You have a set minimum of cards, but you can always remove or replace the cards you add in over the course of the campaign. Weapon upgrades, Boons, etc.

Lack of dice makes this a pass for me.

I really dislike the idea of card driven combat.

The concept of letting the cards do everything seems nice at first, but in the end it's very fiddly (I just find it really annoying handling/shuffling those small cards).

They did that with Runebound, and here they are doing it again, and you can clearly see that the skill test mechanic is just pulling in from Mansions of Madness (or even X-Wing) where you get dice with 3 different faces, "elder sign" (which here is replaced by the success symbol), "magnifying glass"/clue (which here is replaced by inspiration) and blanks.

In MoM you throw a certain amount of dice trying to get as many elder signs (successes) and convert Magnifying Glasses by spending clues into more successes. The more successes you get, the better the test results. In this game it's exactly the same except that instead of throwing X dice, you are drawing X cards.

Obviously, the difference is that in this game, your deck size varies. And you can't get that from dice. But is it worth the fiddlyness? In my opinion, no, it's not.

To me, that kinda sucks, I was hoping the deck size would at least be fixed so that then I could replace the skill checks with dice and just use the cards for their abilities/effects.

I watched an unboxing video today and there's an insane amount of those small cards to manage, I can see with expansions it getting out of control. And then there's the matter of storage and organizing...

I was actually planning on getting this game as it fits my playstyle and I got several friends who'd enjoy it, but since I already own verything from Runebound and Mansions of Madness, I don't think I'll be missing much here.

Couldn’t be happier that there are no dice. Nothing is more frustrating in a game than feeling like I’ve done everything I can to prepare and then rolling blanks...ugh. I’m really excited for the idea of being able to prepare a deck and even if I turn up a terrible check (which I’ll likely have some idea of before checking) I know that I’m guaranteed a certain number of successes in subsequent checks if I draw enough cards. Also, preparing the deck adds a ton more strategy and decision making which I love...not just moving and rolling.

19 hours ago, Zsig said:

I watched an unboxing video today and there's an insane amount of those small cards to manage, I can see with expansions it getting out of control. And then there's the matter of storage and organizing...

*Laughs in Lord of the Rings Living Card Game*

I am mind-boggled as to how people will find inserts for those microscopic cards.

19 minutes ago, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

I am mind-boggled as to how people will find inserts for those microscopic cards.

I would guess we'll have to ask the guys and gals who play games like Imperial Assault and Massive Darkness. Those games also have small cards.

2 hours ago, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

I am mind-boggled as to how people will find inserts for those microscopic cards.

inserts? do you mean sleeves? FFG sells them lol

Nope, I mean storage inserts. FFG has to have a million card sleeve sizes!

Mini-cards don't bother me, and the diceless system seems fine. I like dice, I like cards, I'll go with either system or a combined system if the game mechanics are good and the story is fun, and the app is well designed. I guess I'm not nearly as picky as others when it comes to new systems/ideas, as long as you leave the negotiation mechanic out of it (Cosmic Encounters...ugh, shoot me). This game looks fun. I enjoy the other app-driven games and this one seems to be a nice combination of MoM/Runebound mechanics with a very deep Middle-Earth history to pull from.

2 hours ago, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

Nope, I mean storage inserts. FFG has to have a million card sleeve sizes!

yeah it is annoying at how many card sizes they use for their games lol people can just make storage inserts out of card, etc? I did that with index cards for LOTR LCG. For stuff like Elder Sign, which uses the tiny cards, i just kept them in the plastic baggies in the game box