Looking at the wardens of the west made me think about the balance issue. If one force becomes deadlier than another that basicly means that if you want to have a balanced game you should buy both expansions and with every new major house expansion you will be in need of a reinforcment set to even up the ground for the new house in the game. Correct me if Im wrong but if thats the way FFG is going to roll then BoW will become "buy all or only the core" type of game. I own a couple FFG games and only one made an expansion that doesn't add to all the factions in the game. This leads to a question, how much BoW will depend on it expansions when it comes to balance issues? All who buy this game will have 2 forces, isn't it obvious that when attempting to play players would like to have a simillar number of options? Then why FFG makes an expansion for just one house? Time ? Price? Advertisment?

Well 3 Expansion are in the works,Lannister which is in pre Order,after that it's assumed we'll get a Stark Expansion next to match any extra Lannister Goodies.I hope the 3rd Expansion is something beyond Stark/Lannister.BL suffered from it's endless cycle of Dwarves & Goblins & I hope FFG doesn't beat Stark/Lannister to death.

As to balance issues.we'll have to wait to see if the Lannister expansion unbalances the Core Game Stark.I would think FFG would make sure this didn't happen for obvious reasons .

OD

I am also of the opinion that the 2nd expansion will be a 'Stark' upgrade similar to 'Lannister', just because it is obvious. Balance is only an issue if 2 sides have unequal forces 'in the scenarios'. The upgrades would only add more variety in choice of units / leaders. I don't know yet if all the forces of both factions were deployed at once - colour grades being equal - the core set would be balenced. 3 being an odd number, makes the 3rd expansion the one that could set the tone. As I have said before in these forums, I would prefer to see more different factions' units / leaders than just more Lannister / Stark. However, will they arrive singly or in pairs, and will they be 'Core - sized' then expanded, or already up to par with the first two? Who knows? Still itching to get my hands on a set on Tuesday 6th. Cheers!

Grandmikus said:

For what it's worth, I haven't seen a problem in playtesting. The expansions add some nice "toys" to play with, but don't mess with the balance in the way that Games Workshop seemed to do where one was at a disadvantage if they didn't have the latest army/expansion.

And the reason for these two Houses is because they are the Houses most would say are the "main" Houses in the books. It only makes sense to do them first. It would have been prohibitively expensive to produce a base set with every House. One can expect that other Houses may not sell as well as the precious Starks and dastardly Lannisters. Sculpting figs and creating unique leader abilities/unit types for other Houses is a tough design decision and, while FFG may have plans for doing so in the future, sales of the most "popular" Houses will affect Mr. Petersen's eventual production decision. My only disappointment so far was the decision to not put Tyrion in the base set. It can give the appearance of being a marketing ploy to sell expansions and FFG may not want to rely on "gimmicks" to sell their expansions. Trust in their usually high-standard products, along with a good game design, should be enough to sell their expansions.

I imagine Tyrion isn't in the base set, because most of the battles in the game take place in the first book. Tyrion doesn't become a "commander" of sorts until the end of the second book.

badalchemist said:

Without giving away spoilers from the books, there is more than one leader in the Base Set who never commanded in any battles in the first book. One that never leads a battle in any of the books. That didn't stop FFG from including them in the base set.

Grimstax said:

True, but the one you're speaking of could at least be in homebrew or supplementary scenarios dealing with battles fought prior to the beginning of the series.

Balance is decided by the scenarios (or by the skirmish cards, in the case of skirmish). The only way an expansion could create an unbalanced game is if the scenarios or skirmish cards included in the expansion were unbalanced. I haven't heard anyone accusing FFG of this.

Of course, there's also the possibility of power creep (that newer units will be more powerful than older units), but so long as the newer, stronger units are appropriately balanced within the scenarios, it won't lead to unbalanced games. And this is still pure conjecture.

Ultimately, expansions add options and diversity, not advantage. This isn't a ccg, or a cmg. The person with the bigger collection isn't going to always win, because this is a self-contained game. The side with more expansions isn't always going to win, because only the variety of gameplay has changed, not the difficulty.

Eldil said:

Daaaang! Brown Ben Plumm is spittin' truth!

qwertyuiop said:

When I eventually change my avatar, that remark won't make much sense. But I thank you all the same, sir.