I am a long time CCG player who was recently introduced to Fantasy Flight's LCG systems. I have purchased and played; A Game of Thrones, Warhammer Invasion and Call of Cthulhu, and I wanted to share my first impressions.
- I am definitely intrigued with concept of knowing what you get with your purchase with LCG vs CCG. The current system, however, isn't quite as customer friendly as the marketing states. Decks rules allow three of any card, yet expansions have sets with 3 copies mixed with cards with 1 copy. This means I have to buy 3 boxes to get 3 of a particular card and am left with 6 extra for all the other cards. The core sets are even less customer friendly. I have heard that they are starting new expansions with 3 of every card, I hope this is true otherwise LCG isn't that much different than CCG.
- Game mechanics are awesome for all three games. So far (and I have not played any of the three sets extensively) I am most impressed with the strategy behind AGoT. But the story mode of Cthulhu and card structure in WI have me pretty hooked as well.
- I am a huge fan of Fantasy Flight quality, have been playing their board games forever and could not be more pleased, Descent anyone? And for the most part I feel that the quality of their LCGs are running pretty close in the race.
- It is based on my favorite fantasy series so I had high expectations yet my biggest disappointment is with AGoT quality:
- My biggest surprise is the scanty amount of flavor text! How difficult can it be to put flavor text on cards based on a great series of novels?
- I also feel the art is not as consistant as it is in Cthulhu and WI. Some AGoT's art is fantastic but other cards seem almost amateur/comical in style which doesn't begin to match the stories.
- I found several grammatical errors in the rule book as well. I expect games of this price and quality to have decent editing in accompanying documentation.
Anyway those are a few of my first impressions of the three LCGs
Peace,
David