This is a bit of a long story, so I will try to give the short version: I used to play the CCG back during Gold through Diamond and a bit of Lotus, but eventually fell out of the hobby due to so few players in my area and other concerns. My interest was Piqued when I decided to check up on the game last year and saw how it had completely changed and revamped, but the cost of buying into the game was ultimately a non-starter for me... so I was prepared to sit out, when my son (15) started to pester me about buying the new card game. He fell absolutely in love with the new RPG and wants to play the card game. And then COVID hit- and the price on the starter box dropped significantly on Amazon and I picked one up, along with the Breath of the Kami dynasty pack to give him some added cards to play with.

I know it's advised to buy a second starter box, but the truth of the matter is that while doing research I noticed some sets were being cycled out and that there was a large variety of cards to play with as it was... so my question is, what is the current advice for expanding packs and what does the Clan Wars set add to the mix? Is it another Starter box or something altogether different?

2 hours ago, redcapjack said:

This is a bit of a long story, so I will try to give the short version: I used to play the CCG back during Gold through Diamond and a bit of Lotus, but eventually fell out of the hobby due to so few players in my area and other concerns. My interest was Piqued when I decided to check up on the game last year and saw how it had completely changed and revamped, but the cost of buying into the game was ultimately a non-starter for me... so I was prepared to sit out, when my son (15) started to pester me about buying the new card game. He fell absolutely in love with the new RPG and wants to play the card game. And then COVID hit- and the price on the starter box dropped significantly on Amazon and I picked one up, along with the Breath of the Kami dynasty pack to give him some added cards to play with.

I know it's advised to buy a second starter box, but the truth of the matter is that while doing research I noticed some sets were being cycled out and that there was a large variety of cards to play with as it was... so my question is, what is the current advice for expanding packs and what does the Clan Wars set add to the mix? Is it another Starter box or something altogether different?

2 cores is definitely recommended. Clan War has some good cards, but is themed towards multiplayer so there are a number of cards that won't be ideal for 1 on 1 play. I'd suggest Children of the Empire over Clan War personally. ONce you've settled on clans the clan pack is also a good early buy.

So my son and I played our first full game, utilizing some quickly thrown together Crane and Scorpion decks- it took us three hours and some kvitching on the rules and trying to make sense of it all, but we got the basics down pretty well. I enjoyed the **** out of the game, as did he... I eventually won, though I'm not entirely certain we did everything right. Here's hoping we can start building a fresh community once this COVID thing dies down enough.

I'm glad both of you had fun. Three hours seems about right for a full game when neither player is familiar with the rules or cards. L5R will get faster as you gain experience, but it's usually a long game with several small decision points that add up over time.

Just as a note: Three hours was definitely NOT a complaint. My son has trouble sitting through most games or experiences that take this long and he completely lost track of time and we were having a blast. We played a second game after getting some new stuff... a Crane Clan pack for him, Scorpion and Phoenix for me. Amazon seems to have ended their $20 core set sale, so we've also ordered the Children set. Anyway, the latest game took just about as long, but he managed to pull the victory with a surprise appearance from Daidoji Uji having stuck around long than expected.

The good news is, Amazon has that sale pretty frequently...so unless the world is suddenly running out of core sets, I would expect them to be back on sale within a month or so.