As I mentioned, in a previous thread, I have just ordered AH online and am expecting it in the next few days as my self gifted birthday present. So not even having played yet, I was down at the local game shop (props for Dragon's Lair Games and Comics) and found they had every expansion for AH except Dunwich Horror. Now from what I have gathered from online research is that Innsmouth is the hardest of the bunch to find. I found Dunwich online for a little over retail, but all the copies of Innsmouth I saw were pretty expensive. So the owner is now holding that expansion for me at regular retail. Is this a good idea or am I just wrong in my conclusion of availability? Thanks in advance.

Ps. If anyone knows anyone who plays this sort of thing in either Omaha or Lincoln, Nebraska, please let me know. I am looking for some people who enjoy a good boardgame or some of the more cutthroat card games I play.

Actually after searching online, it looks like The King in Yellow is VERY hard to find and I know they have that at retail as well. Might just have to get both.

Enjoy the base game before using expansions.

Whether you buy the expansions now and hide them away is up to you.

As you say certain expansions are difficult to get, but on the other hand what if you find that you don't enjoy the game?

In my experience i recomend a month or so only with the base game, and then add little by little expansions, starting with a small one. And yes, is hard to get some expansions, but it's a cicle: i bought the base game on december, and there were all the expansion avaliable, but i only got the king in yellow in january and then 3 of 7 expansions were incredible expensive! So i bought innsmouth and lurker while they were cheap and for me it was the right call.

Now i bought kingsport before it becomes scarce, and black goat of the woods is very cheap because it just been reprinted. So, my advice is enjoy the game, add the expansions that are cheap when you need to and wait for the reprints, after all, i bought King in yellow for $19, and now is $50 more or less on amazon, while Black goat of the woods was like $60 on february and now is $20. Patience and a good group of friends is for me what is so good about Arkham in general.

Also DONT add a big expansion right away or you will get tangled with the rules. Learn to control the rules first and ask a lot of questions here

I would echo the idea about not using expansion right away. Buy them now, if you must, but play the base game first a few times.

The reason I would suggest this is because games like AH, which are entirely cooperative, are really only fun if they're challenging. The more you learn the game, the easier it gets, because the game never improves its performance. Adding expansions will make things harder and inject new life into a game that's starting to get predictable, but if you start playing with expansions in right off the bat, you'll never experience that revitalization.

Play the base game alone first. Then, when it starts to get easy to beat it (and it will get easy in time) THEN add in a new expansion. Get used to that game, then add in another. It will extend your enjoyment of the game and allow you to appreciate how truly devious some of the additions are in comparison tot he base game. >=)

Thanks for the advice. I have decided that since my local hobby store has all but Dunwich I am going to dip into my inheritance money and just get them all. Miskatonic and the new TotDP can wait as they are new and will probably be around for a while. I plan on learning the base game game and playing it quite a bit before adding any expansions. I can always add them later if I want and since they label all the cards per expansion I can add a board or two for thematic purposes. It really doesn't matter to me if I really enjoy the game or not as I will own it just to add it to the Cthulhu geek rack in my house. Also if I really feel bad about it later, I can always wait for them to go up in value and sell them unopened on ebay and maybe make a profit. But I really don't see that happening. Plus it take a lot for me to not like a game. Plus with AH I can play by myself! And to top it all of I have a carpenter friend who is willing to make me a custom wooden case that will hold the whole shebang!!