Tromdial said:

Really?  I haven't noticed that.

Tromdial said:

Dark Pharaoh is absolutely the best small box for small diversions - the Ancient Whispers mechanic is a lot of fun and very tempting, but still dangerous.  The marker moves all over the map, and will lead you to street areas you might no necessarily visit.  King in Yellow isn't quite so much, as it is an overarching theme and a wonderful sense of dread - but you won't be going out of your way to investigate anything you wouldn't normally.

But for Big Box, Innsmouth's personal stories are the king of small diversions - to the point where some Arkhamites view it as a detriment!  Each Investigator has his own goal (gathering trophies, visiting certain areas, getting money, ect.) that will send him on a mission, but a lot of people (including me until recently >>) don't realize that the cost of achieving the personal story might not be worth the time and effort lost.  Also, because of the danger of the Innsmouth mechanic, some Investigators will have to spend a lot of time there, cleaning up the Innsmouth mess, while still fending off monsters and sealing gates.

In Kingsport, the mechanic also forces you to visit virtually every location there - but the problem is, there is nothing else to DO there.  Innsmouth has the threat of monsters and gates alongside the Innsmouth Look and other dangers, but in Kingsport, no monsters or gates ever appear, so you're essentially wandering around having encounters for no real purpose other than to keep the board from screwing you over.  The mechanic itself is interesting, but the fact that Kingsport is so empty severely hurts it.

avec said:

Avec, you and Dam are in the same trench, arent'you? ::laughter::

Tromdial,

the second big box is *not* an easy question to answer to. In my POV, Kingsport is a *must* as second expansion, while Innsmouth can wait a little more. For several reasons:

a) first of all, Kingsport vs Innsmouth in terms of game strategy. Playing DH+IH brings you in the so called realm of "speed Arkham": you have 20 unstable locations on the board, which means that it's not that unlikely to have ever Mythos Phase a gate opening in a different locations. Thus, 12 Mythos and the game is over, unless you are very quick. If you enjoy exploring the boards, working on Tasks and Missions, playing the game outside the scheme "hectic collecting of clues, then jump into the gates, then seal, oh crap, there is a monster blocking my way, I lost a round, I lost the game", the combo DH+IH is not the one you're searching for. Even now, with 130 games under my belt, I still don't like this combo. When I play Arkham, I love not to be in a hurry like in normal life. So, Kingsport offers you the chance to experience a multi-expansion board experience without worrying of rushing the whole game

b) many people say that Kingsport forces you to have an investigator staying there for the whole game. This strategically is worthless, and it's completely wrong. The rift mechanic in Kingsport is very clever (at the moment, it's the best mechanic of the whole game, apart from the modified Act mechanic introduced in the Miskatonic Horror set, which is absolutely brilliant, and deadly), and it never dilutes, regardless of the number of expansions you play. But it's not forcing you to have an investigator there. It requires some attention: every rift has TWO progress tracks. When the first one is filled, then you should keep the other one clean. So, sometimes you need someone there to work with rifts. But maybe for 3 or 4 turns in a whole game

c) on the other hand, the benefits of Kingsport are incredible. The board offers you the chance of acquiring the White Ship. And some other interesting things. The Mythos deck is awesome: nasty Rumors, good cards with a good theme, and more stuff it's interesting to discover (so, no spoilers). Plus: the box adds tons of new items, very good characters (Daisy, Wendy, Lola, Lily, Rex and many others are just amazing), amazing AOs and the Epic Battle cards enhancing all AOs from all the previous sets (plus those in Kingsport, clearly)

d) the monsters introduced with KH are awesome. The best after DH

e) just to be clear, I'm not saying Innsmouth is not great. It's a wonderful box, the board is magnificent and so are most of the investigators and some of the AOs, but... the Epic Battle cards in IH cannot be used without the "base set of green and red cards introduced in KH", so you cannot use them. The Personal Story cards are brilliant, but are the only add-on to investigators (and they include even investigators from KH...), so it's certainly better having bigger UI, CI and Spell decks rather than Personal Stories. The board is amazing, but it works better as IH+KH rather than IH+DH, unless you want a hurry-up game. The Mythos deck of IH is focused *only* on Innsmouth locations, thus the odds of having something nasty (gate bursts) in Arkham is very low, depending only on the DH deck, which will suffer quickly of dilution

f) as for MH, yeah, it's the last one to be added. Not only because it expands all other boxes, so it's more enjoyable if you have more (all) expansions, but also because after you play 100 games, adding MH grants you to discover *again* everything, offering de facto a huge chance of enjoying Arkham even when you think you know everything about it.

So, Kingsport :-)

Julia: That's an interesting point about the combination of Dunwich and Innsmouth (which I would not have known, seeing as I always play all-in games).  Based on that, I will second Julia's opinion that you should get Kingsport before Innsmouth (unless you're aching for a massive difficulty spike).

As to the small boxes: I'm still torn about whether to give a recommendation for either the King or the Pharaoh.  Like I said, they both have theme and cool encounters.  Otherwise, the only thing KiY has going for it is the Herald.  CotDP has a whole bunch of other stuff, but a lackluster Herald.  So, I suppose I'll just reiterate my initial statement: if you're really interested in Heralds, get King in Yellow.  Otherwise, get Curse of the Dark Pharaoh.

Yeah, the speed Arkham point is a good one.  Personally, I've never actually had much interest in playing more than one board expansion (aside from the giddy first experience of having all the expansions and being all "Let's play with EVERYTHING"), though it occurs to me that if I had played more DH+KH or IH+KH games, it might seem like a more plausible option.  Perhaps not, though, because I still find Kingsport pretty boring.  I mean, you're also right to point out that it's incorrect to say that one investigator has to spend the whole game in Kingsport, but to my mind, however much time one has to spend in Kingsport is time spent doing boring things.  Also the KH Items, skills and AOs seem like the most unnecessary, though I do like its heralds (okay, Tulzscha) and investigators more than those in IH.  And the special locations are also pretty good; the Strange High House and Neil's are two of my favorite locations.

Excellent job, Julia!  You've said most of what I would say concerning the reasons to get Kingsport before Innsmouth.  I would only add that several of the Innsmouth Ancient Ones have worshipper abilities that modify Kingsport monsters, and that Innsmouth arguably presents arguably the single greatest jump in difficulty of ANY expansion; for that reason you'll want to save it for the last board addition, when your Arkham skill have sharpened sufficiently to handle the challenge.   

Walk, Subochre, Solan: thanks for the feedback & approval! :-)

Love the base game.

Would any of your suggestions for the 'first big box expansion' change for a group of casual gamers? Is Dunwich still the preferred choice?

DaveNYC said:

Yeah, definitely. It's the board that works best as first expansion, and the items provided helps a lot in creating a greater gaming experience. Plus, Injuries and Madnesses are vital. And the Herald is fun

Herald...?  Do you mean the Dunwich board mechanics, or the actual Dunwich Horror Herald?

Julia said:

>urgent whispering< Psst!  Julia!  No Herald in Dunwich!  The Horror is in Miskatonic!

Don't forget that there is a subtly different downloadable version of the DH herald.

jgt7771 said:

::facepalm:: yeah, sorry guys, half of my brain was asleep, not watching what the other half was writing. No Dunwich Horror Herald in the Dunwich Horror Box (sounds odd, doesn't it?)

To be fair, the Horror is odd all around.  Even in the original story, it wasn't entirely clear whether "the Dunwich Horror" meant the monster or the horrible events connected to it (or both).  The name of the expansion, in addition to having the same problem, was also an echo of "Arkham Horror," which would seem to suggest the second interpretation (even though the exact events of "The Dunwich Horror" do not happen in a game of Arkham Horror played with Dunwich Horror).  What's more, in-game, if someone mentions "the Dunwich Horror," they might be referring to the expansion, the actual monster (or, by extension, the mechanics that cause the monster to appear), or the Herald (that is, one of the two slightly different Heralds).

I should probably end with some sort of contrived pun involving Heart of Darkness, but I can't think up a good one (such as it is, or rather, might be) and, myself not actually having read Heart of Darkness, it strikes me as cheating.