I know FFG's release schedules are "always" a little off/delayed/whatever. But is this a break between expansion series that we can continue to expect to see? Or is it just a one time kind of thing to compensate for all of 2008's pushed back releases.

I don't strongly mind either way, and if it gives them some time to regroup and get things better on track for the following CP's I'm all for it.

Apologies if this is a dumb newbie question in regards to AGoT LCG itself, but thought it couldn't hurt to ask being new to the AGoT CP layout but not to FFG games in general. :-)

Well, the part that concerns me (maybe...) is that if the first one doesn't come out until May, that means the cycle will still be ongoing in August for Gencon. I'm not sure how I feel about half of a Chapter Pack cycle being legal at the big events. ~But hey, if GRRM can publish half a book, why not?

BTW: Did any of my fellow Neds out there notice the reference to first-time character "Ser Dontos Howard?" I sure hope that's a typo in the article and not the name of the card....

ktom said:

Hm, interesting point. I hadn't really thought about it that way. Its been a couple years since I was able to make it to GenCon, so the championship falling into that timeframe didn't cross my mind.

How's the game doing up around the Chicago area, by the way? (Thats where you're at, right ktom?) My wife and I will be back up in the Southwest suburbs area for 3 or 4 months in November while she does some hospital rotations up there. It'd be great to get some good gaming in while I'm back. Is there anyone who plays at Games Plus in Mt. Prospect still? Anything closer to the Naperville/Wheaton area that you know of? (Last I checked, almost all the stores around there had gone out of business years ago sadly...)

RJM said:

Well, the championship thing doesn't really seem like a big consideration in the new LCG era. My thoughts are probably a hold-over to a model of the game's organized play that doesn't really exist anymore.

We are sans store in the Chicago are. If anyone plays at Games Plus, I don't know about it because it's not a place I find myself going very often - simply because of the distance. Some of us get together every now and then to play, but we don't do it at game stores because we haven't found one that is convenient or central to a majority of us. But if we're playing, you're welcome to come while you're in the area.

BTW: Are there no speculations on what a "Shadows" crest is or what this "new play area" might be? There were times when we'd be all over that in minutes!

ktom said:

Whoa, I hadn't even seen that article. I foolishly only noticed the Product page listing. Very cool. Looks like there are some comments right on the article response section at least....

ktom said:

Well then, in the spirit of enthusiastic but completely uninformed speculation, I'll throw out the first ball:

[bEGIN SPECULATION] The new play area, "In the Shadows," is a sideboard to which cards can be moved through card effects that key off the shadows crest. While in the Shadows, characters are immune to card effects, except from opposing characters that are also in the Shadows -- and their own card effects can likewise only affect characters that are in the Shadows. Characters can emerge from the Shadows at any time by paying a cost, and when doing so can even jump into an existing challenge after attackers and defenders have been declared. [END SPECULATION]

That was complete SWAG, of course. But fun to think about!

Arma virumque said:

OMG, please do not make AGOT, a living CARD GAME, a board game. Besides that, I think you could hit the nail on the head with your speculation!

Youch, jumping into a challenge like that would be sick. I've never really liked the characters that jumped into a challenge after it was already started.

chicago players:

i played star wars: ccg and lord of the rings: tcg for ages, and we always held our major chicago-area events at pastimes in niles -- http://www.pastimes.net/

the owners are pretty accommodating because they have a ton of space; there's just the usual issue of gigantic magic events tying the store down every odd weekend. i strongly recommend trying to set something up there if that's within the distance you're willing to travel, we were always pleased by both the shop and the location (lots of fast food around)

Max Wax said:

Umm...too late for that.

finitesquarewell said:

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, Pastimes is even farther away for most of us than Games Plus.

Thomas Snow said:

I didn't mean to imply an actual board. Just a separate area to play cards "in the shadows."

Kennon said:

I have to confess that my speculation was driven more by the cinematic appeal of a character leaping "out of the shadows" to change the outcome of a fight, and less by any reasonable assessment of impact on the game. I'm not near enough experienced to predict the design problems that might arise.

But it strikes me that the threat might be stronger than the execution. (Isn't that a theme throughout this game anyway?) So the strongest way to deal with the threat might be to make sure you have your own counter-threat "in the shadows" (so they can both leap out at the same time, if need be).

Ok here's my stab in the dark as to how the Shadows crest will work:

When you play a character with the Shadows crest you will place them face down in the Shadows area with the gold tokens on them. When choosing attackers or defenders you can kneel a Shadows character to have them participate as normal. After attackers and defenders have been chosen you reveal any participating Shadows characters and remove the gold tokens from them (only there to show you paid the right amount). Once revealed they stay revealed but stay in the Shadows area. Shadows characters do not count for dominance.

@ktom5: Yeah I hope it's just a mistyping on the site. Ser Dontos Howard really doesn't have the same ring to it as Ser Dontos Hollard.

the good thing about it coming out in may is that it is not even more of a delay. FFG got about 3 months behind schedule. now, with the last cp of time for ravens coming out in april (refugees of war is march's), there is no break between the sets at least.

I'm not a game designer so i can't fathom how the shadows will work. ~shame on you ktom for making us mere mortal, non-gametesters guess at info you have advanced notice on

perthius said:

I love this suggestion. Not only does it sound fun, but it accidentally brought a laugh to my face this morning.

I was thinking about the implication of placing gold tokens on the face down card (to verify that the correct amount was spent). It occurred to me that a player could make an educated guess about the strength of the card based on its cost, and that thought started me musing about characters that have a cost disproportionate to their strength. And that thought led me to ... Hodor.

Instantly I had a full mental picture of Hodor lumbering "out of the shadows" to snap Varys like a twig. Hooting the whole time, of course.

So, based on that thought, I think I have to put Hodor at the top of my list of Characters Who Should Never Get a Shadow Crest....

Does anyone remember when Magic had a "Shadow" mechanic? If I remember correctly, and this was years ago, they created this stupid mechanic called "Shadow" where "Shadow" creatures could not be blocked by any other creature, and effectively could bypass an entire deck full of cards by using a few "Shadow" weenies. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? This must have been back in, say, around 1995 or so.

As long as the "Shadows" crest is nothing like that, I'll be okay with it.

Arma virumque said:

"HODOR!!" Lol.

jmccarthy said:

I dunno. When I think of things in a Nedly sense, something more along the lines of Morph makes more sense to me.

Whatever the ability does, it will most likely be fun. But regardless of the idea of the game effect, in an LCG world of chapter pack expansions I think the most important thing will be supporting all the different Keyword/effect strategies well enough for a good variety of play.

Its one of the challenges of the limited LCG format where releases are spead across relatively small sets monthly, as opposed to quarterly releases of 150-200 card expansions. I'd much rather see some of the design themes we have going on now better fleshed out, before we saw a brand new mechanic that will need its own specific support card slots.

If they can pull off both, great. Given time, I'm sure it will happen... but you don't want to make players wait too long or they can lose interest or become frustrated. The bevy of flopped Call of Cthulhu mechanics that saw one release and then were never properly supported afterwards I think is a good lesson in oversaturated/undersupported keyword gimmicks that I hope Nate is able to take notes from.

I think that the age of Traits as Flavor is here to stay. When it first started to occur in mass I must say I was disappointed by it, but somehow it is starting to grow on me. Now, if they create some card interaction where you can choose a Trait and all characters with the chosen Trait gain a benefit (or detriment, though for obscure Flavor traits not as useful) that would be cool to see.

I have this feeling that the Shadow crest might see most of its support in this cycle, and minimal in future cycles, though not die off completely as Doomed did (a concept that should be left in Winter block). Shadow was a choice for the storyline league, and one of our players always voted for, just because it was "unknown." I guess I think of Shadow as either being like the Morph mechanic in Magic (pay 2 Gold to bring into play unpisde down, then pay its normal cost to reveal it later), or else a special Out Of Play (or limited play, affected only by other Shadow cards) area that they get placed into initially, then can be brought into play later. Perhaps this allows Shadow cards to stay protected from Intrigue challenges. Do you think it is possible that cards with the Shadow crest move to the Shadow Zone instead of being discarded or killed while in play? It will be interesting to read about, and I honestly hope we get the mechanic spoiled to us before the Chapter Packs start coming out.

JerusalemJones said:

Keep in mind that Doomed was fairly widely considered to be a poor mechanic by many players. It may have died off because of player reaction. So maybe the better example is Summer/Winter? I think the lion's share of seasonal support will probably be in this current Ravens cycle and, while not dropped completely in later cards, not as many cards will be seasonally dependent in later cycles.

One of the interesting things through Ravens has been to watch the season mechanic grow slowly instead of everything being dropped at once. For example, we had a good stretch of time where as cool as season decks were, it was hard to want to rely on a season because it was hard to depend on that White/Black raven in the first round or so. The, we got the search plot and things changed. That dynamic would not have taken place in a "traditional" CCG because the Ravens and the plot would have all been available at the same time. So I'm curious if we'll see the same sort of thing with Shadows. Will key or "deck lynchpin" cards come out early, or over time? It'll also be interesting to see with the City plots. The article says there is a cycle of linked plot cards. Will we get the entire cycle at once, or will we get it over time to highlight the "deeper into the city you go" aspect in the article? I guess it depends if they are linked the way the Fury plots are inked or the way Others plots were linked in the CCG.

Lots of interesting areas for speculation, not only in the cards themselves, but in the way they could be introduced through the CP model. It's kind of cool (and kind of not) that the distribution patter has that much effect on the environment.

I'm willing to bet that the City plots follow more along the lines of the Others plots, and we'll probably get 1 (or 2?) per pack, and they will build upon the theme per set. I feel that the reason we got all 6 Fury plots in the same Chatper Pack was because they were House specific. Now, FFG could have gone the route of introducing 2 or 3 per pack, but you'd still ru into the issue of some Houses for interim period would be better than other houses in terms of plot stats and abilities. If the City plots follow more of an Others theme, with certain plots getting better w/the more City plots you have used, then it would make sense to release them on a monthly basis unstead of flooding the game all at once. I feel that the monthly release "evolution" cycle is one of, if not the, strongest assets of this LCG model. You said it yourself -- with the addition of the Raven fetch plot, the season mechanic became something more reliable, and built around. So us players had the ability to dabble in the seasons, but now they become an active part of the game and need to be taken under consideration for just about every deck build.

I'm excited to see Jon Arryn and the first time uniques.

Also very excited to see the City plots. I wasn't a huge fan of the Others plots - but that was mostly due to their style/effects of the individual plots themselves - the build on the trait theme itself is solid/a good idea (Kingdom plots and the Wardens cycle were great)

A new crest could certainly be fun- but I'm not really excited about the 'new play area' aspect associated with the Shadow crest. In fact, I'm somewhat apprehensive about that.

LordofBrewtown said:

I'm apprehensive, too, but I've got myself half-convinced that it's some new out-of-play pile. Maybe they're formalizing "removed from game" somehow.

If I recall, its a crest. (It's in one of the spoilers.. or OP documents).

So... I think shadow could mean either one of two things:

1.) Replacment of asshai characters to use shadow instead of holy... which I doubt since it would be restricted to Targ/Bara for the most part.

2.) A symbol for the assasins, spies, and underhand of westeros. Particularly Varys or Jaquen H'gar. This I can see since learned is more of a maester thing... rather than a spy thing.

I think since it is King's Landing we'll see Varys, Littlefinger, Illyrio, possibly Syrio and some version of Arya with a shadow crest. They'll have abilities and the crest will be like any other crest.

Then we'll have one or two events that are common... similar to moment of glory, weapons at the door, etc. And a plot that can be used more than once like Power of Arms...

Then some houses will have thier flavor events use shadow... maybe all, depends if they provide events for other crests in this set. We could use a watching the heavens reprint.