Miskatonic Horror tipping point?

By Krawhitham, in Arkham Horror Second Edition

It may be too early to ask this.. but I am wondering at what point should MH be considered as an expansion?

A very common question here is: Which expansion to buy 1st? I would assume MH would not be it.

So for example, I have Black Goat & Innsmouth (I also have Dark Pharoh V1 but assume it's not compatible) .

I would think that I would be better off getting at least one (if not 2) more expansions before considering MH.

What do the current MH owners think?

As an aside, would it be worth making a sticky about considerations for which expansion to buy? A summary of each exapnsion and reasons that you might want to buy it (added theme, added difficulty, new mechanics) and perhaps some advice about when to buy each one (if a certain expansion is regarded as not being an ideal first expansion).

Hmmm. Good question. The more expansions you own, the better. The more expansions you'd plan on playing with at once, the better.

Lots of the stuff can be used on its own out of the box. The new Mythos cards and Institution variants, for example. Much of the expansion-expansion stuff you can actually use so much as you know the rules. I'd say you should get two expansions before getting MH. But, it is really a matter of your preferences.

I've only had MH for a couple of days. But from what I've seen, it's reasonably compatible with the original Dark Pharaoh. I don't remember seeing too many MH cards that reference Ancient Whispers or Patrol tokens.

Call me crazy, but I was talking with my group and we think Miskatonic is the first buy expansion. Yeah you get A LOT of useless stuff, but the Mythos cards added to Arkham Horror's mythos deck are a perfect introduction to gate bursts. The institutions help to balance out the difficulty increase for new players. Only adding these two new sets of game components is perfect for throwing together with Arkham Horror on a second play through.

We also feel this is the must get second purchase, due to the fact that the components are playtested to fix the problems of dilution new players would face as they add more expansions without Miskatonic. After owning Miskatonic Horror the player doesn't really need to worry about what to buy next. At that point it really comes down to flavor and theme they want.

I was talking with my store manger about the idea of selling Arkham Horror and Miskatonic Horror as a bundle deal to customers that demo the game. Most customers that own Arkham are going to buy Miskatonic without a doubt, but new players need a place to start off. I encourage the community to talk to their local store about running Arkham Horror demos and possibly working in a AH and MH deal.

One of the issues we ran into back at that store was trying to keep enough base games in to meet the demand and at the same time trying to manage the expansions back stock. My theory is that Miskatonic's "sneak peek" will entice new owners of just the base game to purchase expansions. This site along with the components in Miskatonic will give them a basic idea of what theme and variants they want to add in next.

Curator said:

Call me crazy, but I was talking with my group and we think Miskatonic is the first buy expansion. Yeah you get A LOT of useless stuff...

I think this would be a major issue. "Oh look, cool! Lots of stuff in this expansion... oh wait, we need to buy more expansions to make it work". As my first experience I'd feel pretty ripped off and would think that I was being asked to pay out even more money just to get the value out of MH. It would have to be made VERY clear what the nature of this expansion is.

So yeah, I will call you crazy lengua.gif

From FFG's point of view, however, they would be very wise to encourage the bundling of MH with the base game; perhaps make it cost the same as a small box expansion when purchased with the base game? Even if this were to happen, I would still caution the retailers to make it clear that it is expanding on other expansions (as well as the base) to avoid customers feeling that they keep having to spend more money to get the 'whole' game.

Having been here from the beginning (2005), being one of those who has acquired and played every expansion in the order it was released...with the possible exception of the original Dark Pharaoh, which was pushed out a bit too soon prior to FFG figuring out their "Arkham Strategy", I think that tackling each expansion in that order is still the best way for any individual to go. Primarily because every player is going to have an opinion on what goes first, what goes best, blah blah blah, but everyone should figure it out for themselves how they like to play.

I think that people who intend to play with every expansion possible should have the same experience the rest of us have had at trying to make that giant wad of chaos work properly. Anti-dilution, custom Heralds...the things people have created in order to mesh it all together to their satisfaction cast a WIDE net. In fact, time will still tell if Miskatonic successfully assists in that way. But if it does, I think there should be a personal understanding WHY Miskatonic does so. And that will only happen if one gets it last.

"What a bunch of philosophical hogwash." Fair point. Okay then, I'm with Krawitham's practical level: if you're going to drop fifty bucks on an expansion, you better be able to use EVERYTHING out of that expansion the moment you have the darn receipt. It would tick me off if I spent good money on new Act cards without knowing what an Act was.

jgt7771 said:

"What a bunch of philosophical hogwash." Fair point.



Avi_dreader said:

jgt7771 said:

"What a bunch of philosophical hogwash." Fair point.



::Laughter:: I don't know. I generally agreed with it. Also, it seems silly to not try and drag out the Arkham experience as long as possible, and learn the game from different angles before making into a giant homogenized monstrosity of chaos ;'D not that there's anything wrong with that.

Homogenized chaos? Isn't that what you'd get if you put a bunch of shoggoths in a blender?

arkhamresident said:

Homogenized chaos? Isn't that what you'd get if you put a bunch of shoggoths in a blender?

Protein shake, filled with vitamin shog.