Arkham Horror Expansions

Hi,

I've finally been persuaded to take the plunge on Arkham Horror, mainly because it looks to be a pretty mean and thrilling solo experience, and that's a rare shout in boardgaming.

I know the wise thing to do is to try the game out, see if I like it, see how difficult I find it and *then* buy expansions. However, for various good reasons I tend to buy games in bulk so I'm very tempted to buy an expansion or three out of the gate.

The question is, which should I get? My primary aim in getting expansions to start with is to increase card variety, especially location and mythos cards at a minimal cost to complexity. What'd be really cool is if I could get an expansion, shuffle in the cards and just play with the rules from the base game. Failing that, which offers the easiest extra rules?

After doing a little research my initial feelings are:
* DH sounds like it meets my requirements quite well - it certainly offers the most extra variety and from the looks of things one can use a lot of the extra stuff in the box without having to use the extra board and the base game. But it's expensive and I'm not too worried about the extra investigators and GOOs.
* I've heard that CotDP is the best of the expansions to integrate seamlessly with the base game without fussing with extra rules, and since my goal is to get more mythos and and location cards it might be a good bet. But I'm not terribly sold on the theme.
* KiY is exactly the opposite - in most respects it sounds like a bad idea since it doesn't integrate that well with the base game and significantly increases difficulty (not good for a beginner player). But I've always loved the KiY theme!

I may well just end up getting the base game and see how often it gets played. But I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Cheers,
Matt

Dark Pharoh is probably the best fit for what you want. It uses it's theme well, and intigrates the egyptian relics into the game quite nicely.

Dunwich is probably my favorite, and the one I would personally get if I could only have one, but then again, I'm looking at this from a strictly multiplayer viewpoint, and the extra board and decks trigger a bit of Talisman nostalgia. I do like that monsters are handled a bit differently on the dunwich board and the concept of the dunwich horror works well. Having more locations to explore is always good, but then agian it's more places to scatter clues and for gates to appear.

King in Yellow definitely adds the most diffculty. My group rather enjoys it, but those yellow signs can really make things nasty. I would get this, or at least mix it in, last, not because of a lot of added rules, but because things will get hard fast. Ruleswise, this one's not at all hard to integrate.

How big is your table? Arkham Horror has a board that is about 50% larger than the typical modern four-panel boards. Add in Dunwich Horror, and you're looking at twice as much board as many games. In addition there are a lot of different types of components, so you will need places to pile those cards and bits up, and even more space for each player's investigator and stuff.

Arkham is one of my all-time favorite games, so I definitely encourage you to get it, but I would recommend just playing the base game at first, then start mixing in expansion cards to keep the game challenging. We got to the point where we almost couldn't lose at the base game, but then Dark Pharoah made things challenging again. Dunwich Horror knocked us down to about 50/50 chances of winning. Our group play with everything now, and we lose about 2/3 of the time, which might be why we aren't playing quite as often these days, as we otherwise love the game.

If you are buying in bulk to save on shipping, I would recommend just Arkham Horror and the Curse of the Dark Pharoah. That should be enough to qualify for a shipping bonus, and will give you plenty of replay value. If you are really loving the game and have a big enough table, go ahead and get Dunwich Horror and the King in Yellow with a later shipment.

Eh, I like 'em all. They all add something new to the mix and increase the already huge amount of variety and replayability. But if I had to pick just one, it'd be Dunwich. Not only does it add the most to the game, but it's the most integrated- probably because its the only one that Richard Launius directly worked on. The other two are pretty great though, I like KiY a lot. I think CotDP is cool but it feels kind of goofy and tacked on with the Egyptian artifacts and all that.

KINGSPORT...get a bigger table, that's all I gotta say.

Dunwhich Horror is the way to go if you have to pick just 1 expansion. More of...everything.

I recall this coming up in MattDP's other recent thread . I'm so glad you're going to try it out--this game kicks such ass.

I feel bad for Curse of the Dark Pharaoh, it's probably the best match for exactly what you request--it just bolts right on the game, done. But the theme, which Lovecraft & Co. were so frigging fascinated by just isn't so interesting 100 years later. Compare early 20th Century Egypt to late 20th Century Antarctica. It's a land that we know is there, but we just don't know a lot about it--and whoa--it looks like COOL THINGS happen there. X Files, John Carpenter's The Thing, random scientific articles about how odd the critters there are have all exploited this fascination with the unknown--Egypt used to be that, and Lovecraft and his buddies were seriously into it.

I'm adding my vote for Dunwich Horror--it adds a LOT of stuff, and it's great. The biggest deal isn't the board and the DH and so on, it's the Injury and Madness cards. THAT is the reason to get Dunwich Horror. It really adds another layer to the game--you collect some decent loot and then roll badly against a Hound of Tindalos or something and you've REALLY got to think about taking a Phobia or heading to the asylum.

King in Yellow is for folks that kicked the original game's ass--it makes it harder. Done.

I'd stick with just the base game first.

This thread has got me ready to play some more Arkham Horror, but I'm going to need to wait a while. My family is coming for a visit this weekend, so my girlfriend wants me to do some housecleaning. My idea of housecleaning is picking up the clutter and putting it in a box in the closet until deal with it later. Her idea of housecleaning includes dusting the furniture and mopping the floor.

Also, when I play Arkham Horror, the setup time includes re-arranging the living room furniture so that I have room to insert the extra leaves into the gaming table. My girlfriend wanted me to get rid of that table when we moved in together, complaining that it was too big for the kitchen and not needed anywhere else. I said that I needed the table to play Arkham Horror. She asked what that was, and a married couple helping us move chimed in and said, "the best boardgame ever!" My girl said, "Oh!"