The other day I took a trip through FFG's youtube channel. Great source of good games, horrible source for keeping my wallet healthy. However I happened to come over the LCG's, figuring that they were like other TCG's I've played like Magic and LOTR TCG. Now, I liked both games (only tried magic, loved lotr) I hated the business aspect of it. They earn their income by making the players buy multiple booster packs in the hope of getting the cards they want/need to make their deck work.  I never liked that aspect and why me and my friends never really got into it as much as we wanted.

However, I liked the LCG concept and since I'm going to Bergen in two weeks (big city in Norway with hobby stores that stock games like this) I figured I'd pick one up but I'm having trouble deciding. I might end up getting both Warhammer: Invasion and Game of Thrones but I'd like to hear what you guys think.

How is the game? I've gotten a basic idea of the rules via the videos and it seems pretty complex. Not ruleswise, but opion wise, and that's a good thing as I might buy the core and then split it with friends if they want to buy one of the faction starters and play on their own. Is this possible or would the decks suffer from being split like this? Is this easy for new players to get into or would I have to spend alot of time explaining it? Obviously they'd have to figure out the inner workings on playstyle on their own, but just explaining how to play it and tet a test game started.

Now, Game of Thones is the other choice and it seems to favour multiplayer rather then 1v1 but Warhammer: Invasion is only 1v1 as far as I know. How do they compare in your opinion? Both 1v1 games and multiplayer with GoT.

And how long do you presume the coreset would be fun until new cards are needed? Or do you recommend some packs right off the bat to improve the balance and fun factor of the game? 

Thanks in Advance!

In my opinion Invasion is better game, but not when You play just with core set, to enjoy Invasion You will need to buy a lot cards and then the game will be totaly addictive, I know that require resources, remember that You will get 6 races, so You can buy cards with 1 or 2 friends and divide cards by races.

I was playing many card games for almost 20 years and I like Invasion the most ;-)

I came into WHI from a MTG background, and found that I preferred it to AGoT.  WHI's mechanics, to me, were similar to MTG, but without a lot of things I found irritating in MTG, like being mana-screwed.  The control WHI gives you over managing your resources, card draw, and ability to attack is what I find most compelling about the game.  Out of the box, I thought the game had decent replay value with the Ulthuan Expansion. 

AGoT plays has better "native" support for 4 players, but WHI has some alternate rulesets for multiplayer that are really fun.  If you can do it, I would encourage you to try both games out over OCTGN and see which one works better for you.

Entropy42 said:

I have the same feelings and totaly agree with Entropy with all 4 tentacles of the dark gods ;-)

… and IMHO Invasion cards have far more better graphic design, each card type, each race have different graphic and so on… GoT cards looks for me… just awful in comparison to Invasion cards

 Thanks for the response! :)

Unoffical multiplayer support sounds very interesting.

So it's possible that, if I get 3 friends to join and buy 3 of the starter decks in the core pack, that we each buy…battle packs is it? Or the bigger editions and then split the faction specific cards among ourselves without anyone getting screwed over? We did that with lotr TCG and it didn't work too well because of the random cards. Or will there be trouble with the neutral cards?

I liked both card graphic schemes, but for different reason. One from nostalgia of reading lord of the rings when I was a kid and the other because I love the art style of warhammer. 

What does the Ulthuan Expansion include and how does it improve on the core game?

No idea what OCTGN is, but I'm betting it's in the US? I live in Norway so most likely not an option unfortuneatly.

Ghaundan said:

It's a program used to play various card games online. Not limited to USA.

Invasion core set and Assault on Ulthuan have some cards x1, some x2 and some x3. Since second battlepack cycle each battlepack and each expansion (like March of Damned and Legends) have all cards for each race and neutral comleted x3. All cards are set, there a re no random cards. Core set have Capitols and basic cards for Empire, Dwarves, Orcs and Chaos and Assault for Ulthuan have Capitols and basic cards for High and Dark Elves. March of the damned was dedicated to nutral races - undeads and lizardmens. Legends have first Legends card and cards for all races and neutrals.

You can brows all Invasion cards here - http://deckbox.org/games/whi/cards?s=e&o=a

 I'll defineatly check out the OCTGN, although it might be difficult without knowing the rules, but who knows, FFG tends to have those released on their website, i'll have to check.

Okay, so basically Assault on Ulthuan gets me two extra starter packs for the elven races? Or do I also get stuff for the other core sets?

So there's a pack dedicated to neutral stuff? Okay, cool. Will we be able to buy smaller booster packs and exhange the race specific ones without one guy getting "screwed over" due to good neutral cards one might not want to trade away?

Ghaundan said:

The game only has 6 total "races".  4 in the base set, 2 in Ulthuan Expansion.  Everything outside those races is a neutral card (Skaven, Lizardmen, Undead, Wood Elves, etc).

You could conceivably do what you are proposing and split sets and battlepacks up among your friends.  This would work just fine except for neutral cards.  There are certain neutral cards that are commonly found in a lot of decks (Warpstone Excavation, Contested Village, Innovation).  If you are just playing casually, you could just proxy these cards when you need them, since it won't be many cards.  Or you can just divide up the neutral cards as needed.  When I started I was easily able to make a deck for each faction without having more than 1 copy of anything FFG has released. 

You can filter by set in deckbox, so you can see exactly which cards are released in each set (it doesn't tell you the quantity of each though), but I'm sure that info is on the internet somewhere.

 Well, I can happily inform you that I've bought the core set and it's currently in the mail, so should be here early next week unless customs throws a fit.

I figured about the neutral cards, how are racial cards sortet? We could always buy the same pack and give eachother the racial specic one, but it'll probably be overkill on the amount of cards. We'll figure something out :)

Glad you hear you are giving it a try.  Hope you enjoy it as much as we do.  And yes, I'm sure you'll figure out the best way to handle racial/neutral cards once you see how the set is laid out.  The only thing to keep in mind is that the core set, first battlepack cycle, and first expansion all use the "old" LCG format, so you will not get 3 of each card.  All other BPs and expansions after that switched to the 3 of everything format.

 I take it 3 is the maximum amount of identical cards I can have in the deck?

Yes.    

 Okay, thanks :) And thank all of you for helping me out, always encouraging when the community helps new players out.

I don't think I've seen many players from norway on, and more are obviously in Oslo, but we'll see how it goes.

Okay, I bought the core set and me and a friend played last night and we both loved it. Him as orcs, me as chaos. Granted I lost both games we both had a blast. So much that my friend bought  his own core set during lunch at work and we're already discussion which factions we'll go and possibly expansions. The "problem" is, what expansions or battlepacks are good first time investments?

We're looking for a cheap Assault on Ulthuan since you guys recommended it, but what else?

Also, any ideas where to get cheap sleeves in europe? Online. I bought my core set used, all cards sleeved with FFG standard card sleeves so I'd prefer to keep using those :)

Ghaundan said:

The other deluxe expansions, March of the Damned and Legends are good investments as you get a lot of cards in both. March of the Damned adds the Undead and Lizardmen neutral races and Legends adds the Legends card type with two for each faction and several other cards. You will probably want two copies of Assault on Ulthuan.

For info on March of the Damned: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_npm.asp?eidm=23

For Legends: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_npm.asp?eidm=62