I've bought Arkham Horror a few months ago (no expansions) but I don't know why I just feel something is missing about the game. Maybe we're playing it the wrong way it just feels like we're lost. I read somewhere that there's an expansion that adds a lot to gameplay I was thinking maybe that's what was missing for us?

yewsef said:

Without being more specific about what's missing, it's hard to say if any expansion will make things better. Is the game too easy? Expansions will definitely help with that. Are you all feeling aimless and not sure what your investigators should be doing? Expansions will give you more things to do and more places to go, but that won't necessarily give you purpose. In fact you may end up finding yourself with too many places to go and not enough manpower to get to them all.

If you think you're playing the rules incorrectly or maybe forgetting something important, the first thing I would suggest is that you read through the FAQ found here in the catalog section. Then surf these threads or maybe compile a list of questions (if you can nail down what's bugging you).

I was "lost" for about 3 weeks when I started playing it. I only started playing about a month ago. I was relatively new to these types of games.Here are a few things that helped me.

I read the rules a couple of times. Then I set the game out and read all cards, investigator sheets, Ancient Ones sheets. Then read the rules again now that I had the "pictures" in my mind of what was what. The best thing to do is watch Grundunza Videos on You Tube. He has 11 of them from beginning to end. I have watched them all at least 3 times and some of them more than that.

My wife and I played a game. (first one took 7 hours looking over 3 days of looking up rules and getting "tired". Then read rules now that I had some experience to see what I did wrong. Watch Grudunza videos and read through the forums here. You can search some questions but to me the forums here sometimes times is difficult to find things. So I would just go through the pages and stop on the ones that might pertain to what I was looking for. There are some people on here who always seem to help newbies and I would almost always read what they had to say regardless. Watch Grudunzas videos again.

Play a game and then immediately go over rules and see what you may have done wrong. One thing I found was a fight check is not a combat check. I was using combat checks to close gates instead of fight (or lore) checks and thinking "this is easy". I took one of the peoples advice and used Azathoth, well here is the advice I had got from Julia.......

Hello Drakson,
I imagine you have just the base game, right? I you want to get into the mechanics of the game, probably the best AO to start with is Azathoth. His special abilities do not influence too much the game, and his long doom track allow investigator to explore with ease Arkham, which is pretty good, at least in terms of understanding what the game can offer. But obviously there won't be any final battle in case the AO awakens.
If you really want to try the final battle, then a good AO to go with is Nyarlathotep. Just remember to spare some clues for the final battle, and you should be able to win pretty easily (if you are intentioned to go for a final battle, then remember to look at the special abilities on the AO's sheet and then prepare for it; for example Nyarly has a magical resistence, so it's better when you have some phisical weapon with you; in case you don't, and see final battle is coming in a couple of round, go for some shopping at the General store)
As far as the investigator is concerned, depends heavily on how many investigators you want to play with. An investigator each for you and your wife could be ok, but the game with just two investigators can be a little tricky to beat, expecially if you're moving your first steps into this bizarre world; anyway, I'd probably go with Mandy Thompson (her ability of allowing people to reroll a skill check once every turn is a real boost to your chances of victory) and Carolyn Fern (being able to heal 1 Sanity every round can be very helpful, with tons of monsters swirling around kicking your brain ::laughing:. If you decide to play with 4 investigators, add Darrell (it's not a bad investigator and has the amazing ability to draw two Encounter cards and chose one: it's the best if you want to discover a little more of the locations and so on) and Kate Winthrop.
An welcome to the Carnival :-)

I used the same investigators instead of drawing them randomly for about 3 games and the same Ancient One so I could concentrate on the rules. I always checked the rules afterward (and Grundunza videoss). Then I changed investigators but still picked the ones I liked and AO and played 3 times each then changed again. I now have 12 games under my belt. I asked 2 questions yesterday, got the answers and told my wife, " I think I finally got the rules down".

Read all the FAQs and also look up Arkham Horror on Wikepedia and you can see the stuff in all the expansions and see what is in store for you there. You will start learning some strategy on your own. My wife and I play to try and seal 6 gates but when we can see that isn't going to happen, we take a break, walk about 20 minutes outside and talk strategy and come back in and play the rest of the game. We have had a lot of beginners luck but that has ended and are having some good games and having fun.

Anyway we are only though about half the Ancient Ones and investigators and there are a lot of different scenarios that can happen. In fact there are some areas on the board I rarely have visited and lots of spells I never have cast.

I hope some of this helps you. Have fun.

yewsef said:

I think you may want to look at the great Arkham investigations:

http://arkhaminvestigations.barkingdoginteractive.com/

When I first bought the game, I couldn't wrap my mind around the seemingly complicated turn mechanics, and got lost with all the phase sequencing; there seemed to be too much going on, as there is much to keep track of. Just read the rules thoroughly again and keep them next to you as you play, and while FFG are known for writing convoluted rules and Arkham Horror is no exception, gameplay should become clearer and much more intuitive after several sessions.