I have just the core set, but every match me and my brother play is horribly one sided. In just a few turns one part of a kingdom is gone, sometimes another one hurt. Are we doing something wrong? I want to like the game, but it just seems broken.

Do units tap to attack or block?

Do they have summoning sickness?

Is your kingdom always 1/2 gone after a few turns?

I find the Dwarf and Orc starters to be a lot easier to play than the other two. You think that might be your issue?

It should even out as you play, but Dwarf and Orc out of the box (mainly Orc) have access to a lot more useful cards than the other two factions.

As far as the state of the game, there are a few dominant decktypes, but I feel like you can have a fighting chance with any of them right now, Empire being the strongest and High Elf probably being the weakest.

Of course that requires buying more cards.

SeerMagic said:

Something to keep in mind is that neither units nor support cards are gone when a zone is burnt. This means that a burning zone does not cripple your economy that much. It's just that you will need to think carefully about unit placement and maneuvering if you've got a zone that burns...

I find that burning that first zone isn't all that diffcult. In the early going, you can often attack a zone that is undefended and inflict quite a bit of damage. Personally, I often will not waste resources attempting to defend a zone that is badly damaged and likely going to burn, when I can instead fortify the other two.

I don't find the game to be one sided, but I never played with the starter decks alone, so I might be missing something. I have noticed, though, that I can often tell who's going to win the game a few turns before it happens because you can see that player start to fall behind. I don't know if that is one sidedness or lack of suspense. To be fair, though, I've seen a number of razor close games, too.

SeerMagic said:

I'd say something like this can easily happen when a certain style of playing is dominant in a group. If you both prefer to rush the opponent, naturally the one playing Orcs will do better. If you're both into slow buildups, the one playing Dwarves will probably have the advantage. Try to approach the game from different angles. The factions as they are in the core set are pretty well balanced, but one has to realize their different strengths and weaknesses, and play accordingly.

When one or both players rush, a zone can burn very early. It can be a perfectly fine approach though to for example let your opponent burn your battlefield while you strengthen your kingdom and quest, and then, with your superior resource base and card draw, crush him.

thanks for the replies, just wanted to double check to see if we were doing something wrong. Guess I'll just try to sale it and try one of there other games. Any recommendations?

SeerMagic said:

I need to know more about your likes and dislikes to answer that.

Do you like multiplayer encouraged games? AGOT encourages players to have more than just two opponents, because it has the neat backstabbing and support mechanic. AGOT is daunting to get into because there is so much to buy, so I recommend getting the starter and getting a feel for the house you want to play. Then purchase that house's box set. From there use the deck building forum to guide you on what to buy.

Do you enjoy cooperative games? I see you have Lord of the Rings in your games list. The new Lord of the Rings game is new so it makes for an easy start up. You just need to buy the core set, you will notice slight imbalances here and there, but it brings about the excitement of what the next month holds in the scenario pack. I should probably point out that Lord of the Rings LCG is cooperative. Players work in tandem to defeat an "A.I." controlled deck. I myself do not own the game because I await more packs to release. I have played it though and if handled right, I see it becoming a very popular "casual" game.

What style of gameplay do you enjoy? Call of Cthulhu is an easy to jump into game, but the gameplay is not like most card games. In CoC you work to win 3 story cards. These stories can be won without a single combat. Certain factions (of the 8 they have) are discouraged from combat. Some try to "out scare" the opposing cards, some like to kill, and others go after the goal to acquire the most clues and win each story card before things get nasty. Call of Cthulhu borrows elements from Pokemon, Magic, and AGOT, but plays like no other card game on the market. The core set comes with 7 of the 8 factions, but doesn't come with enough to mono deck. I find with Call of Cthulhu that I can purchase whatever sounds or looks interesting and it meshes well with the cards I have. I personally buy one of everything for the game because it feels more realistic to have all these unique characters appear only once. I also love the story built theme and mini chapters that are included in each pack.

Honestly though, I think you should buy the the Dark elf and High elf expansion for Warhammer before giving up. The game gets really fun as you add more cards (spend more money). I would like to know what style decks you like. DB did an in depth overview of each race here javascript:void(0);/*1309726781235*/ . But to simplify it.
Orcs = fast rush attack
Chaos = expensive but heavy hitters
Dark elves = hand destruction and deck control
Empire = tactical (able to adjust to situations)
Dwarves = hardy but low attack
High elves = direct damage and healing

With expansions
Skaven = cheap weenies
Lizardmen = hard hitting low health
Undead = board control through necromancy

I think that sums up the helpful advice I can give you. I am sure other forumites can add to the help.

im also realitvely new to this game like the op but i am gettin the hang of it i noticed that after a little while like 10 games it got less one sided but was orignally very one sided once everyone started to really grasp the rules and how to use said rules the games got a lot closer where one mistake could lose the game for u but an openets mistake could win it right back i would suggest try holdin out on sellincause u prolly wont get much back anyway

I have made the same experience. The first couple of games went relatively lop-sided and it was clear after a few rounds who would win the game (even though we had no clearly dominating faction, playing Orcs vs Dwarfs mostly). I put this down to the fact that we just played the cards as they came without really making tactical let alone strategic decisions, since we did not know how the cards interact and what the impact of certain cards that are later drawn meant on the game. Now that we know the cards a little better (we only have 1 core set and AoU), we do a better job at leveraging the individual strengths of the cards and started to build synergies and combos with them. Even though we do not do deckbuilding yet, this has already made the games a lot more varied, unpredictable and enjoyable.

no aou yet just some corruption but were gettin into that early dwarf opness though as we play since were just into the corruton cycle im hopin on finishin corruption and movin on some as soon i peace together some money

Then again, it's up to each player to believe what he finds enjoyable, or one-sided.

Personally, I'm a big fan of ultra-fast low-resource decks for which it's either you win in the beginning or you loose, and have a lot of fun playing them. I understand other players may actually find this way of playing "one-sided". I also understand the game allows for a more "strategic" approach as well

So I think a player just needs to experiment with different decks and play styles a bit to find the one that appeals to them the most. I believe that even with the starter box only this is quite possible.

Another thing to look at is, well, deck building. Even with a starter looking for synergies between order or destruction cards can be quite fun and using reasoning instead of chance when selecting neutral cards for your deck can also be quite interesting.

Curator said:

thanks for help, this whole forum in general seems very helpful. It's the just game mechanics I don't like in Warhammer Invasion, feels very familiar to Star Wars TCG, which was just lopsided games as well.

I have lord of the rings, it's good so far. I mainly play games 2 players, but my local store is starting a game of thrones league. so i'll be playing it there with lots of people atleast once a week, maybe more.

I love game of thrones, just about everything about it. Me and my brother have split Core Set, 4 expansions and 13 chapter packs.

CoC doesn't doesn't seem like it would appeal to me, and my local stores don't carry it or play it. I'm hoping there next LCG will be something scifi. Warhammer 40k, Star Wars, Battlestar, Firefly. I also think a Wheel of Time would be pretty cool.

SeerMagic said:

I'm dying to see a 40k LCG. I would definitely play that.

Titan said:

I know very little about Agot or CoC. Lotr seems like a good game, but for me personally, it's replayability is very low and I've lost interest in it. In Invasion's case, I'm not sure that stuff like epic spells(mentioned in another thread) were really meant to be a stand alone concept. It is just a very expensive, powerful tactic card. I think part of the reason they have little synergy in general is because they could break the game if it was that easy to combo them. As it is, there is a new found synergy with Teclis there.

I like the game, sure I see flaws and I understand the part about the playtesting and editing, those certainly can use some improvement. This game has had several lead designers and I wonder if some of those concepts you reffered to, are adopted by those guys only to be discarded when the new one comes along. There is something to be said for continuity. In the end, it comes down to whether you believe the game is overall a quality product and you enjoy playing it. As long as I do, I can live with some of these issues.

Curator said:

I'd LOVE to see Doomtown re-realeased as an LCG. It probably isn't going to happen though (rights issues).

Papa

Titan said:

Is anybody going to tell him that if he's been playing by tapping units to attack/block and having summoning sickness affect them, he is in fact doing something wrong? Or at least it seems that he's doing that based on his questions. I'm not jumping on him, mind you. I made the same mistake at first, only having had experience with MtG. But it would really change the game to be playing with Magic rules and possibly lead to a situation where you're just not enjoying yourself because you're not experiencing the game as intended.

orangejulius said:

I played it some more today, I enjoyed it much more this time. Sortof plays like a RTS video game. Still, I'm a poor guy and have already invested into game of thrones. So it's a wait and see game, I really want to play something warhammer and can't afford the gamesworkshop stuff. So it's a we'll see.