Hey all. WHI is my first LCG ever. I bought the core box (in french) and played some with it. Being a collector, I quickly got some expansions and battle packs, in this order:

- Assualt on Ulthuan (for the additional races)

- The complete Corruption Cycle (Love the theme. Always liked the Skavens in Warhammer so it was a no brainer even though i'm not getting 3x each cards).

- Legends (the added gameplay with the Legends is cool)

- Sign in the Stars + Chaos Moon (to add some heroes and units to our favorite races: Chaos and Dwarves).

The way we played was shuffle every cards we had and take 40 to 50 for our race. Then shuffle the "alignment only" Neutrals and take 10 to 15. Then shuffle the Neutrals and add some in our decks. At the end we had decks of 60 to 70 cards. We shuffled everything and played.

So, after having all these cards I convinced my regular WHI player to start look at his cards and custom-build his own deck with it's favorite ones. Explaining that waspart of the charm and fun behind LCGs. So we started customizing decks and played with it.

Now keep in mind that we're no tournament players and never will. We play for the simple and pure fun of...well...playing.

But now after a few plays we realised we would play with the same cards over and over again and the element of surprise and chaotic luck that we loved was gone. So we decided to return to our roots and build our decks at the start of every game. That way we never really kow what we gonna get and must adapt ourselves at every turns. We just love it that way

Just wanted to share this and maybe convince other new players that this game CAN be enjoyed tremendously without being a "deck builder".

How can you not love a game like this with unique mechanics, nice tactical choices, random chaos awesome gameplay and which can be played in around an hour or so?

Great. I'm glad it works so well for you, and I understand where you're coming from. I sometimes would like to play draft again ...

I just want to mention that deckbuilding doesn't meant you'll always use the same decks, even if you're not regularly expanding your card pool. There are different strategies to try, adjustments to make. And even if you think you've found the best deck, once your opponent adjusts his, you'll be changing yours again. So don't think constructed decks lead to the game getting stale.

But if this is the best way for you to enjoy the game, more power to you.

SolennelBern said:

There really is something to be said for this. I love deckbuilding but sometimes I think it would be fun to play games with both an unrefined deck and being ignorant of the cards within it. Which is kind of how it was when we first started playing! ohh nostalgia's a ***** ain't it...

I've had fun doing a slightly different way from what you do, taking all the cards of a faction randomizing them and then taking 75 cards and then paring it down to 50. So there is still some "deckbuilding" aspects of the game as we each try to reveal a deck from a randomized chunk of cards. It speaks to my left and right brains.

I something similar last time I played with friends. I just took my extra empire cards and quickly searched through for about 50 of them, shuffled them and said "I've got a decK". I provided a good handicap for my opponent, and while I still lost all the games, they were relatively close and interesting. That deck ended up being the basis for a Knight-themed deck that I later made, and which is now better than most of my other decks.

Another thing I've done which has made the game surprisingly better for my playgroup, I removed Contested Village from every deck. I make all the decks, so having to proxy it was a pain anyway, but I found that removing it slowed the early game down a bit and reduced how often someone could jump out to an early resource lead. Rush decks still do fine, but when I realized that every one of my decks played Contested Village, I figured they might as well all just not play it (I don't play in tournaments). This also meant I got to add 3 new cards to every deck, and when I make a new deck that's not tuned up yet, I can put CV back in as a temporary crutch.

I think banning CV would be great for the game in general. It waters down the game in my opinion. Ban it, and release more faction specific cheap supports that give the loyalty so many cool cards with high loyalty need to be competitive! A neutral card with no card effects that's in every single deck solely because its cheap is just plain boring.. Surely everyone can agree with that!

rzarectz said:

Of course not, because some races have other 1 cost low loyalty cards, while others DON"T. That will lead to the point where games will be decided after mulligan. You go second? You play only one card? Enemy removes it and you're dead.

Virgo said:

Yes. but what you dont realize is that when people play those races that DO have 1 cost low loyalty cards they STILL add contested village. So they still have an advantage, CV isn`t leveling the playing field.. Every deck should have CV in it, if you don`t put it in, youre at a disadvantage. I'm saying ditch CV and release low cost starter cards for each specific race. Stronger ones for races with weaker starts, and weaker ones for races that already have good starters. These things could be adjusted. But this doesn`t take away from the fact that CV is a boring effectless neutral support that`s diluting the game because its in every single competitive deck...

Writing and editing posts with mulitple quotations on these forum is just as enjoyable as constantly smashing your head against the wall. Someone who designed these forums should be shot.

EDIT:

"Yes. but what you dont realize is that when people play those races that DO have 1 cost low loyalty cards they STILL add contested village. So they still have an advantage, CV isn`t leveling the playing field.. "

- It is. There are almost always 3 resoures to spend on 1 turn. With CV some races just have more options to spend them and higher chance to spend them all. Without it many decks will be dropping 1 turn just one card and that's all.

"I'm saying ditch CV and release low cost starter cards for each specific race. Stronger ones for races with weaker starts, and weaker ones for races that already have good starters. These things could be adjusted."

- Wish upon a star. FFG wil never do this. When they tried to balance order with cheap, 1-turn-playable supports (forge, tunnels) look what happened. Skaven decks or orc rushes got wiped out by one quest (Offering to Hekarti) and those supports had to be restricted.

"But this doesn`t take away from the fact that CV is a boring effectless neutral support that`s diluting the game because its in every single competitive deck..."

- So is Warpstone excavation and it doesn't cost 1, nor it's limited (you can drop multiple a turn). It's restricted but still played in every deck not using other OP cards from the restricted list. Seriously there are bigger problems with this game than CV.

Am I the only one who has the problem where when you type a long enough post the cursor starts pushing itself off the screen?

- It is. There are almost always 3 resoures to spend on 1 turn. With CV some races just have more options to spend them and higher chance to spend them all. Without it many decks will be dropping 1 turn just one card and that's all.

Lets just use empire as an example since it was the most extreme case. Even before Derricksberg forge was restricted, most empire decks were still putting the forge, hunstman and CV in their decks. The reason being it just made it all the more possible to get 3 power down on the first turn. I will concede that CV is more important to those decks that do not have a lot of other 1 cost options, but the value of CV is still extremely high to those that do have other 1 cost options. And this is evidenced in the fact that pretty much every tournament deck still throws it in.

That being said I am definitely not lobbying for the removal of CV alone. I suspect you'll agree with me that a lack of cheap starters is a big problem in this game because it adds so much variance to who ultimately ends up winning a match based on the cards they drew. I don't think being put in a position where only one card can be played should be a reality for anyone playing any race competitively. Unfortuately this is just not the case right now, and removing CV would only make it worse. That's why a counter measure of releasing a boat load of other faction specific cheap starters would pretty much have to be done to fill the void left by CV. Only the game would be richer because of it.

- Wish upon a star. FFG wil never do this. When they tried to balance order with cheap, 1-turn-playable supports (forge, tunnels) look what happened. Skaven decks or orc rushes got wiped out by one quest (Offering to Hekarti) and those supports had to be restricted.

The power of the forge just lends wieght to how powerful and important cheap starters really are. I don't know how much the Tunnels really applies here because it is 2 cost, so if you don't have 1 costs to play with it, it essentially costs 3 on the first turn, better add those CVs and hope for the best...

- So is Warpstone excavation and it doesn't cost 1, nor it's limited (you can drop multiple a turn). It's restricted but still played in every deck not using other OP cards from the restricted list. Seriously there are bigger problems with this game than CV.

Yes, but warpstone serves a much more important role than CV in terms of balance, simply because it IS restricted. I dont like this card either but it is necessary since within it lies the opportunity cost of using some other restricted card like RTF. Since CV can be played in a RTF deck it doesn't serve to level the playing field in the same fashion as WE. I think an unintended consequence of CV is that it tends to increase the loyalty costs of non-neutral cards, which in turn makes a lot of the more complex, late game mechanics uncompetitive to build a deck around, which I think is one of the big issues in the game, imo.

There is a general struggle in game design to create customizable elements powerful enough to keep them fun, but reasonable enough to make other options viable, maintaining the purpose of the choice in the first place. I think here we have a case of something that is to powerful, and the only option is to include it. No choice, no fun.