Rules

That's a lot of expansion board encounter cards. I like it.

Here's the Announcement

Brine said:

Hmm... I'll buy it... I guess... But this is the first time I'm feeling hesitant about paying for an Arkham Horror product (beyond the revised CotDP when it sounded exploitative). I guess it'll depend on how well thought out the new stuff is.

I am pleased with the extra Dunwich Horror cards at least.

Sigh... Why no monsters? ;.(

I think what really irritates me about this expansion is it sounds like it's all theme and no potential difficulty increase. Oh well... I suppose I should be thankful for the new blights, madnesses&injuries, act cards, epic battle cards, lurker stuff, and maybe the mythos cards... Hrm... We'll see.

And maybe the new encounters will be really cool and well written ;')

It's sad that I almost feel guilty complaining about this product... But... I suspect it's more to other people's gaming needs than to my own (I care about the strategy aspects of Arkham more than the theme, although I like that too).

Avi_dreader said:

One man's irritation is another man's excitement! (Wow. Worst out-of-context statement EVER.)

No one is more shocked than I that I think I agree with you. Not about the actual "agreeing with Avi" bit , but that we've both flip-flopped to the same seesaw conclusion: that maybe this expansion isn't the "all-expansion" blend that was hoped for. The only difference is I'm more excited than ever to have new cards to sprinkle into my one-big-one-small-expansion games, with a different bunch every time!

I have faith that you'll find something invaluable with all that variety in it. There's always something for everybody. (Well, maybe not Dam.)

Avi_dreader said:

For example, me. The theme is the reason why I play this game. The mechanics and difficulty levels less-so.

Wah ;.( ! But why couldn't they have done both ;.( I will fill up Y'ha Nthlei with my tears.

Brine said:

I am with Brine on this one. Plus, you could always add a couples of home-made heralds so it becomes almost impossible to win (if really that is annoying you

Avi_dreader said:

Or at least the Fan Creations forum

amikezor said:

avec said:

Actually, I just brainstormed a Ghatanathoa herald this morning in an email to Julia :') so, one tear at least.

jgt7771 said:

Not about the actual "agreeing with Avi" bit , but that we've both flip-flopped to the same seesaw conclusion: that maybe this expansion isn't the "all-expansion" blend that was hoped for.

I'm very curious as to how you came to that conclusion. If anything,the revelation of Mythos cards with alternate gate locations confirmed for me that this was EXACTLY the all-expansion blend that I was hoping for! Why do you think differently?

Solan said:

jgt7771 said:

Not about the actual "agreeing with Avi" bit , but that we've both flip-flopped to the same seesaw conclusion: that maybe this expansion isn't the "all-expansion" blend that was hoped for.

I'm very curious as to how you came to that conclusion. If anything,the revelation of Mythos cards with alternate gate locations confirmed for me that this was EXACTLY the all-expansion blend that I was hoping for! Why do you think differently?

Shoot, you're right. That came out wrong. I merely meant that it seems it isn't so blended that it REQUIRES great amounts of expansions to work. (Like Kingsport Gate Bursts that can't be used without Kingsport.) No, if I'm not playing with that expansion, I can still play with more cards than I originally thought, because there's always an "Arkham Location" backup option.

I totally called the alternate gate location mythos cards. Other than that I'm cautious about a few new components excited about a few. The Act cards replacing the old deck promises more teeth for a King in Yellow game. Only 5 new innsmouth look cards promises a little more mayhem but not much unless the new encounters have you drawing from the deck more frequently than before. I've got high hopes for the reckoning cards but will hold off judgement until I see them. It's nice to have the promise of a printed Dunwich herald but it does not appear to be "new" as was quoted. As for the Institutions I think they are officially a Guardian by another name. Still bummed that there appears to be no way to fight dilution on joining the cult. I see enough here to like that I'll be buying it.

Veet said:

I'll be getting it for the variety of cards if nothing else. I'm looking forward to the new Next Act mechanic. The alternate gates for mythos could be interesting, but I'll wait and see if it balances things enough for me to get rid of my current house rules.

The expedition markers look like they are trying to address the distance between towns (which can be a pain when you only have slow investigators).

20 new cards per neighborhood per expansion - that's more than they provided with the original releases! Likely so many because some will require more than one expansion to be in use.

I noticed there was no FAQ included on those rules... Does this mean no updated FAQ?

Musha Shukou said:

this was the first thing that came to my mind upon finishing reading through the book... maybe it will be there but they don't want to post it online so people will buy it.

ricedwlit said:

Also it brings the other town decks up to close to the size of the main Arkham decks

Arkham has 7 (base) + 5 (CotDP) + 7 (DH) + 5*4 (KiY, KH, BGotW, IH, LatT) = 39

Other towns have 14 originally, so 20 new ones brings them up to 34. Not quite as many, but close enough.

Well it looks like a winner to me. Let's look at the contents:

7 Skils - Hmm. Maybe +1 Focus, +1 Max stam, +1 Max San. +2 Spell, +2 Evade, +2 Combat and +2 Horror.

9 Exhibit Encounters - Presumably Whispers for the other three towns.

5 Exhibit Items: Bit of a disappointment here, but lets see how CotDP2 fixes things up. Also give me my Mask of the Triune Fates fro that one Silver Twilight Lodge encounter that mentions it by name (Yes, I know it's FAQ'd to be another Mask, but this is a chance to fix the problem once and for all) The card looks like it reads Expedition Text.

12 Injuries / Madness - which correlate with the existing Injuries and Madnesses. We've already seen some pretty nasty Injuries that can raise the Terror Level.

7 Blights - Harney Jones, Brian Burnham and Joe Sargent. Presumbaly at least one victim from Kingsport.

16 Visions of Hypnos. - 4 Stable Dunwich Locations, 12 Stable Kingsport (although 2 which are night on impossible to reach) and 4 in Innsmouth - What's not going to get represented?

6 Blessings of Nodens - Meh.

24 Cult Encounters - Hopefully they do a better job of balancing risk / reward so that players have a genuine incentive to become cultists.

6 Relationships - Cool. (And playable in small numbers without LatT)

8 Miskatonic U Student Cards - Need to see these in action, but house rule that Amanda gets on of these straight off the bat.

56 Gate Cards - More chances to win Young Zoog?

43 Mythos Cards - Rebalancing deck distribution.

6 Dunwich Horror cards - Maybe his Horror check won't be so predictable.

Dunwich / Kingsport / Innsmouth - 20 locations apiece. Throw in the extra cards from Dark Corners of the Earth for a little extra fun.

8 Epic Battle cards - Not sure what to make of these.

5 Innsmouth Look cards - Maybe a slow degeneration rather than an instant one.

3 Institution - Guardians, human style. Inerstingly you can now have a Guardian, Institution and a Herald. Adapt the game to your difficulty level.

Finally some answers, yet more questions arise, haha.

38 Agent tokens seems like a whole lot. That's almost as much as there are Brood Tokens. I wonder what the underlying mechanic and effect will be. The whole institution thing seems like tons of fun, especially the Miskatonic University one, what with the student cards and all. I wonder how the game would play if you had all three institutions available to use and how or if they would interact with each other. You could have some really cool themes for a scenario. (Organized Crime vs. the FBI? Both duking it out over the missing artifacts of the Exhibition? )

I just hope the box's plastic container will be tweaked to hold all the Ancient One cards (the larger ones: encounters, mythos etc.) this expansion provides. From the numbers in the book, it seems like it has almost twice the number of them than the basic game did.

Avi_dreader said:

It's quite a promising one. I'd like to play it with Blights as well, but maybe it's just me ::laughter::

As for the MH expansion per se... I'm quite satisfied with its content. I like the strategy behind the game, but I love the theme as well, and just the new enconters for all locations on expansion boards are worth the value of the box. To me at least. It's something that makes the game more complete / rich, and I love it. Hew Heralds and Ancient Ones and Monsters would have also been cool, but there is still time for new expansions to come. I hope :-)

ricedwlit said:

I think it's more likely supposed to be an At the Mountains of Madness style expedition thing, they are connected to the Miskatonic U card.

Jake yet again said:

The original visions covered unstable locations as well, so some of the new ones might.

What's really needed on cult encounters is more opportunities to join and more opportunities to get corruptions (which will force you to join). At the moment with full decks it's really easy to avoid the cult even if you're trying, unless the herald is in play. (In retrospect, the "kill a hex monster, get a corruption" power should probably have been part of the main Black Goat rules, rather than on the herald sheet)

I'm hoping for more Innsmouth-style gate cards, since they're great but don't come up often enough.

I am pleased that there are more Kingsport encounters... It'd be great if some of them opened gates inside the Kingsport streets (I mean, I'd be thrilled if they did, and there's no reason why they shouldn't since we now have gates in the streets rules, but I doubt they will).