So my wife and I are interested in the art style and setting of Lot5R, we enjoyed the Battle for Rokugan board game, and I’m pleasantly surprised that both options I voted for in the current community card thingy ended up being the winning option, so now I’m very tempted to give this a try. I had some one try to teach me the CCG once and I hated it but to be honest neither of us had ever played before and all we had to go on was a foldout rule sheet that had been given out with a free deck by our FLGS.

Anyway...I assume you get one or more decks in the starter set, are either of them unicorn? If not, what would the minimum necessary purchase be to get one unicorn and at least one other deck and all the components to play?

Also, is the rule book good? FFG can be hit and miss with rule books - is what you get in the core set suitable to get to novices into the swing of things without too much trouble?

12 minutes ago, Bakura83 said:

So my wife and I are interested in the art style and setting of Lot5R, we enjoyed the Battle for Rokugan board game, and I’m pleasantly surprised that both options I voted for in the current community card thingy ended up being the winning option, so now I’m very tempted to give this a try. I had some one try to teach me the CCG once and I hated it but to be honest neither of us had ever played before and all we had to go on was a foldout rule sheet that had been given out with a free deck by our FLGS.

Anyway...I assume you get one or more decks in the starter set, are either of them unicorn? If not, what would the minimum necessary purchase be to get one unicorn and at least one other deck and all the components to play?

Also, is the rule book good? FFG can be hit and miss with rule books - is what you get in the core set suitable to get to novices into the swing of things without too much trouble?

With the LCG model you have a slightly higher initial buy in but it is offset by the lower overall cost as there is no rare chasing since you get everything to go in one purchase.

The Core set gives you 1 copy of each clan card and 2+ of most of the neutral cards. While it won't build you competitive decks you can get a good feel for the clans from those and figure out which play styles you like.

For the full experience you will need to buy at least 2 core sets and its recommended to get 3 of the Core sets so you have a play set of each available card. On the plus side that gives you everything for all 7 currently playable clans and you can build two decks out of that as long as you aren't picky about which clans you want to splash as your influence clan (secondary clan available for your conflict deck).

If you plan to play Unicorn you will definitely want to pick up the 6th pack (Elements Unbound) in the 2nd expansion cycle (the Elemental Cycle) as that comes with the second Unicorn Stronghold and has been a vast improvement over the core set stronghold.

Eventually you will want to likely pick up all the packs in the Imperial and Elemental cycles as each pack comes with a few options for each clan and many decks end up wanting to fish a few options out of each of them. On the plus side you only need 1 of each expansion pack as they come with full play sets of the 20 cards in each pack. It may look a little daunting at first but you don't need to buy everything at once. I'd suggest start with 1 or 2 cores to get you feet wet and if you like what you see you can expand out from there.

Using the term CCG and "free deck" and "foldout rule sheet" makes me wonder if the version of the game you played was the old one and not the current one.

If you get a core set, you will be able to make a deck, but you will be highly reliant on neutral cards.

You really need 3 core sets to get the 3 copies of each card to make a pure deck for any Clan.

But, the upshot is that you will have 3 copies of all cards that come in the core set, so you will be able to make decks for all 7 clans. Maybe only 4-5 simultaneously. But, also-- there are no "rare" or "mythic" cards like in CCGs that you need to buy and buy product in order to get your full playset of and are so powerful that you can't even make a decently competitive deck without them.

The rulebook that comes with the core set is very beautifully illustrated, but there have been a few rule changes since it was made. The latest version can be found at this link:
https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/95/ea/95eab8a3-1149-4398-bcad-40a2d87be600/l5c01-online_rulesreference_v16.pdf

Now, what you need beyond that... Well, that is more difficult.

You see, each one of the 14 packs that have been released for the game so far have 1-2 Unicorn cards in them. Of course, you don't need every single Unicorn card in existence (and, if you did buy 1 copy of each of the expansion packs in addition to 3 cores, you would have a full playset of all cards in existence for the whole game).

You should start with your 3 cores and then once you have gotten a good hang of the game, check out a database like this one

http://www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/legendofthe5rings/legend_of_the_five_rings

You will be able to look through the currently printed cards and if you see particular ones you like, then check out which expansion pack they were included in and you will know which one you will want to purchase. Perhaps particular of note, the Unicorn got a second stronghold that is generally considered superior to the first in the expansion pack Elements Unbound, so you may want to set your sites on that.

And, again, it should be noted that you will be increasing your collection with all of the clans. So you will be able to make multiple complete decks, so if you have friends also interested you can split the cards from their favorite clans with them.

14 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Using the term CCG and "free deck" and "foldout rule sheet" makes me wonder if the version of the game you played was the old one and not the current one.

Yes this was 8 years ago so it was definitely not the current version.

You said there are 1-2 unicorn cards in each pack, does that mean that if it is 2 different unicorn cards you would get three copies of each card? (I assume there is a limit of no more than three of the same card in a deck?). Or would you need to buy three packs to get three copies of those cards?

13 minutes ago, Bakura83 said:

You said there are 1-2 unicorn cards in each pack, does that mean that if it is 2 different unicorn cards you would get three copies of each card? (I assume there is a limit of no more than three of the same card in a deck?). Or would you need to buy three packs to get three copies of those cards?

Two different Unicorn cards, three copies each.

48 minutes ago, Bakura83 said:

Yes this was 8 years ago so it was definitely not the current version.

You said there are 1-2 unicorn cards in each pack, does that mean that if it is 2 different unicorn cards you would get three copies of each card? (I assume there is a limit of no more than three of the same card in a deck?). Or would you need to buy three packs to get three copies of those cards?

With the exception of the core set all packs come with a full play set of the 20 cards in the pack (so 60 cards total) for the cycle packs and there is no random assortment so you always no what you are getting in each pack.

There are also 2 clan packs out so far (Phoenix and Scorpion) which have the same 3 copies of each card in the pack, with the exception of the Stronghold and an optional support of the clan in question Role card which you would expect to only ever need 1 each of.

19 hours ago, Bakura83 said:

Also, is the rule book good? FFG can be hit and miss with rule books - is what you get in the core set suitable to get to novices into the swing of things without too much trouble?

Printed rulebook in box is a joke. This game got tens of changes, small rulings and errata and online updated RR got AFAIK 6 versions? Printed rulebook is more like rules introduction. There's even a card in Core Set that can't be played if you only learn a game from it.

1 hour ago, kempy said:

Printed rulebook in box is a joke. This game got tens of changes, small rulings and errata and online updated RR got AFAIK 6 versions? Printed rulebook is more like rules introduction. There's even a card in Core Set that can't be played if you only learn a game from it.

Children of the Empire will contain a new rulebook, probably updated and expanded with the new rules like composure.

Which is also very recommended to get, if only for the sheer amount of cards and new mechanics.

Thanks all, there has been a development. I took your advice and bought 3 cores and elements unbound for the alternative unicorn strongholds, then my wife promptly decided she simply had to be the Unicorn clan! So now I’ve picked my second choice, the crab clan - huzzah! Goodbye majestic mythical beat, hello mud-dwelling appetiser.

Anyway - is there a particular pack that is a must buy recommendation for crab?

Also, I noticed that currently the lore/tournament role for crab is keeper of water - how often does change, and where do I get the keeper of water role card?

All of the Keeper/Seeker role cards are in the Core Set.
(Each element is double sided: Seeker on one side, Keeper on the other.)

Info on Role choices/legality can be found here:
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/op/l5r-lcg/roles/

13 hours ago, Bakura83 said:

Anyway - is there a particular pack that is a must buy recommendation for crab?

Meditations of the Ephemeral - Imperial Cycle pack 6 has Iron Mine which is a super solid Crab holding. its a restricted list card so limits your options for other restricted list cards but most Crab run it as the preferred choice. It also has the Unicorn Attachment Talisman of the Sun which is a

13 hours ago, Bakura83 said:

Anyway - is there a particular pack that is a must buy recommendation for crab?

Also, I noticed that currently the lore/tournament role for crab is keeper of water - how often does change, and where do I get the keeper of water role card?

Role changes going forward will be every 4 months with the oldest role rotating out when new ones are selected. The post Toshi Ranbo roles (Seeker of Earth for Crab) will be the next to rotate out at the end of April.