First Look - Curse of the Dark Pharaoh Expansion for Arkham Horror

Arkham Horror gets its first expansion. Curse of The Dark Pharaoh consist of hundreds of cards. Some are new categories of cards, Exhibit Items (new type of items), Barred from The Neighborhood (restricts your choice of destination), Benefits (added abilities), and Detriments (hindrance). Some adds to the old decks. The expansion almost doubles the amount of Arkham Location cards, Gate Cards, and Mythos Cards and Allies, and some new Spells.

Exhibit Items are powerful items that cannot be bought. Exhibit Items are items that can only be acquired during an encounter. Benefits are paranormal abilities that an investigator could acquire during an encounter. Generally it gives the investigator an ability that can be used on and is useful to all investigators. Detriments like benefits could only be acquired in an encounter. These generally slow you down preventing you from doing actions that you are use to do. There are limited about of benefits and Detriments and each of them unique. Barred from Neighborhood cards are acquired as a consequence of an encounter. Investigators who wronged the community gets barred from its locations. Each street has its own barred card.

Curse of The Dark Pharaoh adds bigger reward and penalties to the game increasing the games difficulty slightly. The expansion also adds a n element of decision making. Investigators are sometimes forced to make decisions, decisions with a high and balanced amount of reward and penalties.

The expansion is well worth it especially to experienced gamers. The added elements, especially the decision making element, grows the game like a true expansion should. I could not wait for the nest Arkham expansion: Dunwich Horror.