They are all stable, the dangers on the Kingsport board come from other sources...

Agreed. Do not underestimate Kingsport because you don't have unstable location. The Mythos deck is a major pain, and the rifts are an interesting (and constant) menace.

Agreed. Do not underestimate Kingsport because you don't have unstable location. The Mythos deck is a major pain, and the rifts are an interesting (and constant) menace.

I've enjoyed my first couple of games with the KH expansion. My first impressions are that it's a gentle add-on that doesn't make too many demands on a n00b player. The main difficulty seems to be that you're always essentially -1 Investigator for the entire game due to the need of having someone constantly in Kingsport to keep the rifts under control. But at least that means there are new KH encounters every turn.

Aye, that's the common first impression of KH In fact, you don't need to have an investigator there for the whole game. The four progress markers required to have a rift activating are divided into two rows: if one of these rows is filled, it doesn't really matter. You need to send somebody to Kingsport when a rift has three markers on his progress track: in this case you have the encounter removing the "single" marker, so that Mythos that would add markers to the already filled row are no threat at all.

In this way, you have all your investigators "free" to work as usual until a late phase in the game

In fact, you don't need to have an investigator there for the whole game. The four progress markers required to have a rift activating are divided into two rows: if one of these rows is filled, it doesn't really matter. You need to send somebody to Kingsport when a rift has three markers on his progress track: in this case you have the encounter removing the "single" marker, so that Mythos that would add markers to the already filled row are no threat at all.

In this way, you have all your investigators "free" to work as usual until a late phase in the game

Thanks for the the tip, Julia.

In fact it makes perfect sense. I guess it was my unfamiliarity with that particular game mechanism that lead me to be over cautious. I was worried that if I left Kingsport unguarded I might be caught out and find myself in a situation where a rift was about to open and no investigators were able to rush back and deal with it.

Oh well. You live and learn.

I was worried that if I left Kingsport unguarded I might be caught out and find myself in a situation where a rift was about to open and no investigators were able to rush back and deal with it.

And that's a very good point, and the key for an effective strategy, and one of the things I love about Kingsport so much: the rift mechanics never dilute, so that you know it's a constant and crescent threat. So, what to do? When to hit the tracks? Do I have enough "free investigators" to deal with an open rift? How much will it require to me closing that **** thing? With one rift open and another one with three tokens on it, where shall I go? Working on the open one because I fear the doomer, or trying to prevent the second one to open? How to deal with monsters in Kingsport (you don't have unstable locations, but you have monsters arriving there... and thanks to a Miskatonic Horror card, you could have a monster in every bloody aquatic location in Kingsport, which means it's a nightmare).

And if you want to suffer beyond any possible imagination, you can play Avi's masterpiece, The Things in the Rift:

KIngsport is something unique in Arkham: it plays in a totally different way and it's quite unpredictable and difficult. I hope you could enjoy it as much as I do