I got Arkham Horror this Christmas and I must say I am happy as a clam. My friends and I just love it, and it's become a game-night staple for us. I just got my hands on the Dark Pharoah expansion, as well as Innsmouth Horror. I mixed the Innsmouth investigators in with the ones from the base set, and have been happy with the the results, but I just have one question. What other components mix well with the base set as permanent additions? I plan on getting the others when I have some fun money, but what mixes well with the expansions I already have.?

Well, your instinct to mix in the investigators was spot on. The investigators from Dunwhich and Kingsport are great additions to the base set; I never take them out from the general mix. In addition, the Ancient Old Ones from those same sets are also a great mixable addition.

Okay, I can mix the Ancient ones in as well then, just went over the Innsmouth encounters for Arkham and they are in as well. What kind of change would adding the Exhibit items to the base set as permanents cause?

Madmaestro said:

From my experience to date, you can safely add in Common, Unique & Spell items. Investigators and AO's.

As for specific game items, here is how I play. I currently own Innsmouth, Black Goat and Dark Pharoh.

All of the encounter cards are mixed in. I simply decide at the start of the game which expansions I am using and ignore cards with the 'wrong' symbols. So at the moment I am playing base + Innsmouth only.

I will only add expansion specific decks when playing with that expansion. This way I hope to make use of each element of each expansion. I feel that if I mix it in, I will get a tiny amount of everything and it will not really have a significant impact on a game.

I also have mixed in all of the Mythos and Other World cards, except for Dark Pharoh. I play this in Visiting Exhibit mode. Having said that, I am very very tempted to add the Dark Phraroh Other World deck into the main deck because of those yummy encounters where you have to fight an AO!

I don't think I will ever mix in the Dark Pharoh mythos cards because they are often very specific to that expansion (Exhibit items being washed up, etc).

Keep experimenting and find what makes the best game for you.

Madmaestro said:

The items themselves should not negatively impact gameplay, but they only enter play via specific encounters or mythos cards. You'd need to leave those cards in or else the items can't technically be "added."

Tibs said:

My thought exactly after I read the encounters and mythos cards for the DH. I think I may just do a visiting exhibit for our group of investigators we do a persistant world with, that way the exhibit items feel a bit more special. And the flavor of the cards is very specific, so that may just be one I bust out with every now and then. Thank you for the heads up good sir.

So I mixed in AO's, Investigators, and Arkham/other world encounters(as they were very general, and meshed with the main game.) The Mythos from Innsmouth goes with the actually board for ,and all of the DH stuff is pretty specific. I think those can be separate, so I can suprise the other players a little more. Thank you guys for the advice, and giving me a spring-board to work off of. I do have another question, how do you guys feel about combining the monsters from base and Innsmouth on a permanent basis? And would it be a good idea to add the Kingsport/Dunwich monsters at a later date?

The Investigators and Ancient Ones from Dunwich and Kingsmouth are very nice as permanent additions.

You can also leave in pretty much all of the small cards; Common Items, Unique Items, Spells, and Allies. However, this does make the base game slightly harder by reducing the chances of ever drawing an Elder Sign to very low. Likewise, you can leave in all the monsters (except Spawn and Masks) but it makes the game harder as the average expansion monster tends to be a lot worse than the average base game monster, since the base game was full of Cultists and Maniacs and such. Right about the time the second Color out of Space or the third Formless Spawn shows up on the board you start to wish you'd separated the monsters.

I only keep Gate & Mythos cards sorted by expansion, leaving everything else mixed in. It does mean sometimes you need to discard & redraw a location card (e.g. if you get a Rail Pass in a game with no additional board, or something equally useless) but it happens rarely enough I find it less of a hassle than separating decks. At the beginning of a game we decide which expansions to "really" play with, and mix those Gate & Mythos cards into the base deck, leaving the rest out.

Vylanis said:

Just got back from playing base game with all the Innsmouth monsters thrown in, and good god. You are totally right, after the fourth shoggoth on the board, we were happy to see a cultist. I like your approach to it, its given me many good ideas to use.

Madmaestro said:

Cultists schmultists ;') When a cultist comes out you should groan, "Good God! Give me a real fight!"

Seriously though, increased monster difficulty isn't a problem, you just need to be better about shopping for equipment. And maybe get one investigator a combat ally.

Oh don't get me wrong, we whooped mythos ass and took names. Most of us drew good weaponry from the start, and we had three people working in shifts with street clean-up. Two fighting while the third rested and recovered. Then two more on portal duty. It was fun, and we won in the end, but with our monster draws it was like "Shoggoth-Fest 2011, With Special Guests- the Proto-Shoggoths."

Madmaestro said:

You'll have a much more mixed monster cup when you add in Dunwich (it's the best monster expansion).

Avi_dreader said:

Oh yes, I've been anxiously waiting for Dunwich to be released from reprint hell. That just adds one more reason for me to be antsy.><

With Innsmouth you can mix in the Arkham Encounter cards without fear, none of them refer to anything expansion specific.

Veet said:

Oh yes I added those right after I read them. One of my friends loved farming the newspaper, and was shocked when he got beaten up by thugs in an encounter there!