Good point on Sydney and Shadow out of Time.

If there has to be 3 in North Am I'd ditch San Fran and put one in Central America - Mexico City or somewhere in the Yucatan. Swap Rome for Cairo.

The "darkest Africa" thing may be a Western 20s thing but it's a bit rude to say the least. I'm not saying anyone did it out of spite, I'd just like to see a touch more progressive action from the company. Probably includes some new characters too!

BTW Jake loved Lovecraft County.

Thanks for the compliment regarding Lovecraft Country. Glad to hear you enjoyed it.

The Heart of Africa takes its tone from the pulp stories of the 20's and 30's (and before that, the milieu of H. Rider Haggard). Lovecraft's writing is undoubtedly racist, but I'd argue that this is more reflective of the time in which he wrote than the author himself. (And who knows what social ills we might look back in regret on in a hundred years from now?) Lovecraft wrote Winged Death, The Outpost and Arthur Jermyn, all of which are set in Africa. Many of his writing circle also wrote stories set in fictive Africa too: Clark Ashton Smith wrote the Venus of Azombeii, whereas Robert E Howard set several Solomon Kane stories in Africa.

If you're interested in this theatre, I wrote a Door To Saturn expedition set there: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/970718/new-door-to-saturn-expedition-darkest-africa

Lovecraft was racist. Lovecraft was actually pretty racist for his own time and place. It's something we quietly ignore to enjoy the games based off his otherwise quite fascinating work, but let's not kid ourselves that the man wasn't a bigot.

Lovecraft was racist. Lovecraft was actually pretty racist for his own time and place. It's something we quietly ignore to enjoy the games based off his otherwise quite fascinating work, but let's not kid ourselves that the man wasn't a bigot.

Yes he was big rasist! But he was geny so i don't blame him…...

Really strange we don't have any expansions announce…… i really burn my self….cannot wait for new about expansions and the form what they will take…….

well, we should at least let people come back from the holidays first...

Going through the posts, just so much potential.

As I said before and will further agree with some other posters fter - I hope to see smaller add-ons rather than full out expansions, at first atleast.

Would be great to pick-up a nicely priced new Ancient One themed packs. Complete with Mystery cards, Research cards, Special cards (if applicable), and AO sheet. Maybe also add a regular monster or two for its set aside that can be added to the cup for other AOs and maybe 1 new rare monster and a couple Mythos cards.

Or maybe an Expanded Encounters add-on pack to add new Major City themed cards, Other Worldly Encounters, or as others have mentioned tokens to replace Generic encounter spots.

Also don't forget the possible Set 1 Ancient Ones Expansion - with more mysteries and research encounters for the Base set Ancient Ones.

I can see a new board being welcome - but only a long time in the future. By that time the white lines where the board folds will have worn through and will look pretty unsightly, so while producing a better quality one, they could also take the opportunity to add more locations to the board (such as Cairo, Mexico City, etc.). And perhaps add a bit more information to the board (e.g. expand on the route/journey key). But all of this can wait.

The main thing I'd like to see more of are encounter cards - particularly OO specific and city specific - and Mysteries. More mythos cards and other worlds cards would also be great.

Although I'd love to see regular small releases of new cards, what I don't want to see is this at the expense of quality. I don't want 8 new encounter cards that are slight variations on very generic formulas.

I would prefer to not see a new board or additonal mini-boards. I also would prefer we not get new tokens or any other fiddly parts. Basically loving how streamlined the phases are and don't want to see this game get more complicated over time.

More cards (encounters, assets, AO cards, etc), new AO's, and new investigators!

What do you think, when could we expect the first expansion?

Yeah I'd like it to be limited to small expansions, with just some new cards. I think this game is perfect as far as complexity goes and it would be a shame for it to fall victim to the feature creep of Arkham.

As far as new items and monsters or investigators, I would like for it to avoid the problem Arkham ran into where all the new monsters were super tough and all the new items overpowered to compensate, making all the old monsters and items obsolete. I'm calling this "star vampire / spell stick syndrome". The current power level of items/artifacts is perfect.

Priority #1: More mysteries for ancient ones. Give us a pool of 10 possible so that we can never bank on which ones will show up during each game. I'm less concerned with research cards since those are mostly just flavor.

Maaaaaybe something like stage I, II, and III mysteries, where each stage reflects increasing urgency. 12 total mysteries, with 4 for each stage. Sometimes it can be anti-climatic when you draw the toughest mystery first, and the final mystery turns out to be simple.

Or do what the mythos cards did and have "easy" and "hard" mysteries. I think that would be a better way to tailor the difficulty level of ancient ones.

Speaking of adjusting the difficulty: our group likes to keep score each game, but the reference guide doesn't offer anything on changing the score to reflect difficulty level. Anyone come up with a fair multiplier to reflect games where you remove the easy or hard mythos cards?

Priority #1: More mysteries for ancient ones. Give us a pool of 10 possible so that we can never bank on which ones will show up during each game. I'm less concerned with research cards since those are mostly just flavor.

Maaaaaybe something like stage I, II, and III mysteries, where each stage reflects increasing urgency. 12 total mysteries, with 4 for each stage. Sometimes it can be anti-climatic when you draw the toughest mystery first, and the final mystery turns out to be simple.

Agree! Yes! Definitely! I'm quite surprised there isn't a stage-mechanic to the mysteries, really. Maybe it's part of the streamlining thing...

Hmmmm now I think everyone past all AO see all the cards and variations in the game so forum is pretty dead now.....

we need expansions urgently. FFG COMMON dont delay with that!!!!!

If they keep up with the usual schedule, we should see an expansion released around June or July.

and an announcement in February...

Lovecraft was racist. Lovecraft was actually pretty racist for his own time and place. It's something we quietly ignore to enjoy the games based off his otherwise quite fascinating work, but let's not kid ourselves that the man wasn't a bigot.

By today's standards (and certainly by my own standards) he was terribly bigoted, but I've read that in his later years he grew out of it. Oddly enough most of his "racism" seemed focused on Russian immigrants rather than non-whites.

And remember, there's some pretty degenerate white people in his stories too; I can think of several white families in HPL's stories who in-bred till they became little more than animals. Has there ever been a worse case of "white trash" than the Whateley's? Lovecraft focused plenty of ire on his fellow caucasians.

Other than the Cthulhu Cult can you think of a Lovecraft villain who's not white?

"Chicago typewriter" ~ Very nice, Vacceo!

Trench broom or trech sweeper also accepted!

If you ever fire a Thompson, it will be quite clear why it was called Chicago Typewriter.

Not having got the game, but having seen it played (and read all about it with the aim of getting it sometime soon) my initial impressions have been as follows. Most of them touch on things people have already said, but there are a couple of things at the end I don't think other people have mentioned that I thought I'd throw into the mix.

Whilst initially disappointed there were just four AOs in the game (as a fan of the King of Yellow I was disappointed Hastur didn't get a mention, but I was as much surprised as disappointed that Nyarlathotep didn't make an appearance) I can see why. Aside from Nyarlothotep, I figure they've gone with the four most influential figures, the most powerful of the Great Old Ones and the three central Outer Gods that arguably rule over everything. Azathoth, obviously, not as influential in human circles, but he's pretty central to the worship of other creatures, including Cthulhu himself, and it seems to make for an easy introductory scenario, so that's good enough to warrant its inclusion. In essence it looks like the main game has a lot of generic themes (but then I haven't seen exactly what monsters there are to pick from aside from a few... it looked like there were a lot of cultists).

I'm glad to see Nyarlathotep will be getting the next look in though - using the famous Masks of Nyarlathotep RPG supplement as possible inspiration it makes perfect sense that they'd produce something that goes beyond the simplicity of the basic game to cover him and his various masks. I imagine Masks will translate into various Epic Monsters - it'd be nice to see them each lurking around the parts of the globe the source materials original set them in.

It goes without saying that I look forward to seeing a Hastur/Kingin Yellow themed one too, hopefully one that acknowledge the King as a Herald to Hastur from the beginning, rather than to whichever AO is in play. The Tatters of the King RPG supplement does a similar thing for Hastur as Masks did for Nyarlathotep, although on a smaller scale, so I can see lots of option for a Hastur based game.

I agree that the game should probably have boosters that are based around particular AOs, so you can tailor your EH game to whichever AOs you enjoy. Whilst I think it'd be great to add totally new AOs to the mix, I think it'd also be great if Yog Sothoth, Shub Niggurath and Cthulhu (I less bothered by Azathoth, as I think it has a pretty simplistic goal that works fine as it is, and no really organised cult to speak of) had their own boosters to enable you to take their basic game to new levels or in different directions. And, as I've said in regards to making Masks haunt specific parts of the board, it'd be great to have AOs that acknowledge their ties to particular countries or continents (all those Severn Valley AOs, for example).

As well as additional cards I wonder if the new monsters that are added are kept aside, and only used to seed the mix of monsters whenever a certain AO has been chosen. So, for example, you'd get more Deep Ones drawn in a Cthulhu game, or more Byahkee in a Hastur game. This would definitely add to the inherent theme of each AO. Is this sort of thing covered in the base game?

I briefly mentioned the Heralds from Arkham Horror above - I wouldn't be against some sort of return of Heralds in EH. However, having just read about Relic: Nemesis this morning, I was wondering about the potential of having games where one player IS the Herald, able to play a game against the investigators. Like Fury of Dracula, but with Nyarlathotep. I'm not sure exactly how you'd implement that, but it could potentially be pretty awesome (and, again, help make EH a very different game from AH).

Extra boards? Whilst I can see the argument for a new board with a better representation for specific cities, I can't see that coming any time soon. The only possible new board I could see would be if they were to create an entirely new board for The Dreamlands, and that's a whole new can of worms.

But what delicious worms they'd be!

Nice overall comments on the game, from which good debates could stem. I just wanted to answer to this point:

I briefly mentioned the Heralds from Arkham Horror above - I wouldn't be against some sort of return of Heralds in EH.

If we have to draw an anaology between EH and AH, I'd say Epic Monsters are EH version of Heralds.

On a side note (something I don't think it was mentioned before): for me it's a little odd we have Cthulhu but R'lyeh is not in the number of the OW encounters

On a side note (something I don't think it was mentioned before): for me it's a little odd we have Cthulhu but R'lyeh is not in the number of the OW encounters

Then there almost certainly will be a Cthulhu expansion (or something that expands on the basic game). Maybe, because it's on Earth, it'll be something you add to the board on a certain number?

Is the Dream Lands an OW encounter?

Yes, core game features the following (in brackets the number of OW cards):

Abyss (1)

City of the great race (4)

Dreamlands (2)

Future (2)

Celaeno (4)

Lost Carcosa (4)

Past (2)

Underworld (1)

Yuggoth (4)

so, no Leng, no R'lyeh, no Kadath.

On a side note (something I don't think it was mentioned before): for me it's a little odd we have Cthulhu but R'lyeh is not in the number of the OW encounters

Given that R'lyeh is present in the R'lyeh Rising encounter cards used when playing Cthulhu, perhaps they thought it best to not have another mechanism whereby one could visit R'lyeh.

Yes, I thought of that as well. Still, it's a little strange considering all other Cthulhu games (including Mansions of Madness now) offers you a chance to have R'lyeh as an OW. It's a curious choice (not saying it's a wrong one, don't misunderstand me, it's just different)

R'lyeh is on Earth, so it shouldn't be an "other world." Leng is in the north of the Dreamlands, and Kadath is north of that. It's possible that the Dreamlands encounters cover those places sufficiently.

Well wait, I see only two Dreamlands cards, and even one for "Underworld." Hmm.

The model they've used for Other World allows for more extension than in AH. FFG could easily add in one-shot encounters for Formalhaut, Zothique, Averoigne, K'n-Yan and Gharne.

I'm fine with here being no R'lyeh OW encounters. R'lyeh is mostly associated with just Cthulhu, so having R'lyeh tied directly to Cthulhu as the AO works out best in my mind.

That said, there ARE Carcosa OW events, which you'd normally associate with Hastur.