Hi all,

Although Innsmouth is hands down my favourite expansion, I've recently grown fond of the underdog big box, Kingsport.

I've happily scoured the site for some great scenarios (thanks, you probably know who you are), and I'm prepping the box for a scenario later this week.

I'll probably only bring the base game and KH for the day, but was wondering what small box combo you'd say is the best to play with Kingsport?

I have everything but haven't played Lurker yet, and something tells me it might be a good one to include (Base+KH+Lurker). And I've heard KH+IH is a great combo, but I'm trying to stick to one big box this time around.

Any thoughts on best small box combo with KH? Thanks in advance!

Make it a pair of kings this time around ~ King in Yellow never, ever disappoints!

Thanks for the suggestion - have KiY but haven't played it with the group yet - so will try it out.

The trick to a Kingsport-Only game is it focuses ALL Gate Activity on the original 11 Arkham Locations. Expect lots of monster surges, full streets, and Terror.

If you combine King in Yellow with that, your Terror Track will fly. But you should use the Miskatonic Next Act Rules, because KY is so severely prone to dilution. Miskatonic Horror Encounter cards enhance the town of Kingsport quite a bit too.

If you combine with Black Goat, Lurker, or both, you increase your chances of Gate Bursts, which is critical to prevent Arkham Gate Stagnation. (Or, just grab the Gate Bursts from BG and LT and add them to your AH+KH Mythos deck.) Also, the mobile Gates and double Gate Openings provided by Lurker keeps Arkham interesting.

If you really want the pain, use Ancient Ones and Heralds that activate with Monster Surges. Shudde M'ell decimates a Kingsport Only game.

Hey, thanks much. My group has lost pretty much every game the last 5 or 6 tries and they're getting a bit down in the dumps (I love the sometimes hopeless nature of this game, depending on setup). Although I have everything as mentioned we haven't played KiY yet, so the fact that the terror level will jack up quickly is interesting to me, might be off-putting to the others...

but I'll risk it!

Lurker looks great, but since one of them is newish to the game I feel better sticking to one big board and testing out KiY for the second match.

According to player votes, Kingsport is best when paired with Lurker and Curse of the Dark Pharaoh. Miskatonic is a universal as well.

jgt7771 said:

I realize that nobody cares, but this is fallacy. If you play with just the base game and Kingport's two Strange Sightings cards, you'd have more monster surges than if you used the entire Kingsport expansion. Aside from the two SS cards, the effect of adding Kingsport is to make the hot locations slightly cooler and the cool locations slightly hotter. As result, there is a slightly increased number of open gates, but there's no increase in surges.

It's not that I don't care, it's that I actually play these Kingsport games, and I've seen the difference first-hand. Maybe if I took all my Kingsport Only games in one long data set, it would balance out to your statistics. Or maybe I'm perfectly inside your statistics, and I only remember the harrier games.

jgt7771 said:

;') I'm going to have to side with avec on this one, or possibly you have a cursed game.

So, a report after the match.

Played one Kingsport with scenario, and one Kingsport with Lurker. Although the Lurker part was great (two of four investigators were devoured) and the scenario was interesting, it kind of reinforced that Kingsport by itself is a bit boring.

For the second match we communally ran a fourth character who just stayed up in Kingsport having encounters.

I mean, if you had enough players you might actually get a chance to go up to the Strange High House etc., which would be kind of fun.

Back to Innsmouth for next game!

Thanks all.