Did anyone else see this disappearing announcement on the home page? I logged on saw it as the latest announcement and went to read the article. Read the article and went to comment when suddenly it was no longer there??? It wasn't on the new section. Or in the upcoming section and no longer on the homepage either. Happily though when clicking back I was able to once again find the now missing announcement so here to satisfy peoples curiosity and to show that I'm not making this up, here is a copy and paste...

Growing the Gathering Darkness
Announcing Miskatonic Horror, a unique Arkham Horror expansion

A recent find at Miskatonic University has unearthed even more mysteries pertaining to the strange happenings in Arkham, Massachusetts. While the worshippers of the Ancient One grow in strength, the stalwart defenders of this sleepy town are put to the ultimate test.

Fantasy Flight Games is pleased to announce the upcoming release of Miskatonic Horror, an expansion for Arkham Horror. The fight against the unknown forces of the cosmos is far from over, and those that thought they stood a chance against the mythos have a lesson to learn.

Miskatonic Horror is a new type of Arkham Horror expansion that builds upon the materials found in the ample library of other Arkham Horror expansions. While the components and rules found in Miskatonic Horror can be enjoyed with only the Arkham Horror base game, the more expansions you incorporate, the more aspects of Miskatonic Horror you can enjoy.

With nearly 450 new cards, Miskatonic Horror adds new Mythos and Location cards for Dunwich, Kingsport, and Innsmouth, as well as new cards for Gates, Epic Battles, Relationships, Injuries, Madness, Skills, Blights, and much more. Miskatonic Horror provides new materials for every Arkham Horror expansion.

Continue your Investigations

Miskatonic Horror includes:
New Skill, Gate, and Mythos cards for the Arkham Horror base game
Additional Exhibit Item cards for Curse of the Dark Pharaoh
New Injury, Madness, Dunwich Location, and Dunwich Horror cards for Dunwich Horror, as well as an all new Dunwich Horror Herald sheet
More Blight and Act cards for The King in Yellow
New Kingsport Location, Epic Battle, Blessings of Noden, and Visions of Hypnos cards for Kingsport Horror
Over 20 new Cult Encounter cards for The Black Goat of the Woods
New Innsmouth Location and Innsmouth Look cards for Innsmouth Horror
Additional Relationship cards and Reckoning cards for Lurker at the Threshold
Plus new Player reference sheets and sheets for the new Institution variant!

Just a Taste of the Coming Terrors

As an example of the new content included in Miskatonic Horror, let's take a look at what's in store for Arkham Horror players who are seeking to learn more about the mysterious cult in The Black Goat of the Woods.

The Black Goat of the Woods expansion adds several new features to Arkham Horror, such as corruption cards and the “One of the Thousand” cult membership cards. Miskatonic Horror further expands the presence of this elusive cult by adding a new deck of Cult Encounter cards to be added to those found in The Black Goat of the Woods.

(The back and front of a Cult Encounter card. Click the Front card to enlarge)

Players must discover the secrets of this growing cult presence in Arkham, but in order to learn its secrets they must infiltrate the secret society. When investigators choose to join the “One of the Thousand” cult, they must draw alternative Encounter cards when snooping around the darker corners of Arkham.

The Cult Encounter deck from The Black Goat of the Woods adds an exciting twist to your normal encounters, and Miskatonic Horror enhances this by delving further into the cult and drawing players deeper into the story that surrounds it

New to the Town

In addition to the cards, Miskatonic Horror also includes player reference sheets to easily keep track of the different happenings in Arkham that correlate with the number of players. These sheets will tell you how many Gates can be open, the Monster Limit (in both the streets and the Outskirts), and how many monsters appear when a Gate opens, all based on the number of investigators present.

Finally, Miskatonic Horror introduces the Institution variant. Similar to the Herald and Guardian variants introduced in earlier expansions, the Institution variant allows players to choose an Institution sheet to incorporate into their game. Several powerful organizations exist in Arkham, each one with their own agenda. When using the Institution variant, one of these organizations is put into play and that Institution will provide investigators with new options and benefits during their game. Stay tuned for more information on these influential Institutions, and what they can do for your investigation.

Open the doors to Miskatonic University and experience the new discoveries that await you with Miskatonic Horror. But beware... the terrors that lie inside are expanding, and soon you will see more of what lies in wait for your future Arkham Horror experiences

Hopefully this has worked.

Bah blasted thing. Can't get the pictures to display so here's my flickr account for the pics I pulled from the report.

www.flickr.com/photos/spirit_juggler/sets/72157626077071752/

wow! thanks for sharing! made my day!!!!!!

So glad I'm not the only one who saw this.

If it's genuine, then perhaps it is the often requested expansion to properly tie multiple expansions together and (with the mention of Black Goat) fix often voiced problems with various aspects. Hmm, if so then I may well pass on this one (which would be a first with AH...not counting the horrible pre-painted minis, yuk!). When it said it was something different I thought we were getting a completely new stand-alone expansion which is something I would like to see. To be honest I think AH will be playing second fiddle after MoM is released (soon to be followed by a mass of expansions (I hope)).

Thanks for the post. I suspected a large box expansion since the posting of the Daoloth picture (he had an expansion symbol). Plus, it's about time for it.

Nyogtha said:

its real.

and likely means - no more boards

it's back out there...wow, this is expansive!

Here's the announcement:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=1989

>sniff sniff sniff<

Hey, Dam...is that Kingsport I smell?

Or maybe you'll just take those cards out and set them asiiiiiwait. You can't do that, can you?

spirit said:

Seems like there is a merging between Factions from the LCG and the core game, and it's an interesting point.

Folks, finally the blender expansion we were all waiting for!! What a marvellous news ;-)

Last but not least: they are not talking about "final expansion" but about "a new type of expansion", so possibly the line is not dead yet (It's not dead which can eternally be expanded?)

Nyogtha said:

No offense, but how is that different? All of the expansions to date have been designed as stand-alone, in keeping with FFG's general design philosophy, meant to be used with the base game only. It's the fans who insisted on playing everything at once, to the point that FFG finally gave them a nod of a house rule in Kingsport. I'm not saying such a thing would be bad or unwelcome at my table, but it hardly qualifies as "a unique expansion."

As far as what the expansion is, it looks like an interesting experiment compared to what else FFG has done. As one of the (probably few) people around here who doesn't own all the AH expansions, I'm not sure how appealing this is to me, personally. I dislike having too many extra bits floating around. But I do hope it works out well for FFG's bottom line, and more random craziness is not usually a bad thing in AH. =)

dj2.0 said:

Not necessarily. It just means they are adding to the decks and introducing a few new elements. I wonder if it really requires that big of a box though.

Julia said:

::Laughter::

I, for one, am excited. Heck, I'll probably get this before I finish getting all the expansions! Yay giant blender packs!

(plus, some of the "Herald" cards looked neat, like one was Organized Crime, apparently. Dunno if that's a Herald or the "Miskatonic" variant they talked about)

Steve-O said:

Just from seeing the new card that lets you get Sheldon gang memberships, I'm guessing that there are new ways to get cards that rarely see play. I don't think the expansion is going to force you to add expansion only cards that you don't want. Notice how the expansion related card is marked in gold? That way you won't have to put in cards that relate to expansions you don't own.

While I have to admit, I'm a little nervous about content, I have very high hopes for this thing, and am exuberant about it.

I am pretty excited about this, and the different options we'll see coming out of it. I like that new Cult encounter.

And hey look, they're printing the Dunwitch Horror herald. No mention of the Dark Pharaoh though.

Looks like a neat expansion. I would like to see some new personal story cards but perhaps that could be in next expansion.

Veet said:

They're adding more Exhibit Items at least! I know Tibs, Avi, and Julia can't WAIT until the Patrice Mask comes out ;-)

I just had to complete a mind-numbing programming assignment, so this has been a very pleasant "reward" to my efforts.

An "expansion" expansion, eh? It's about time! I CANNOT WAIT to see what this will do to dilution. It looks like "Institutions" will be a new entry on the stats page.... hahaha!

New Reckoning cards: good. It will be nice to see the Lurker be more dangerous.

New Exhibit Items: really?? Who knew they had it in 'em!

New Hypnos cards: awesome, maybe they will incorporate expansion locations? We'll see I guess.

New skills and relationship cards: then I guess it's a good thing I haven't printed out my "starting item restriction" cards yet. Also: **** it, now I have to painstakingly revise my lists.

Veet said:

Actually, they might mean that they're making a *new* Dunwich Horror herald. (Fingers crossed).

EcnoTheNeato said:

...

Redrum REEEEDRUUUUUM!

despite me just getting the last 3 expansions i was missing (insmouth, KiY, Lurker) i'm all for an expansion like this... if this in any way fixes dilution to an extent or increases some of the more rare happenings to becoming more frequent it could really balance out the game in a positive way... one thing i thought was funny was it says MORE CULT ENCOUNTERS.....in 30+ games with black goat i have never seen anyone get a membership...and only a few times have seen an opportunity to get one...i think i need to make a custom investigator who starts with one .... i definitly hope they throw in dark pharaoh herald sheet ... investigators/AO's always welcome.... it also wouldn't hurt to throw in at least one more guardian... thers so much they could add but this seems like an expansion that was needed...cards cards cards with no new rules (new variant but not the same.)

look forward to getting it!

RocksLikeToast said:

... one thing i thought was funny was it says MORE CULT ENCOUNTERS.....in 30+ games with black goat i have never seen anyone get a membership...and only a few times have seen an opportunity to get one...i think i need to make a custom investigator who starts with one ....

Based on how the "Organized Crime" Institution sheet works I'm willing to bet there will be some similar mechanic for the cult membership in there somewhere.