I'm surprised this hasn't been addressed yet in LCG.

There are some pretty cool dragon synergy cards and the dragon reprints are fairly cheap - but only two of them are really playable and Rhaegal is more of a Valar shield than anything else. So the dragon stuff isn't shining as brightly as it might.

Plus - the "adult" dragons are un-Nedly as hell and always have been.

Dunno which Hatchlings I want the most. Its close between the 5K ambush ones and the Crown of Suns era attachment ones. Either set would be handy and appreciated (not that I am playing a lot of Targ or anything).

Stag Lord said:

By attachment ones, are you talking about the "adult" versions (the Doomed ones that became condition attachments)?

Either way, I'd go for the Ambushers. Those were fun characters.

~And now that the Very-Deadly Viper is coming, Ambush may help to lessen the anguish.

Not to mention that the 5KE ones serve as duplicates of their adult versions. Take that, Red Viper!

I do think the Hatchlings should return (reprints of prior versions or new versions0. Or something else with the dragon trait as I agree that there are some interesting cards for Targ that key off of that but go unplayed due to lack of the trait.

Why are the adult dragons so Un-Nedly?

Largely because the are adults.

I consider the 4 STR dragons of the Core Set as "adolescent", so they are quite Nedly, to me!

They perfectly will, when a Dance with Dragons comes out

michel3105 said:

Fixed that for you

ktom said:

Well I don't have a problem with looking into the future a bit if it's plausible, and they'll probably be adults by the end of the series anyway.

Kzer-za said:

~At the rate things are going, I'm afraid my two-year-old will be an adult by the end of the series...

In order for their to be Targ reprints of the Dragons wouldn't there need to be a Targ expansion? Or are you suggesting their will be a Core Set v2.0? I agree that hatchlings are needed, the dragon trait doesn't have enough love.

Not really. We've had new versions of Jaime, Robert, Ned, Cersei, etc in the Chapter Packs. Why not a Chapter pack with new dragons and a separate chapter pack with hatchlings. I'd rather get dragons than "generic Free City Ally" or "generic Dothraki character". I too want the 5KE hatchlings or new hatchlings that become dupes for the Dragons.

KP has the right of it. Chapter Packs would be fine - ideally 1x of each to fill Targ's slots in a Chapter Pack and be done with it. But they are a gaping hole in Targ's arsenal at the moment.

I agree too. Chapter pack would be a perfect place to put Hatchlings (5KE reprints or alike would be just fine for me).

But I doubt this will happen in the current chapter pack cycle, because ~what the hell would do a hatchling in King's Landing ?

I'm not against hatchlings, I'm just curious: Is this fuss about "Dragon attack"?

"Qartheen Fanatic" is just one guy and "Dragon Bite" a lot of people said is not worth using.

Rogue30 said:

Dragon Bite would be totally worth using if there were some small 1-2 cost dragons around, especially if they could be Ambushed. And yeah, Dragon Attack becomes much more useful with "weenie dragons."

I think much of the fuss is about history and flavor, though. This is the first time since being introduced to the game that Targ did not have "baby dragons." They are seen by many as huge not only in tying into the books, but integral for one of Targaryen's House identities ("here there be dragons").

Stag Lord said:

The point I was trying to make was we aren't going to see reprints in a Chapter Pack. So we can just ditch the idea of 5KE hatchlings coming back without a Targ expansion or CS2.0. Now new hatchlings is a real possibility in a Chapter pack. I hope the next set will see that happen. I would like to see some sort of trade up ability in the hatchlings if they don't have the ability to dupe. I'm thinking of somthing like

Black Hatchling
2 Gold
Unique

1 STR

Mil

Creature. Dragon.

Ambush.

Black Hatchling may be played on Drogon as a duplicate.

Response : After a character's STR is reduced to 0 and killed search your deck for Drogon and put him into play then discard Black Hatchling (cannot be saved).

Each hatchling could have a different trigger.

I'd sign for that. Precisely the sort of effect I am looking for.

Its very weird not having them in the card pool. Very strange indeed.

Just clean it up a little. As is, without a passive, mandatory duplication, I could have this Black Hatchling and Drogon out at the same time.

dormouse said:

Not to be a jerk, but has it been explicitely stated somewhere that we won't see reprints in CP's? If modified reprints are good enough for the Core Set and major expansions(Kings of the Sea, Prince of the South, etc.), why aren't they good enough for CP's?

Well, I don't see it as being a jerk at all, I made a definitive statement and you are simply questioning where I came to a conclusion like this... Admittedly my info is a bit of reading between the lines and stuff I gleaned from talking to Nate. The purpose of the Core Set was to introduce a baseline for the houses (ditto with he expansions) and this could best be done by reprinting and updating some reprints. The Chapter Packs serve a different purpose, namely developing themes in new directions, keeping the environment growing and evolving. The CP's are supposed to be 20 new cards, and I believe the direct marketing on the packs themselves say something very much to this effect.

It is entirely possible that they will at some point bring reprints into legality by way of CP's... but it makes little sense to do so IMO, and if that was planned at some point there is little reason to not have done so by now after the hard reset with the LCG with at least some of the cards we consider staple. The Legacy Pack was a big deal because it was essentially the first time reprints were offered in a brand new packaging outside of a base set. The Core Set is our base now.

There ya go. Stuff said in discussions and marketing mixed with some reasoning... but you are right this could change at any time especially since they have never directly stated publicly they won't include reprints in CP's

dormouse said:

Well, except for each of the Premium Starters of course.

Meh. Starters in general, in my mind, were part of the base set, premium starters doubly so... but I think my point more or less stands (or at least makes sense).

I too would love to see Hatchlings make a return. I agree completely that Hatchlings are much cooler than just some generic free city or dothraki card and essential for giving some more ambiance to Targaryen.

As far as reprint vs. new goes I look at the Red Keep as a good example. The Red Keep from ToTRK is not an exact reprint of the older Red Keep but it is "functionally equivalent" in my opinion since they both produce 3 Influence and serve the same purpose in a deck. The newer one simply uses the new Shadows mechanic to make a slightly different card than the older "immune to character abilities and events".

I also must admit that I have always loved having those hatchlings around, especially the 1 cost dupe and the ambush versions. Still I agree that the chapter pack format may not be as likely to reprint them or make new ones as they were. So I'll keep my hopes up, but wouldn't mind too badly if they maybe chose to do something different instead.
And as long as we're wishing/dreaming/theorizing here's my idea along the lines of some of the complete makeover reprints (ie: Tears of Lys which was an event and became an attachment). Sort of a complete inverse of dormouse's idea, vaguely patterned after the Direwolf attachment cycle, but using all three as a single card:

Dragon Hatchlings
Unique Targ Attachment
s0 or s1 with Shadow crest (or maybe 2-3 cost and Ambush)
Creature, Dragon . *Unique Targ character only
Attached character gains the dragon trait and 1-3 Str.
Response: After you win a challenge the attached character participated in claim one power for your house, then you may attach Dragon Hatchlings to any (or maybe any other because of the bonus) dragon character as a duplicate. (or even search for a dragon put it into play and then attach as a dupe? Maybe with a further cost? Sort of like a challenge phase version of the Direwolf attachment series.)

This way FFG wouldn't need to print three different hatchling cards in a Chapter pack but would at the same time return the hatchlings to the game. It takes a completely different take on the hatchlings while still providing one of the best benefit's of the hatchlings: the ability to count as a duplicate on an adult. Purely as an attachment the card is quite strong, but like Aegon's Blade it is limited by allowing only 1 to be in play at a time. Making the power claim be an effect to the house like Groleo rather than just giving renown means that you actually would have a reason to attach this to Dany (who otherwise would have her own renown). Being able to add a dupe to a dragon can be nice, but it's not anything you can't do already just by using the search event to go pull the needed dupe and what Rhaegal does for himself already. Of course once the card becomes a dupe it loses all text and even it's name so you can now play another one and repeat. With Lady Dany's Chambers this could be a reusable save for a dragon however thus possibly making the card deserve the higher cost, but even with recycling you could only recycle one per round due to Shadows, and it like Dragon Skull means you can't bring out a Shadow character for challenges. If it was ambush instead it could potentially get used more than once per round... but logistics would make it unlikely. Of course along these lines they could even make 3 new attachments... one for each and as dormouse said have triggers to search for the appropriate dragon then attach as dupes.

I probably need to stop, I think I'm starting to like my own idea too much. Of course, completely new hatchlings would be good too. And I think Laughing Tree has a good point, they've been reprinting some concepts rather than cards, and those have all looked nice to me. I love the new Red Keep. The Silent Sisters and Shadowcat were another great update/reprint changing over to using Shadows. The new Dario Naharis, same old card concept kinda... needs feeding to keep but you can do it with anyone's resources and a nice new amount of "shiny." As someone playing since Westeros I've really enjoyed the direction the game seems to be taking now with the mix of new, old and old made new again.

And speaking of....

Dormouse, what the heck are you doing moving to Texas just before I start playing again? Not to mention just before Martell comes out? Now I'm gonna need to find someone else to talk to about my most evil Martell ideas, and I could always count on your Martell decks to be at least if not more evil then mine.