a point was brought up on the new preview that i wanted to discuss....how do those who dont have all packs to date fare against future expansions?

Now, i personally intend to give me arm and leg to get all cards that come out, but some people do not want this...they want the chance to pick and chose which yeah is fair enough i suppose, others have alot of games they already invest in....so...say a person has just the core set, now how does that set them up for the future, getting khazad for example....well firstly they wont have any song cards, which is a HUGE disadvantage in my opinion, and there are of course other extremely powerful cards..im thinking spirit questing cards (basically alot of the rohan ones), and not to mention the eagles!

also from a business point of view FFG is going to want players to get all that they can...makes sense...so do they even try to make it possible to pick and chose?

so, do you think its possible to pick and mix and still be on a level playing field...i think no...but it doesnt matter to me as im a completionist and will end up with it all anyways...still....

Sure, why not? Keep in mind that the more cards that are in your deck, the more diluted your deck will be. Songs are not required to make a good deck. Yes, currently with only a few expansions, it is probably good to grab as many as you can. When you give it time, and more expansions, there will be more options as well. It is conceivable that future expansions might have cards that provide benefits similar to the song cards, etc.

An advantage of LCGs, too, is that if someone knows specifically which song cards they want (for a particular multi-sphere deck), they can pick up just that expansion.

It isn't "feasible". Kaz is a major expansion, Darowdelf will use encounter sets form CORE and KAZ... meaning that future APs will not be able to be used unless you own Kaz. The only reason you could pick and chose Mirkwood APs was because they was only 1 core.. but in the future in order to make the encounter deck you will have to have the cards from other places than just the few from core.

booored said:

i wonder if this point could have been avoided...i.e. not having to buy the big box everytime...i think not, i think that it would be difficult to introduce new keywords and rules in 60 card packs if it didnt have a base set to build upon

I agree. I think this system is pretty awesome... you have a big box introducing cool "generalized themed" encounter sets. The the APs that fit that theme, with their own unique encounter set, + the other sets taken form (in this case) Kaz.

I think this is a good system.. even by the end of mirkwood I was starting to think that the core sets were getting stretched a little thin. This as you say allows them to introduce cool stuff and still have unique stuff in individual APs.

Hehe, guess I'm a completionist, too ;-)

It's true that not having songs is a big disadvantage. But I think the amount of "must have cards" will decrease by time. In 2 years or so, I guess all the conceptual necessary cards have been printed. (By such conceptual cards I mean ideas like bypassing the resource match rule, or ranged/sentinel keywords, or more control of the encounter deck (like Denethor or Shadows of the Past), or damage cancelation cards (only Frodo right now - Lore of Imladris and likewise can only remove damage after it has been dealt, but not prevent it). Perhaps there are some more concepts like those (e.g. the upcoming secrecy keyword), but I guess the really important options are limited. After that, FFG can only do 3 things to keep the players buying: Create a new trait and publish some cards around that trait, create new adventures, and do powercreep. (I don't like the 3rd option.)

Encounter-card-wise, Booored already said that the APs of a cycle require "its" expansion. Which I also think is pretty good, since the encounter sets of the core will feel worn-out/played-through after a time. Feels like there's a whole clone army of Hill Trolls out there...

I'm looking forward to Kazad Dum, and I'm asking myself if there will be some player cards which will be essentially also for non-dwarven and non-silvan decks. I guess the APs will focus a lot on these 2 traits. (I'm trying to avoid news+spoilers as much as I can now, so I could as well be completely wrong on that). So it could be the case that players will have the option not to pick single APs, but to pick an expansion and all of its APs - or not. Don't like Hobbits? Ok, don't buy the "Shire" expansion and its "Journeys in Eriador" AP cycle. Like battles? Save your money for the "Two Cities" expansion and its "Fight the Evil Hordes" AP cycle... If this is true, it's pretty reasonable to make the first AP cycle a must-have-cycle, since it doesn't rely on an expansion, but enriches the core set.

Well, I will know more when I finally hold KD and the Dwarrowdelf cycle in my hands :-)

richsabre said:

Having to buy the core and the big boxes doesn't seem that bad to me. Right now, you could get a Core Set and Khazad-Dum for $50. At that point you could pick and choose any Mirkwood or Dwarrowdelf expansions that you wanted to buy. That doesn't seem to bad to me...but that could be because I've played games that were quite a bit more expensive.

HilariousPete said:

excellent points there.....i think looking at the mirkwood cycle there will be 'out of place' cards in all cycles, i mean whole rohan thing doesnt really tie in to the mirkwood area, i would of expected them to appear in a fangorn/isengard cycle