I'm looking to pick up an expansion in the next week with more to follow. The question i have is in what order would you rate them based on the challenge, fun etc? Thanks in advance.

Each expansion seems to offer different aspects in what they add, so it probably depends on what features/themes/mechanics you would prefer.

I'll let someone with more experience summarize what those are.

www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/41787/the-complete-arkham-horror
An outline of each expansion, with polls to show who loves which expansion the most, and how well they go with other expansions.

www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/42411/arkham-horror-a-geeklist-game-review
An extremely in-depth, detailed look at each expansion. There are polls here too.

I think that you can pick the expansion in any order you like. By my personal experience the small boxes can be took in any order, while for the big boxes I think that Dunwich Horror is best bought first (the Injury/Madness rule is great enhancement ot the base game), while Kingsport is the less interesting of the three.

SimonCopp said:

I would advise you make Dunwich your first expansion. Its monsters are essential, and it fixes the base game's difficulty problems. Innsmouth is a wonderful expansion for later, but I think it's essentially to get Dunwich's monsters in your monster cup first (plus Innsmouth doesn't come with any items).

Along these lines I have Dunwich and King in Yellow. I remember at some point on this board there were comments about lists of recommended cards to include/exclude when combining decks. If anyone could direct that to me that would be great.

Thanks for your help. It's much appreciated. I should be picking up Dunwich Horror this weekend with an eye towards getting a smaller expansion or two over the next couple of months.

Avi_dreader said:

Slight tangent, but I'm very curious what you're referring to about "base game's difficulty problems". From the tone of most of the forum regulars, it sounds like the opinion is that the base game is much too easy, but I'd like to hear the reasoning for that if that is in fact the case. Or get a referral to the thread where that's already been hashed out.

Thanks for helping me increase the ol' Cthulhu Mythos score. San loss be damned.

shofixti said:

I'll explain it very quickly (but if you read this you will need to buy an expansion soon, because the game will suddenly become too easy, unless you apply my suggested custom fix). Scroll down for spoilers.

There are 11 unstable locations on the base game board. That means the doom track can only go up to 11 at most (if you make sure to never close a gate without sealing it— which you almost never should anyways, except on rare occasions for low frequency gates). You can the doom track even further by hunting for Elder Signs (or the South Church encounter). There are three frequencies of gates. Just seal the high frequency gates at first. This slows the game down to a crawl. You essentially have infinite time. It's very easy once you know how to do it. As long as you have some idea of how the base game dynamics work, it's almost impossible to lose at it unless your team work is atrocious and you just spend your time aimlessly meandering (and the Ancient One wakes up from too many gates being open).

Later expansions fix these problems by A)adding more unstable locations (which is useful for doom tokens, and for reaching gate limit) B)cards that immediately increase the Doom Track by two C)ways of having the Ancient One wake up immediately and D)Gate Bursts (which reopen gates even after they've been sealed). The base game is a boring disaster once you understand it though. One potential fix for it is having doom tracks start at two or three (I would suggest three, unless you're still fairly new, in which case, keep it at two).

Tibs said:

I have to say, the second link is the most comprehensive review I have every read for anything ever. I'm also bumping this so someone else might be able to read this thread and check out these links.