Veet said:

I have a solid record of getting the Cult Membership, though majority come via Corruption cards (two in the deck that "offer" a membership). And of course this means using the BGotW Herald, since killing hexes gets you corruption. Though ironically perhaps, last BGotW game I didn't get that corruption card.

Uch... I loved the theory of BGotW but hated how it actually worked (i.e. by not working). So I made this herald to fix it. You could just house rule a couple of its aspects if you think it's too hard, but personally I think it isn't (and it encourages getting corruptions).

direct link: http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/BlackgoatofthewoodsFINAL.jpg

Regarding the name of the topic, what number of expansions do you usually play? I have all the expansions and still only played with base + some expansion I'd want to try, but I'm looking forward to mixing all the cards/???????? together and playing the monster in which will emerge =)

I've always ran everything I have mixed in. Currently this means all but KH, 29 games since adding IH to the mix (and of playing only IH GOOs for those games also).

I play all exps.

I rarely add more than two expansions and keep them strictly separated, i.e. if I don't use the Dunwich Board, I also won't use any of its Ancient Ones or Investigators.

Well I own the main game and have been considering getting some of the expansions eventualy but my last month funds went on other FFG products...

Now I'm confused as hell as to what to get and which to play for Arkham...and what should be played at the same time...

All the expansions have their merits. If you have the money, it's cheaper to save on shipping costs and get them all together. Thoughthammer.com gives you free shipping when your order is $100 I believe.

Play the base game for a while. At least until you've played against all 8 AOs. Then mix in one small-box expansion and play a while so you can see the differences. Then take it out and do another small-box. Eventually you should start playing with the big-box expansions on their own.

After you've experienced all 6, you can decide what expansions to use and in what combination, or if you would use all of them at once.

I have ended up with usually sticking to one extra board at a time, tops two, and all the small ones. That also includes all cards and small stuff from all expansions.

The dilution is a factor I guess, but i just don't see how to get around it. Seperating all cards and monsters and other stuff from the different expansions every times seems just too time consuming, not to say challenging. Only the Mythos cards are marked in this regard, as far as I know.

Do you have good systems for this?

Mynock said:

Actually, everything but monsters are marked with the expansion symbol from which they came in.

The problem is that once everything has been mixed together, it is an overwhelming task to take out the cards and sort them, then reshuffle, etc. Another way is to leave the cards mixed together, but to ignore the ones from expansions you don't want to play with.

We do that for the Mythos cards, but that's it. Maybe something to concider for encounters as well. At the same time they add to the diversity and that's good.

meggypeggs said:

I play everything together and if I want to revive a particular expansion's theme use custom heralds designed to do so even if all expansions are in play.

I've made a bunch of heralds to that effect on my own, but there are some other very good ones by other people in the Heralds thread.

direct link to my heralds and AOs: http://s622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/

Personally, I think the big box expansions are must haves, particularly Dunwich and Innsmouth (get Dunwich first), I would suggest all three even though I'm not crazy about the Kingsport board. The small ones are worth getting too if you love the game's theme and don't mind either separating everything all the time or using custom components so you won't have to :')

mageith said:

I've never had a problem with any of those things and we always play with all the expansions. Perhaps you're not playing the game correctly?

Magic Pink said:

Yeah, Mageith! How long you been playing this game, anyway? Two or three weeks? Boy, you've got some crazy ideas there, "newbie"!

Only one I can attest to (playing everything but KH) is the Next Act Begins cards. I've seen two on occasion, but don't really mind seeing them (barring Terror-dependant PS, GOO and/or Herald). Guess I'm shuffling well enough, Dunwich and Innsmouth both see action pretty much every game.

Magic Pink said:

Thanks jgt

I'm pretty sure I'm playing the game correctly. Most of my games are with groups and most of the players have read the rules. They'd let me know.

Act Cards: There are only 6. There are 229 Mythos cards. That means about 1 in 38 cards is an Act Card. My games tend to last 15 turns or so. In that case Act cards are actually a benefit card. Most of the time I wouldn't even see one Next Act card. While they do cause all monsters to move, the first player ends up with a clue token.
Playing the game a designed with just Kiy deck means an Next Act card comes up 1/15 cards. So there's about a 25% chance I'll get 2 and raise the tension and call for a decision. In the touring game, the Next Act comes up in 1 in 5.5 cards. That means I almost always add 2 doom tokens and still have been defeated by the 4th Next Act.

Dunwich: There are only about 24 (I think) Mythos that call a Dunwich location. So 1 in 10 Mythos reference a Dunwich gate (about the same percentage as a rumor). I'd say about 25% of the time a 15 turn game you won't see a Dunwich card. About the same percentage will see more than one. Now one Dunwich location can still bring out the Horror if you ignore it due to Gate Surges. But with playing all expansions there are 20 gate locations so surges are really rare. But with playing just Dunwich that's about 1 in 4 cards.

Deep One rising track is more subtle. When I first got Innsmouth I played it with only Innsmouth and Basic monsters. The DOR always went off, or I had to lay the law down. With only Innsmouth there's a good chance of getting Devil reef early and often. Also there are few stationary type monsters in the just the Innsmouth/Basic set. Now that I've added all the monsters a good portion of the time the one time Devil reef does appear about a 1/3rd of the time its a stationary monster that will never trigger the DOR track. Now the track seldom begins to trigger until the game is half over and I never even consider laying the law down. So while the DOR track is more threatening than either the Next Act or Dunwich Horror it seldom plays a part.

Investigators immune from Old Ones. Actually I'm basing this on other reports. We seldom go to Final Battle and when we do, we usually just forfeit. But Joe Diamond is famous for this as is Michael McGlen. There might be others. But this isn't really a problem of dilution and I probably should have included it.

So to me playing with all the expansions is just a mush. Sure I'll have 1 maybe 2 Dunwich cards during the game. And maybe the DOR track might reach 3. Hardly ever seen a Next Act card but it's welcome when I do. Some of this can be fixed by using heralds, of course, or just forget the heralds and play with a more limited mythos deck. Or (I haven't tried this because it seems overwhelming in terms of bookkeeping) play with all the heralds. Lots more to keep track of. Starting with 2 DOR tokens will certainly make the DOR track threatening. Starting with 1 Dunwich token probably won't make a hills worth of beans though because its a rare game where I even get one Dunwich token. Nothing will bring out more Act Cards, but some of the Blight cards are real doozies. The Black Goat will give you a thrill but with 20 gates, the real killer of the Black Goat, monster surges, won't add much usually but it could.

Playing with all the expansions really usually only requires one strategy: Move as fast as you can and don't waste Clues on saving investigator's worthless lives. I like more variety in my games. I want the first Next Card to bring a difficult decsion. I want the Dunwich Horror to actually be threatening. And I want to have to send more than one investigator to dreary dangerous Innsmouth. The way I do that is to play the game as play tested when I can.

Dam said:

Sure there are gates, but aren't you the one who complained about the DOR track not triggering very often? How often does the feared Dunwich Horror come out or even threaten? And you'll have a slightly increased chance (about 10%) of those gates because you don't add in the 22 mythos cards from Kingsport which only bring gates into Arkhamtown.

The same effect of adding expansions boards with gates could have been achieved by making the stable locations unstable and adding Mythos cards to summon those gates. Or by evening out the rate of appearances of the gates (like Curse of the Dark Pharaoh attempts to do but is diluted when more expansions are added.) I've tried evening out the gates early one before I got any expanions, so there was a 1/11th chance or each unstable location in Arkham being open. I lost. Too many gates open.

mageith said:

That is more down to the "Innsmouth-shuffle", IMO stupid placement/pointing of the arrows that allow the monster to dance back and forth, instead of just steaming toward the vortex. In the last rotation of 8 games, 7 had the initial opening in IH (and never the same Mythos either), 6 of those were at Devil's Reef. D. Reef and Y'ha-nthlei are fine by me, monsters from there do what they should do, hit the vortex auto (barring special movement).

mageith said:

Feared, lol. I've never cared about the DH itself, not even in the AH + DH days. So it comes out, big deal. Just seal the gates and win. I think the DH has been fought twice in the 11 times it has appeared. It's just not worth the bother really. I focus on winning the game, not stopping the DH, even if the reward might be tempting.

Magic Pink said:

You may not be shuffling well enough. There's no denying that gates in Innsmouth in Dunwich are less than half as frequent, as are Next Act cards.

Innsmouth at least has another (clever) mechanic to keep the DOR track going, but the reduced investigator handicap for multiple boards becomes a giveaway and the Next Act cards carry nearly no risk.

In a game of KiY alone, the Next Act cards are a danger. With all expansions, they're a gift.

There is dilution. It can be "corrected" or accepted (both are fine; it depends on the player's tastes obviously), but it can't be denied.

Dam said:

I agree. Recently I played a couple of games where the DH was out from the beginning of the game (scenario). We ignored him even then and won the first game. The second game someone wanted to face him and get the prize. He did, but so many resources were used we lost. He took an Elder sign but before he could get through the gate, the Old One woke up. But at least it was close.

Dam said:

I'd argue this works exactly as designed, if playing Innsmouth with only Innsmouth components. In fact, I know it works because I played so many games exactly that way. Had FFG said, let's design Innsmouth to work with all expansions, then maybe they would have routed the Innsmouth monsters differently.

There are numerous fixes to dilution. But I don't think you can have all expansions working as designed, because then the base set doesn't work as designed. There's only usually going to be 15-25 Mythos cards showing up. If 3 are Next Acts and 5-8 are Innsmouth and 5-8 are Dunwich etc., it doesn't leave much for Arkhamtown or other expansions.

mageith said:

Is it dilution if you have 9 monsters in IH after 3 Mythos and not one of them ever moves to the vortex off Joe Sargent's because they spend to whole game doing the IH shuffle? Dilution has nothing to do with that. Mythos cards have fixed set of movement symbols with a fixed amount black/white and white/black combos. If you get first one, then the other, bam, monster moved to X, then back to Y. That's the part of the IH movement arrows I don't like.

If you're talking gates, sure, dilution takes its toll, but I'm still seeing action in both towns. That's all I really need, action in both. Sometimes it's hectic (like the QU game I mentioned a while back, DOR at 5 after 3 Mythos, 1 different monster and game over), sometimes less so. Unpredictability of 20 unstable locations means sometimes I'll have an investigator stuck at D. Reef-Y'ha, because I don't have the time to send someone to IH to get him out. At least he's getting encounters .

On the DH, both occasions it's been fought have been with the game in hand, the investigator in Dunwich holding several Clues, but with people already in the OWs, getting ready to return and put the winning seals into play, that investigator has had nothing better, so took on the DH. DH should move what, once every 3 turns and add a doomer half the time, so 1 doomer every 6 turns. Of course, math-smath, can't predict things when it comes to Arkham, but still, a starting point.

Dam said:

1) How often does that happen? No its not dilution that causes the monsters to wander instead of head for their own destruction or whatever the Votices represent. Its part of the design, though. And that part works like FFG wanted it too. The monsters in the town of Innsmouth are more like wandering monsters, guards. I think it supports the Innsmouth story pretty well, that along with Martial Law. The monsters on Devil Reef and Y' are the DOR trigger monsters. Those are what's diluted and the more likely chance of getting a stationary type monster there.

2) I know there's usually action on the smaller boards. It's just normally not enough action to make them scary, though. Dunwich and Innsmouth are two of Lovecrafts best stories and the towns offer some promise to elicit that, but they don't usually. I think you see AH more as just a game, an exercise in strategy. I see it more as an experience and I want the game to elicit that experience. Using all the expansions only results in that once in a while.

Your story of fighting the Dunwich Horror because there's nothing else to do at that point in the game states better than I can how using all the boards reduces the game to a very small selection of strategies. The Dunwich Herald at least makes the Horror of Dunwich more scary and less easy to ignore. I just find that with even the herald and having at least 4 investigators that the Dunwich board seldom overwhelms me enough to bring him out.

mageith said:

Actually, both DH combats took place during the AH + DH phase back in the day, so dilution wasn't the issue then. Back then, I was getting multiple bounces a game, after adding IH, I'm probably averaging 1 or less per game (32 games done after adding IH).

Nowadays if he comes out, I really don't have people to "waste" a couple of turns to hit Dunwich and come back. Doomers are coming left and right as it is, so everyone is hitting gates whenever possible.