Three questions. Both are impression based but if anyone has nrs to give 'somehow' that would be good.

1) How succesful is Invasion compared to the other LCG's and any idea why?

2) How succesful is Invasion overall according to you all?

3) Do you guys give the game a long life?

The game, just like all LCGs, targets a niche audience. Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Warhammer, and Call of Cthulhu target each group of fans of those series. FFG knows they don't stand a chance making a generic fantasy genre card game (Magic: The Gathering holds over that realm), so they create card games or re-master them for niche genres. Lotr, Warhammer, Lovecraftian, and Martin Crowd.

At the same time FFG keeps these LCGs very similar in mechanics. This is so that each LCG can be an easy transition from one to the other. In my opinion FFG never intends for these LCGs to ever be game industry sweeping card games. As I see it, this was done on purpose, all for good reasons mind you.

1. Controlled audience makes it easier to predict the longevity of the game.

2. Knowing how many consumers you have is key to making a profit and not having to worry about overstock.

3. Tight knit communities are easy to manage as far as rules and card balance goes. FFG doesn't want to have to scour the net to find the meta decks.

There are many other reasons but most can be summed up with "it's just a better business model".

So to answer your questions:

1. Many of the popular card games are the giants they are today (L5R, MTG, WoW, Pokemon) because they came out when the industry wasn't saturated by them, in the case of l5r and mtg, or they target a fanbase of a popular franchises, in the case of yugioh, VS, pokemon. FFG did not do this instead they chose focus groups of fans to target for controlled sales. In other words you are comparing fruit to vegetables.

2. The game is very successful when you look at how it was targeted at a niche group of customers. It has lasted for months despite gripes of imbalance, because the warhammer fantasy fans that buy this product for casual gaming out number the meta game fans.

3. LCGs will never die because FFG will always have a target audience. And they will know month by month sales to adjust the print runs for the future cycles. It is called "controlled forecasting". Though the meta gamers are doing a great job trying to destroy future sales for Warhammer: Invasion.

Buy this game if anyone of these reasons applies to you:

1. You like Warhammer.

2. Warhammer minis got too expensive and you want a substitute.

3. Tired of painting all the minis.

4. Like the LCG mechanic.

5. Want casual game.

6. Don't mind a controlled meta format.

Regardless you probably want to know. "So is this game any good?". As a competitive game? Most will gripe about imbalance, so I say no based on the competitive player reactions (yet they still buy the game). As a casual game? It is amazing!

Lastly. AND THIS IS IMPORTANT!

If you do buy into this game.....never return to these forums. The meta gamers tear this game apart so much that, even if you are having fun with it, you will feel it is dying, a waste of money, or that they matter.

Edit: Oh yeah in before the meta gamers.

Awsome post Curator. I used to regular post, but I got sick of the "meta" gamers as well. I am sure they are nice guys and would be fun to throw down with in ones living room/basement. But the constant negative posts of this broken card or that and how the game is going to hell cause of inbalance and achtypes etc etc bring it down.

I own this game and have every exansion and keep buying, I attend some casual events. I have 5 friends that do the same thing. we all love the game.

oh and spot on the buisness model considerations. As a retail chain owner, not games btw, home decor products, i have a strong understnading of tjis and i would say you got the buisness considerations dead on.

Good posts, but I really don't consider Warhammer Fantasy a "niche" theme (I guess it depends how you define niche). In fact if there was any theme in the entire fantasy gaming industry that could potentially take a nice bite out of MtG's market share (with a respective customizable card game), I think it would be of the Warhammer Fantasy universe. Thus, in my opinion, I think this game is underexposed, and undermarketed. From a business perspective I really dont think FFG have invested enough in the marketing of this game such that it might reach its true potential in the customizable card game industry.

I can confirm from my own experience that the reason I (and some friends) bought into W:I LCG was certainly not the Warhammer theme. I lived across a Games Workshop for a while but was still never really tempted joining the miniature crowd or getting absorbed in the Warhammer theme. But I feel that Warhammer has enough 'common' elements with a regular fantasy theme (orcs, elfs, dwarfs etc.) that makes the game appeal even to non Warhammer fans like myself. I bought into it because I got sold on the idea of a card game, in particular a LCG (I was not a card gamer before), because I liked the quality of the cards and the FFG website (with the great tutorials) and because I could see from the forum here that the game has attractive depth and complexity as well as a lively and passionate community. So I agree that with a bit more marketing, I think this game could perhaps go a lot farther.

rzarectz said:

Hrmmm I thought I made it clear enough. Go to a crowd of people and ask them if they have heard of Magic The Gathering or World of Warcraft. Now ask them if they have heard of games workshop. That is what I mean by a "niche". Warhammer TCG would be a bad idea with MTG and WoW saturating the fantasy card game market. Sabertooth tried it once, it failed. WoW TCG and Magic The Gathering are not sold JUST at comic and game stores. Target, Toys r us, walmart, etc. all carry these games along with pokemon and yugioh.

This game targets a few different groups.

1. FFG fans
2. LCG fans
3. Warhammer fans

"I bought into it because I got sold on the idea of a card game, in particular a LCG (I was not a card gamer before), because I liked the quality of the cards and the FFG website"

Then you fall into the FFG fans that were targeted.

Try this. Go to a crowd of people and ask them if they ever heard of Dungeons and Dragons or Wizards of the Coast. Then ask them if they have heard of Arkham Horror or Fantasy Flight Games.

My local game store stopped carrying yugioh and pokemon when target and walmart started to sell it. Friday night magic makes a ton of money though so they still carry Magic and WoW. There are many factors as to why FFG doesn't do more marketing for the LCGs, but as I said before to list all of them would take awhile and can just be summed up with "it's better for business that they don't".

FFG needs to start making some alternate art cards, foils and/or textless promo cards for prizes. They need to establish a healthy tournament scene and market WH:I to former and current Tournamnet Magic players.

They should also do something to make it easier for new competitive players to get into the game.

f7eleven said:

Agreed. A "3 of each" reprint of the base set would go a long ways towards making the game more accessible.

Papa

f7eleven said:

Why? All of this cost money. I don't get why you guys think it is a good idea for anyone to make a game outside its comfort zone. FFG is happy where thegame is at. For instance they KNOW that you and I will buy their Warhammer LCG.

If they were to start to target the MTG crowd it would only mean bad things.

Example, I helped run a gaming store when World of Warcraft TCG came into the picture. Magic players felt threatened and did not take too kindly to it. The game played very similar to Alpha/Beta Magic and they saw this as a threat that could take away from the current MTG playerbase.

The saving grace for the WoW TCG was the loot cards. Tons of online players of the mmo purchased these cards in droves, most just throwing away the "useless" cards. Upperdeck color coated the rarity of the card with the same colors as the MMO, so these mmo players knew that blues and purples = money and kept them. They sold these to the store or ebayed them, then turned around with the money and started hunting for the loot card again, especially when the spectral tiger mount came into the picture.

So how did this save them? For one it made Upperdeck a ton of money, but didn't help make players of the TCG. So, we and other gaming stores around the nation emptied the garbage of "useless" cards and put them up for cheep value. This made getting into the game cheap for those that were interested AND they could tell what they were getting.

I remember when gaming tourneys just rewarded with money. Everyone threw into a pot and the earnings were then divided at the end. I guess I am just too used to video game tourneys.

If FFG were to have prizes I would rather have posters of the artwork. Many of these cards have artwork I would pay to have made into a poster. Giving away cards is a bit much, because unlike Magic, this game is not popular everywhere you go, so it is unfair for those people that can't find or host a tourney due to low player count.

Curator said:

@Curator, Not quite, as I had never heard about FFG before I actually got interested in W:I. I tell you how I got there though. I am a HPL reader for a decade now and while googling for some stuff I found the FFG site. That was the first time I heard about stuff like CCG and LCG. I got interested in CoC but ended up buying into W:I as that appeared more structured and I liked the attack/defense theme.

But I think you are still spot on with your analysis, as I don't believe my way in getting into this game is in any way typical.

This is an excellent thread and there's a lot of interesting insight from Curator. I have learned quite a few things here. I agree that this game should not be marketed against MTG. Most new card games fail within 2 years of starting up. Usually, because the competition is fierce and there is no almost no way for a newcomer to dislodge the big boys. You have to create your own niche and FFG is doing that not only by marketing properties which already had a following, but by creating the LCG format.

If you come out with a new card game and then go the usual route, expansions every 3 months, expensive boosters, difficult to obtain rare and ultra rare cards, etc, then you are not bringing anything new to the table. You are essentially trying to beat the established products at their own game(no pun intended). FFG has eschewed that and therefore has created a viable alternative. By marketing against Magic, they would then relinquish that advantage. Let's not forget that there were already several Warhammer and Warhammer 40k games which failed miserably because they followed the established pattern and also because they were marketed by a third rate company with few resources. Neither appears to be the case here.

A few players, not just on this post but on others, have suggested that a little more marketing would bring the game into the spotlight and attarcted a bigger market.

Respectfully I wonder the experience of costing marketing these people have.

Currently there main venues for marketing are the game stores that carrey there stuff, and there website. Sure there are some groups of interest that may fall through the cracks, and I admit to being surprised GW stores do not carrey the FF warhammer stuff, there is big, cheap cross marketing oppertunity lost there, but aside from that, where are the hordes of interested buyers lurking and what would it cost to reach them?

We gamers that love our games and are willing to spend monney, are often forgetfull of how truely small the gaem market it. Sure MTG is big, by game industry standards, but truth is most games have pretty small sales numbers. How much monney do you throw up there trying to get that small percent that you are missing, there are hugh dimmishing returns on that.

I would not say there is not room for improvement. Some kind of event support would turn some game store lurkers into active partiipants, and that coudl help them out.

I think the concpet of keeping expenses down and just getting a steady cash flow stream from this game is a good model for them.

How small is the board game/card print industry?

I own three three home decor stores, I am a very very small player in that industry, yet my three stores combined far outsell Fantasy Flights total volume. Interest in board games is likey at the highest it has been, and yet the publishers are fighting for peices of a very small pie.

f7eleven said:

I'm not sure i actually want FFG to aim it in the slightest at tournament players. Plenty of cardgames like that out there. I'd rather have it remain more lighthearted, stable and riskfree.
L5R for one was a cardgame with a marvelous setting. One of the best. As a historian one of my areas of interest is feudal Japan AND I love fantasy so I was immediately sold on the lore, the rpg etc. Regretfully L5R like Magic is very very competitive and the result was that it contaminated the playerbase. Simply put i did not enjoy going beyond the forum of my own clan anymore because of the rivalry. On top of that the competitive nature overruled the 'have fun' aspect. This last bit mixed with of course the mounting costs of CCG's just pushed me away.

I'm personally very negative about tournament scenes overall anyway wether it's for Warhammer, 40K, Magic or anything like that. It's an entirely different playerbase usual that focusses on the competitive side of it.

I have the Warhammer Invasion Core set, but mostly I only play A Game of Thrones LCG.

As a Thrones player, we have picked a large number of Magic players. But most of those old magic players who come to Thrones follow one of these themes:

1) Tired of the money that needs to be invested to stay competitive

2) The competitive scene is too hardcore and filled with too many jerks

3) Tired of chasing cards

4) Need a change of scenery

5) After having been taught the mechanics of Thrones, they like it better

Honestly, I see 1, 2 and 3 most often.

I definitely fit 1 thru 4, though I had already stopped playing magic by the time I picked up WH:I. I was able to get some other (current and former) magic players into the game, but they haven't stuck with it as closely as I have due to:

1. Tournaments being few and far between

2. When there is a tournament, we can't get more than 6 people to show up

3. The prize support is crap. (The store would be all for giving cash prizes if more people would show up and play)

It's also getting harder to recruit players as the cost to get into the game and have a full playset is well over $400.

f7eleven said:

The best way to get new players in my experience is to show up to your store with a friend at times when other gamers are present. Many of my players were playing Heroclix and my friend and I showed up with Warhammer: Invasion (just the core set for a reason).

The players awaiting for the next round to start would walk around and see what is going on. We were very nice and answered their questions while playing the game. That was important to them because they said Magic players would normally just push them away or ignore them. On the other hand I brought Malifaux to a Friday Night Magic and got a ton of new Malifaux players in my group now too.

I know how frustrating it can be F7eleven. I went through the player drought with Deadlands CCG.
If tht is the case try to make a mutual agreement. Many gaming groups are always looking for more players. You will play their game if they play yours. This is what I did with the Heroclix players. That wasn't going to happen with the MTG players though, can't stand some of them, so no loss. Finally provide the components the first few times you teach them never pressure them into buying.

As I see it, the one advantage that CCGs have over LCGs is that you can go and buy the latest expansion, maybe look into the single card market and you can be fairly competitive right away. For LCGs, once you bought the core set, where do you go from there if you can't or don't want to buy everything? The expansions are so fragmented that it is difficult to know what to get or not to get, plus there's a lot of them. There is no single card market to speak of. I think at some point, this game may need a second core set, as a way for new players to know where to start and go from without having to go all the way back to the beginning.

Speaking of the survivability of LCGs, aren't CoC and AGOT older than Warhammer? How much longer have they been around and how are they doing? Seeing how these games fare may give us an idea of how Warhammer may do, as well.

Titan said:

There is a big advantage to WH:I though.
When I fervently played L5R it cost me a fortune to pay 2 boosterboxes and I still didn't have all the cards.
All Invasion cards (or Lotr, CoC, AGOT cards) remain legal. Hence I can say buy the basic set and the first cycle. Then by the time i'd have bought 2 more booster boxes I can buy another cycle or 3. And I'll be up to speed.
Early on your cardpool will be limited yes but if you came from a CCG and temper your purchases while learning the game, you'll quickly manage to get it all and by the end of a year you'll have it all and see a large drop in your expenses. While for a CCG the expenses remain ludicrously high unless of course you just play draft tournies. Then indeed this game is not for you, nor does it claim to be.
Heck i just ordered Lotr and plan to collect it. The cost of keeping up with even 3 of these can easily be smaller than one big one like L5R or Magic.

On top of that all my cards remain legal. Only games like Yu-Gi-Oh (heavily underrated cardgame due to elitism) and Pokémon offer that too. And they're CCG's.

Titan said:

AGOT launched in 2002 so we've got a pretty long life. The only card games going longer now are Magic, Pokeman, and L5R, right? Now that that V:TES has been canceled.... Anyway, we've got a series of novels and now the very high profile HBO series that have been driving interest in the game very well. I've heard that FFG is actually having a little trouble keeping stocked on AGOT stuff now that HBO has pushed so much interest in the series. Add in the addition of a brand new novel this summer and we may possibly have the biggest showing for AGOT ever this year.

CoC on the other hand has remained relatively flat in terms of active participants on the boards and in tournaments. Obviously it must sell decently enough (remember, the Asylum pack experiment when the CCG died and the subsequent very surprisingly high sales sparked the LCG model) but I still get the impression that out of the LCGs, it likely has the smallest following.

As for getting into the game, I'd say that with the LCG model, a large portion of that rests with the existing playerbase. While it's entirely correct that the larger the card pool gets, the more cost prohibitive it is to literally get a playset of every card, this can be offset with a helpful community. Knowledgeable players who are willing and able (both on and off -line) to offer advice and recommendations on which packs have the best cards for particular factions on strategies are exceptionally key. Not only does it establish the community as helpful and generous with their knowledge, but it reinforces the ease of the LCG model by demonstrating that they might not have to buy every single card to play. This is where I feel the AGOT community excels. Go browse around our forums for posts from new players asking questions and check out some of the responses. On the other hand, I'm afraid that CoC and WI have a little bit of work to do to become as welcoming.

*edit*
Which isn't to say that you guys aren't ever helpful to noobs. Just that most of the time when I come browsing other forums, that's not what jumps out to me. Which might just be a perception issue. I'm sure we do our fair share of griping on the AGOT forums as well.

One of the things that WH:I has going for it is the fact that it was developed from the start as an LCG. CoC and AGoT were both "converted" into an LCG from their previous home as a CCG. The mechanics for WH:I are simple and elegant and I think it was because of the experience gained from the other two converted games that allowed for this. All in all, WH:I is a great game for the people who want to play it for whatever reson they are playing it. I expect it will be around for a while.

Kennon said:

Too right, which is why I came back to edit the post, but didn't want to wholesale change what I'd said in case people were in the midst of replying. I did want to acknowledge that we have our fair share of griping going on as well, but that I just likely notice it less since I'm posting there more often. Which I suppose points out the poor job that I did in getting my ideas crossed. I've seen some very great helpful posts to new players. Just for a long stretch there I saw a lot of negative posting in different regards. I should have separated those ideas. And again, I know we've had our issues with that as well. It was poorly said on my part to begin with.

The Getting Started post sounds like a very excellent idea and one that I would probably find a valuable resource even as someone that's played off and on since launch. Likewise strategy articles would be very useful. It gets rather difficult to feel that you're up on things for four different LCGs when you don't have the time to dedicate to each of them that you wish you had. Maybe a series of faction primer articles? Could serve as a good middle ground for folks looking at a particular faction with strategies and purchase recommendations since there aren't single faction expansions like AGoT has? Of course, on that note I totally see your point, but I actually think that the HE/DE expansion for WI is a better direction to go for players getting in to the game in that you'll need someone play against anyway, so you can make one purchase for two decks and get playing against each other and learning the game faster and cheaper than each having to purchase separate house expansions or a Core Set.

Just want to add that responses like this thread are great. Sorry for my confusing statement earlier.