ok guys, this isnt the first time this has been asked or mentioned, but thought i would bring it up again due to recent events.

a friend of mine has who has just the base game said "what expansion shall i get" he hasnt played a lot but would just like one, im sure you know the feeling?

anyway i said the general opinion is either dunwich or insmouth (by members here, its a close one i think). then we went into the whys etc.

and he then said well, if insmouth is sooo good, but could suffer from card dilution, he said what happens if i get both? well?

getting both would solve the main problem i hear of card dilution (not enough cards in the game for insmouth as well as first expansion)

but would 2 expansions on the table at the same time be tooo much?

it is to be honest i think a very hard choice to decide the first best expansion, as both of these will add a different way to play,

why dont we have a poll, and put our reasons for them here as well, im sure it will help?

Innsmouth is the hardest expansion. Dunwich is the most popular expansion.

trouble is all that is open for debate eh? i think on here its 50/50 who prefer each one as their first expansion

I just used the data that Tibs collected. It shows Dunwich Horror is the most used expansion and Innsmouth is the least used.

Knuckles Eki said:

Then again, IH is the newest and DH the oldest big box, DH had gotten quite a bit of logged games under its belt before IH ever came out.

thats true, so really those stats cant be used to judge it, yes it gives an idea, so what about both at the same time? too much?

Might be an idea to read the rulebook pdfs in the AH support section and check out some relevant session reports on BGG.

Of course at the end of the day these will be other peoples opinions and it's not impossible that you/your friend would like and enjoy an expansion that is unpopular with the majority of people here (or anywhere else). Personally I like them all as they all add their own flavour to the game, plus I'm a sucker for anything vaguely 'Lovecraftian'.

boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/41787/item/920612#item920612
Peruse the above link. There are polls showing how much everybody loves each expansion.

boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/42411/item/939636#item939636
This one also has polls, but the expansion info is MUCH more in-depth.

Both expansions together should not cause any dilution issues. Adding more than one extra expansion when using Dunwich is not something I recommend. Innsmouth gets diluted but to a lesser extent; I'd not add more than two other expansions to Innsmouth. When using both expansions together, though, the rules say that you play as though there is one fewer investigator than there actually is. In addition, when specifically using both Dunwich and Innsmouth together, the gate limit is increased by 1. So:

...when using either Dunwich OR Innsmouth in a 5-investigator game:

• Monster limit is 8
• Outskirts limit is 3
• Ancient One awakens at 6 simultaneously open gates
• Two monsters are placed on every open gate, because there are 5+ investigators playing
• Monster surges produce at least 5 monsters

...when using BOTH Dunwich and Innsmouth in a 5-investigator game:

• Monster limit is 7
• Outskirts limit is 4
• Ancient One awakens at 8 simultaneously open gates
• One monster is placed on every open gate: (5 investigators -1 is 4)
• Monster surges produce at least 4 monsters

cheers for the links tibs, ill pass these on, seems like in the reviews most like insmouth a lot, well dunwich as well, i think really its a toss up on whichever you prefer

For what it's worth, I think that Innsmouth is not a good expansion to get first, for reasons other than its difficulty. If you or anyone wants to get a single expansion, don't make it Innsmouth. Innsmouth and Dunwich together would be fine though.

thank you guys, after another chat with him last night he is going to get dunwich like me first, on a slightly different note, all my dunwich cards are mixed in with the standard lot, if im playing just one board i will just draw again if i get a card from the unused board, if i get more expansions, would you just do the same no matter how many you have or would you weed some out ?

If you can get each player to sort one or two decks, it takes no time pre-game to sort out cards. I find that's a lot better than adding confusion later by realizing after you just did a whole mythos card that it was from an expansion you aren't playing.