhamscape (except Kingsport), affecting any of the three boards he uses. I'm sure there is a complex statistical analysis that could be made estimating the total number of cards from each expansion over X total games. I don't know what that formula is, but let's just assume a modest level of equality over all expansions, with perhaps a slight edge to the base game (more Mythos cards).

Looking over my same X number of games...first of all, you can't immediately predict what I'm going to play with. Maybe I'll play Dunwich alone. Maybe I'll play Kingsport with King in Yellow. Maybe I'll play Innsmouth with just the Black Goat Gate Bursts tossed in. I may even leave out all the monsters from other expansions to get a really loaded Aquatic Game of Innsmouth. Taking into account that there is some limitation to the combinations of expansions available to me--note that I do not play with Dark Pharaoh ever, with the exception of a dozen or so cards that I have adopted into my Dunwich--you will probably find that, over total X games, I will still get the same total number of cards from each expansion that Dam does. The only real difference is my totals will come in clumps per game. (I would call these clumps "moods".) Game to game, Dam will certainly see more randomization than I will, but assuming one is going to play AH more than a few times, my total experience is no less "random" than Dam's.

I suppose the other difference is that I have to separate out my cards after every game (most of the time). I can appreciate that that could be a pain in the Azathoth for anyone who doesn't enjoy doing it. Or I could make a comment about laziness...but that would be rude and untrue.

DAM, ON GUITAR! THANK YOU, CLEVELAND! GOOD NIGHT!!!

I had this problem too and was bound and determined to solve it and the storage problem as fast as I could.

Sorry, Dam. I'm just not the kind of guy who can use a floor when there's a perfectly good table out there somewhere. I ended up buying a 45 dollar collapsable banquet table that measures a bit over 6' long. Has enough space for the board, room on one edge for investigators up to about 4-6 depending on how much space you use with your cards. Also room enough on one end to put the GOO and the mythos and other world encounter decks.

I've had a large plastic TV tray for a while that was given to me by a friend that is the perfect height to put up against the table at one end to hold all the arkham, kingsport, dunwich, & Innsmouth encounters + the basic small decks. Common and unique items, spells, skills and allies. All the other small cards stay in their drawer. (I bought a plastic nuts and bolts and nails and screw holder from wal-mart for liek 10 bucks, has more than enough drawers for every little card type and it's convenient since you're not likely to use most of them in a game, just pop open the drawer when you do.)

Anyhow, this has worked out great for my group and I'll use the table for other games too..basically it's my gaming table now.

Here's how I arranged the boards. It works for solo play.

I there are multiple players, I just put a folding table along one side of the regular table. Works fine.

Tsugo, those card holders are awesome. Looks like a great space saver

I usually play with (almost) all of the game components mixed together. Last night I tried it with just the base game and BGotW. I have to say, I didn't notice any extra theme or flavor. The most noticable difference was that there were usually 3-4 Dark Young on the streets. Since Shub was the AO, I couldn't claim the Dark Young as trophies, which was annoying. Also, one investigator got loaded down with a half dozen corruptions, but none of the corruptions had a very strong effect on the game. Based on last night's game, I'd say that most of the theme of BGotW comes from the Black Goat herald, not from the mythos cards, encounter cards or items. I don't see that there's much to be gained by thinning down the mythos deck, gate/location decks, and the items decks to just BGotW components. Maybe other people have had a different experience with the BGotW expansion.

I've given up on Black Goat, same way I gave up on Dark Pharaoh, just for different reasons. Black Goat doesn't DO anything. I tried joining the Cult, and I couldn't, any more than I could join the Sheldon Gang in Dunwich. So I played games where all my Investigators started the game with Cult Memberships...AND NOTHING HAPPENED. My Corruption record is five cards. The Black Goat Encounter cards do not seem all that thematic...neither do the Gate Encounters...even the Mythos cards, though new and interesting, do little to promote theme. Nope, almost the entire expansion is stillborn unless you use the Herald...and I don't like the Herald because I like my games to last longer than a dozen turns.

So I've diced it up and adopted it into other boxes: Black Goat Mythos and Investigator Cards in the Innsmouth Box...Monsters (minus the Dark Young) in the Dunwich Box.

jgt7771 said:

pfft. I was thinking of trying that - thanks for the tip. Gah.

Yeah after several months with BG, I concur with you. There are some interesting mythos cards, but the herald is the best thing in that box. Nice idea, shame about the execution.

I had this built a few years ago and I gotta say it's pretty badass. I use it for all my games - miniatures, board, RPGs. I'm looking forward to getting the big box expansions to fill it out. The game looks a bit empty on here right now.

http://www.ultimategamingtable.org/

I have to agree on BG, Since I've gotten it about a month ago I've played about a half dozen games with it and yet to join the cult. Pulled one corruption card from an encounter in all that time and all it did was switch out some monsters in the outskirts. About the only thing I've run into thematicaly from this expansion is a sudden saturation of "cultists" and Dark young in the monster cup.

Recently I've been experementing with custom heralds to combat the saturation issues. I've managed to put one together for Innsmouth that works great as opposed to the current twin heralds (you can see it in the custom herald thread). I've kind of adopted the line that theme is what the heralds are for and to this end King in Yellow does nicely already even with a watered down deck, but I would perhaps alter it to cause the discard of mythos cards when a blight occurs to dig up those act cards faster.

As for table space, I have the good fortune of living across the street from a church that my father happens to be the minister of. So immediate access to about a dozen banquet sized tables and a large oak library table.