Hi All,

First let me say thank you to all of the members in this forum who have helped me along while I started to get into this game. You have not realized it as I was not registerd, but through all the great posts and discussions in this forum I was able to answer all without even asking them. Thank you all, that is really great and helped me to enjoy this game very much.

Now I have a question though that I want to post here. I am wondering about expension sets (Deluxe and BP) and how this affects the decks I play in the game. I am a casual player but the option to gradually extend the variety in play by using expansion sets is very appealing to me.

However I had no intention so far to do any deckbuilding (even though I realize that that is part of the fun I guess), but I was wondering if after the addition of say Assault on Ulthuan and a few BPs a random card approach is still feasible. With the growing number of cards in each faction, does the game not lose a lot of the balance and leaves much to chance unless you engage into some sort of deck building? I would assume that the core set is inherently balanced, but once you add packs, is that still the case even with random playing?

Your opinion is much appreciated.

tako (noob)

Although it might not be well balanced but it still make fun to play. It's not only the actual playing against an opponent because when you have the full card pool and are constantly getting new cards you start to think about how the new cards affect some old ones that weren't much of a help in the past.

Deckbuilding is a good thing. You start to evaluate cards by their strength and usefulness and you are checking rules whether it functions as you thought. Knowing the rules and effectively using them makes you a better player. Most of the time I spent more time with creating and testing decks than actually playing against friends. I wish I could do that more often but just a few play here and because of unsteady times at work I often can't visit arranged whi meetings.

But it's ok because it's still fun enough to continue and since I don't play other collectible games I have that money to continue buying the new battlepacks. It's like a magazine subscription since the second circle where you got the full set of cards with one buy. If you have fun with the game already you should really check for yourself if you buy the Assault on Ulthuan Expansion how it affects your playing experience since the expansions offer a lot of cards for their money I think. After that you have the 6 Races complete and get another insight how they destinguish theirselfes from another.

grille,

thanks for your good advice. This looks like the right approach, to gradually swap in cards from the expansions and BP based on how my playstyle develops. Ulthian looks like a good start after I have gotten to grips with the core set and rules.

As for time on deck building vs playing, I can see your point. I too are quite short of time due to work (in Japan, long hours is the rule) and thinking about and tinkering with the deck sounds like a very nice sparetime to wind down a bit...

Many thanks again!

tako