I just ordered Arkham Horror yesterday, I'm excited and a bit threatened by the difficulty of the rules and game play, this will be my first experience with this type of game. The only board games I have ever really played are things like say Monopoly

Any words of wisdom

Yes: don't play Monopoly again.

But more seriously, my best advice would be either to use the boss with the shortest game (Yig) or the one with the fewest rules modifications (Azathoth). Note that Azathoth also has the longest doom track, so this may wind up being a long game.

Have the rule book handy. Follow the phases, in order! When in doubt about something, first check to see if it can be resolved by following the phases. If not, come ask us or ask at boardgamegeek.com and you'll get an answer very, very quickly.

Play the game all by yourself a few times, using only one or two investigators (a 1-investigator game is kind of a crappy, end-battle-only game but it's a good learning experience) before you try including your friends in the game. Nothing kills a potential fan like a dragging game because you don't know the rules fluently enough.

Finally, when you've had enough of playing the base game and would like to get an expansion, and need help deciding, players seem to prefer the big-boxes over the small-boxes (because they offer so much more), with Dunwich Horror the favorite. If your budget doesn't allow for a single big-box, and you want a small box (they cost half as much), get The King in Yellow or The Lurker at the Threshold.

Enjoy and welcome!

Thanx and I promise never to play Monopoly again, well I have the Lord of the Rings version and its pretty cool, so Ill only play that one

HEH. I find it very...SOMETHING...that "H. P. Lovecraft" has only now discovered Arkham Horror: "What is this now?"

Actually, I would kind of like to have an "Arkhamopoly"...

You don't need to promise not to play Monopoly. It's your right. But once you've had a taste of what a "real" game can be like, Monopoly will quickly work its way out of your rotation.

Tibs said:

Monopoly is a game.

Arkham Horror is more a contest of the gods!

Just kidding, havent played Monopoly in decades

Fact: nobody has ever legitimately finished a Monopoly session

aaaaand....

Fact: Arkham Horror routinely comes alive and kicks you in the face

Tox said:

I'll back this fact up. I remember there was this one time we were playing Arkham Horror, and about halfway through, it came alive and kicked me in the face.

I believe monopoly is a good game... it all depends at what age you play it thinking about new generations ;o)

Monopoly is fun.... the first couple times you play it. In high school my gaming group at the time played that or Risk every week, and I subsequently developed a deep and bitter loathing of both games.

If I ever play monopoly again, I'll use these three golden rules:

1. You don't buy new property you land on. Instead, you auction it to the other players, who pay you to occupy it.
2. Roll three dice, choose 2. Makes it easier to get where you want to go.
3. Start with half the money, so it doesn't take all night.

In yesterday's two Arkham games, both games saw the DOR track at 4 after the turn-0 mythos!

In the first game I played against Dagon & Hydra (starting it at 2), and one of the first two gates was in Innsmouth. Using my anti-dilution rule (I had all expansions), two monsters emerged instead of one, but both entered the vortex. Bang! We lost that one: 12 doom tokens in 5 turns is a doozy. Additionally, we had drawn three Next Act cards but I replaced the first. Dilemmas...

In the second game, it was Ithaqua/Black Goat. No problem. Except that the first gate was in Devil's Reef. Again, the anti-dilution doubled the monsters on the gate, and since I was using Black Goat the gate started with two monsters anyway. That's four! One of them was the Dark Druid, which moved on black into the vortex, dragging the other three non-flying non-stationary monsters in with him, who otherwise would not have moved.

In that game we quickly managed to clear the DOR track but were boned when we failed World Torn Asunder and three rifts opened. The only two weapons Ithaqua did not take were one that cost money to re-charge (Kerosene) and one that cost stamina to use (custom: Scythe). Soon after he even took those, too (Sinister Plot).

So yeah, we were beaten twice. One was a close-ish call, and the other was a brutal massacre.

Tibs said:

Tibs didn't suggest the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh, now I'm scared.

Eh, I gotta speak for everyone. King in Yellow has always been very popular and Lurker is turning out to be a pretty decent small-box.

Tibs said:

Whatever you say Tibs. You've been very helpful to me.

I'd suggest to go to YouTube and look up the Arkham Horror tutorial series... it's about an hour and a half altogether, but will probably save you some time and trouble and show you how things work together, which the rulebook alone doesn't always do the best job of. The guy makes a few rules errors, but corrects them with annotations, so be sure to watch for them.

Yeah I found those, thanks, Ill definitly use them when I get the game