Hello everyone!

I've recently bought Arkham Horror with all it's expansions after wanting to play it since I played it at my friends house a couple of years ago, and finally had the financial means to do it (it was pure torture for my wallet though). Since then I've played it for about ten more sessions (most of them solo), and I am getting hang of the base game. That said, I'd like to ask some questions:

1. Which of the expansions is the most user friendly/fun to incorporate to the base game? It's probably one of the smaller expansions, but which one? I am preparing to play a game with my friend who has played about two sessions, so the rules aren't quite that clear to him yet, but he's eager to play the expansions as well.

2. Will there be more expansions? I am bit hooked to the Cthulhu mythos right now, and the little voice in my head says that more is always better. I know there's a lot to play with right now, and I'm content for now and probably many months to come, but I'd like to know if the game will get more support in the future.

Thanks for the answers!

Yours, Lebo

I made a 10-scenario PDF that's intended to teach people expansions in an increasing-difficulty way.

http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/69008/introductory-and-expansion-scenarios

According to the booklet (and to my own experience), Dark Pharaoh is the expansion with the smallest difficulty increase. That would be best to show to a new player.

In response to your second question, having attended the Arkham Nights Event several months ago and asking the same question of Kevin and Richard, they were not-so-curiously obscure in their response. They certainly don't want to show their hand, but at the same time don't want to prognosticate in a public forum should it never come to fruition. I must say though, having played nearly 100 games over the past three years and slowly acquiring all of the expansions, save Innsmouth Horror, there's plenty to capture your attention and time on what's out there already.

Tibs said:

The Professor said:

Thank you for that piece of information The Professor. That is the case on most of the game expansions before announcing it officially, so it's understandable. I was just thinking if I might have missed something that the older community members know. I do believe you when you say that there's more than enough for me to play with for now!

Oh, and another question that has been bothering me!

3. Mandy Thompson, the Researcher, has a special ability which let's anyone once a turn re-roll all the dice that did not result in success in a single skill check. Does this apply to all the checks, for example fighting, evading, encounter/mythos card checks etc.? My friend played with Mandy, and we both agreed that her special ability is very powerful. That made me think if we misunderstood something.

Here's the exact wording:

Research

Any Phase: Once per turn, Mandy can activate this ability after any investigator (including herself) makes a skill check. That investigator then re-rolls all of the dice rolled for that check that did not result in successes.

I tried checking the rule book, and from what I understood, she can use it whenever an investigator rolls dices (except for bless/curse upkeep check) and fails.

Lebo said:

There are nine types of skill checks. Speed, sneak, fight, will, lore, luck, and the three special checks, combat, spell, and evade. For any of those checks she can reroll dice. For anything else, she can't :')

Mandy's power works on all skill check, as long as you use it once per turn. This makes her a really powerfull investigator, and if you look at Tibs' statistics, she's on the tippy top of the A-list of the most successful investigators ever (tying the first place with Patrice Hathaway, from the Innsmouth Horror expansion)

Avi responding to a rules question ::shock:: ::laughter::

Julia said:

And he didn't quite get it! He forgot horror checks !

A skill check is any check based on your six slider stats. Mandy lets you reroll all failed dice . You don't necessarily have to have rolled 0 successes or even failed the check. This stipulation makes her ability particularly useful against monsters with more than one toughness, as, for example, you can roll one success and then use her ability to try to make up the other(s).

And if you ever spend clues to get more die and then you're using Mandy ability, you'll also reroll the dice provided by the clues...

Okey dokey! Thanks to everyone. We agreed that next time we play, we're going to randomly deal out the investigators in order to prevent using the best ones all the time. You've all been a great help!

Lebo said:

1. Dunwich

2. You're a beginner and you're already looking for the 9th expansion? Get outside and get some fresh air, dude. Throw a football around or something.

avec said:

Quite. It's quite a challenge to jump into the deep end of the pool by grabbing ALL the expansions simultaeously.

At the very most MAYBE just the base & Dunwich (and then only really for the extra investigators as well as the madness/injury cards) to start with.

avec said:

Dunwich seemed to be the most interesting of the big expansions, at least to me. So that's probably the first big expansion I'm going to include. And yeah, I have to admit I got a bit overenthusiastic with my purchases, but I had a plan to incorporate the expansions slowly as I gain playing experience. You do have a point, being outside is more important than being locked up inside, playing horror games!

Nameless1 said:

I had this fear that if I wait a couple of years, some of the expansions become unavailable or something, so I went all-in. Happened once or twice, it isn't anything serious as they probably can be found on ebay or so, but at least now they are available to me when I want to use them. I'll probably use Dark Pharaoh at first, then introduce Dunwich.

Lebo said:

It strongly depends on the climate ::rofling::

Stay Inside and Play Boardgames

Environment (Weather)

Julia said:

True, though it's been pretty warm winter here. The snow came to stay about a week ago or so! Well, to be fair, you can do lots of fun things during winter as well, but nothing is more atmospheric than playing board games during long dark winter evening!

subochre said:

Pass Will (-2) check to move from location to street.

Okay, that's it for the questions now. More will probably follow as I or we get around to play some more. Thanks everyone!

And as I posted, one question immediately popped into my mind!

4) If a mythos card indicates that a gate and a monster appears (let's say a cultist), and that same mythos card indicates that crescents move, does the cultist move on the same turn that it appeared? If it moves, let's say, to the southside, and the same mythos card says that church group kills every monster in there, is it killed on the same turn that it appeared? My gut instinct says that it is since the card is read in the order of 1) Gate, 2) Clue, 3) Monster movement, 4) Event.

Lebo said:

Yes, the cultist would move. Just follow the order of actions. When you get to monster movement, if there is a monster, it moves. Note that if the mythos headline dumps, say, 2 monsters in the uptown streets, they would not move, because movement occurred first.

jack21222 said:

All right, thank you.

subochre said:

That's a good one, sir

Hello everyone! One question came into my mind while we played our last session with four players.

5) Rumor "The Terrible Experiment" came into play, placing five monsters on the card which could be battled while in Miskatonic University streets. Now, I know that the monsters aren't considered to be on the street, but rather at their own location so to speak. We handled the situation by using "Flute of the Outer Gods", which says following: "Any Phase: Lose 3 Sanity and 3 Stamina and discard Flute of the Outer Gods before making a Combat check to defeat all monsters in your current area. This does not affect Ancient Ones. " Was it a legit move to pass the rumor by using this, or did we break rules?

Lebo said:

Monsters on the Terrrible Experiment card are not considered on the board; hence you may not use the Flute to defeat them. Sorry...

Julia said:

Ok, good to know. I kind of hoped that it wouldn't work as I thought it was way too easy to use it to pass the rumor. The Arkham Horror I've come to know isn't that merciful...