I played a lot of AH (french edition) before I moved out of my city last year. It was our game of choice when we were exactly 4 players. Always was an amazing evening with cool friends and good beers.

I'm now in my new city and have some cool new friends to play heavy games (my favorite) and I have the AH itch now. I own Eldritch Horror, Mansions of Madness, Elder Signs and Call of Cthulhu card game, everything made for those games I wn it. Never thought about buying AH until I moved far away from my best buddy who owned the game and many expansions.

I remember having the best time when we played with the King in Yellow as the Herald. Always made some tense and very thematic games. I also really like the Injury/Madness mechanic.

So my thought is to buy AH + DH + KiY...as a starting set

What do you think? Any other small expansion I should check to enhance the gameplay?

I'd say it's a fair start Small expansions to be added: the revised Pharaoh, I'd say. Black Goat has problems, and Lurker's fun, but the new gates will replace the old ones (unless you want to play with an expanded gate stack like myself) so that if you want to taste the flavour of the old days, I'd wait on that one

Good that you're getting Arkham!

Thanks Julia! Never thought about getting the revised Pharaoh. I played a couple of times with Goat but never with the Herald. I really like the theme but if it's a bit broken ill pass on it.

The Goat has some very interesting components and concepts, but fails to deliver and suffers from deck dilution problems.

Julia is wise in the ways of Arkham and I agree. But since you've got a bit of experience, (I'm never 100% sure if I agree with the majority who suggest DH as the first big box) I am a HUGE fan of the personal story components found in Innsmouth Horror and might suggest that one instead or as your 2nd big box if you decided to expand again. Pharaoh is nice because it adds exhibit items and exhibit-related encounters in street areas. I love these mostly because when I get caught in the streets I usually feel like I lost out on a thematic encounter, but with Pharaoh that's not always the case.

But the king in yellow blights/herald is my most commonly used herald. So yeah, that's a great pick.

Yup, I'd have suggested him too to get a big box; but in his original post Dave mentioned he wanted a small exp. If going big is an option, then, I'd recommend Kingsport. I agree with Soakman about PS being good, but they can be proxied easily (everything's available on arkhamwiki.com), while Kingsport comes with a load of small cards, and is (imo, at least) the perfect complement for DH. Also, Innsmouth raises a lot the difficulty bar, so, better going step by step

As for the BGotW being broken... yeah, kinda. But there are fan made versions of the Herald that are better than the original, or you can play with my Church of the Black Goat custom institution to better fix the cult encounters dynamic into the game, if you don't mind playing with custom created stuff

Honestly, with some of the fixes and custom herald adaptations, black goat is one of my favorite experiences. Corruptions are just so interesting. I like my investigators to come in shades of gray. Even just house-ruling that killing Dark Young or being damaged by them or whatever inflicts a corruption is enough to see a bit more play from me as well.

But yes, to the OP, if you ever just want a little bit of tweaking or just a tad bit more variety in your games without splurging on a brand new purchase, please do conisder the custom creations made by fans. There are some very passionate and talented players for this game.

Thanks guys, you made excellent points.

I might simply go with the base game plus King in Yellow and Dark Pharaoh. Then I will add some big bixes along the way... which might be sooner rather than later lol

Enjoy the Arkham experience then! And let us know