I'm a cyclopean geek. I love all things Lovecraft. I own Arkham Horror and it's expansions.

Time, however, is not something I own in abundance. It eludes me. As such, I've not had the opportunity to play as much as I'd like to, or with the expansions I'd like to. Having said that, I have a question:

For more inexperienced players, would you (The population of Arkham) suggest the use of a Card Expansion, or a Board Expansion? And in either case, which card/board would you suggest? So far we've got a 60-40 split of Wins/Losses, and I'm looking to slant it the other way by increasing the difficulty.

My new favorite is Black Goat of the Woods along with its herald. The corruption card mechanic adds a lot to the game and the chance to really use the components.

My second choice is now Dunwich Horror. It adds more gates and corrects a lot of the shortcomings of the Base game. It should bring your winning ways down.

You should try the Dunwhich Horror Expansion. I think its great. It ratchets up the difficulty and adds some nice things. I don't think it really adds alot of time it just adds more possible things happening that you'll have to deal with. Also the Injury and Madness cards are great fun.

If you add more then one expansion you'll probably loose some time handling all the cards and new bits and pieces. I suggest you try them out one at a time that will keep your game fresh and fun for quite some time as well.

So, just add one a time. I think Dunwhich is best value, but keep mixing it up.

Have fun

Adding expansions almost always increases the difficulty.

And the new mechanism of Heralds (introduced in the King in Yellow) only

However, if you add more than one expansion, many of the effects that make the game harder are diluted. In fact, a board expansion and two card expansions may make the game easier than just the base game alone.

Part of the reason for this is added "timers" in the card expansions, such as the possiblility of the King in Yellow (a play being performed in Arkham in the expansion by the same name) having each of it's acts performed. If the third act is completed, everyone in the town goes insane: game over. However, if you add more cards to the deck, the chances of the cards coming up that might cause the play to progress are lower on each draw; your risk has been reduced. On the other hand, a few card mechanisms become harder to fulfill if you have diluted the deck. The Dark Pharoah expansion often requires Exhibit items, which are generally only found through events in the Dark Pharoah events.

There are solutions. Since the Mythos deck suffers from the most dilution, you can always randomly remove cards from the base Mythos deck for the cards of a second expansion (or third, and so on). Thus, for 27 King in Yellow mythos cards to go with the Dunwich Horror board expansion, you first remove 27 random cards from the basic deck. For the Dark Pharoah, you can allow all Unique item "gifts" (not the shop) to give either an Exhibit or a Unique card, your choice when you receive it.

While opinions vary, forum buzz suggests that playing with Kingsport Horror and The King in Yellow, with or without some of the basic Mythos deck is very popular. Of course the new expansion has not been out long enough to have formed a concensus, so you may want to check out The Black Goat first, if only because it is cheaper than a board expansion and readily available.

Statistically speaking, the avarage you lose more when all the expansions are there. I remember this from an old thread, if the original poster doesn't bakc me up, not much I can do to prove my point.

By the way, if you just want to try out a Herald, there are two free ones on the Support page for Arkham Horror:

http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=6&esem=4

StarBurn said:

Well, yes, it seems that there are some statistics suggesting that the full sweep makes it harder. Old forum posting with statistics can be found here:

http://app.fantasyflightgames.com/ffgforums/posts/list/7723.page

But I was covering generalities for someone that has not gotten any expansions yet, so I still think that the first experience that the OP will have is that the game gets harder as he/she adds expansions.

The nice thing about the smaller card expansions is that I tend to use it with the base set only. This allows me to keep my investigators in a relatively small area (only Arkham) and not have to divide them between two (or three) boards. The card expansions (in their temporary, not permanent form) are also a refreshing side story to the real goings-on in Arkham.

Having said that, I do enjoy the Dunwich Horror expansion (having played it the most). It opens a few more mechanics that work nicely in the game. I have not played enough of the Kingsport expansion (time being a factor for me as well), so I cannot comment on that!

Have Fun!

I have to say I like playing with all of the expansions together. Whenever I get a new one I take all the others out to play it with just the base game but then I add them all back in together and play it like that. I've never found having all the expansions in at once dilutes the game at all. There's more potential for things to happen and to go wrong.

I'm running AH+DH+DP+KiY+BG and it's going nicely. Especially when using the BG Herald, final combat seems almost inevitable (did manage a couple of what can only be classed as Hail Mary close/seal wins against that one though). If I say I've had 1 loss in the 14 games since adding KiY and BG cards in, might sound like it's easy, but looking at that "actual" results, 7-6-1 (victory by final combat counting as draw) shows that GOO woke up 50% of the time. And more than a few of the final combat came down to the final dice, in some cases the the final die . Adding to that the Hail Mary wins, might've easily had a negative tally.

If you're only getting a second expansion and want a challenge, either get The Black Goat of the Woods (and play with the herald), or get Dunwich Horror. Honestly, I'd say get BGotW, it's cheaper, and I think it'd be alot of fun with just the base game. Which isn't to say that I don't think DH is tons of fun :') but it's a bit more expensive ;') and you can wait a bit before buying it.

Note how I'm not even bothering to mention Kingsport Horror, or the other two card expansions ;') not that I don't like CotDP or KiY (okay, honestly, I don't really like KiY— or the $25 herald as I prefer to call it), but Kingsport Horror can be a bore (although it's nice for the extra monsters, investigators, and AOs. Once Innsmouth comes out ;') I suspect it will play very differently due to aquatic movement, but until then, booooore.

You should try King in Yellow, it makes a harder, dangerous game. But if you're looking for something more "calm" and new, a board (I preffer Dunwich over Kingsport), should turn out grat. But I was looking for something else, and I ended up with all the expansions, so be careful.

Stormcrow.

I am going to throw my $0.02 in a say that:

If you want an increase in difficulty, but are happy with your selection of investigators and feel that covering Arkham is room enough: King in Yellow

If you want an increase in difficulty, a bigger selection of investigators, GOOs, more monsters, an awsome item retention mechanic (Injury and Madness cards) and feel that covering Arkham is too easy: Dunwich Horror + w/ downloadable herald

Just to inquire from people promoting KiY, when you refer to it increasing difficulty, do you mean using the Touring/Visiting method, not the Permanent? For me, the Permanent hasn't been adding any real difficulty, mainly a Blight here or there. Since the Herald is all tied up to the Terror Track, unless you happen to draw TL increasing Mythos cards or get overrun with monsters, Yellow Sign tokens don't come into play.

Whereas the Black Goat Herald cranks up difficulty pretty much each turn.

Yes if you want to use the king in yellow on it's own then do it as a touring exibet because that can make it quite interesting.

I think it depends more on how many players typically play in your games. If it's 5-6, Dunwich Horror is your best bet. Not only does it expand the real estate you have to cover, but it adds the Madness and Insanity cards, which add theme and actually make unconsciousness and injury more bearable (you don't lose items).